“Yeah, but . . .” Seth nudged her arm with his leg. Georgie looked up. “What’re you gonna do on Christmas?”
“I’ll go to my mom’s.” It was only sort of a lie. She could still go. Even if her mom wasn’t home.
“You could come to my mom’s.”
“I would,” Georgie said. “If I didn’t have my own.”
“Maybe I’ll go to your mom’s, too.” Seth grinned. “She loves me.”
“That’s not much of a character reference.”
“You know, she called here three times this morning before you got in. She thinks you let your phone die on purpose. To avoid her.”
Georgie turned back to her screen. “I should.”
Seth stood up and slung his leather messenger bag over his shoulder. It was going to take Georgie another hour to rewrite this scene. Maybe she should just start over. . . .
“Hey. Georgie.”
She kept typing. “Yeah.”
“Georgie.”
She looked up one more time. He was standing at the door, studying her. “We’re so close,” he said. “It’s finally happening.”
Georgie nodded and tried to smile. It was another weak effort.
“Tomorrow,” Seth said, then thumped the doorframe with his palm and walked away.
Georgie was on her way home when her sister called.
“We ate without you,” Heather said.
“What?”
“It’s nine o’clock. We were hungry.”
Right. Dinner. “That’s okay,” Georgie said. “Tell Mom I’ll call tomorrow.”
“She still wants you to come over tonight. She says your marriage is over, and you need our support.”
Georgie wanted to close her eyes, but she was driving. “My marriage isn’t over, Heather, and I don’t need your support.”
“So Neal didn’t leave you and take the kids to Nebraska?”
“He took them to see their grandmother,” Georgie said. “It’s not like he’s fighting me for custody.”
“Neal would totally get custody, don’t you think?”
He totally would, Georgie thought.
“You should come over,” Heather said. “Mom made tuna mac.”
“Did she put peas in it?”
“Nope.”
Georgie thought about her empty house in Calabasas. And the empty suitcase sitting next to the closet. Her empty bed.
“Fine,” she said.
“Do you have an iPhone charger?” Georgie dropped her keys and her phone on the kitchen counter. She never carried a purse anymore; she kept her driver’s license and a credit card out in the car, shoved in the glove compartment.
“I would if you bought me an iPhone.” Heather was leaning on the counter, eating tuna mac out of a glass storage container.
“I thought you already ate,” Georgie said.
“Don’t talk to me like that. You’ll give me an eating disorder.”
Georgie rolled her eyes. “Nobody in our family gets eating disorders. Stop eating my dinner.”
Heather took another giant bite, then handed Georgie the container.
Heather was eighteen, a change-of-life baby—meaning, Georgie’s mom had decided to change her life by sleeping with the chiropractor she worked for, and accidentally got pregnant at thirty-nine. Her mom and the chiropractor were married just long enough for Heather to be born.
Georgie was already in college by then, so she and Heather only lived in the same house for a year or two. Sometimes Georgie felt more like Heather’s aunt than her big sister.
They looked enough alike to be twins.
Heather had Georgie’s wavy, browny-blond hair. And Georgie’s washed-out blue eyes. And she was built like Georgie was in high school, like a squashed hourglass. Though Heather was a little taller than Georgie. . . .
That was lucky for her. Maybe someday, when Heather got pregnant, the babies wouldn’t beat out her waist like a Caribbean steel drum. “It’s those C-sections,” Georgie’s mom would say. As if Georgie had chosen to have two C-sections, as if she’d ordered them off the menu out of sheer laziness. “I had you girls the natural way, and my body bounced right back.”
“Why are you staring at my stomach?” Heather asked.
“Still trying to give you an eating disorder,” Georgie said.
“Georgie!” Her mom walked into the room, holding a small but very pregnant pug up to her chest. Georgie’s stepdad, Kendrick—a tall African-American guy, still in his dusty construction clothes—wasn’t far behind. “I didn’t hear you come in,” her mom said.
“I just got here.”
“Let me heat that up for you.” Her mom took the tuna casserole and handed Georgie the dog. Georgie held it away from her body; she hated touching it—and she didn’t care if that made her the villain in a romantic comedy.
Kendrick leaned over and took the dog from her. “How’re you doing, Georgie?” His face was entirely too gentle. It made her want to shout, “My husband didn’t leave me!”
But Kendrick didn’t deserve that. He was the best shockingly young stepdad a girl could ask for. (Kendrick was forty, only three years older than Georgie. Her mom met him when he came to clean their pathetic excuse for a pool.) (These things actually happen.) (In the Valley.)
“I’m fine, Kendrick. Thanks.”
Her mom shook her head sadly at the microwave.
“Really,” Georgie said to the whole room. “I’m better than fine. I’m staying in town for Christmas because our show is really, really close to getting a green light.”
“Your show?” her mom asked. “Is your show in trouble?”
“No. Not Jeff’d Up. Our show—Passing Time.”
“I can’t watch your show,” her mom said. “That boy is so disrespectful.”
“Trev?” Heather asked. “Everybody loves Trev.”
Trev was the middle son on Jeff’d Up. He was Georgie’s special creation—a slack-faced, twelve-year-old misanthrope, a character who didn’t like anything and never did anything likable.
Trev was where Georgie buried all her resentment. For Jeff German, for the network, for Trev himself. For the fact that she was working on a show that was basically Home Improvement without anything good—without Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Wilson.
Trev was also the breakout star of the show.
Georgie narrowed her eyes at her sister. “You love Trev?”