Georgie’d woken up on the couch this morning a half hour after her alarm would have gone off if she’d remembered to set it. She ran upstairs to take a shower, then threw on a new pair of jeans and the Metallica T-shirt. (It still smelled more like Neal than like Georgie.)
When she went to grab her phone on the way out, she saw the text alert:
One missed call
An Emergency Contact
That’s what Neal was filed under in Georgie’s contacts. (Just in case.) (Of something.) There was a voice mail, too—she hit PLAY but Neal hadn’t left anything, just a half second of silence. He must have called while she was in the shower.
Georgie called right back, got Neal’s voice mail and started talking as soon she heard the beep. “Hi,” she said. “It’s me. I just missed your call, but I won’t miss it again—call me. Call me whenever. You won’t be interrupting anything.”
As soon as she hung up, she felt like an idiot. Because of course he’d be interrupting something. That’s why Georgie had stayed in L.A., because she couldn’t be interrupted.
Fuck.
Georgie wasn’t any good that morning.
Seth was pretending not to notice. He was also pretending not to notice her Metallica T-shirt.
“It feels weird to be writing a different show in here,” Scotty said, looking around the writers’ room. “It’s like we’re doing it in our parents’ bed.” He was sitting in his usual spot at the far end of the conference table, even though there were eight empty chairs closer to Seth and Georgie. “I wish the front-desk girl was here to make us coffee. Georgie, do you know how to make coffee?”
“Are you kidding me?”
Scotty rolled his eyes. “I didn’t mean that in a sexist way. I just genuinely don’t know how to turn on the coffee machine. You’d think they’d make that part obvious.”
“Well, I don’t know either,” she said.
Seth looked up at Scotty over his laptop. “Why don’t you go get us coffee?” he said. “We won’t need any fart jokes for at least a half hour.”
“Fuck you,” Scotty said. He frowned at the framed Jeff’d Up poster on the wall. “It’s kind of like we’re doing it in Jeff German’s bed.”
“Nobody’s doing it,” Georgie said. “Go get us coffee.”
Scotty stood up. “I hate leaving you guys alone. You forget that I exist.”
“I haven’t forgotten you,” Seth said, picking up his cell phone. “I’m texting you our orders.”
As soon as Scotty was gone, Seth wheeled his chair into Georgie’s and leaned against her armrest. “I’ve seen you work the coffeemaker.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” she said.
“Does that mean you won’t man the whiteboard either?”
“I’m not your secretary.”
“Yeah, but you don’t trust Scotty to take notes, and you can’t read my handwriting.”
Georgie stood up, reluctantly, found a dry-erase marker, and started updating their progress on the whiteboard. She actually really liked being the one who wrote things down. It was like being the decision-maker.
Back in college, Georgie would type while Seth swanned around The Spoon offices, thinking out loud. Then he’d be all righteous indignation when the magazine came back from the presses:
“Georgie. Where’s my Unabomber joke?”
“Who can be sure? Probably holed up in Montana.”
“That was a great joke that you cut.”
“It was a joke? See, it’d be a lot easier for me if you made your jokes funny. Then I wouldn’t get so confused.”
By junior year, Georgie and Seth were writing a weekly column together on page two of The Spoon. Georgie was finally starting to feel like she belonged on staff. Like she was good enough.
She shared a desk with Seth then, too; that’s when they first got used to it. Seth liked to have Georgie close enough that he could pull her hair, and Georgie liked having Seth close enough to kick.
“Shit, Georgie, that really hurt—you’re wearing Doc Martens.”
Georgie remembered the Unabomber tantrum because they were in the middle of it the first time she saw Neal down at The Spoon. Seth was telling her that he wanted their column to be more political. More “wry” . . .
“I can pull off wry, Georgie, don’t tell me I—”
“Who was that?” she interrupted him.
“Who?”
“That guy who just walked into the production room.”
Seth leaned back to see past her. “Which one?”
“Blue sweatshirt.”
“Oh.” He sat up again. “That’s the cartoon hobbit. You don’t know the cartoon hobbit?”
“No. Why do you call him that?”
“Because he does the thing—you know, the cartoon, at the back of the paper.” Seth had a copy of The Spoon and was writing his Unabomber joke in the margin of their column. “One down, four thousand ninety-nine copies to go.”
“That’s who writes Stop the Sun? The comic strip?”
“Writes. Draws. Scrawls.”
“That’s the funniest part of the magazine.”
“No, Georgie, we’re the funniest part of the magazine.”
“That’s Neal Grafton?” She was trying to look into the production room without turning her head.
“Indeed.”
“Why haven’t I seen him down here before?”
Seth looked up at her and lowered an eyebrow suspiciously. “I don’t know. He’s not much of a people person.”
“You’ve met him?”
“Do you have a crush on the cartoon hobbit?”
“I’ve barely even seen him,” she said. “I just think he’s crazy talented—I thought Stop the Sun was syndicated. Why do you call him the hobbit?”
“Because he’s short and fat and hobbity.”
“He’s not fat.”
“You’ve barely even seen him.” Seth reached over Georgie to grab her copy of The Spoon and started writing his joke on the inside cover.
Georgie tipped back in her chair and peeked into the production room. She could just see Neal hunched over a drafting table, half-obscured by a pole.
“We are the funniest thing in the magazine,” Seth mumbled.
Scotty brought back coffee, but it didn’t help.
Georgie had a headache. And a stomachache. And her hair still smelled like Heather’s sugary shampoo, even though she’d washed it again.