“I know.” She leaned over her plate. “But we can go see your mom next month.”

“And take Alice out of school?”

“If we have to.”

Neal had both hands on the counter, clenching the muscles in his forearms. Like he was retroactively bracing himself for bad news. His head was hanging down, and his hair fell away from his forehead.

“This might be our shot,” Georgie said. “Our own show.”

Neal nodded without lifting his head. “Right,” he said. His voice was soft and flat.

Georgie waited.

Sometimes she lost her place when she was arguing with Neal. The argument would shift into something else—into somewhere more dangerous—and Georgie wouldn’t even realize it. Sometimes Neal would end the conversation or abandon it while she was still making her point, and she’d just go on arguing long after he’d checked out.

Georgie wasn’t sure whether this even qualified as an argument. Yet.

So she waited.

Neal hung his head.

“What does ‘right’ mean?” she finally asked.

He pushed off the counter, all bare arms and square shoulders. “It means that you’re right. Obviously.” He started clearing the stove. “You have to go to this meeting. It’s important.”

He said it almost lightly. Maybe everything was going to be fine, after all. Maybe he’d even be excited for her. Eventually.

“So,” she said, testing the air between them. “We’ll see about visiting your mom next month?”

Neal opened the dishwasher and started gathering up dishes. “No.”

Georgie pressed her lips together and bit them. “You don’t want to take Alice out of school?”

He shook his head.

She watched him load the dishwasher. “This summer, then?”

His head jerked slightly, like something had brushed his ear. Neal had lovely ears. A little too big, and they poked out at the top like wings. Georgie liked to hold his head by his ears. When he’d let her.

She could imagine his head in her hands now. Could feel her thumbs stroking the tops of his ears, her knuckles brushing against his clippered hair.

“No,” he said again, standing up straight and wiping his palms on his pajama pants. “We’ve already got plane tickets.”

“Neal, I’m serious. I can’t miss this meeting.”

“I know,” he said, turning toward her. His jaw was set. Permanently.

Back in college, Neal had thought about joining the military; he would have been really good at the part where you have to deliver terrible news or execute a heartbreaking order without betraying how much it was costing you. Neal’s face could fly the Enola Gay.

“I don’t understand,” Georgie said.

“You can’t miss this meeting,” he said. “And we already have plane tickets. You’ll be working all week anyway. So you stay here, focus on your show—and we’ll go see my mom.”

“But it’s Christmas. The kids—”

“They can have Christmas again with you when we get back. They’ll love that. Two Christmases.”

Georgie wasn’t sure how to react. Maybe if Neal had been smiling when he said that last thing . . .

He motioned at her plate. “Do you want me to heat that back up for you?”

“It’s fine,” she said.

He nodded his head, minimally, then brushed past her, leaning over just enough to touch his lips to her cheek. Then he was in the living room, lifting Alice up off the couch. Georgie could hear him shushing her—“It’s okay, sweetie, I’ve got you”—and climbing the stairs.

WEDNESDAY

DECEMBER 18, 2013

CHAPTER 2

Georgie’s phone was dead.

It was always dead unless it was plugged in—she probably needed a new battery, but she kept forgetting to deal with it.

She set her coffee down at her desk, then plugged the phone into her laptop, shaking it, like a Polaroid picture, while she waited for it to wake up.

A grape flew between her nose and the screen.

“So?” Seth asked.

Georgie lifted her head, looking at him properly for the first time since she got to work. He was wearing a pink oxford with a green knit vest, and his hair was especially swoopy today. Seth looked like a handsome Kennedy cousin. Like one who didn’t inherit the teeth.

“So what?” she said.

“So, how’d it go?”

He meant with Neal. But he wouldn’t say “with Neal”—because that’s how they all got by. There were rules.

Georgie looked back down at her phone. No missed calls. “Fine.”

“I told you it’d be fine.”

“Well, you were right.”

“I’m always right,” Seth said.

Georgie could hear him sitting back in his chair. She could picture him, too—long legs kicked up, resting on the edge of their shared desk.

“You are very occasionally, eventually, partially right,” she said, still fiddling with her phone.

Neal and the girls were probably already on their second flight by now. They’d had a short layover in Denver. Georgie thought about sending them a text—love you guys—and imagined it landing in Omaha before they did.

But Neal never sent text messages, so he never checked them; it was like texting a void.

She put down the phone and pushed her glasses into her hair, trying to focus on her computer. She had a dozen new e-mails, all from Jeff German, the comedian who was the star of their show.

Georgie would not miss Jeff German if this new deal went through. She wouldn’t miss his e-mails. Or his red ball cap. Or the way he made her rewrite entire episodes of Jeff’d Up if he thought the actors who played his TV family were getting too many laughs.

“I can’t take this.” The door swung open, and Scotty slunk in. There was just enough room in Seth and Georgie’s office for one other chair—an uncomfortable hammocky thing from IKEA. Scotty fell onto it sideways, holding his head. “I can’t. I’m terrible with secrets.”

“Good morning,” Georgie said.

Scotty peeked through his fingers. “Hey, Georgie. The girl out front said to tell you that your mom’s on the phone. Line two.”

“Her name is Pamela.”

“Okay. My mom’s name is Dixie.”

“No, the new PA, her name . . .” Georgie shook her head and reached for the black desk phone that sat between her and Seth. “This is Georgie.”