Page 38 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“You might not be too far off the mark,” I said. I doubted there was an affair involved, but love certainly came into play. “Don’t forget that I’ve seen Greg sitting out there watching the house since the day Arthur came home. No matter which angle I saw him from, he always looked so…”

“Angry?” Sloane guessed. “Aggressive? Belligerent?”

I shook my head. “Lonely. Like he’s never had a friend a day in his life.”

She stopped and looked at me then, her expression hard to read. When she spoke, it was with a slight lilt to her normal speech. “‘At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others.’”

“That’s pretty. Is it from our book?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s fromThe Great Gatsby. I was pulling out copies for our Lost Generation section—we’re putting it in Arthur’s back hallway—and got sucked in. I did a few courses on Fitzgerald in college.”

I nodded, my interest not all the way faked. Hearing Sloane and Arthur talk about books was like listening to a song in another language. The message didn’t always make it through, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate the melody.

“That passage was highlighted,” she added.

That got the rest of my attention. “You mean like in the forbidden copy ofThe Remains of the Day? I still think we should try and heist it out of here one night. I bet Arthur only does that to the dirty parts.”

Sloane laughed, but she tossed the suggestion aside. “Arthur came in before I could look too closely, but that quote in particular stood out. I had a high school teacher who made us do that. Not highlight the school copies, obviously, but keep a quote journal. When we came across anything that struck a chord or seemed important, we had to write it out by hand in these little notebooks he bought us. I probably still have mine somewhere.”

“Please don’t mention that to Arthur,” I begged. “The last thing I need is for him to assign me homework on top of everything else.”

I started pulling out the makings of a salad even though Arthur had very determinedly informed me yesterday that salads “are what food eats.” If I didn’t give him something to be angry about, there was a good chance he’d take it out on his grandson, and then where would we be?

No closer to figuring out the cause of their family drama than before, that was where. Call me inquisitive, call me meddlesome, call me—okay,fine—nosy, but that was one mystery I felt determined to solve.

“Do you think I should invite him to stay with me?” I asked as I started peeling carrots.

“What? Who?”

“Greg,” I said, even though she already knew the answer. “If renting the condo below your parents is as awful as you say it is—”

She grimaced. “It is.”

“And if Arthur isn’t willing to house him here—”

She grimaced deeper. “He isn’t.”

I splayed my hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Then there you go. The poor guy obviously came a long way to visit his grandfather, and he just as obviously wants to make amends. The least I can do is put a roof over his head for a few days.”

My decision made, I added the clincher.

“And who knows? He might even want to join our book club.”

12

When I texted Bella to let her know that a strange man would be sleeping in her bed for the foreseeable future, it took her two hours to reply.

gross

That was it. One word. One comment. She had no interest in who the strange man was or the likelihood of me being murdered under my own roof. Or even how a woman who almost never left the comfort and safety of her own street could have met a man—strange or otherwise.

I was about to ask how her friend was doing, if she needed me to bring an extra set of pajamas, if the bonds of motherhood meantanythingto her, but Greg coughed before I managed the first emoji.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” he said.

My hand hovered over the phone. “How do you know what I’m doing?”

I knew the answer before he even opened his mouth. From where he stood, his massive form filling the doorway leading into my living room, he had a clear view of the half-empty bottle of wine that sat at my elbow. There was only one path leading away from there.