Page 42 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

It was more animation than I’d seen out of him since we crossed the lawn, so I was quick to answer. “Sloane’s fiancé. He stopped by to help one day, but Arthur and I may have conspired together to get rid of him.”

“Mayhave?” Sloane asked. “You guys recited the plot to a soap opera and tried to convince him it was real.”

I bit back a laugh. “It was Arthur’s idea, not mine. All I wanted was to help him wash windows.”

Sloane looked as though she’d like to argue further, but she only heaved a sigh. “Don’t worry. It’s not as if it would matter. I doubt I could get Brett back here under any conditions. He’s not…happy with the way I’m handling things.”

I sensed an opportunity to poke further into the open wound of her relationship, but I didn’t want to do it while Greg was watching.

“Does he at least know of any nurses we might be able to hire?” I persisted. I wanted to think that I was fighting solely on Arthur’s behalf, but that would have been a lie. I was mostly terrified of what would happen if the book club disbanded before we found out what happened to that poor butler.

Not to mention what would happen the moment Sloane and Arthur and Greg moved on with their lives. They had no idea how much Ineededthis: someone to cook for, someone to care about. Someone who might, if I was tied to a hospital bed and knocking on death’s door, be a little sad to see me go.

“Your fiancé must have access to a temp agency or know of nurses looking for extra income,” I suggested. Even though I was hardly in a position to start handing out financial favors, I added, “If money’s the issue, I could pitch in to help—”

“Absolutely not,” Greg said, and with so much force that Sloane took a step back. He looked immediately regretful before hunching his shoulders to shrink them to half their usual size. In a more moderate tone, he added, “You’re not paying for my grandfather’s medical care, Maisey. You’re already doing too much.”

He cast a quick, furtive glance at Sloane before looking just as quickly away again. “You both are.”

Sloane sighed. “Well, it’s not as if it matters, because I doubt any of the nurses Brett knows would be of any use. They’re used to working in a chiropractic office, not…”

“A battlefield?” I suggested.

Greg snorted. “More like the gates of hell.”

“It doesn’t matter what you call it.” Sloane pointed a finger straight up. “We’re forgetting the most important part.”

“Are we talking about…God?” I asked doubtfully.

Sloane laughed and shook her head. That sound helped all of us feel less weird about standing around discussing the future of a man who wouldn’t thank us for it. “Arthur. Even if wecouldfind a nurse willing to sign off on his care, how would we get her through the door? He’d tear her to shreds within minutes.”

That piece of reasoning was so shattering that no one could think of a reply—which in my case was saying a lot.

“She did say we have a week to figure it out,” I said after a moment’s pause. “We have time to consider our options.”

Since there wasn’t much we could do to fix this problem right now, we filed into the house, careful to keep our footsteps soft and our voices softer. Greg was the last to go through, pausing to hold the door.

I thought at first that he was just being polite, but his gaze was fixed on the back of Sloane’s head. He stared at the brooch holding her scarf in place as if he was trying to work out a puzzle.

Like the book discussions I didn’t always understand, that fixation wasn’t something I could decipher on my own. It only reinforced a fear that was starting to grow stronger with each passing day: that although this strange trio didn’t need me to keep the wheels of their lives turning, I wholeheartedly needed them.

And that was more terrifying than Arthur, Greg and, yes, Sloane combined.

***

“I’ve decided to invite my friend Mateo to join our book club.”

Sloane made her announcement as soon as we’d finished with our latest book club meeting—which, I was sorry to say, mostly revolved around my recent discovery thatThe Remains of the Dayhad been turned into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins, and no one thought to tell me about it.

I loved movies. Especially older ones. Especially-especiallyolder ones that might help me gain a deeper understanding of a book that flew over my head more often than not. This evening, we’d discussed how Stevens’s obsession with dignity was an allegory for the driving forces of duty and obligation in the Nazis’ rise to power.

And by discussed, I meant Sloane and Arthur yelled at each other while Greg and I sat back and watched. Allegories were above my pay grade.

Arthur snapped his book shut with a start. “What? Why? Who the devil is Mateo?”

“You know exactly who Mateo is. He works at the library.”

Arthur’s eyes narrowed with recognition, but he made us wait a full thirty seconds before he was willing to admit it. “The namemightring a bell.”