Page 50 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Oh God,” I groaned. “It’s happening again.”

“It was only twenty-five years ago that I thought I’d lost him forever.”

“Just keep smiling,” Lincoln whispered.

“Lots of you were there, I know. Watching with me. Waiting. Praying.” She choked on a sob. This was the point where I could neverquitetell if she was actually crying or not. Her performance was so convincing—in large part because she believed it herself—that it was impossible to say for sure. “Which is why I think we should urge him up on the stage, don’t you? So he can repay you for all your kindness in his safe delivery.”

A quick survey of the club revealed two possible escape routes: an emergency exit behind the bar that was likely to set off a full-scale fire alarm, and the men’s restroom on the opposite side of the stage. I was calculating my odds of reaching the latter when Lincoln got to his feet and held out a hand to help me.

“No,” I hissed, glaring at him in a warning to sit back down. He smiled and gave a small shake of his head, his expression rueful.What can we do but play along?that smile said.

I could think of several things. I could run. I could hide. I could jump down the nearest well and stay there for seventy-two hours while the whole world held its collective breath and prayed for my safe recovery.

“Mateo the Miracle, everyone!” my mother called.

As expected, a burst of applause rose up through the crowd. Half the people had probably never heard of me before, but such was my mother’s aura of command. When she said to clap, people clapped. When she told them to cheer, they cheered. And when she ordered them to idolize her son as strongly as she did, they had no choice but to follow along.

“Don’t be shy, baby. Show the people how you’re thriving.”

Lincoln’s hand was around mine before I knew it. Since he, too, knew his role, he led me up the steps to the stage just as the big band struck up my theme song: “Forever Young.”

A groan lodged in my throat and stayed there, choking me. If there was one thing I hated more thanThe Joy Luck Club, it was that stupid song.

The irony of the lyrics was lost on every person in that audience. The song had made a certain kind of sense back when I’d beenactuallyyoung, my fresh-faced enthusiasm matching my mother’s beat for beat, the pair of us tap-dancing our way into the hearts and minds of those who might otherwise forget our seventy-two hours of fame. These days, I mostly felt as old as Arthur McLachlan himself.

“Sing with me,” she commanded, so I did. Ialwaysdid, just like everyone seated around their tables, their whistles wet with vermouth. Even Lincoln joined in, his deep voice adding a depth to the song that couldn’t be denied.

By the time we’d all finished promising that diamonds would last forever, I started to feel the button straining on the waistband of my slacks. Sweat beaded on my upper lip and under my armpits, leaving telltale marks of my discomfort behind.

“Mateo the Miracle!” my mother called again as the song petered out—along with my cracking, creaking voice, which had never been able to match hers for range. “My precious son! Saved by the hands of God and the kind wishes of people just like you!”

Lincoln was waiting for me as I stumbled off the stage, his eyes laughing and a devastating smile on his lips. “There now,” he murmured as my mother segued into her next set, her energy unabated. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I glared at him as I brushed past, unable to stomach the too-close, too-hot nightclub a second longer. “You know how much I hate it when she does that to me.”

The laugh left his eyes, his smile dimming from devastatingto devastated. “She only does it because she loves you, Mateo. You guys sound so good together.”

“There are much easier ways to show your affection for someone than public humiliation,” I said, turning flippant. In situations like these, I always turned flippant. It was the only sure-fire way to stay safe. “A nice brunch, for example. Or a new Montblanc pen.”

His eyes narrowed as if he wanted to speak, but he wisely kept his own counsel. Not that I needed to hear what he was thinking. I’d already heard it dozens of times before—the same argument we had time and time again, the one thing that kept us from a state of pure romantic bliss.

The second you get anywhere near a real emotion, Mateo, you hide as fast as you can. It’s like you can’t stand being loved for even a second.

“I’m going to get some air,” I told him, but with a smile to show that I understood what he was thinking and how he felt, his frustration at my lack of emotional progress. One of these days, he was going to get fed up and leave me. I knew it, he knew it—even my mom had probably figured it out by now—but we very carefully refrained from discussing it. No need to name the specter until he was standing at our door.

As I headed toward the exit, a few people called out to ask me about my time at the bottom of a well, but I put my head down and ignored them.

I couldn’t recall very many details about my fall, now a quarter of a century behind me. I also couldn’t recall much about the desperation of the rescue team scrambling their resources to pull me out, though I’d heard the stories so many times I could recite them in my sleep. The only thing that stuck with me was the memory of staring up at the distant blue circle above my head. There’d been something beautiful about it—not the shape or the color, or even the occasional puff of cloud going by like chimney smoke—but in knowing how far away it was.

God, I missed that feeling. How relaxing it was. Howfree.

It was the first time I could remember stepping out of my mother’s shadow and falling into one of my own.

***

“Filthy habit, isn’t it?”

I was hiding out in the alleyway behind the nightclub, the air reeking of half-digested alcohol and freshly baked waffle cones from the ice cream shop next door, when my first fan arrived. He held a thin cigar between his fore- and middle fingers, but I wasn’t fooled. On nights like this, when my mother was at the top of her game, someone almost always came out to ask me about my experience.