Page 53 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“Nothing, I swear. I came for the book club and found her like this.”

“The book club?” the man echoed before something clicked and he relaxed. “You’re Mateo, aren’t you?”

I attempted a mock salute. “The one and only. And you are…?”

“That’s Greg,” Maisey said, sniffling. “He’s Arthur’s grandson. He’s part of our book club, too.”

I couldn’t have been more surprised if the man had told me he was my long-lost brother. “Arthur has agrandson?” I asked. Then, before my remark even had time to settle, I laughed out loud. “Never mind. I see it now. The resemblance is uncanny.”

“I wish everyone would stop saying that,” the man muttered before offering me his hand. “And I’m sorry if I came on strong just now. Tensions around here have been a little heightened, but I’m working on it. I’m Greg, by the way.”

I took his hand and shook it. Already I was starting to see why Sloane hadn’t mentioned this guy.The sneaky little minx.This man couldn’t be less like the genteel, uptight Brett Marcowitz if he’d been written by a Brontë.

“If Arthur McLachlan’s involved, heightened tensions are a guarantee,” I reassured him.

“I’m s-sorry,” Maisey said. She seemed to be regaining some of her color, her sobs slowing to a trickle. “I didn’t mean to overreact. It’s just that ever since Bella…”

I held my breath, certain her next words would confirm my worst fears. Fortunately, they only ended up being my fourth- or fifth-worst ones.

“Ever since my Bella moved away, I’ve been a bit…weepy. She hasn’t called or even texted to tell me she’s safe. I only know where she is because she forgot to turn the location tracking off on her phone.” She tried handing me the handkerchief back, but I decided to be officially done with that abomination.

“How old is she?” I asked instead. “Your daughter, I mean.”

“Sixteen.”

“Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?” Maisey sniffled.

I pulled out my copy ofThe Joy Luck Cluband brandished it like a Bible before my congregation. The enchiladas might be past salvaging, but I had hope for this poor woman yet. “I take it you haven’t made it all the way through the book?”

“N-no. I’m not a very fast reader.”

“Well, let me save you the trouble. The moms are overbearing. The dads are mostly hands-off. And the teenage girls, well, they’re hard-core bitches.”

At my truth bomb falling like a, well, normal bomb, Maisey gasped out loud. Greg looked like he wanted to laugh, but he managed to hold it back at the last minute. I took that to mean there wasn’t as much of old Arthur McLachlan in him as appearances suggested.

“I’m serious. Have you ever met a teenage girl? They’re awful.” I flipped through the pages as if to prove my point. “One of the girls in the book refuses to play chess because her mom is too proud of her. Another one does the same thing with piano. And one of them literally watches her youngest brother die because she’s annoyed at being put in charge of him.”

“Are you sure we’re reading the same book? Because I don’t think that’s what—” Greg began, but I cut him off with a flap of my hand. This Maisey woman was obviously starting to warm to me. Pesky logic and sound literary analysis weren’t going to help her regain her composure.

“Now, I’m not saying you’re an overbearing mom,” I continued, even though it was written all over her. “But I’m guessing your daughter sees you that way. They all do. Every last one of them. They have to fabricate some kind of trauma as a part of growing up, and that one’s the easiest to latch onto. There’s a line about it in the book and everything.”

Since both of them stood still, waiting for me to materialize this tidbit, I flipped through until I found the passage I meant.

“‘I had stopped eating, not because of Arnold, whom I had long forgotten, but to be fashionably anorexic like all the other thirteen-year-old girls who were dieting and finding other ways to suffer as teenagers.’” I hesitated, since I sounded callous even to my own ears. “I’m not trying to gloss over eating disorders, obviously, but you see what she means. Those little vipers love drama. They feast on it. If they don’t have any built into their lives, they’ll keep looking until they find it. Usually in the shape of their mothers.”

“Are you speaking from experience?” Greg asked, sarcasm and politeness wrapped up in one barbed drawl. “As a teenage girl and a mother?”

At that, I laughed out loud. This man had no idea how close he was. I’d never been a teenage girl, it was true, and parenthood was definitely not to my taste, but I knew a thing or two about surviving an encounter with a maternal behemoth.

“Not quite,” I admitted. “Let’s just say I’m still trying to outgrow my mom and leave it at that.”

That seemed to clinch the matter. With a deep breath, Maisey scooped up the last of the enchiladas and steeled herself to face the trials ahead. “We might as well get this over with,” she said. “If we get hungry, I guess we can always order a pizza.”

“Oh, we’re definitely ordering a pizza.” Greg grinned. “Grandpa willhatethat. He might even be so distracted that he won’t notice Mateo trying to take his blood pressure on the sly.”

“His blood pressure?” I asked, laughing. The only way I was going near that old grouch with a blood pressure cuff was if someone asked me to strangle him with it.