Page 6 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

I ignored the undercurrent of this remark—if, if,if—and smiled. “I’m sure his patients appreciate his dedication. What’s keeping him?”

She blinked at me, her eyes making a mockery of round shapes everywhere. It was as if she’d been stamped out of an elementary school textbook.

The rectangle was a rectangle. The square was a square. Francine Marcowitz was a circle. These were the things we knew to be true.

“What’swrong is that my son is the best chiropractor within a three-hundred-mile radius.”

See?Radius.She even talked in circles. It was uncanny.

“He’s in high demand these days. At this rate, we’ll be lucky to see him at the wedding.” She laughed as though she’d just made a grand joke. Jabbing her elbow—the only part of her that didn’t fit the spherical mold that shaped her—into her husband’s side, she added, “Wouldn’t that be something, Stan? A runaway groom? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Stan hadn’t, of course. Whenever his wife and daughters gathered under one roof for any appreciable amount of time, he didn’t hear anything. If he hadn’t been a real estate attorney, he’d have made an amazing diplomat.

“Leave the poor girl alone,” he muttered with an apologetic grimace at me. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassing her?”

“It’s fine,” I was quick to say—and it wasn’t a lie. Not really. Any embarrassment I might have felt was smothered under the ebullience of affection that poured through these doors every time I opened them. “I’m proud of Brett for having his priorities straight. We’ll have a nice, cozy dinner without him.”

That onewasa lie. Although the two-story colonial home had all the markings of coziness, the people who filled it were anything but. Brett’s three sisters were…not round. They were tall, like him. They were confident, like him. They also had a weird, unrelenting regard for me that I couldn’t quite work out.

Like him.

“Thereyou are, Sloane, and looking so delicious I could eat you up.” The oldest of his sisters, another always-call-me-doctor dentist named Tabitha, breezed through the door and took my face between her hands. “Where do you find clothes like these? Librarians ‘R’ Us?”

Since I hadn’t yet had time to change out of the ink-stained yellow skirt, this remark wasn’t unwarranted.

“Hi, Tabitha,” I replied as Brett’s two other sisters entered the living room in her wake. The Marcowitzes were fans of a formal cocktail hour before dinner, which meant we’d squeeze together drinking gin and tonics until there was so much liquid in my stomach I wouldn’t be able to eat. I nodded at them both. “Hey, Rachel. Hey, Rosalie.”

“I’m Rosalie,” the one on the right said. She nodded at the woman next to her. “You can always tell Rachel by her split ends.”

Rachel, who was twenty-two and the spitting image of Rosalie, the elder by ten months, stuck out her tongue. Even though I’d seen the baby pictures and could confirm that these two weren’t technically twins, I found it impossible to tell them apart. They both had beautiful gray wide-set eyes, lips like a cupid’s bow, and gleaming mahogany hair that I was almost positive had never seen a split end.

Like I said, there was an unmistakable family resemblance. Brett was equally attractive. Sometimes I looked at him and wondered how such a beautiful human being wanted anything to do with me.

“You’re just jealous because my hair grows two times as fast as yours.” Rachel flung herself onto the couch next to me and twined her fingers through mine. “I have good news, Sloane. I talked to my friends from the team, and they’re in.”

I blinked at her. Trying to balance my gin and tonic while my free hand was being squeezed in her rugby-playing grip was difficult, but I knew better than to pull free. In a game of tug-of-war with my limbs, the Marcowitz sisters would win every time.

“They’re in what?” I asked.

“Oh, good!” Tabitha didn’t bother to acknowledge my question. “With the three of us and Cousin Dora, that’ll make, what, eight?”

“If Brett ends up with two best men, like he’s threatening, we’ll need one more, but we can work on that. Didn’t you say you had a friend in mind, Sloane? Someone at the library who might do in a pinch?”

Understanding hit me almost as hard as the gin on my empty stomach. “Oh. You’re talking about my bridesmaids.”

“We can buy an extra dress now and have it tailored as we get closer to October. That won’t be a problem, will it, Mom?” Rosalie was the one to ask this question. Of all the Marcowitzes, she was the one who terrified me the most. She was only twenty-three and already ran three separate hotel franchises. I felt pretty sure she wouldn’t stop until she ran them all.

“I don’t see why not. Have it added to the order. In for a penny, in for a pound.”

Stan’s brow lowered. “A pound of flesh, you mean.Mine.”

“Don’t be such a cheapskate.” Francine swatted her husband on the arm. “It’s your only son’s wedding. If we want the numbers to be even, we have to do it this way. You know Brett has a large social circle.”

I tried not to look as uncomfortable as this conversation made me feel. When Brett first proposed, I’d imagined a quiet beachside ceremony. Unobtrusive and simple, over with as quickly as possible. The idea of me standing in front of a huge church in a puffy white gown—me, of all people—was preposterous. Public speaking had never been my forte. Neither had puffy gowns, not even when I was five years old and could pull off the look. In my childhood photos, I was the kid inLittle House on the Prairiecosplay.

Unfortunately, Brett’s social circlewaslarge. There were far too many people who cared about him—myself included—for some shabby ceremony on the sand.

“This is really nice of you guys, but—”