Page 80 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

One-two-three-four.I stood in front of the window overlooking the backyard, where a huge expanse of dead weeds threatened a fire hazard for the whole neighborhood. Lately, Maisey had been spending quite a bit of time out there, and her efforts were starting to show. A newly turned-over strip of dirt was ready for transplants from her own yard.

Four-three-two-one.I was back at the pantry, where we’d stored enough foodstuffs to carry my grandfather through the apocalypse and back again. And not just dried beans and boxes of powdered eggs, either. This was the good stuff. I’d never even heard of half the food being kept in here. What were you supposed to do with hearts of palm?

One-two-three-four.I was back at the window again, only this time—

“What’s wrong with you today?” My grandfather poked his head into the kitchen, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. “It sounds like a herd of cattle is running through here.”

“Sorry,” I said, my response automatic.

“Are you hungry?” he demanded. “Because book club starts in an hour. You know that infernal woman never comes without a five-course meal in hand. You can eat then.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said meekly.

“Are you bored?” he tried again. “Because there’s that patch of rotting drywall in the bathroom you could touch up if you can’t find anything else to do.”

Since I’d already replaced, spackled, and painted that particular patch, his offer didn’t hold much weight.

“It’s not boredom,” I said.

“Well, get whatever’s happening to you under control. I can’t concentrate on my reading with you thumping around.” With those parting words, he took himself off again. And a good thing, too—if he’d stuck around a few seconds longer, I might have told him what was really bothering me.

I was nervous.

There had only been a handful of times in my life when I’d let anxiety get the better of me. One of them had been my very first date—a high school dance with the girl who’d sat next to me in math class. She’d gotten an A on the midterm thanks to the depths of my devotion and the fact that I could program our graphing calculators to hold all the answers to the test questions. I doubt she’d have given me the time of day under any other circumstances, but I’d won her over with my technical skills and questionable morality.

Ihadn’twon her over with my gangly limbs and overindulgence in body spray the night of the dance, but that was a totally different story—one that ended with my mom picking me up early, taking me to three different McDonald’s until we found one with a working ice cream machine, and eating my sorrows together until we were practically floating along on a cloud of McFlurries.

Anxiety had also been there the day I’d graduated from college with a flimsy computer science degree in hand. That slip of paper had been my ticket to a bigger, brighter future—but it had also been accompanied by my mom’s first breast cancer diagnosis. She’d beaten that bout, and I’d landed a job that paid well enough to support both of us while she did it, but my life had been on an irreversible course since that date. All those other hallmarks of young adulthood—dating and cohabitation, trips abroad and whirlwind weekends in Vegas—had been put on the back burner.

It was hard to build a life of your own when you were trying, desperately, to help your mother hold on to what remained of hers.

“Psst. Is he here yet?”

My anxiety ratcheted up a notch at the sound of a soft female voice at the back door to the house, which led in through the aforementioned garden. If it had been Maisey or even Mateo who’d come popping in like this, I might have been fine, but that conversation with my grandfather was still at the forefront of my mind.

He didn’t want Sloane to get married—didn’t want it so much that it superseded every other emotion he had, made him accept her with a willingness he’d never shown to another living being. And Istilldidn’t understand why.

“Not yet. You’re the first to arrive.” I ushered her inside. With a quick peek to make sure she’d come alone, I snicked the door closed behind her. This was it, then. The moment of truth.

“Everything’s a go?” I asked. “Nigel will be here?”

“Oh, he’ll be here.” Sloane didn’t have to lower her voice to a whisper to avoid being overheard; the whisper was ingrained within her. “Mateo texted and said he stopped by Nigel’s house an hour ago. He is going to drive him around the city to kill some time until book club starts.”

“Good. We don’t want to scare him away too soon.” I hesitated, assailed by sudden doubt. “Should we have Mateo tell him how my grandfather is likely to react? It seems cruel to throw the guy into the lion’s den without some kind of advance warning.”

Sloane paused to consider this. I’d noticed her doing it before—taking her time to respond to things, thoughtfully giving weight to each query made of her—and I liked it more and more each time. That quality might have made her seem out of place in a society that was constantly striving for more, but it fit her. I got the feeling she didn’t say—or do—anything she didn’t mean with her whole heart.

“I think he already knows,” she eventually said. “The fact that he approached Mateo and resorted to bribery instead of just calling up Arthur says a lot.”

“Like he’s scared out of his mind?” I suggested.

She laughed. “I was going to say ‘like he’s circumspect,’ but yours works, too. It’s obvious thatsomethinghappened between them, and it’s equally obvious—to Nigel, at least—that he can’t just walk in unannounced. Your grandfather would have him forcibly removed before he got a foot in the door.” The laugh fell from her lips, and I felt something shift in the air between us. Her next words confirmed it. “I’m sorry about your mom, Greg. About her death and about the way your grandfather treated her.”

I started to roll my shoulders down, to shrink into a snack-sized version of myself, but Sloane stopped me.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.” A small, sad smile touched her lips. “I’m not scared of being trapped in a room with you anymore, and I promise there’s no reason for you to be scared of me.”

I didn’t unfurl my stance all the way. I wasn’t so sure I agreed with that last part.