The Lonely Hearts Club

by Brenda Janowitz

  I turn to Jesse. “No fucking way,” I say. The edges of his mouth curl slightly and he shrugs his shoulders. I put my hand around the back of his head and pull him to me and kiss him hard. “Thank you.”

  “It’s nothing,” he says. “I just wanted to do something for you today. It’ll get you jump-started.”

  “Jump-started?”

  “Yeah, now that you won’t be working for your dad anymore, you can focus on your music,” he says. He doesn’t need to say anything else—I know where this is going. It’s the same discussion we’ve had over and over since my band broke up junior year. I consider defending myself, telling him that I have a gig or two lined up, and that I’ve even been working on a new song lately, but I instead take the high road and choose not to turn this into a heated argument. I try to remember that he’s doing something nice for me on a bad day.

  “Thank you,” I say as I walk around the table and smooth out the front of my used Levi’s. I’m thankful that I’m dressed in my usual uniform of black leather motorcycle boots, ripped vintage jeans, and a fitted concert tee over a white long-sleeve T-shirt. Running my fingers through my hair to mess it up a bit, I walk to the stage. My black hair tops off the look—the bangs and layers around my face are Joan Jett, circa 1982, and the rest of it, all tangles and curls, is pure Stevie Nicks.

  As I discuss song selection with the band, all I can think about is how lucky I am to have Jesse. We debate The Pretenders versus The Kinks, and I turn around to sneak a peek at him. He’s staring at me. I wink at him and wonder if he can see me through the darkness.

  Jesse and I met at a Battle of the Bands competition out in the suburbs of New Jersey, just a stone’s throw from the George Washington Bridge. This was before Billy died, back when my band was still together, before I went to work for my dad.

  It was at a dive bar called Treble that was rumored to have been owned at one time by Richie Sambora. Each July, they ran a Battle of the Bands contest, and the prize was $10,000. All of the bands that played the downtown clubs went—any band that was anything at all was there.

  Jesse’s band and my band were the two bands left in the finals. We won, of course, but who’s keeping track? What I remember most about it was how goddamned romantic the whole thing was. I noticed Jesse on the first day of competition, tapping his drumsticks on a table in the back of the bar to Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire.” When he glanced up and saw me staring at him, he knocked over his beer bottle with his drumsticks, and it spilled all over the spiral notebook he was writing in. Billy caught this little exchange out of the corner of his eye and quickly ushered me away, lecturing me on messing around with the competition.

  Through each of the rounds, I could see Jesse staring at me from behind his massive drum set, crystal blue eyes burning into me. Every time I was on stage, I found myself singing to him. Always to him.

  “Are we the Montagues or the Capulets?” Billy asked me as we walked off the stage on the second night of competition.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him.

  “He’s in a hack band that plays weddings and bar mitzvahs every weekend,” Billy said.

  “Nothing wrong with making some money to support yourself,” I said, even though I secretly hated bands that sold out like that.

  “You’re too good for him.”

  I started wearing tighter and tighter jeans each round, in the hope that Jesse would notice me. Any time he tried to approach me, one of my band members would be there, seemingly out of nowhere, to tear us apart and remind me that we were there to compete. On the last night of the competition, I even had my hair blown out, a fact that Chloe will never let me live down.

  Right after my band was announced as the winner and we all hugged and mugged for the audience, I marched right off the stage and into Jesse’s arms. It was like something out of a movie, with him waiting in the wings and everyone in the room watching us, just waiting for it to happen. I ran to him. We fell into each other’s arms and kissed like no one was watching.

  After that night, we spent every night together, either attending each other’s gigs or meeting up late night after our respective gigs, and we haven’t been apart for one night since.

  Through the crowd, I see Jesse staring offstage. I turn back to The Rage as we decide upon “I Want You to Want Me” by Cheap Trick as a compromise.

  I spin around to the crowd as the band begins to cue up the song. The lights hit my face and I feel the energy building up inside of me. The music penetrates my bones and I can’t help but smile. This is where I belong—under the burning lights with tons of eyes focused on me—not in some doctor’s office wishing the hours of my life away. I can hear Chloe and Flavor of the Week screaming my name. I can’t see Jesse anymore, but I can feel his eyes on me. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me. The band plays the last eight bars before the first verse and I cock my right hip, ready to go.

  I adjust the mike and sing.

  3 - Call Me

  “I am going to kill him. This time I am really going to kill him.”

  “Mom?” I say into the telephone. Even though it’s well past 11 A.M., I’m still dead asleep. Ah, the joys of being unemployed. The morning light is pouring into the bedroom of my Soho loft. Well, my father’s Soho loft—the loft he bought for a song in the ‘80s (parking space included) so that he could crash on the nights he taught night seminars at NYU Medical School. But I’ve been staying here ever since I graduated from the NYU dorms and he hasn’t exactly kicked me out yet, so I sort of consider it mine.

  “Your stupid father,” my mother says into the telephone. “This time I am really going to kill him. The nerve that man has!”

  “Mom, it’s okay,” I say, reaching for the glass of water that I left at my bedside the night before. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.” I roll over and see that Jesse is already out of bed. I can smell the coffee wafting into the bedroom from the kitchen. I take a deep breath and try to figure out if he’s brewing the Costa Rican dark or the Columbian medium roast.

  “That man claims that you can’t balance a checkbook,” she says. “Of course you know how to balance a checkbook!”

  “Babe,” Jesse says, walking into the bedroom, planting a quiet kiss on my cheek, “I’m going into the studio. Can you spot me some more cash?”

  “I mean,” my mother continues into my ear, “who doesn’t know how to balance a checkbook?!”

  “Babe, I just gave you money for that demo last month,” I whisper back, careful to put my hand over the telephone.

  “You know, technically,” my mom is saying into my ear, “I own half of that practice.”

  “Well, the band needs another demo,” Jesse says, pulling on the jeans he wore last night. “Cassie’s going to talk to IMC for us, and we need a new demo to give her.”

  “If I divorced him tomorrow,” my mom says, “I could take him for half of that damn practice.”

  “Mom, you’re not going to divorce Dad,” I say to her. And then to Jesse: “Who the hell is Cassie?”

  “The lead singer for The Rage,” Jesse says. “You met her last night. They just signed with IMC, but it’s on the down low. No one knows about it yet.” He puts his fingers to his mouth to make the international sign for “shhh.”

  “Didn’t you just meet her last night?” I ask Jesse. “Why is she telling you about their deal if it’s such a big secret?”

  “You don’t think I would divorce that man?” my mother asks me. “Because I can divorce that man if I want—”

  “I’ve got to get going. So, the money?” Jesse says, pulling a fresh T-shirt over his head. I cannot believe he is asking me for more money. Was he not there last night when I told everyone that my father fired me? I’m pretty sure that he was, since I distinctly recall someone calling my father a dick. And as tired as I am, I’m also pretty sure that he is the person now asking for money from said dick.

  My mother is still ranting on the other end of the phone as I talk to J
esse. “I just don’t think that I should be throwing money around right now,” I say, and Jesse’s mouth tightens into a pit.

  “Throwing money around?” he says. “Is that what you call it? Don’t you believe in me? In my music?”

  “Yes,” I say, as my mother’s voice rises an octave as she details how much her friend Linda recently got in a divorce settlement. “But you were just saying how I should be focusing on my music right now. What if I need that money for studio time?”

  “What if you need that money?” Jesse says. “Well, when was the last time you sat down and wrote a song? What exactly do you think you’d be recording in that studio?”

  I feel my face begin to burn. “Why don’t you get the money from someone else’s girlfriend for a change?” I say and Jesse storms out of the apartment. As he makes his exit, I can hear him say “I didn’t just meet her last night” under his breath. As if that justifies this whole prior exchange or something.

  “Jo?” my mom says. “Jo?”

  “Yes, Mom, I’m still here. Of course I’m listening to you.”

  “Well,” she says, letting out a sigh, “don’t think about all of this unpleasantness for a while. Have you given any thought to what you would like for your twenty-second birthday?”

  “A record contract?” I say, rolling out of bed and padding toward the kitchen with the portable phone tucked between my head and my shoulder.

  “I meant, more like a party or a small dinner thing, or a big present?”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” I say, grabbing the carafe from the coffeemaker. There’s no coffee left in it. Jesse must have made only enough for himself before he left for the day. I silently curse him as I empty the filter and go about making a fresh pot. “I don’t really want anything. I just want the day to pass by unnoticed.”

  “Unnoticed?” my mother asks. I know that she is appalled that I would let the opportunity to have a party or get a huge present pass me by. She would never let any opportunity to have a party or get a huge present pass her by. “You only turn twenty-two once, honey.”

  “I know, Mom,” I say. “It’s just that I feel like it accentuates the fact that my life is not exactly going to plan.”

  “Your life is perfect. You are beautiful and talented and very, very lucky,” she says. I know she doesn’t mean to patronize me, but she is, as usual, totally dismissing what’s important to me. We’re mere minutes from the conversation turning to why I’m not pressuring my live-in boyfriend to produce an engagement ring (little does she know that said ring would probably be financed by her husband’s money), so I have to clarify what the life plan is.

  “I’m not where I want to be with my music,” I say, missing the filter as I pour coffee beans directly onto the counter.

  “There’s more to life than music,” she says.

  “Not for me, there’s not,” I say, cupping the beans into my hand and putting them into the coffeemaker.

  “Why don’t we talk about this when you’re in a better mood?” she says, and hangs up the phone just as I’m telling her that my mood is fine.

  The coffee machine whizzes and whirls, grinding the beans and beginning to brew. I stare at the coffee dripping down and think about how crazy my mother is making me with the emphasis on my birthday. It’s as if she doesn’t have a wedding to plan, so she might as well put all of her pent-up “plan your only daughter’s wedding” energy into a birthday celebration for me. She doesn’t seem to care at all that it’s not what I want.

  The phone rings again and I pause for a moment, deciding whether or not I should answer it at all. It would serve her right if I just didn’t pick up. If she doesn’t care about what I want, then I don’t care about what she wants.

  The answering machine picks up the call.

  “Miss Waldman? Uh, I mean Jo. It’s Vinnie, down at the garage—”

  “Hello?” I say as I click the phone on. I silently chastise myself for forgetting to call the garage this morning to tell them that I wouldn’t be using my car.

  “Oh, hi. It’s Vinnie, down at the garage.”

  “Hey, Vinnie. I’m so sorry I didn’t call. I won’t be needing my car today. Actually, I won’t be needing it at all anymore during the week. Well, unless I have a gig. But I probably won’t, so how about I just call you whenever I need it?”

  “Uh,” Vinnie says, “that’s not what I was calling about. Manhasset Volkswagen is here to pick up your car.”

  “It’s not going in for service today,” I say as I pour myself a cup of coffee. “They must be there for someone else’s car.”

  “Not for service,” Vinnie says. “It’s more like a repossession kind of deal.”

  “Repo—what? My car’s not being repossessed,” I say. “There is no way my car is being repossessed. Put them on the line.”

  I grab my apartment keys and race out of the loft, still holding the portable phone and wearing my PJs and no shoes. I hit the DOWN button for the elevator as a voice comes onto the line.

  “Miss Waldman?” he says. “This is Matt Kassnove from Manhasset Volkswagen. How are you today?”

  “You tell me,” I say as I hop into the elevator. Matt begins to say something back to me, but the call gets dropped as the elevator lurches down to the basement. I burst through the doors of the garage, and a man who I can only assume is Matt Kassnove is in the driver’s seat of my bright yellow Beetle, about to drive it out of the garage.

  “Stop!” I scream, holding my hands out in front of me as I run to the front of the car. Vinnie is in the background, telling me he’s sorry over and over.

  “Miss Waldman, this is nothing personal, you understand,” Matt says.

  “Personal?” I say as I hop onto the hood of the car and lay down on it spread eagle. “You are taking my car, my personal car, and I am personally very upset, so this is very much ‘personal’ to me!”

  “Miss Waldman, please get off the hood of the car,” he says.

  “I am not getting off the hood of this car,” I say, arms and legs still splayed out as far as I can reach them. I’m grateful that the car is on and the hood is warm as the winter airs floats down into the garage from outside.

  “Miss Waldman, with all due respect,” Matt says, “you are not the owner of this car. Your father is. And he told me to come and pick it up. I’m just doing my job.”

  “My father is taking my Bumblebee?” I say, getting out of my most unladylike spread-eagle pose. I sit up on the hood and cross my legs.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Waldman,” Matt says.

  “Wait just one minute,” I say, and dial my father’s office number on my portable phone. The reception is bad, since we’re in the basement of the building, but we’re right near the exit, so even with the static-filled connection, I can still hear.

  Nurse Barbie picks up the line and I demand to speak to my father.

  “This is for your own good, Pumpkin,” my father explains.

  “How is humiliating me in a different way every day of the week good for me?” I ask in a whisper, trying in vain to make it so that Vinnie and Matt can’t hear me. It’s a losing cause, though, because they are both listening to every word as if they were in the studio audience of The Jerry Springer Show.

  “You graduated college in May. You’re turning twenty-two soon, Pumpkin. It’s time to grow up. And it’s my fault that you haven’t. I’ve coddled you for too long. I gave you a job. I let you live in the loft, rent-free. I even got you a car to drive to your job. I guess I thought if I gave you all the tools, you’d make something of the opportunity. Maybe if things worked out at my office, you could have your own business one day.

  “You’ve been standing still for the last two years and I’m enabling it. But not anymore. It’s time for you to get a real job and start paying your own way. Once you do that, if you can afford it, you can have the car back.”

  “I can?” I ask.

  “If you can afford the lease and the rent on the parking space, yes.”

&
nbsp; “I have to pay rent for the parking space, too?” I ask. No one can afford a parking space in Manhattan.

  “But keep in mind, Pumpkin, you will also need to start paying me rent on the loft.” He wants me to start paying for the loft? Is this the part where I lose my home and I have to move into my car, like Jewel?

  I must not let this Beetle leave the lot no matter what.

  “I can’t afford a loft!”

  “Well, then, I’d suggest you get a job quickly. I’ll give you a short grace period to get on your feet, but after that, we’ll be working out some sort of payment plan.”

  I hang up the phone without saying good-bye and get that feeling of floaty weightlessness you have when you’re in a dream.

  Or a nightmare.

  “Are we all clear now, Miss Waldman?”

  “Please just call me Jo,” I say, sliding down off the hood.

  “Well, then, I’m sorry, Jo,” Matt says, and then drives my car out of the garage into the winter cold.

  I stand there, shivering in the driveway of the garage for a few minutes, looking out to the street where Matt has just taken my car. My dad’s car, I should say. That distinction has now been made clear to me by the fine folks at Manhasset Volkswagen.

  “Yo, Jo, your daddy paid for your car?” Vinnie says. “Damn! How do you get a setup like that?”

  “I’ll let you know when I figure that out,” I say and walk out of the garage to the elevator. As I walk barefoot along the garage floor, a pebble gets stuck in the middle of my foot and I have to hop back up the rest of the way to the loft.

  4 - Loser

  I limp into my loft and hop onto the kitchen counter to clean off my dirty feet. Removing the rather large pebble that has lodged itself squarely into the center of my left foot, I begin to cry. I tell myself that I’m just crying because I’m in pain, but once I give myself permission to cry because my foot hurts, the floodgates open.