The Lonely Hearts Club

by Brenda Janowitz

  “I’m Mindy McGreening, and you’re Jo Waldman from the Lonely Hearts Club.”

  “Lonely Hearts Club Band,” I correct.

  “We’re here to do a segment on the band playing tonight, but maybe I can do a quickie on you before we get started? People want to know about this movement you’ve created.”

  Before I can say no, she’s given the head nod to her cameraman, who’s now coming our way. I turn to look at Max, and he smiles back at me. I nod my head toward the bar, and he knows what I’m asking him to do. He smiles slyly and then turns away, pretending he doesn’t even know who I am.

  “We’re here with Jo Waldman,” Mindy begins. The camera light is blinding, and it takes effort for me to stop squinting. “The poster child for lonely hearts everywhere. She’s started an underground cult movement for all things anti-love. How did this start, Jo?”

  “It’s not really underground,” I manage to eke out. “It’s on Facebook and Twitter, and I’ve got a blog and stuff.”

  Mindy motions to the cameraman to turn the camera off.

  “First time on camera?” she asks.

  “Um, yes,” I say. I’ve been on stage hundreds—thousands—of times and I’m embarrassed that she’s calling me out for my lack of experience in front of an audience.

  “This is a one-minute human interest piece,” she explains. “I want to quickly tell the story of how this whole Lonely Hearts thing came to be and what’s going on with it.”

  “The Lonely Hearts Club was my band,” I say. “Is my band,” I then correct.

  “No one cares about that,” she says. She sees my face fall and softens it: “I mean for this story. We’ve got only a minute here, so let’s keep it to how you started the blog. We’re going to tell the viewers a story. Just look at me and pretend that we’re just two friends having a friendly conversation. That fair?”

  I’m about to say something, explain that I don’t really want to be on camera, that this whole thing was really just a mistake, when the cameraman starts counting down: “And in three, two—”

  “We’re here with Jo Waldman,” Mindy begins again, “the poster child for lonely hearts everywhere. She’s started an underground cult movement for all things anti-love. How did this start, Jo?”

  I’m suddenly very aware of how much my feet hurt. I reach back to the bar to grab my drink. Surely some vodka will help ease the pain.

  “With a lot of vodka,” I say, and take a gulp of my drink.

  Mindy laughs. “I’m sure the viewers can relate. How many of your best-laid plans got started with too much vodka?” she asks the camera.

  I keep my gaze set on Mindy, like she told me to. “It was Valentine’s Day, and I’d just been broken up with, and I needed to rage. To get out all the anger. I wrote that first blog post, and I didn’t really mean to send it out to the whole world.”

  “But the vodka,” Mindy says.

  “Yes,” I say. “The vodka.”

  “Don’t drink and blog, people!” Mindy cautions with a big smile. “Or maybe do! How many readers do you have, Jo?”

  “I’d estimate about 500,000 now,” I say. Max keeps telling me that I need to know my numbers cold if I want to attract bigger advertisers to the blog, but I can barely keep up with the comments and tweets, much less my numbers.

  “Wow,” Mindy says. “That’s a lot.”

  “It’s growing every day,” I say for the benefit of any advertisers who may be watching.

  “Tell us,” she says, “what’s the next step in the Lonely Hearts movement?”

  “Movement?”

  “What are your next plans? What’s the next phase? What are you and all of the other anti-love activists going to do next?”

  “Some people have expressed an interest in meeting up,” I offer.

  “A party?”

  “I guess,” I say.

  “You heard it here, first, folks,” Mindy says. “The Lonely Hearts Club Ball. Coming to you soon!”

  I smile at the camera, just like I’m supposed to, but inside, all I can think is: What have I just done?

  20 - Moving Out

  Chloe’s keys dangle from a keychain with a miniature statue of David. Seeing it always makes me smile. I know she got it while on her semester abroad in Florence. She bought the same one for me.

  I let myself into her apartment and throw my duffel down. I packed in a hurry—most of the stuff in my dad’s loft belonged to him, anyway—as if I couldn’t wait a minute longer to get out. But when your father is throwing you out of his apartment, it’s best to leave in haste, isn’t it?

  Chloe’s not around, since she’s on an extended business trip to San Francisco. Her firm’s opening a new office, and she and her boss were sent over to supervise the art department. It’s cool that she’s so respected at work that her boss saw fit to bring her, out of all of the other associates, but I miss her. Life’s been a total whirlwind since the Lonely Hearts Club Web site took off, and I could really use my best friend. But Chloe said that it would work out perfectly—I could crash at her place while she was away and get acclimated to my new adult life. One where I don’t rely on the kindness of Daddy to get me by, and have to make some actual money to survive.

  I suppose she did have to leave town after making a remark like that to me.

  It’s so weird to be in Chloe’s space without her. Even though we’ve been the best of friends since the second grade, it still feels incredibly intimate to be at her apartment without her here. Sure, I know everything about Chloe’s life, every detail, really, but there’s just something about being among all of her stuff without her.

  I flip on the TV for a little background noise—it’s too quiet here without Chlo—and Amber Fairchild is on VH1. Seriously, is that girl everywhere? I change the channel to NY1, a safe haven from bubble-gum pop, and head to the refrigerator. Empty. I get the feeling Chloe took out all of its contents just to prove her point: In adulthood, you stock your own fridge.

  I text her as much.

  She texts back: LOL! Nah, I just figured that you’d let the milk spoil and the cheese go bad and I’d come home to a stinky apartment.

  My eyes narrow as I text her back: Try not to have an affair with your boss, okay?

  She quickly replies: Oh, silly girl. You know I’d never fool around with someone I had to see every day!

  I have to stifle a giggle. I check my wallet for cash and then make my way toward the front door to hit a supermarket.

  When I return to the apartment a half hour later, my computer’s buzzing—someone’s inviting me to a video chat.

  “Hey, Chloe!” I say, as I sit down and get myself comfortable on the couch.

  “Hey,” she says. “I had to check and see if you were starving to death in my apartment. I really don’t want to come home to a dead body. That’d be stinkier than the moldy cheese.”

  “I’m still alive,” I say. It’s so good to see Chloe. I know I saw her yesterday before her flight, but I still miss her like crazy. “Thank you for asking.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d figure out how to feed yourself without Daddy’s credit cards,” she says.

  “I have a little money coming in from the ad,” I say. “We can’t all graduate and get a perfect job we love.”

  “Yes,” she says. “But most people do get a job.”

  “I get it,” I say. “You’re disappointed in me. My father’s disappointed in me. Even the checkout guy at the Food Emporium is disappointed in me.”

  “The checkout guy?”

  “Is it part of the adult experience to be humiliated at the checkout line as you figure out how many items you can afford to buy?” I ask.

  “Yes, definitely,” Chloe says.

  “Okay, good,” I say. “Just checking.”

  Chloe fills me in on the deal so far in San Francisco—great music scene she plans to check out, not so great extended-stay hotel room she plans to never be in, and totally great restaurants she’s already begun to explore.<
br />
  “Are you ready to come back yet?” I ask.

  “No, not yet,” Chloe says and laughs. “Hopefully, it’ll be just a few weeks, not a few months.”

  I hadn’t realized a few months were on the table. I figured she’d be home after just a few weeks.

  “Well, hurry back,” I say.

  “I will,” she says. “Now make yourself at home.”

  So I do. I grab my duffel and look for a closet to ditch my stuff. Even though I’ll be staying in her bedroom, I feel like taking over her closet would be rude.

  I open the entryway closet and move her jackets into her bedroom closet. As I’m about to unpack, I see a few old posters rolled up toward the back of the closet.

  Well, she did say to make myself at home, I think. Nothing like a few concert posters on the wall to cozy the place up.

  I unroll the first poster and it’s a Lonely Hearts Club Band poster. The ones she designed a few years ago when we were doing Battle of the Bands. I remember how proud she was of the design she created—it looked like that iconic Ramones band logo. She’d written the name of our band around the circle, where the names of the band members were on the Ramones logo, and instead of a bald eagle inside of the circle, there was an electric guitar. It was such a clever idea. Since then, she’s come up with about a million more clever ideas like that for her company, but at the time, it completely blew all of our minds.

  As I roll the poster up, ready to put it back where I found it, I see a box. And I can’t help myself. I pull it out of the closet and look inside. There are hundreds, thousands maybe, of photographs. I remember this phase in college, when Chloe toted around an enormous professional camera from her photography lab and documented every second of our lives. There are pictures of everything—our old college dorm, some of the rock shows we used to do at the downtown clubs, and Billy. So many pictures of Billy. Pictures of him alone, pictures of him with her, pictures of him behind his drum kit. A set of his old drumsticks are at the bottom of the box. It’s like a shrine to him. I had no idea that Chloe kept all of this stuff.

  My first instinct is to throw it all away—I feel my eyes tearing up just looking at this stuff, so I can only imagine the impact it must have on Chloe. But then I have no idea what I’d say to Chloe once she realized it was gone. I dab at my eyes with the tip of my finger.

  You are not the sort of girl who cries, I tell myself, and I take a deep breath. That’s usually all it takes to keep the tears at bay.

  I know I should stop looking. I know I should. But every time I tell myself to put everything away, stuff it back where I found it, I find another reason to look. Another thing I want to see one more time.

  I look through the pictures a bit longer—it’s like a car crash I can’t take my eyes off—and then I repack the posters, drumsticks, and the box, just as I found them, and shove them back to the bottom of the closet.

  21 - All She Wants Is

  “What’s this?” I ask Max. It’s been only a few months, but already we’ve fallen into a sort of pattern. Well, not a pattern so much as he comes over to Chloe’s place every night. But isn’t it like that when you’re discovering someone new? Everything about them is fascinating, and you seemingly can’t get enough. Why see them once a week when you can see them twice? Why see them twice when you can see them three times? Four times?

  Every night.

  “It’s an article about Daft Punk,” he says, throwing down a bag and melting into the couch.

  “I thought we’d settled this,” I say. “Didn’t you like the band we saw?”

  “I would’ve liked it more if I didn’t have to pretend I didn’t know you.”

  “I can’t be seen out on a date if I’m the symbol for all things anti-love,” I say.

  “I thought you said that this wouldn’t be a problem,” he says.

  “It’s not,” I say.

  “It’s not?”

  “You know I couldn’t have that reporter see us together and risk exposing myself as a total liar,” I explain. “She seemed very interested in all things Lonely Hearts Club.”

  “I’m interested in all things Lonely Hearts Club,” Max says, pulling me onto the couch.

  “I’m not reading this article,” I say, and grab Max for a kiss.

  “It’s about how they use instruments to make their sound,” he says in between kisses. “I thought you’d like the bit about Nile Rodgers.”

  “No way,” I say, pushing him off to read the article.

  As I read, Max picks up my guitar and pretends to play. He has no idea what he’s doing, but still, he manages to hit a few chords here and there. The article’s fascinating, and I make a mental note to download Daft Punk’s latest album, the one featuring Nile Rodgers on guitar.

  Max continues his attempt at my guitar. I take his second finger, and put it on the third fret of the sixth string. Then I take his first finger and put it on the second fret of the fifth string. And then finally, his third finger on the third fret of the first string.

  He strums and it sounds beautiful.

  “A perfect G major,” I say. “That’s your first lesson.”

  “I always wanted to play guitar,” he says.

  “Oh yeah?” I ask, adjusting his fingers into a C major. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “Got into other things, I guess.”

  “Like G and G?”

  “D&D,” he corrects. “Yes, that. And computers.”

  “I can’t imagine doing anything besides music,” I say.

  “Then why don’t you book more gigs?” he asks. “Get your band back together?”

  “I am doing my music,” I say quickly, but we both know it’s a lie. The only things I’ve put in my notebook lately are notes on what to write for the next Lonely Hearts Club blog post.

  All I do all day is write about how love breaks your heart. And then all I do all night is fall deeper into it.

  “I just want you to be happy. You know that, right?” Max says.

  “Then come over here,” I say.

  His lips touch mine and I forget to breathe. He moves down to my neck and I feel myself breathing again, only they’re short, tight breaths. I close my eyes as I wait to see what he’ll do next. His hands run up and down my arms and I grab onto him.

  And then our clothes are off and we tumble onto the ground. His hands are all over my body; my hands are all over his. It’s like we can’t get close enough to each other. And then we do, and with his body over mine, inside of mine, I feel like we are meant to be together. Like we were made for each other. This is what I long for, all day, and I can never get enough of him.

  “Oh my God,” I say, breathless, sweaty, and spent.

  “I love…” Max begins to say, but then thinks better of it. “I love being with you.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  “We didn’t even make it to the bed,” Max says, as we lay on the floor, side by side.

  “No, we did not,” I say. I grab his undershirt and put it on. I love the way it smells, like sweat and lemon and sweetness. “Hand me my guitar.”

  “You’re going to play for me?” he asks as he reaches up for my guitar.

  “I am,” I say, and tune the strings.

  I start to play without really knowing what song I want to sing to him. Just random chords, warming myself up, figuring out what’s next. Then it comes to me. “‘Don’t get me wrong. If I’m looking kind of dazzled,’” I sing slowly. “‘I see neon lights. Whenever you walk by.’”

  I strum along to the Pretenders’ melody and Max watches me as I play. The way my fingers move over my guitar, the way I tap my foot to keep time, the way my lips move.

  “‘I’m thinking about the fireworks,” I sing, “that go off when you smile.’”

  Max smiles back at me, on cue, and I continue the song: “But don’t get me wrong.”

  Max falls asleep, but I’m wide awake.

  The computer is on, always on, beckoning me, a
sking me to hop on and see what’s happening with the site. My Twitter feed is on fire—#LonelyHeartsClub is trending after my last post. I hear the sound of a record scratch—the new sound of messages and comments that Max installed for me—and I click over to the blog. The comments are the ones I’m used to seeing by now. Allsfairinloveandmusic doesn’t know how to leave her husband, even though they’ve completely grown apart. RockBoy1983’s girlfriend is pregnant and now he feels forced to marry her. Chloe’s even figured out how to put her Instagram pictures onto the blog as comments. The latest one is a picture of Marilyn Monroe and President Kennedy with the caption: Love kills you.

  But one comment in particular stands out to me.

  Blog comment from Pianosoundslikeacarnival:

  You don’t really believe all this negative stuff about love, do you?

  I quickly respond to the comment: Yes, of course I do. Love makes you weak. Vulnerable. It crushes you whole.

  I wait for a response from Pianosoundslikeacarnival, but it doesn’t come. Instead, hundreds of blog followers get into the game.

  Response from Lovestinks:

  Are you accusing Jo of lying? You think she’s a hypocrite?!

  Response from Youreallygotmenow:

  How dare you question Jo? She’s the one who started this whole thing. She wouldn’t lie to us.

  Response from Rocker92:

  Jo says what she means. How could you question that?

  I look back at Max, asleep in my bed, and I feel a sinking feeling in my stomach. I should never have started this. I tell myself that I need to break it off with him. It’s not fair to him. It’s not fair to the blog followers. It’s not fair to the 200,000 people who tweet at me, “like” me on Facebook, and follow the Lonely Hearts Instagram account that Chloe sent up. I’m living a lie.

  I walk back into the bedroom and Max half opens one sleepy eye.

  “Get over here,” he says. He pats his hand on the bed, at the space where I’m supposed to be sleeping. I stand for a moment, just staring at him. His eyes begin to close again.

  “Hey,” he says, eyes still closed. “I see neon lights whenever you walk by, too, you know.”