Page 7 of The Lonely Hearts Book Club

“But nothing.” Rachel finally released my fingers. It took a second for the blood to get flowing again, but when it did, it came with a vengeance. “You’re family now, Sloane. It’s the least we can do.”

“Hear, hear!” cried Tabitha.

“I’ll drink to that,” said Rosalie.

“Once the license is signed, there’s no going back,” came the murmur of Francine’s low voice.

After an outburst like that, I didn’t have the heart to tell them that not only was Mateo more of a work acquaintance than a friend, but he wasn’t likely to sign on for wearing one of the bridesmaid dresses. Their dismay when I’d confessed that I was withoutoneclose friend to fill the role of bridesmaid, let alone eight, was matched only by their kindness in offering to fill the ranks for me.

I defied anyone to find better prospective in-laws than these people. Honestly. A few crushed hand bones were a small price to pay for this level of acceptance without question.

“I’m sure I can find someone before the wedding,” I said, my voice only slightly wobbly. Since we had a good four months before I was set to officially join the Marcowitz clan, I didn’t despair of making good on the promise.

After all, making friends was something regular people did all the time. They joined sports leagues and had chance encounters at coffee shops. They commiserated in line at the DMV and got squished together in the back seat of an Uber Pool.

I didn’t mind that I was approaching the end of my third decade and didn’t have a Diana Barry or Charlotte Lucas to call my own. I really didn’t. I had her once, but then I lost her.

Once upon a time had always been good enough for me.

3

The difference between the warm, if overwhelming, welcome I received at the Marcowitz house and the reception at my own ancestral home a few days later was like something out of a twisted fairy tale.

In this case, “ancestral” was an exaggeration. My parents had only lived in their condo for a few years, having sold off everything they could carry—and quite a few things they couldn’t—to purchase a lakeside two-bedroom with access to a rooftop terrace and a twenty-four-hour gym. To the best of my knowledge, they’d never once set foot on the terrace, and I wasn’t convinced that the gym actually existed, but once they made a decision, they stuck to it.

“Oh, good. You’re here. Will you please tell your father that I need him to call a plumber to look at the garbage disposal?” My mom swung open the door and wandered away, her feet shaking the floor with every step. Even though she wasn’t a large woman, basically an older and slightly faded version of me, she walked as though she carried the entire weight of the world on her shoulders.

“And can you tell your mother that I’m not a phone service? If she wants a plumber, she can call one herself.” Belatedly, my dad planted a kiss on my forehead. His round black glasses slipped down his nose and stayed there. “Hey, pumpkin. You look tired.”

“Honestly, James. You can’t tell a woman that.”

“If that woman is my daughter, I can tell her anything I want.”

“How would you like it if she breezed through the door and mentioned that your hair plugs are starting to fall out?”

“They’re not falling out. Nature is healing. It’s all part of the process.”

A thump from the back wall indicated that the couple from next door wasn’t enjoying this argument any more than I was. I usually avoided participating in my parents’ fights by taking the coward’s way out—namely, by not visiting unless it was an emergency or one of them had plans to be out.

This situation didn’t technically qualify as an emergency, but after my dinner with the Marcowitzes, it was close enough to count.

“Do you still have that box of my college stuff?” I asked before either could pick up the threads again. “I remember where you kept it at the old house, but I wasn’t sure if you tossed it out or put it in storage when you moved.”

“College stuff?” My mom turned back, her heavy tread retracing her steps from before. Since the day my parents started living here, there had been three different owners in the condo directly underneath theirs. At this point, it could only be rented out as an Airbnb. The listing had it down as “haunted” so the people staying there were charmed instead of appalled by all the shouting and pictures randomly shaking off the walls. “What do you want that for? You’re not thinking about going back foranotherdegree, are you? Oh God. Did Brett break it off? I told you it wouldn’t last, James. Remember? I said there was no way a man like that—”

I drew a deep breath and dug my nails into my palms, reminding myself that my mother’s remarks were only a slightly more caustic version of Francine Marcowitz’s—and that I’d said the same thing to my own reflection more times past counting.

“I was hoping to find the contact info for a few of my old roommates, that’s all,” I said in as bright a tone as I could muster. “I’m short on bridesmaids. I didn’t have any luck finding them on Facebook, but I might be able to track them down the old-fashioned way.”

“Short on bridesmaids?” my mom echoed just as my dad said, “If we still have any of that junk, it’ll be down in storage.”

“Sloane, please tell your father that your cherished childhood memories aren’tjunk.”

“Sloane, please tell your mother that if she has something to say, she can say it to my face.”

That was all my parents needed to set themselves off again. Snagging the storage key that hung by the door, I slipped away, my relief heavily outweighing my guilt. That might sound callous, but there was no use in my sticking around to bear the brunt of their resentment for each other. I’d learned that lesson the hard way.

Till death do us part had a much more ominous ring when you’d witnessed it in action for as long as I had. Most people—normalpeople—would have filed for divorce a long time ago, but we Parkers had never been good at living alone. Like animals boarding the ark, we spent our lives moving in pairs. Grandma and Grandpa. Mom and Dad. Sloane and Emily.