The Lonely Hearts Club (2 page)

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involved with you. What can I say? I was bored, and it was much easier to give in to your fantasy than to fight
it.
And, I will admit, you do have that cute little suburban thing going for you. I just never thought you'd turn out to be nothing but a tease."

I felt sick. Tears started
to
streak down my face,

"Oh, come on." Nate sat down and put his arm around me. "Just yell at me some more and you'll feel better. Then we can move on."

I shook myself free and ran upstairs.

Away from Nate.

Away from the lies.

Away from it all.

But I couldn't run away. He was living in our house for two more weeks. Every morning I had to get up and face him. Watch him leave the house, knowing he was probably going out with her. Knowing that he had to look elsewhere because I wasn't good enough for him. He would never see me "that way,"

Every day I was reminded of what a failure I was. How what I'd wanted for years had ended up hurting me more than I could imagine.

My older sister Rita was the only one in my family that I told, and I swore her to secrecy. I knew this would hurt our parents' longest, deepest friendship, and it didn't seem fair for Nate to destroy that, too. Plus, I was embarrassed, I couldn't bear to let my parents find out how stupid I was.

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Rita tried to comfort me. She even threatened Nate's life if he came within ten feet of me. But even a hundred feet would've been too close.

"Penny, its going to be okay," Rita promised as she wrapped her arms around me. "We all run into a few speed bumps along the way."

I didn't run into a speed bump. I ran into a brick wall.

And I never wanted to feel that pain again.

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chapter Three

I FELT LOST. I NEEDED TO hide away. Escape.

There was only one thing I could do to ease the pain. I turned to the only four guys who'd never let me down. The only four guys who'd never broken my heart, who'd never disappointed me,

John, Paul, George, and Ringo,

Anybody who has ever clung to a song like a musical life raft will understand. Or put on a song to bring out an emotion or a memory. Or had a soundtrack playing in their head to drown out a conversation or a scene.

As soon as I got back to my room, devastated by Nate's rejection, I turned up the volume so loud on my stereo that my bed began to shake. The Beatles had always been my security blanket. They were a part of my life before I even existed. In fact, if it wasn't for the Beatles, I would've never been born.

My parents met at a makeshift shrine in a Chicago park the night John Lennon was shot. Both were lifelong Beatles fanatics, and later on they felt they had no choice but to name their three daughters after Beatles songs: "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," "Lovely Rita," and "Penny Lane."

Of course, my older sisters were lucky enough to get normal middle names, but my parents gave me the full Lennon/

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McCartney treatment: Penny Lane. I was even born on February 7 -- the anniversary of the Beatles arriving in the United States for the first time. I didn't believe it was a coincidence. I wouldn't have put it past my mother to have refused to push just so I could be born on that day.

Most of our family vacations were spent in Liverpool, England. Every Christmas card we ever sent had us re-creating various Beatles album covers. Truth be told, I should have bated the Beatles, That should've been my rebellion. But instead, the Beatles became part of me. Whether I was happy or sad, I was comforted by their words, their music.

Now, I tried to drown out Nate's words with a blast of "Help!" While I did, I reached for my journal. The leather-bound book felt heavy in my hands, the years of emotion inside weighing it down. I opened it up and scanned the entries, most of them filled with Beatles lyrics. To anybody else, it would seem like nonsensical associations, but to me, the lyrics meant so much more than their words. Snapshots of my life: the good, the bad, and the boy-related.

So much heartache. I started to scan my past relationships.

Dan Walker, senior and, according to Tracy, a "major hottie." We dated for four months at the beginning of sophomore year. Things started out decent enough -- if your definition of decent was going to the movies and then for pizza every Friday night with every other couple in town. Eventually, Dan started to mistake me for this character in the movie Almost Famous, also named Penny Lane, She was a glorified groupie,

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so Dan got it in his thick head that if he played "Stairway to Heaven" on the guitar, I would give it up. I quickly learned: Looks does not a decent guitar player make. Once Dan realized my pants were staying on, he changed his tune.

Then there was Derek Simpson, who I was pretty sure only dated me because he thought my pharmacist mother could get him drugs.

Darren McWilliams wasn't much better. We started dating right before this summer's Nate-craziness set in. He seemed like a sweet guy, until he started hanging out with Laura Jaworski, who happened to be a good friend of mine. He ended up double booking us for the same day. Little did he realize we would compare our calendars.

Dan, Derek, and Darren -- and that was only sophomore year. I was cheated on, lied to, and used. The lesson I'd learned? To stay away from guys whose first name began with the letter D, since they were all the Devil.

Maybe Nate's real name was Dante the Destroyer of Dreams. Because he was ten times worse than the three Ds combined.

I put the journal down. I was mad at Nate, yes. But mostly I was furious with myself. Why did I let myself do it? What did I get out of any of these relationships besides a broken heart? I was smarter than that, I should've known better.

Did I really want to keep getting used? Was there anybody out there who was worth it?

I'd thought Nate was, but I was wrong.

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I got up to call Tracy --misery needed her company -- when something caught my eye. I went over to my favorite Beatles poster and started to run my fingers across the lettering: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I'd stared at that poster every day for the past seven years. I'd listened to that album, one of my favorites, hundreds of times. It was like it had always been a single long word to me, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band But now three words separated themselves, and I saw something completely new inside Lonely

Hearts

Club

And that's when it happened.

Something about those words.

Lonely. Hearts. Club.

In theory, it may have sounded depressing. But there wasn't anything depressing about the music.

No, this Lonely Hearts Club was the opposite of depress-ing. It was alive.

The answer had been in front of me all along. There was a way to stop getting cheated on, lied to, and used.

I would stop torturing myself by dating loser guys. I would enjoy the benefits of being single. I would, for once, focus on me. Junior year would be my year. It would be all about me, Penny Lane Bloom, sole member and founder of The Lonely Hearts Club.

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[Page Blank]

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Come Together

"... you've got to be free ...'

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[Page Blank]

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chapter Four

BOYS WERE DEAD TO ME. The only question was: Why hadn't I thought of this sooner?

I knew the idea was genius. But it would've been nice if my best friend was able to stop looking at me like I was an escapee from a mental institution.

"Pen, you know I love you, but., ."

Here we go.

We were having an emergency meeting (complete with the cheese fries required to get over a breakup) at our local diner, less than an hour after my inspiration hit. Tracy took a sip of her milk shake, taking in my tirade about all the problems guys have caused me over the years. I hadn't even gotten to the part about the club yet and my decision to not date.

"I know you're upset, and you have every reason to be," Tracy said. "But not all guys are evil."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, really? Should we go through your lists from the last two years?"

Tracy slumped down in her seat. Every year she made a list of guys she wanted to date. She would spend all summer weighing her options before putting the list together for the school year, with each guy ranked in order of preference based on a ratio of looks, popularity, and looks.

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The list definitely caused more heartache than it was worth. Tracy still hadn't been on a date with any of the candidates. In fact, she'd never had a boyfriend. I couldn't figure out why. She was pretty, funny, smart, and one of the most loyal and dependable friends anyone could ask for. But, as if I needed another example of why boys sucked, none of the guys at McKinley seemed to feel she was girlfriend material.

Lucky her, I thought. But she wasn't seeing it that way.

"I don't know what you are talking about," she said.

"Right. So you're telling me you don't have a new list ready for inspection?"

Tracy moved her purse onto the seat next to her.

Of course she had a new list. We only had a few more days before the start of junior year.

"What to the evs," she huffed. "I guess I should just throw the list away since, according to you, all men are jerks."

I smiled. "Now we're getting somewhere. Lets burn it!"

Tracy groaned, "You've clearly lost your mind. Can you be serious for a second?"

"I am being serious,"

Now it was Tracy's turn to roll her eyes. "Come on -- not every single male on this planet is a horrible human being. What about your dad?"

"What about Thomas Grant?" I shot back.

Tracy's mouth dropped open.

Okay, maybe that was a little harsh. Thomas had been on

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last years list. She'd spent an entire semester flirting with him in Chemistry. Finally he'd asked her if she was free one weekend. Tracy had been thrilled . . . until he tested her an hour before they were supposed to meet and told her that something had "come up," Then he'd ignored her the rest of the year. No explanation, no apology nothing.

Typical male.

"And Kevin Parker?" I pressed.

Tracy glared at me. "Well, its not my fault that he doesn't know I exist."

There was always one name on the top of Tracy's list -- Kevin Parker, senior football player extraordinaire. Unfortunately Kevin had never acknowledged that Tracy was even alive. When I'd been dating Derek, I'd invite Kevin and his friends over to my house for the sole purpose of letting Kevin get to know Tracy. But he never paid any attention to her. One of the only reasons I put up with Derek for as long as I did was because Tracy needed her daily Kevin Parker fix.

Thinking about that list and how much it dictated Tracy's happiness made me want to rip it out of her purse and tear it apart. Because I knew -- one by one, she'd have to cross their names off and she'd end up in tears.

Tracy sighed, then collected herself. "This year is going to be different," she swore. "I don't know -- I've got a really good feeling about it." She took the list out and started wistfully looking at this years contenders.

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Had I seriously believed that Tracy would understand my need to stop dating? All she thought about was going on dates.

I gave up . . . for the moment,

Tracy wasn't the only one who had a good feeling about this year.

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chapter Five

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. I wasn't even at school yet, and I already had to face the enemy. Not Nate -- he was gone. But Nate's kind.

"Aw, can you believe my baby brother is in high school?" Tracy gestured to the backseat of her car, where her brother Mike was blaring his iPod. "And you know, Pen, I don't see any horns on the top of his head."

"Yet "I smirked at her.

Little Mikey Larson was a freshman . .. a guy ..... one of them.

I wondered when he would start acting like every other guy at McKinley. Was there some sort of secret class where they taught boys to become himbos?

As Mike got out of Tracy's car, I couldn't help but notice how much more alike than ever they looked, with their dirty blond hair, hazel eyes, and heart-shaped faces,

Tracy looked me up and down. "Pen, those shoes are adorbs. You look smokin' hawt today." She applied a fresh coat of lip gloss in the rearview mirror. "Looking to impress anybody in particular?"

I groaned. "No -- I just wanted to look nice for me."

Tracy gave me a look that said she didn't believe me.