The Lonely Hearts Club Read online

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Brenda Janowitz

  Cover design by Georgia Morrissey

  ISBN 978-1-940610-02-3

  Published in 2014 by Polis Books, LLC

  60 West 23rd Street

  New York, NY 10010

  www.PolisBooks.com

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Part Two

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Part Three

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Brenda Janowitz

  Scot on the Rocks

  Jack With A Twist

  Recipe For A Happy Life

  Dedication

  To Ben, Davey, and Doug. Because of you, I’ll never be lonely again.

  Part One: Fuck and Run

  “And whatever happened to a boyfriend”

  1 - Money for Nothing

  “Jo, you’re fired,” he says. Just like that.

  Fired.

  And I’m utterly shocked. I know, no one ever expects to be fired, but I really didn’t see this coming. My mouth is wide open as I stare back at him.

  “Fired?” is all I can choke out. The room begins to spin. That may be because I was out until sunrise last night drinking vodka tonics at an underground club in Williamsburg, but I’m pretty sure that it’s the news that’s doing it to me, not the hangover.

  “Yes. I’m sorry, Jo, but it’s not working out here,” he says. His skin is gleaming when he says it. His skin always gleams. He’s a dermatologist, so it has to gleam in order for him to stay in business. My skin doesn’t ever gleam. At the very most, it shines and turns red when I get hot or embarrassed. I feel it beginning to shine and my hand immediately flies to my cheek, which, of course, only makes it get hotter.

  We are in his office when he tells me and he is sitting at his desk, his head framed by his many diplomas and awards that are hung on the wall behind him. They are, as they are always, shining brightly as if they’d been dusted and cleaned that very morning. I look at the picture he keeps framed at the edge of his desk—a photograph of his family taken at a New Year’s Eve party, framed in a sterling-silver picture frame that his wife lovingly picked out for their thirtieth wedding anniversary—and then look back up at him.

  “You can’t fire me,” I say, which I wholeheartedly believe. I really didn’t think that he ever would or could fire me.

  “I can,” he says, “and I am.” He begins to toy with one of the pens sitting on his desk.

  “I’m your best employee!” I plead.

  “You wore a ‘Save CBGBs’ T-shirt to work,” he says.

  “CBGBs was a New York institution,” I say. He gives me a blank stare. I shrug in response. Is it my fault that this man has no sense of culture? Of history? “What does it matter what I wear under my assistant’s coat anyway?”

  “You know the dress code—scrubs or business casual,” he says.

  “Jeans and a concert tee is business casual!”

  “People can see the prints on your T-shirts right through the fabric,” he says. “And sometimes you wear ones with dirty words on them,” he continues, whispering the “dirty words” part as if his grandmother is somehow listening from up above and would be appalled by this particular bit of information.

  “Like what?” I ask. Watching him squirm is kind of fun.

  “You know which one,” he says. And then, in barely a whisper, “Free Pussy Riot.”

  “That’s a band,” I say, “not a dirty word.” You’d think a doctor would have no problem saying the word “pussy” out loud.

  “Jo, it’s not just the T-shirts. You’ve called in the wrong prescriptions for my patients more times than I’d like to admit.”

  “Some of those drugs have very complicated names,” I say in my own defense. And for the record, they do.

  “That doesn’t mean you can give a patient a more pronounceable drug without consulting me first.”

  “Then maybe you and your colleagues should start prescribing more pronounceable drugs,” I argue. He furrows his brow in response. “But I’m your favorite employee!” I plead.

  “You balanced the company checkbook wrong the last three out of four quarters.”

  “You know that I’m not an accountant.” When he hired me for the job two years ago, I knew that there would be some accounting involved. What I hadn’t realized at the time was that I would have to be quite so specific with the numbers. Which is a challenge for me, seeing as I’m really more of a right-brain kind of person.

  “But you know how to balance your own checkbook, don’t you?” he says.

  For the record, I don’t.

  “Of course I know how to balance my own checkbook,” I say and laugh, as if to say, “Doesn’t everybody?” “A business checkbook is much, much different than a personal checkbook,” I explain.

  For the record, it’s not.

  “I’m your most loyal employee,” I say. My last resort. I find myself alternating between staring into his solid gold, monogrammed Tiffany belt buckle and his shellacked black hair, because I can’t meet his eyes.

  “This is difficult for me, too, you know,” he says, even though I know that it’s not.

  “Do you realize how embarrassing this is going to be for me?” I say. Manipulative, I know, but it’s not exactly like I have anything left in my arsenal.

  “I thought you don’t get embarrassed,” he replies, looking into my eyes, challenging me.

  “I don’t,” I say, frowning like a little girl who hasn’t gotten the piece of candy that she wanted.r />
  “Don’t take this personally, Pumpkin.”

  “You can’t call me Pumpkin when you’re firing me, Daddy.”

  2 - I Love Rock n’ Roll

  “You got fired by your own father?” my best friend, Chloe, asks me.

  “I know,” I reply. “It’s a new low. Even for me.”

  “What a dick move,” my boyfriend, Jesse, says. Thank God I still have Jesse. I don’t know what I would do without him. He understands me in a way that no one else ever has before—and I like to think that I understand him that same way, too.

  Jesse is looking over Chloe’s shoulder to see if the band is about to start. We are at a tiny Lower East Side club that is packed to capacity to see The Rage, one of our favorite local bands. “He could have at least had your dick brother do it.”

  “Andrew isn’t really a full partner in the practice yet,” I explain.

  “You’re allowed to screw the Barbie doll nurse before you’re a full partner?” Chloe asks, brushing her silky black hair off her shoulders. Andrew’s girlfriend—the office’s head nurse—does bear a striking resemblance to a Barbie doll. But, to be fair, my brother does look quite a lot like Ken. Still, it’s pretty tough talk coming from a woman who’s only five-foot-two.

  “At least you still have the Bumblebee,” Jesse says, referring to my bright yellow VW Beetle.

  “Forget the Bee, at least you still have a parking space in the garage of your building,” Chloe says. “An even more elusive asset in Manhattan than an actual car.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “I guess.”

  “Still,” Jesse says, looking into my eyes. I love it when he burns his eyes into me. Even in the dark, I can see them clearly—a light sky blue, framed by thick black lashes, just like Jakob Dylan. He has a thick black curl falling to the center of his forehead. He flips his head back quickly and it falls back in place with the masses of other curls piled on his head. “It still sucks.”

  “I would rather have my father fire me than my brother, I think,” Chloe says to no one in particular. The waitress—who I recognize as the bassist in the band that plays the Lion’s Den on Sunday nights—comes to our table. Jesse and Chloe order beers (Chloe’s is a light) and I order a vodka tonic.

  “Well, I’d rather not be fired at all,” I say as soon as the waitress leaves.

  “It’ll give you more time to focus on your music, babe,” Jesse says as he puts his index finger gently under my chin, angling my face upward for a kiss. It makes me smile and Chloe blush.

  I did mean to get a real job. But there was always something in the way. Something more important to do. Something left that I had to do, like apply to schools to get my MFA in music, or some reason that I had to wait, like when my band nearly took off and we almost landed a record deal.

  Life is different for people like me. Artists. I could never work for the rest of my life in an office, toiling away day and night at a job that I wasn’t passionate about. I need passion in my life. Excitement. Adrenaline. Sure, everybody says they want passion and excitement in their lives, but I really mean it.

  The bug hit me when I was five years old. My parents were having a dinner party and my father encouraged me to sing a song for his guests while he accompanied me on his prized possession—his baby grand piano. He began to play “Hey, Big Spender” from the musical Sweet Charity, and the feeling overcame me. All eyes were on me, and it felt like magic. I opened my mouth, improvised some dance moves I’d picked up in my ballet class, and belted it out. The rest is history. I decided right at that very second that singing was what I wanted to do with my life. The only thing I wanted to do with my life.

  I’ve been working my ass off since then to make a go of it. Nothing compares to the feeling I get when I’m on stage. The stage is my true home—it’s where I come alive, where I feel the most myself, where I can do anything.

  My parents encouraged me for a while. They even dragged me, Gypsy Rose Lee style, to the American Star auditions back when I was twelve. I made it through the entire season, leveling the competition with my killer rendition of “Hey, Big Spender.” By the finals, I thought I had it in the bag. I was going against a corn-fed blonde from Kansas who had never been out of the Midwest her whole life. She had buck teeth and a flat chest—no match for my retainer and burgeoning bosom. I belted out “Hey, Big Spender” and she did a shy rendition of “Over the Rainbow” and, in so doing, stole my crown right from under me.

  My parents fought for three weeks—my mother accusing my father of pushing me into a song that was “too adult,” and my father accusing my mother of pushing me into a business that was full of rejection. One of my clearest childhood memories is overhearing him tell my mother that he was happy that I lost.

  The irony of that little Pollyanna stealing my American Star crown is that the girl who beat me was Amber Fairchild. Yes, that Amber Fairchild. The pop sensation who flew to stardom at age fifteen, singing “I Want You to Keep Me Up All Night (All Right).” Otherwise known as the bane of my existence. I hate her brand of slutty bubble-gum pop, but what I hate more is that this girl made it and I did not. I often wonder what would have happened if I had won American Star instead of Amber. I should be the one with the record deal, production company, fan club, and slacker husband who mooches off me. Well, my current boyfriend mooches off me, so the way I figure it, I’m a quarter of the way there. The record deal has so far eluded me, but I know that it’s just around the corner.

  My first band—my only band, really—was on the cusp of breaking through about two years ago. We called ourselves The Lonely Hearts Club Band. Together since high school, we had it all—the talent, the drive, and even the requisite bad-boy drummer with a drug problem. We were just beginning to have a bit of a following in Manhattan—and not just among our NYU classmates, a real following. Our bass player, Kane, had a girlfriend who set up a Web site for us, and we posted photos of ourselves, my song lyrics, and our show dates. Frankie, our lead ax man, was the face. The gorgeous one who girls flocked to. He brought in the crowds. Chloe was our de facto photographer, and I wrote a blog about trying to make it in the music industry. The blog barely ever got any hits, but it made us all feel more legit.

  We had a gig at the C Note in Alphabet City, and a friend of a friend of a friend’s pet dog had arranged for an A&R guy from Pinnacle to come hear us play. This was it. Our big chance. The moment we’d been waiting for—wishing for—since we first got together in high school.

  The night before, we all went out to play a gig at a small club in Chelsea to get ready. We were all so young then. We still felt invincible, in that way you do before anything really bad has ever happened to you, before you’ve really had a chance to see the way life really is. I don’t remember much about that evening, but I know that I went home early to try to get some sleep before the big day. Billy, our drummer, must have stayed out at the club without the rest of the band because the next night, he didn’t show up at the gig. Two days later, we got a call from New York City Hospital telling us that Billy had overdosed and died. The hospital staff told us that someone dropped him off at the entrance, left him there, and disappeared.

  The record company wouldn’t talk to us without him. Certainly didn’t want to come and see us play anymore. Wouldn’t even listen to our demo. I thought we were Blondie, but I guess even Blondie wouldn’t have been signed without Chris Stein. It would be like the Doors without Krieger, the Stones without Richards. Would it be the same band? I could debate stuff like this for hours, but the point is—they wanted nothing more to do with us. And then, without Billy, we all wanted nothing to do with each other. The next Monday, I went to work for my dad.

  I am currently without band. And now I find myself, six months after graduating from college, with no real job and no real prospects. And even if I did have prospects, who on earth would hire a loser who’s been recently fired by her own father?

  “Hey, China Doll,” Chloe’s flavor of the week says, pulling a chair
up to our table and kissing her on the cheek. I don’t even remember his name. It’s never a good idea to remember their names. They’re always the same—anti-establishment, angry, and unbelievably hot. I can spot ’em a mile away.

  This one’s wearing a T-shirt from his high school soccer team. I really hope that he’s out of college like we are and just wearing the shirt ironically, but there’s a good chance that he’s actually still in high school, so I don’t dare ask.

  “Hey, yourself,” Chloe says back. She doesn’t seem to mind this ridiculous “China Doll” nickname, even though she is actually Korean.

  “Hey, man,” Jesse says as he puts his hand out for the flavor of the week to grab. Even though Jesse calls everyone “man,” I can tell that he doesn’t know this guy’s name, either. After two and a half years together, I know one “man” from the other.

  “She’s Korean,” I say to Flavor of the Week, in lieu of hello.

  “Cool,” he says, and leans in to Chloe for a kiss.

  “You called her China Doll,” I say, “but she’s actually not Chinese.”

  Flavor of the Week breaks from the kiss for a second to regard me.

  “Jo, please shut up,” Chloe says, and goes back to kissing. Jesse laughs under his breath and kisses me on the head as the lights dim.

  “Give me a break, Chloe,” I whine. “I was fired today!”

  No sympathy from the people at our table.

  “By my dad!” I cry out. Heads turn. That’s true star power—commanding an audience even on your worst day.

  The band begins to play, and Jesse and I jump to our feet. Chloe and Flavor of the Week sit and make out, oblivious to their surroundings. Jesse and I dance, singing along to the chorus. I feel the tensions of the day fade into the music.

  Four songs in, the redheaded lead singer takes a break to talk to the crowd. “Hey, we’re The Rage and we just want to thank you all for being here and supporting the band,” she says and the crowd goes wild. The light hits her hair and it looks like fire. “A friend of ours—a very good friend of the band—has asked us for a favor tonight. And for this guy, well, for this guy we’d do anything.” More screams from the crowd. “His friend is having a pretty awful day, and the only thing that would make her life better is to sing to you lovely people tonight.” The crowd goes nuts. “Can you believe that? I hope you’re flattered,” she says, flirting with the crowd. “Jo, are you out there? Jo Waldman?”