The Lonely Hearts Club

Chapter 3

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 loudly 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/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 recreating various Beatles album covers. Truth be told, I should have hated 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, 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 diary 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 that was wrong.

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 had always been like one long word to me, SgtPepper’sLonelyHeartsClubBand.  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 depressing. 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.