The Lonely Hearts Club Read Free

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