The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club (26 page)

“Only if it’s standing still.”

“Then let’s keep moving.”

Half an hour later, we meet a withering old man with no front teeth who tells us in thick Chilean Spanish that we have missed our exit by twenty kilometers. After assuring us that we haven’t landed in Chile, he offers to rent us the floor of his kitchen for the night. There’s also the snake that tries to hitch a ride when we stop for lunch at a nearby roadside diner. We decline both proposals as politely as possible.

“Drive that way until you hit sand,” advises a tall Englishman who tells us he’s been living in Argentina since the mid-1970s. He waits at an imaginary bus stop outside the second town—if you can call a diner, gas station, and church a town—in blistering heat, wearing a Peruvian poncho and a pair of red bell-bottoms. “Can’t miss it.”

“Bet he wishes he could say the same for the past two decades,” Jamie whispers as we drive away, waving over our shoulders.

Our British guide was right about the desert, though. When we find it, it makes itself obvious. Brown earth abruptly gives way to nothing but white. A line drawn with sand.

We stop in the middle of the road, wordless, understanding that some things need no saying.

Before long, sand is everywhere. Here, there, behind you, beside you, in your hair, between your toes, under your tongue. It coats the world like a dusting of sugar. The whiteness is stunning. Stunning and breathtaking and startlingly quiet.

I didn’t plan on so much quiet. And I didn’t plan on how disquieting quiet could be. No longer drowned out by winery guides or raucous partyers or the din of restaurants, that last conversation with Mateo, running on a loop in the back of my mind, grows louder and louder, demanding to be heard. I talk endlessly to Jamie about the desert’s beauty, read aloud from the guidebook about the different rock formations in the distance and the impossible alien plants that speckle the white plains. Inside, I am saying to Mateo and Jeff and anyone else who’s ever doubted me, Look at me doing something wild and unplanned and uncontrolled. Look at me living my life without fear.

As the sun dips, the air cools sharply. Our romantic vision of sleeping under a desert sky gets revised. We spend our night at a motel that looks constructed from cardboard.

After a meal of barbecued mystery meat at the only restaurant in town, we sit poolside, sweaters tugged around our torsos, sipping cold sodas. Our sneakered feet hang over the edge. There’s no water, only drifts of sand at the bottom. I am crafting a catalog of the pleasures of the desert: sand, dryness, lack of wetness, sand . . .

“What are we doing here?” Jamie interrupts.

“We’re drinking sodas?”

“What are
you
doing here?” Jamie cocks her hat to the side and looks at me squarely. She’s trying to hone her cowboy look, but it’s the look of psychic mothers and seasoned high school principals.

“I don’t know, Thelma. Seeing the desert, realigning my aura. What do you think I’m doing here?”

“I think you’re running away.” The eyebrow again. As silly as it looks arching up like that under the straw hat, that damn eyebrow sees right down through me.

“From what, exactly?”

“You tell me.”

“Nothing to tell.”

“Bullshit.”

“You know, you should really work on your bedside manner.”

“Avoiding,” she says.

“Annoying,” I sing.

“Suit yourself.” She throws her head back and sucks down the rest of her Coke. “I’m going to bed.”

At night the desert is so quiet it’s deafening. Bundled under the extra blankets brought by the small dark silent woman who runs the motel, Jamie falls asleep almost immediately: I can tell from the snore that’s become so familiar on this short trip, a soft puh-puh-puh as though she’s stuttering in her sleep. What might she be trying to say? I wonder. Possibilities? Persephone? Peanut butter?

I wish I could sleep that easy, but my head is buzzing with questions. What
am
I doing here? Am I running away? Of course I am. But from what? Mateo’s harsh comments? Dan’s unwanted affection? An in-box devoid of job offers? All of the above? And what has this accomplished? How will things be any different when I go back? This debris of failure that seems to coat everything I touch now will still be waiting for me.

Why did Mateo’s words cut so deeply? It was nothing I haven’t heard before. And his opinion is inconsequential, isn’t it? I mean, who is he to me? He doesn’t know me or understand me at all, has no idea who I am or why I’ve made the choices I have. So what if he’s gorgeous and smart and talented and funny? A lot of good all that does him, hiding away in that house. Where does he get off making judgments about how other people live their lives? Following a life plan isn’t giving up. It’s just good sense. It keeps me from making bad decisions, like falling for emotionally unavailable foreign men. So what if I sometimes have a tight feeling in my chest when he’s around? That doesn’t mean anything. That’s just physical attraction, right? So what if I always look for him in the neighborhood, if I feel slightly disappointed when we go to El Taller and he isn’t working, if I get a little excited when I hear a squeaky hinge in Andrea’s house because that means he might be by to fix it soon. That’s a little crush, isn’t it? And so what if I wish he were here right now, talking me down off this mental ledge, wrapping his long arms around me, kissing the back of my neck, whispering my name in my ear, rocking me to sleep so I can dream about things as harmless as peanut butter. That’s just, that’s just . . .

“Jamie?” I whisper. Then louder: “Jamie.”

She throws an arm violently over her chest. It makes a smacking sound

“Jamie?”

She shifts and snorts. “Hmph?”

“Jamie, are you awake?” I feel bad, but I can’t stop now.

“I am now.”

“Sorry.”

“What’s up?”

“I
am
running away from something.” Funny how it’s so much easier to say things in the dark. It’s almost like I’m not saying them at all, like tomorrow they won’t have been said. “I’m running away from Mateo.”

“Why?”

“We sort of had a fight before I left.”

“Must have been some fight.”

I flick on the bedside lamp and reach down to the floor for my backpack. I retrieve the folded newspaper clipping from inside my passport and hand it to her. She rubs one eye and squints into the bright light.

“Hey, that’s your website!”

“Yeah.”

“What is this?” She unfolds the page. “The
Clarín
? You’re in the
Clarín.
Holy shit. That’s great.”

“I know.”

“But what does this have to do with Mateo?”

I bring her up to speed. She listens without adding a single psychotherapy sound bite.

“So what do you think? Any way to recover from this one, or should I give up?”

Jamie looks at the clipping intently and hands it back to me. She shifts onto her back again, shielding her eyes from the light. I watch her carefully but can’t decipher the body language. I think I like the quips and wisecracks better.

“Give up, right?” I say. “That’s what you’re saying. Right, you’re right. He probably hates me now.”

“Did you notice that article is from October?” she says.

“No. Why?”

“I don’t know. I thought it might interest you that he’s kept the thing so long, that’s all.”

“Oh. Oh . . .” He kept the article. Why did he keep the article? It was pinned to something behind his door, a bulletin board, I assume. Does that mean anything? Or perhaps the right question is,
did
it mean anything?

I turn off the light and lean back against the hard foam pillow.

“Cassie?”

“Yeah.”

“You do realize that you love this guy?”

I cross my arms over my chest, as if this will protect me from what’s coming next. “Oh, fuck, Jamie. I do, don’t I? I love him.”

The words explode inside me, sting my stomach, ears, eyes. Saying those words is everything good and bad and scary and wonderful and awful. Really awful. Saying them is no good to anyone. I’m not just veering off The Plan here, I’m leaping off a cliff into the crashing waves and sharp rocks below. I want to suck those words back inside, but it’s too late. They won’t come back. It’s true. I love Mateo. I do. I love him. Love everything about him, from the bounce in his curly black hair to the devilish curl of his lips when he’s teasing me. Even that horrible fight, standing in the doorway of his house, each word between us was a stinging barb, but still I hated to end it, so thrilled was I to be near him. Even now, thousands of miles away, I ache. I’ve never felt like this before, never hurt, hoped, wanted like this before. I can’t love him, but I do. Four weeks before I go home, and look what I’ve gone and done. I can’t seem to get anything right anymore.

I shake my head, a vain gesture in the desert dark. “I fucking love him, Jamie. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

E
verything seems different. The city is alight with the coming Christmas season, colored bulbs and plastic holly strung over doorways, under awnings, around trees and lampposts. The days are longer and hotter than ever. Coal briquettes in the
asados
seem redundant at this point. And I am in love with Mateo.

An impossible, irresponsible, unrelenting love. I’m tangled in it. It stops sleep and clouds waking. It seeps into my conversations, and I lose track of what I mean to say. I lose track of where I am. I stare into space. I alternately stalk and avoid all places where Mateo might be, skulking around corners and ducking behind shrubbery every time I see a mass of curly black hair.

Two days into my cloak-and-dagger routine, I discover it’s all in vain. Jamie says Mateo hasn’t been at El Taller all week—a waiter said he’s on vacation—so I can start coming to club nights anytime. Andrea hasn’t said a word, but it must be true. I stalk the pink and blue house much of Tuesday and part of Wednesday but see only the cats lolling about in the sun.

Angry, I log on to Buenosairesbrokenheartsclub.com under a pseudonym and interrupt someone’s lament on her failed relationship: “Why are we all sitting around our computers complaining about some guy or girl who treated us bad and whining about how we wish we had some new guy or girl who would treat us just as badly? What’s so great about love, anyway?”

My comment gets twenty-two responses in two hours, most of them gushing sentimental schlock that I could have picked up in a card shop. But one reply gets to me a little. “The great thing about love,” writes [email protected], “is that it makes you feel like you can do anything.”

I stop reading the comments after that.

I am not thinking about it.

There are nineteen days left until I go home.

I am not thinking about that, either.

Which is difficult, as my mother calls constantly to arrange the plans for my homecoming. My childhood bedroom has recently been taken over by her stair climber and craft station, so she’s making space for me in the downstairs guest room. She wants to know if I prefer a firm mattress, how many dresser drawers I’ll need, whether I’ll mind if the dog sleeps in there with me—he thinks of it as his room.

“It doesn’t matter,” I always say, not to be difficult, but simply because it doesn’t.

I have sent e-mails to almost every person I know in Seattle in hopes of unearthing a job lead. So far, two people have invited me to join their pyramid scheme, and a guy I dated briefly in college has offered me a gig as his personal assistant, nudity optional. “Gee, thanks,” I write back, “but didn’t I already have that job? I seem to recall late hours and subpar benefits.”

I try to muster a tad more excitement for C.J., who is thrilled that after launching our new personal ad service on the website, we already have eighteen ads bought and paid for. At five dollars an ad per month, divided between the two of us, it’s not quite enough to retire on, but I could buy myself a nice umbrella when I get back to Seattle. I’m surprised to find I’m disappointed. What did I expect? That my site could be the next Idealmatch.com? It wasn’t about the money, I remind myself. I wanted to help people fall in love. And there’s always hope that [email protected] will find the “chronic cuddler” he’s looking for. Good thing I didn’t add multimedia empire to the plan. I don’t need another thing on there to remind me of how little I’ve managed to get right.

“Give it some time to catch on,” C.J. writes over MSN. I tell him not to quit his day job. It’s bad enough that Sam and Trish’s latest trend newsletter is touting Buenosairesbrokenheartsclub.com as “a new organic approach to online dating” and “a Web trend to watch.” Letting myself down may be getting to be old hat, but letting my friends down is not something I want to get used to.

It’s all very depressing, in a daytime-talk-show sort of way. I throw myself into anything that will offer the relief of distraction. I return to El Taller with gusto, the life of the party again with exaggerated tales of Jamie’s and my adventures in the wild Argentine desert. I make detailed lists of souvenirs left to buy. I help Andrea get ready for Martin’s holiday homecoming. I bake my famous shortbread cookies. I bathe the dogs, soaking myself in the process, much to Jorge’s delight. I loop the banister with garlands and string greeting cards above the fireplace—something Andrea learned from Mateo’s tales of Christmas in Chicago, she tells me cautiously. “My family did that, too,” I say merrily and change the subject to popcorn garlands. When I’m not helping around the house, I go for long walks with my digital camera and take pictures of absolutely everything.

I even let Dan drag me all over the city for a few days, checking off things from his must-see list. I’ve been making excuses not to see him since I got back—feeling like a complete and total fraud around him—but it’s his last week in Buenos Aires. Besides, I tell myself, a few daytime outings can’t do any harm.

Monday we subway to Puerto Madero, the city’s docks. Recently refurbished, the area is new and white and clean. Once you’ve surveyed the water in either direction, there isn’t much else to see, so we drink cold beers at a stand on the boardwalk and shield ourselves from the sun with laminated menus. I make a point of using the word “friend” a lot, as in “Well, friend, that’s enough beer for me,” and punch him in the arm a couple of times like I’ve seen Trish’s brother do to her.

Tuesday we visit Evita’s grave. Zoey was right—the famed tomb is rather unremarkable, with its sober black marble and simple engraved lettering. But the cemetery in general doesn’t disappoint. Grand sloping trees, Gothic angels, and—like Zoey said—rotting caskets so close you could touch them if you wanted. It all makes for an eerie walk, despite the noon sun overhead and the mews of grave cats sprawling in the heat. I snap a couple dozen digital photos. Dan with Evita. Dan with cats. Dan pretending to touch a casket.

“I missed you when you were gone,” he says while I fiddle with the light settings.

“Well you better get used to it,” I say as jovially as possible, punching him in the arm again. “Word has it Boston is pretty far from Seattle.” I feel like a jerk, but Dan just smiles and strikes a goofy pose in front of an ornate cross. “Hurry up, woman. You’re wasting my light.”

Wednesday we spend an afternoon window-shopping in the posh neighborhood of Recoleta, eating
helado
and talking about the heat. The shops are beautiful, each display holding an immaculate collection of merchandise I can’t afford. One small outdoor mall has run its sidewalk with red carpet.

“I feel underdressed,” I say.

“You look lovely,” he says with all sincerity. “As always.”

Dan is the one who looks lovely, dressed in cream-colored linen pants and a white shirt that shows off his not offensively large muscles. His hair is perfectly coiffed into waves. He’s gotten a bit of a tan these last few weeks, I notice. Other women notice, too. Wherever we go, female eyes seem to follow. And they don’t even know how good he is on paper, I remind myself. If I hadn’t been derailed by pointless feelings for Mateo, I surely would have fallen for Dan a long time ago. We always have fun together. We have tons in common. The few times we had sex, it was nice. Happy unions have been formed on less. And it would be so easy. Dan is plug-and-play, ready-to-wear. There are no deep secrets, no trolleys full of baggage to stumble over in the dark. He never talks about his ex anymore. He chose to move on and that’s exactly what he did. These are the qualities I’m looking for. These are the qualities I’ve written down in The Plan.

“Aw, shucks,” I say and make a face. I’d punch his arm, but he’s too far away.

Dan walks ahead, then stops at a jewelry store to admire a row of men’s watches.

“See something you like?” I ask.

He turns to face me. “I certainly do.”

I blush, feeling instantly embarrassed and awkward. How sad that statements like this don’t fill me with glee. I look through the glass at the selection. “That red croc band is pretty sharp. Or the brown one—more classic.”

“Everything’s nice,” he says. “If you could pick one thing from this window, what would it be?” Dan is always asking me questions like this, as though we are speed-dating. In the past three months, I’ve discovered that I would live in Italy first, then France; would rather be a rock star than a movie star; and want to come back as a horse. It’s best, I’ve learned, to go along with the game.

“Hmmm. Just one, huh? I know what I definitely wouldn’t pick.” I point to the large diamond set in yellow gold near the front.

“Too big?”

“Too Jeff. My engagement ring was almost identical.”

Dan nods, understanding. Dan always understands.

“It’s funny,” I say with a sardonic chuckle. “Half my life, I wanted a ring like that. I saw a picture of one like it in a catalog that came to our house, you know, one of those fancy Christmas flyers. My mom and I picked it out.” We’d torn the page out of the catalog and put it in my jewelry box, like a wish. “Seems kind of strange now. I was only fifteen. I hadn’t even had a real boyfriend yet, but I knew I would get that ring someday.”

“And you did.”

“Yeah.” I smile, thinking of how I paid for this trip. “I sure did.”

“So if not that ring, which one?”

The question surprises me. The kind of ring I got was so important to me all those years, was one of the first things I wrote in the original plan, and yet I haven’t even thought about such things since I’ve been here. Too busy sorting out the more pressing questions, I guess. “I don’t know. Haven’t thought about it. Maybe . . . that one.” I tap the glass near the middle of the display. A demure square diamond, simple white-gold band. The opposite of what I’ve always wanted.

“Excellent choice, madam,” he says in a bad English accent, and we move on to mock a display of bejeweled pet accessories. “For the dog who has everything,” Dan jokes.

“When kibble isn’t good enough.” I chuckle. See, I am genuinely having fun.

Thursday’s activities are my choice. I take Dan to the old café downtown, where elderly waiters in black vests and red bow ties serve strong coffee with delicate cookies. He marvels at the memorabilia on the walls. Every inch of wall is covered with old posters announcing the jazz and tango bands that played here decades ago, yellowing soda ads encased behind glass, and trumpets and trombones strung about. The Christmas decorations are nothing compared to the gleaming attraction of these ancient treasures.

We have four cafés con leche, a chicken sandwich, lima bean soup, and three chocolate
medialunas
between us. Dan talks about Boston, its historic neighborhoods, his friends, the nightlife, the Red Sox. I’d love it there, he says. Everybody does. I’m jealous of his excitement. I try to conjure this enthusiasm for Seattle, to tell Dan about the things I love back home, but I sound like I’m reading from a tourist brochure.

“You miss it,” he says, nodding with empathy.

“What’s not to miss?” I say, shivering slightly.

“Are you cold?” he asks. “Those fans are doing too good a job.”

“Yeah,” I say and wrap my hands around the hot cup in front of me for comfort.

When lunch is done and I can’t possibly eat another bite, I offer to take Dan to the English bookstore I found a few months back so he can buy something to read on the marathon plane ride home. After we’ve wandered in circles for twenty minutes and I’ve relived the first day of my Spanish lessons, I reluctantly admit that I’ve forgotten where it is. I ask at a newspaper stand, but the man has no idea.

“That’s okay,” Dan says cheerily. “As long as I can sit down for a minute, I’m happy.” And he is. Thinking back over the months, I can’t remember Dan ever getting upset or bothered about anything. Dan pulls at his sideburns, which means he’s thinking. “We passed a park a couple of blocks back, didn’t we?”

I nod and follow him back the way we came. As he passes a group of women eating their lunch on a bench, all heads swivel his way.

“You know, you’re going to make some lucky girl very happy one day,” I say.

He looks over at me, grins, and shakes his head. He points across the street. “There it is.”

I stop abruptly. Plaza de Mayo. The Madres. I can see the top of the small obelisk that they circle every Thursday afternoon. I think of those old women taking slow, arthritic steps around the monument, Augustina and her grandmother Leonora gushing over me the last time I was here, the numerous e-mails they’ve sent thanking me for my help. The newspaper article. Mateo. So much for distraction.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” I say. I want to stay and see the Madres, but I can’t.

“Where?”

I try to remember the list of places that I absolutely had to see, but I draw a blank. “How about there?” I point to a sketchy-looking restaurant across the street. “I’m kind of hungry.”

“Already?”

I shrug.

“Come on.” Dan grabs my hand and pulls me in the direction of the park. “I’ll buy you a bag of those candy peanuts you love so much.”

“No, really, let’s go somewhere else.”

“What’s going on?” Dan steps back and gives me a good look.

“Nothing.” He’s not buying it, but he drops it. He’s so easygoing that way. Oh, why can’t I like him more? He’s perfect for me. There is something seriously wrong with me. I must be a masochist, falling only for guys with the potential to break my heart. Like him, I tell myself, for God’s sake, like him. Like him like him like him. If only it were that simple.