The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club (7 page)

Except that I do. Yes, definitely. I really, really do. I can feel my planlessness creeping under my skin like an itch. Denying it won’t help. It will only spread out and get stronger, maddeningly so, until I scratch it. As soon as Andrea comes back, I’ll excuse myself and set to work. I’ve got my travel guide, and Sam and Trish gave me a bunch of books on the area as a parting gift. I can start with those to figure out a list of must-see places. There is also that website with a forum that’s supposed to have a lot of great info direct from travelers. Andrea confirmed that my suite is wired for Internet, though I’ll need to buy a power converter for my laptop.

Ah, there. I’m feeling better already. Thinking about going outside is frightening, but thinking about thinking about going outside I can handle. So long as there’s a plan.

Then I notice a picture of
him
. My welcome wagon. Anger starts to rise again until it dawns on me how different he looks in the photographs. Here he’s sitting at a café with Andrea and a group of people. They look younger, in their early twenties maybe. They are all leaning in together, shoulders touching, and smiling warmly at the camera. There he’s in a crowd with Jorge on his shoulders, looking up and laughing. In another, he stands beside Andrea and the tall man I assume is her husband. He’s smiling here, too, but it’s not a happy smile. In fact, it looks a lot like the smile I’ve been putting on for the last three weeks, a smile you wear for the sake of others. It makes me want to like him.

Not everyone makes a good first impression, I suppose. Speaking of which, maybe my own wasn’t so great, either. Suddenly, I feel guilty about getting so mad. I might be paying rent, but I am still the foreigner here. But how to make a better second impression? To start, I’ve got to learn some Spanish, break open that language CD that’s buried in my suitcase. Fluency isn’t going to happen anytime soon, but surely I can manage to avoid this person until I’ve learned a few basics.

Learn Spanish. Yes. The decision makes me feel instantly better, calmer. It’s another item to add to my plan, I think happily, popping another mini-croissant into my mouth. Pleased with myself, I decide to celebrate with a bit more of Andrea’s superb coffee. As I reach for the carafe, I hear someone jiggling the handle on a door behind me. Jorge must have led Andrea on a chase through the entire house. I stand up to help, assuming she’ll have her hands full with child, dogs, and probably more food, but before I can reach the handle, the door flies open. Startled, I step back, stumble over something, and land flat on my butt at exactly the moment
he
walks through the door.

I swallow my mouthful of croissant down hard. I might look ridiculous right now, but I’m determined to keep my dignity. A situation is embarrassing only if you let yourself be embarrassed, right? His eyes meet mine and I try to push out a self-deprecating laugh, but I haven’t managed to swallow completely, and bits of croissant fly out of my mouth and onto the front of my dress. Now he’s the one who’s laughing. You’re a guest in his country, I remind myself. This is Andrea’s friend or brother, perhaps, and she is a kind woman who has gone out of her way to make you feel welcome. And to be fair, this must look pretty funny.

I can’t help it. Anger, residual and freshly brewed, bubbles up. This man has done anything but make me feel welcome. I’m about to give him a piece of my mind when he reaches out his hand. He’s not completely devoid of common decency, I see. Part of me wants to ignore his offer, but we’re mending intercultural relations here. Very important stuff. I can be gracious. Yes, even an American can be gracious!

I offer him my hand. He takes it and smiles, not at all amused this time—genuinely warm and open. Did Jeff ever smile at me like this? Where did that question come from? I can feel it in my stomach, a tingling warmth spreading out to my fingertips. He lifts me slowly, and I allow myself the fleeting romantic-comedy movie fantasy of our faces drawing closer and closer together until—

There’s a loud crash somewhere in the house, followed by a fury of tapping and scratching. We look at each other, eyes wide. He releases my hand and, not quite on my feet yet, I go crashing down once more. My butt is really going to kill later. He blushes and mumbles something in Spanish. An apology? Before I can say anything, he slips back out the door he came in.

The tapping and scratching are getting louder, closer, but I can’t seem to will myself to get up. I lie on the floor and wallow in my latest humiliation. Now I’ve been dropped, figuratively and literally, by two men on two continents. Maybe someone is trying to tell me something. Maybe that whole nunnery thing isn’t such a crazy option. As I imagine myself in a habit, something wet smacks me in the head. I reach up to retrieve a damp, fuzzy toy in the shape of a bone. Ewww.

“Jorge!
¡Basta!
”

Andrea, Jorge, and a canine hurricane tumble into the room together through yet another door that I hadn’t noticed. I’m starting to feel like Alice in Wonderland. Before I can become the next dog toy, I scramble to my feet. The dogs tumble into the wall behind me, sniff about for a few seconds, and, locating the object of their collective desire, tumble out of the room again.

Andrea swoops Jorge up with one arm. “Oh, Cassandra! Are you okay?”

“Oh, yes, fine.” I brush croissant off my front. “All in one piece.”

“I’m sorry. I leave you all alone. The dogs . . . You see yourself all the trouble.”

“Oh, that’s okay. And I wasn’t alone. I met . . . uh . . . ” The infuriatingly rude Argentine man who has instantly turned me into a bumbling mess. “Um, curly hair?” Well done, Cassie.

“Oh, Mateo!” She claps her hands. “You meet Mateo! My dear friend Mateo!”

“Mateo,” I repeat. The name slides over my tongue much too easily. What did I expect? Bob or Joe? He is Argentine, I remind myself. But did his name have to be so damn sexy? I want to say it out loud again, feel the unknown syllables on my lips, but that would be strange, wouldn’t it?

“He fix everything for me all the time. He’s like second husband.” She giggles at the joke, and Jorge joins in.

“That’s very sweet of him,” I say, imagining Mateo rushing over to screw in lightbulbs, brown muscles rippling under his T-shirt as he twists the bulb . . . What? No, no, no. No rippling muscles. Not sweet. Not sweet at all. I try to change the subject. “Before. Upstairs. He knocked on my door and I opened it.” Okay, now I sound like a total idiot.

Andrea looks at me, amused or confused, I can’t tell. Then her face brightens with recognition, and she smiles widely. “He’s very handsome,
sí
?”

“What? I guess.” Am I blushing?

“Good thing you wear a dress today,
sí
?”

“What? Oh.” I look down at my dress and feel my face flush a deep hot red. I’d normally pull on jeans and a T-shirt on a day off, and if this isn’t a day off, I don’t know what is. Was all this for him, a complete stranger who seems to be going out of his way to make me feel utterly unwelcome? “I didn’t . . . I just . . .” I give up.

“He is single, you know.” She winks at me.

“Oh. Well.” I laugh awkwardly, push the idea away with my hands. “Actually, Mateo and I . . . I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

“On wrong foot? What does this mean, please?”

“Uh, we, I don’t think he likes me very much.”

“Now, that would be very surprising, I think.” She winks again and pinches my arm lightly. If she only knew how he’d acted. I’m tempted to tell her that her dear friend dropped me on my ass, but she’d probably construe that into some grand courting gesture. Eager to take the focus off of me, I try to catch Jorge’s attention with a big, goofy smile, but he just buries his head in his mother’s red curls. Is every man in this house determined not to like me?

“Come, sit. Finish your breakfast.”

“Oh, I’m fine, thanks. I’m full. Everything was really good. Thank you so much.” I’m still a bit hungry, but mostly I want to go upstairs, peel off this stupid dress, get under the covers, and figure out my next move. Enough of all this Mateo nonsense. No cute Argentine jerk is going to come between me and my new plan. “I should probably unpack.”

“Oh, Cassandra, I’m sorry,” Andrea says, dipping a piece of croissant in honey for Jorge. “Mateo must do work in your apartment today. I buy new air conditioner. You will want it soon, I think, when summer comes. Maybe one hour, maybe two. It’s okay?” Apparently, the cute Argentine jerk
is
going to come between me and my plan.

“Okay, yes. Thank you. That’s very nice of you.” I’m saying “thank you,” but I can feel my face pulling down. I scrape up a smile for Andrea’s sake.

“You have big plans for your first day, yes?” How can I tell her that my big plans were to stay inside and make plans? That I would spend the next six months making plans if I could?

“Yes, oh yes. Big plans. Huge.” There’s that converter for the electrical socket. And a hair dryer. I could get some groceries. I can go for a walk around the block—about fifty times.

“Marvelous. You will have so much fun, I know.”

Only when I step through the enormous doors that separate the main house from the old carriage port do I realize that not only do I not have a plan, I don’t have my purse. There’s no way around it: Mateo or no Mateo, I will have to go into the apartment. I can handle it. In and out. He won’t even know I’m there.

Except it turns out that he’s the one who’s not there. And there it is—an unmistakable feeling of disappointment. I go inside the apartment, find my purse, two city guides, and a translation dictionary without incident. God, what is wrong with me? I don’t even know this person. He could have an IQ of 37. He could have a really small . . . shoe size. He dropped me on my ass. He is rudeness personified. I repeat this in my head like a mantra to ward off bad, stupid thoughts, and before I know it, I am outside, locking the front door behind me. As the lock clicks into place, a cool breeze tickles my bare shoulders and sends a shiver through my entire body. That's when I realize one very good thing about Mateo. For a short while, he made me forget exactly what I’ve gotten myself into.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
wo blocks up, two blocks left, two blocks down, two blocks right. Head down to avoid the mines the canine population has left for me every twenty or so feet, I walk a square pattern, not so much to avoid getting lost (I do have a map—okay, three) but to avoid feeling more lost than I already do. I realize that this route will take me back to the front door of Andrea’s yellow house, but that’s about as much excitement as I can take right now.

The population of Buenos Aires is, thankfully, spread out, and the neighborhood—my neighborhood, I suppose—is rather peaceful now that the drag queens have retreated. My occasional sidewalk companions are mostly solitary Argentines moving quickly and with serious intent. It’s the middle of the day in the middle of the week, after all, and unlike me, these people have places to go, people to see. At the first stirrings of jealousy, I remind myself to enjoy this rare opportunity of pure, guilt-free leisure—a delicacy I haven’t tasted in years. But it’s no use. The thought of wandering aimlessly is enough to make me run back to the apartment, Mateo or no Mateo. I need something to propel me forward. I focus on the plug converter and new hair dryer I need. Hardly a checkmark-worthy goal, but better than no goal at all.

I recall Andrea mentioning something last night about a grocery store and other shops on the main street a few blocks over. Assuming I’ll find a hardware or electronics store there, I take a sharp turn and cross the quiet street with what feels vaguely like enthusiasm.

Now that I have a plan, short-term as it may be, I indulge in a slower gait, wanting to draw out this feeling of purpose as long as possible. After I buy a hair dryer, what will I do with myself? I push away the question and try not to think too far ahead. Peppered among the more modern concrete apartment buildings are beautiful gems of architecture that assert happier, more prosperous chapters into the city’s current story. Strolling from block to block, I am faced again and again with the disparity between what this place is and what it must have once been. One neighbor’s house crumbles from neglect as another’s stands proud and cared for, a representative of a surviving elite. Some homes have been given up on completely, for-sale signs propped up against boarded windows. Another seems to have been abandoned in a hurry. The upstairs windows are shuttered tight, the front gate left ajar. Three cats loll about in a deep, thick garden overgrown with weeds. Someone started painting the pale blue walls a pretty ballet pink and then gave up a third of the way. There are no ladders or paint cans visible, so I can only assume that the painting stopped some time ago. I stop and stare for a minute, intrigued by the mystery of it. Even in such a state of disrepair, this humbled structure has an undeniable charm. But my curiosity shifts quickly into discomfort. What would make someone stop painting in the middle like that? I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but it does. I can’t get it out of my mind. It’s not the hopelessness about it or the sense of defeat—so many of the houses have that same sad air about them. It’s the half-painted wall, the fact that whoever lived there looked forward to a bright future that included pink paint. There must have been much life and love there once. No one paints a house pink if they aren’t ridiculously happy. No one stops painting halfway unless that happiness was abruptly taken away. The explanation can’t be only financial; unlike the other homes in similar states of disrepair, this one has no for-sale signs. No, inside those walls, someone’s life went sideways. I can feel it. And that’s when I realize, rather uncomfortably, that if I were a house I would look exactly like this.

I walk on, the neighborhood offering little in the way of a visual salve but much in the way of distraction. A stylish boutique window displays gorgeous leather shoes and handbags—with posh price tags to match, no doubt. I remind myself that a woman with no paycheck has to watch her spending.

Farther down, an old woman sits cross-legged on an old tablecloth, sandwich bags filled with herbs and spices spread out around her. The sun-dried faces of old men on the corner arguing gently over a chessboard contain at once a heartbreaking humility and a fierce pride. When I pass, they tip their heads in acknowledgment but offer no smiles. I return the gesture with as much gravitas as I can muster in a sundress and flip-flops. Stopping at a corner to let a motorcycle pass, I notice the concrete slab is marked with an elaborate emblem and the year 1887. Just ahead on a plain gray wall, artful graffiti calls out against the country’s latest president. From this surface view, the contradictions are wondrous. I’m beginning to wish I paid more attention in that Latin American history class I took sophomore year.

One thing is clear: I am out of place in more ways than I can list. Different country? I feel like I’ve been beamed down from another planet. I don’t even look right. In Seattle, my blond hair and mostly black wardrobe were as common as a rainy day. Before I left, I had a ridiculous notion that, with a few subtle tweaks, I could blend right in here. I wasn’t about to dye my hair brown (I’ve had enough life-altering traumas for a while, thank you), but I did bring only the most summery clothes I owned. I didn’t exactly imagine a city bustling with women in tiered, multicolored skirts and flowing peasant blouses—okay, maybe I did a little bit—but I expected a bit more Latin flavor. Yet aside from the woman selling spices, everyone here dresses a heck of a lot like the people in Seattle. In fact, despite the warm spring day, most people are wearing pants or jeans, sweaters, and jackets just as they are on my side of the world where it’s autumn. And if my sundress doesn’t make me feel displaced enough, my blond hair clinches the deal. In a city where the locals look like extras from a Fellini film, I might as well be wearing a neon sign that reads
AMERICANA
.

The more I walk, the more my shoulders round in. My step becomes heavier and more condensed. I pull my shoulder bag tight against my side. It’s a stance I recall from my first day at college when I realized too late that I had gotten my outfit completely wrong (it would take me a few weeks to master the post-grunge, neo-hippie look so popular at the time). I am trying to shrink myself. I know that I can’t prevent other people from noticing me, but I can minimize how much I notice me.

As I consider turning around and heading back to the house empty-handed, a young boy tears past me, laughing. He holds an ice cream cone out in front of him like an Olympic torch. Another boy, older, his brother I’m guessing, chases after him. He brushes against me as he passes and stops abruptly.
“Excúseme, señora
.
Excúseme.”
Is it the running or is he blushing? He blurts a string of excited Spanish at me, pointing after his brother, fully unaware that I, the strange, blond, incorrectly dressed woman, can’t understand a word he is saying.

“
Está bien,
” I manage, surprising myself more than a little, and I smile. He grins shyly before darting away to find his ice cream thief. I resume my walk, still smiling. My shoulders straighten somewhat. My stride grows a touch braver. Maybe it’s not so very horrible being out here in this strange city, because maybe it’s really not that strange after all.

This new optimism lasts a whole thirty seconds. Then I turn onto a busy street.

Cars, people, dogs, all loud and impatient and seemingly indifferent to one another, swarm every inch of concrete. Kiosks selling everything from cigarettes to underwear crowd the narrow sidewalk. What was a light and playful wind a few hundred feet to the west is now a gritty gale kicking every loose bit of dirt and pollen into my eyes. Car horns, music blasting from storefronts, and scraps of Spanish conversation flood my ears.

The cacophony of sights and sounds is so overwhelming, I forget for a moment why I’ve left my safe two-block square. I needed something, didn’t I? Something important? As hard as I rack my brain, I can’t remember. And while we’re at it, why am I here? In this place. What propelled me here? Did I hope for a new home? A new fiancé? A new job? A new life? The questions are harder to bear than the jackhammer that’s begun work on the curb to my right.

I wish Jeff were here, his long arms wrapped around me, my face finding that warm, musky nook at the base of his neck. I don’t know if I’d say Jeff made me feel safe, exactly—look to men for that, and you’re sure to be disappointed, as my mother drilled into me from a young age—but there was the sense of comfort when he was around, a sort of safety in numbers. When I was still living in my apartment near the university but spending most of my time at Jeff’s, I came home one Sunday evening to a wasps’ nest under construction in my living room. There were no wasps that I could see, but that only meant they were coming back, didn’t it? When I called him, hysterical, he didn’t hesitate for a second—he came right over and took that horrid thing off my ceiling armed with nothing but an old margarine container and my oven gloves. I stood outside the whole time, certain a hurricane of angry, homeless wasps would return at any moment. With the hive locked up tight in the plastic container and tossed down the garbage shoot, and all the windows in my apartment sealed tight, Jeff whisked me off to my favorite bistro for a pitcher of sangria to celebrate my courage. Later, as we lay spent under his Egyptian cotton sheets, he whispered into my ear, “I like it when you need me.” I drew his arm across my chest and curled into him. For the moment I liked needing him.

And now it’s just me. No arm, no nook. Those are Lauren’s now.

I have to get off this street, away from these thoughts. A block away is a wall of trees that looks promising. I glance at the map, trying desperately to avoid looking any more like an outsider than I already do. There it is, a square of green shining out like a beacon to this weary urban traveler.

The park looks as weary as I feel, but as I enter it, relief washes over me in waves of calm, lush green. Wrought-iron and wood benches bend and buckle from age. Modest statues and fountains have given in to decades of poor weather. And the most amazing thing: cats.

They’re everywhere. Black, calico, tabby, orange, spotted, striped, tailless, scarred. They lounge like kings and queens on any still surface that will hold their weight. Around the park’s perimeter, people have left piles of cat food, cans of tuna, and other edible offerings. I walk slowly, careful not to scare these tiny citizens, but they clearly have no fear of me. Only a few lift their heads to watch me pass. I am simply one more visitor to their feline haven. My flip-flops beginning to pinch between my toes, I look for a cat-free bench, but such a thing doesn’t seem to exist. I ask a Morris look-alike if he minds company, but his only response is a lazy tail flick. I suppose he doesn’t speak English. I sit.

It’s nice—the cats, the relative quiet, the bit of green. Jeff would like this, I think. Except for the cats. He hates cats. Not big on dogs, either. I love animals. Would we have ended up with birds or fish? I wonder. Not that it matters now. None of it does. All those plans for the future. Didn’t they mean anything to him? Didn’t I? It wasn’t all in my head, was it? There was something real and special there. That week we spent with his whole family at his grandparents’ house in Oregon when I helped his mom and grandmother make an enormous Ukrainian feast. I was in that kitchen for six hours. After everyone fell asleep, we drove to the beach and made love on a blanket. Jeff said that he was proud of me, how I settled into his loud, funny family so easily, how I made them fall in love with me. All those Sunday mornings at Sammy’s Diner, sharing three kinds of eggs Benedict because we could never pick just one each, telling each other stories from our respective sections of the newspaper. Didn’t Jeff tell me once that he knew we were meant to be by the way we did the crossword? And the night he proposed. From the French champagne to the beautiful ring, it was exactly the way I’d always imagined it. He told me he knew it was time to get serious, that all the pieces of his life were coming together. How do you go from that to being too perfect? Am I really too perfect, or is he deeply flawed? Or scared? Maybe it was all bullshit.

I shake my head. Morris looks up briefly and closes his eyes again. What am I doing? I’ve already been through all of this. I had all the late-night crying sessions with Sam and Trish. I spent countless hours over the last two weeks on the phone screaming at Jeff; I heard all of his weak excuses and even weaker apologies. I moved out of our apartment and into my parents’ house. I endured my mother’s dramatic silences—her only communication to me coming in the form of increasingly hostile Post-it missives, like the one I found on my toothbrush:
If you get maimed or disfigured in Argentina, what nice American boy will want you?
—and my stepfather’s sympathetic smiles. I removed myself from our joint checking account. I sold my beautiful engagement ring. And now I’m here. In a park full of cats. Period. End of story.

But before I can stop it, my heart is off and running. Shortness of breath follows. The sounds in the park are mixing into a low-pitched yet unmistakable buzzing. I close my eyes and dig around for something happy to think about, something that instills a sense of calm. I need a mental reboot. This means pushing out all thoughts of Jeff, which, ironically, used to calm me more than anything. I need something to fill the space he’s left inside of me. I can feel my pulse in my neck and behind my knees. My left arm is tingling. Something happy. Something happy. Sam and Trish gossiping over drinks at Jimmy’s. No, that makes me miss them. I picture my stepdad, always so calm and reassuring, but that instantly makes me think about my mom—the look of horror on her face when she realized I was actually getting on the plane, her voice shrieking after me, the “what were you thinking” speech I’d be getting if she were here—which is the opposite of relaxing. Come on, Cassie. There’s got to be something good to think about. There is always something good. A few weeks ago this would have been easy. There was a list of a dozen things I could tick off to get through a low-level anxiety attack. Now I’m struggling to find one single solitary thing that doesn’t send me over the edge.