The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club (9 page)

“Then we go home.” Home. That word used to fill me with such comfort. “And you have dinner with us.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” I feel bad—she must get lonely with her husband gone all the time—but I have important things to do. Like organize my T-shirts by fabric and color.

“You have plans? You go out?”

“Oh, no.” I want to tell her my plans, but I wonder if they’ll translate into “I’m loco.” “I just don’t want to impose.”

“Oh, I thought maybe you have a date.” She giggles, and Jorge follows suit. “Maybe with Mateo.” Mateo? Why in the world would she think that? Is she teasing me? Does she know that Mateo and I took an instant dislike to each other? If she does, that would have to mean that Mateo talked to her about me. I can only imagine how flattering he must have been.

“Mateo? No. No, no. Nothing like that.” I am aware of the rising pitch in my voice. I don’t need to look in the mirror behind me to know that I have gone as red as Andrea’s hair.

“Then you must come. It is only me and Jorge. We would love your company.”

I guess I could squeeze some time from my busy schedule. “All right,” I say. “Thank you. That would be nice.” I smile at Jorge, who replies by scowling and tucking his head into Andrea’s armpit. One of these days, that kid is going to like me.

The three blocks to the market, Jorge runs a few feet ahead of us and then back, ahead and back. This is the movement of someone who feels safe, and it’s difficult not to be jealous. As we walk, Andrea does most of the talking. About how the neighborhood has changed in the past decade, about the young people who are moving in and starting businesses, about the older families who lost their savings and are moving out. “Out with the old, in with the new,” she says. “Isn’t that what you Americans say?” I nod, more than content to listen. Her singsong voice and those delightfully rolled R’s nearly drown out Jeff’s voice mail recording, which stills plays over and over in my head.

“That was my school.” She points across the street to a stern-looking structure with few windows. “Mateo was in my class. All the little girls were crushed by him.” She has my attention, but before I can learn more, she’s trailed off, indulging in a few silent memories, perhaps.

“It doesn’t look like a school,” I say, wondering too late if that sounds culturally insensitive. “I mean, I don’t see a playground or anything.”

“Listen.” She stops and looks up at the sky. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to listen for, but then I hear them. Children laughing.

In the city, schools have walled courtyards, she tells me. “For safety.” You can’t see the children, she says, but you can always hear them. We walk on. She doesn’t mention Mateo again.

The market is . . . a market. Bored cashiers stand beside cash registers that pling and chirp. Long lines snake around pillars and displays of sale items. Skinny stock boys skulk around corners, armed with pricing guns and coils of orange stickers. Jars, bottles, and boxes display familiar brands from my favorite peanut butter to the hair color I use. I guess they’re called multinational companies for a reason. Oh well, I think, one more thing that’s failed to live up to my expectations. Maybe people with low expectations are on to something.

It’s easy to hide my disappointment from Andrea, who zips deftly down aisle after aisle, snatching items from the shelves with barely a look. As we move through the store, she keeps a running commentary, pointing out the best brand of fresh ravioli and counseling me on the characteristics of a cheese I’ve never heard of. This would almost count for an exotic food if it didn’t look precisely like the slabs of Edam and provolone beside it. Jorge disappears every few minutes and returns with a can of black olives, a chocolate bar with almonds, squeezable mustard, a bag of red grapes, a baguette that’s as tall as he is, anchovy paste. Andrea puts each of his treasures in her cart without breaking speech or stride. Not much of a cook, I drop a few essentials and some treats for snacking into my green basket. (If only I knew where Jorge got that chocolate bar.) When Andrea’s cart starts to overflow in the dairy section, we turn sharply and head for the checkout.

On the walk back to the yellow house, I sate my growing hunger with bites from a mini-baguette while Andrea continues with her seminar on the neighborhood. Closer to home, the history gets personal. Each beautiful house I admired this morning has a story, and Andrea condenses them for me as we lug our bags past. Her husband went to school with a girl who lived in the redbrick house on the corner. Set back ten or so feet from the edge of the sidewalk and protected by a black gate adorned with detailed ironwork, this house has a structural disdain for its surroundings. The girl, Andrea tells me, squandered her inheritance long before the economy failed, on a man she met in Brazil, where Andrea was born. “She still lives here, but the number of men who come and go—well . . .” Andrea shakes her head. Down the block is Rosaria’s, a modest white building with a weathered red awning. Real estate listings cover its windows. “The woman, she was a famous prostitute,” Andrea says, grinning at me. “Now she is one of the wealthiest people in the neighborhood. People like the story, I think. I like her. She is full of life. Always laughing.” There are more stories; most are less sensational, but most involve a loss of fortune and dignity. You don’t need an A in freshman world history to see that’s a common theme here.

As we near the half-painted blue and pink stucco home I passed earlier, I expect a particularly juicy story, but Andrea doesn’t say a word. Quite the opposite: She goes uncharacteristically silent. But I have to know. “What about this old place?” I ask, trying not to sound too eager. “Do you know who lives here?”

Andrea stops to contemplate. “This house,” she whispers, “this house has a very sad story.”

“Did they lose all their money, too?”

“No, something more special.”

Jorge, walking on the far side of her, grabs her hand, pulls her down to his height, and whispers something in her ear. “
Sí, amore. Sí,
” she sings back to him gently, swooping her little man up in her arms and giving him a squeeze. He squawks in protest, and she covers his face in kisses. “He is hungry,” she says, smiling again. “And so am I. Come. It’s dinnertime.” As we start again, a light comes on in the pink and blue house, but Andrea is too far ahead to notice. We walk the rest of the way in silence.

“Here we are.” Andrea’s voice startles me. She unlocks the great door to her yellow house, and the second it swings open, Jorge runs through, shrieking. The dogs appear from around a corner at full speed, and they all disappear into the dark house. Andrea flips on the lights in the entrance. “Dinner?”

“Thanks so much for everything, Andrea,” I say. “But I’m so tired, I think I’ll go to bed. If you don’t mind.” The truth is, as lonely as I’ve felt all day, I’m suddenly not in the mood for company.

“Oh, of course. Of course. You are not used to Argentine hours yet.”

“No, not yet.” I pass her a bag of groceries.

“I hope it is okay in the apartment,” she says as I make my way toward the stairs. “Mateo said he finishes everything.”

“Thanks. I’m sure it’s great. Thanks again.”

Once inside the apartment, I drop my groceries in the foyer and sink into the bed. I should have called my parents. My mom’s probably frantic with worry. If only I’d remembered that plug converter, I could have managed a few happy-sounding e-mails.
Hi, everyone, I’m still alive, ha ha. My apartment is gorgeous. I walked the neighborhood today. Met a hundred cats. Bought a hair dryer—very important—a lovely block of cheese, and some cheap red wine. I’m practically a local now!
In its abridged version, it almost sounds fun, doesn’t it?

I glance wistfully in the direction of my laptop bag. It isn’t there. Oh, God, my laptop isn’t there. I rush over and lift each piece of luggage a dozen times. Nothing. I rummage through every article of clothing. Nothing. Jeez, Cassie, think. I swear I left it right here with everything else, but I wasn’t in the most lucid state last night. I scan the room, and there it is, sitting atop a desk against the far wall. Funny, I hadn’t noticed that desk before. Did Andrea say something about Mateo bringing up a desk? I don’t think so.

Like every other piece of furniture in the room, it’s lovely. An antique, no doubt, with a large writing surface and lots of drawers. And that’s when I notice the best part of all. Beside my laptop bag and a small vase of purple freesia sits a plug converter. It is an invitation I can’t ignore. I plug it in and turn on my laptop, ready to reconnect.

CHAPTER FIVE

You’ll have to bear with me. I am no writer. Just an ex-Web producer, ex-fiancée, and temporarily ex-Seattleite who’s ended up in Buenos Aires by some bizarre stroke of drunk luck. I am scared, lonely, and consumed by a constant state of dread that I will never find my way back to the life I want. So how did I get to here? That is the question I keep asking myself. Heartbreak? This is more like total devastation.

Just to catch you up—assuming that someone is actually reading this—I lost my job and my fiancé and my home in one day. Then in a moment of temporary (martini-induced) insanity, I booked a six-month trip to . . . where am I again? Ah, yes, glamorous Argentina, where all the dumped and fabulous are going these days. Why, isn’t that Paris Hilton over there?

Yeah, right. So far this trip has been anything but glamorous, and I definitely don’t feel fabulous. Although my landlady’s friend and handyman, M, did make me feel rather fabulous when he knocked on my door my first morning here and welcomed me to his country by laughing in my face. Okay, so I didn’t look so hot in my slept-in clothes, and I couldn’t understand a word he said, but I was jet-lagged and, kill me, I’m not from here. Of course, he did try to make amends later by dropping me on my ass. Boy, did I ever feel fabulous then. So fabulous, in fact, that now I’m scared to venture outside my suite for fear of running into him in the house. There’s only so much praise and adulation a gal can take.

But I’ve got more to worry about than an obnoxious (and, okay, beautiful) Argentine man who thinks he can get away with being a jerk just because he gets me the plug converter I need so I can use my laptop, which is how I’m writing this blog right now about how obnoxious he is. Speaking of which, why am I wasting perfectly good cyberspace on him? Back to the real story . . .

N
early seven hundred words later, I hit the publish button. Off goes my very first blog entry into cyberspace. It feels so good to write about what I’m going through here—to say all the things I can’t possibly say to anyone back home. If I said these things out loud to my parents, they would insist I come back immediately (which I’d be tempted to do but can’t if I want to maintain what little dignity I left Seattle with). Sam and Trish would ply me with well-meaning platitudes (what else could they do?), and I’ve had my share of those recently. The moment I put it all down on the screen, I am instantly lighter.

No small amount of pleasure is derived from the short rant I allowed myself on the subject of Mateo’s oh-so-warm welcome. Maybe writing that he’s a “stuck-up snob who thinks he’s better than everyone” was a bit harsh, but would anyone blame me for calling him an obnoxious jerk? What’s the harm, anyway? I’ve called him M to be on the safe side, not that he’s ever going to read it anyway.

Realistically, no one is. There are zillions of personal blogs like this that no one ever reads, aside from the blogger’s mom, maybe. Getting it all out is the important part. And one day when everything is right again, perhaps I’ll read through it and laugh. Even at the Mateo bits.

Because I’ve decided that one day I will look back on all of this with great fondness. To get to that point, I’ve also decided that Buenos Aires isn’t really all that big or all that scary. Admittedly, I haven’t seen much of it, and I know that empirically, it is a big city. Enormous, really. And maybe a little bit scary. Okay, totally terrifying, but why should that stop me? After all, Seattle is a large metropolis with occasional muggings and neighborhoods I dare not venture into, but it’s my home, and I love it. When I walk through Pioneer Square after the sun has gone down, I always get a good laugh watching the tourists clutch their bags and glance around nervously while they try to decipher the route to Pike Place Market from their complimentary hotel map. Now I’m supposed to turn into the frightened, bumbling tourist? Not happening. So what if it’s not safe to hail a taxi on the street here or travel south of certain streets? I’m a born urbanite. I eat, sleep, and breathe city. I dream in concrete and glass. I am big enough for this place. Sure there were a few (five) tough days of adjusting (crying), but culture shock (fear of the outside world) is to be expected. Perfectly normal. Like I told Sam and Trish yesterday via e-mail, it’s part of the process. If I hadn’t experienced some form of meltdown, I’d be worried something was wrong with me. And I’m fine now. Really. It’s simply a matter of putting things in perspective. As suspected, all I needed was a plan.

It has taken four days to set down my goals for this trip, but now that I have, a delicious sense of calm has settled over me. There will be no more anxiety attacks in cat parks or breakdowns in electronics stores for this savvy Seattle gal. Such things are simply not in The Plan. What is in The Plan:

WEEK 1

•  Start first draft of new plan (includes a list of sights to see before I go home); while working on new plan, it is perfectly acceptable to do little else

•  Stop thinking about Jeff

WEEK 2

•  Start travel blog (since I’ll be writing all those e-mails anyway)

•  Stop thinking about Jeff

•  Eat out in a restaurant

WEEK 3

•  Enroll in Spanish classes (twice a week minimum)

•  Research Argentina history online

•  Take walk around neighborhood and try to go a little farther or in a different direction each time

•  Get Jorge to like me!

•  Make an Argentine friend (Jorge doesn’t count)

•  Stop thinking about Jeff

And so on and so forth right up until the day I leave, when Andrea will take a picture of me to add to the collection on the side table in her living room. On that day I will be very sad to leave, I’ve decided, but (as clearly stated on page four of the spreadsheet) I will mostly be excited about the next phase of my life that can finally begin the moment I touch back down in Seattle.

Of course, I haven’t started my plan for that phase yet. Creating an itinerary for this six-month digression is one thing. Constructing a whole new life plan is another. One thing’s for sure—this time around, I’ve got to be way more careful. I left far too much to chance when I made the first plan. At nineteen, you think in broad strokes, and that’s exactly where I went wrong. Perfection is in the details. A serious life plan takes meticulous strategizing, fine-tuning, and, I’ve come to learn, a few contingency plans. But I’m working it all out in my head, and the bones of it are there. Soon the fleshy shape of my new and improved life will be as clear as the color-coding on a spreadsheet.

Until then I’m committed to making the most of my time here, of which remains 175 days and thirteen hours. I know because I’ve fashioned a rudimentary countdown calendar from a stack of Post-it notes. Each morning I pull off the top one to reveal the current date and how many days I have left. Yesterday I started to feel a little anxious about how big a stack of sticky yellow paper all those days added up to, so I pulled it apart into seven small piles, and I feel a whole lot better. A stack of twenty-five Post-it notes doesn’t look so hard.
I can do this. I am already doing this.
Each morning, hands clasped around a mug of Earl Grey, I groggily contemplate that first thoroughly manageable square of yellow papers and recite this with as much conviction as I can muster. It has become my new mantra.

This morning the I’m-okay-you’re-okay portion of my day is cut short when Andrea drops by to tell me the language school where her friend works has a beginners’ course starting in about two hours. “This is good news,
sí
?” How do I explain that I wasn’t even planning on researching classes until the day after tomorrow, never mind starting one today, to this kind woman who is grinning at me expectantly, thinking herself immensely helpful.

“Well, actually, I—” I stammer out a pathetic protest, but she shakes her head and hands me her cordless phone.

“You talk to Elena.”

In impeccable English, Elena tells me either I come today or I’ll have to wait three weeks for the next start date. “We are the best school in the city,” she says confidently. “And the teacher is very good. The students love her.” I know I can’t put this off until my second month. There must be a thousand Spanish classes in this city at any given time, but this is Andrea’s friend, and she does speak perfect English.

“Okay,” I tell her, and then, balking slightly, add, “Maybe.”

Elena gives me the address. It’s downtown.

“Downtown? Oh.” I hadn’t planned on venturing that far out for another three weeks, but did I really expect to find a language school right around the corner? Careless oversight. “That’s a bit far, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s easy,” Andrea interjects from the doorway. “You take the subway,” she says happily, pushing a map book at me. Is it my imagination, or is she trying to get me out of the house? I catch her eyes roaming from my pile of empty ravioli packages bursting from the garbage can in the kitchen to the rudimentary Post-it-note time line I’ve created along one wall to the state of my pajamas, which have yet to find the laundry room downstairs. I suppose the apartment has adopted the look of a hermit’s cave in the last few days, and I’m not doing too shabby a job at the role of resident hermit. It’s just that I needed to concentrate on my plan. Oh, jeez, is that a Post-it note stuck to my knee?

“Can we expect you today then, Cassandra?” Elena asks. Is it too late to back out? Would anyone buy it if I said I had a big day planned already? I peel the wayward sticky from my pajama bottoms, a move that isn’t going to help me convince Andrea I had intended to go anywhere other than back to bed with my laptop. Of course, I am a grown-up. I can say no. And I do have things to do. I do have a plan, dammit. A few weeks isn’t too long to wait, really. I can accomplish loads of other important things in that amount of time, with or without Spanish.

But then I remember Mateo shaking his head at me in the doorway, the easy laughter at this mess of an American who can’t speak the language. That feeling of utter ignorance is not something I want to experience again anytime soon. The last time I saw Mateo in the house, twiddling with the light switch in the front entrance, I ducked behind the giant ficus tree and then shimmied my way back up the stairway before he could see me. I was in desperate need of milk for yet another cup of tea, but, caffeine cravings be damned, I wasn’t about to let him make me feel stupid again. I waited for almost two hours, watching TV that I didn’t understand, until it was almost dark. Only when I heard voices and then the closing of Andrea’s heavy front door did I venture downstairs again. Not exactly my crowning moment, and not a scenario I want to repeat. And hadn’t I once vowed that the next time I saw him, I’d have the last word?

“Sure,” I tell Elena before I can change my mind. Where the confidence in my voice comes from, I can’t say. “I’ll see you soon. Thanks.” I hand the phone back to Andrea, who claps her free hand to my shoulder and gives it a squeeze before she goes.

So now I’ve got three city maps and a transit map spread out on the bed. Downtown Buenos Aires. Why do the maps always gray out the downtown? Are they trying to make it look more foreboding? No need. I am still getting used to the main street four blocks from here, venturing more than a few blocks onto its frantic sidewalks only when my supply of ravioli runs low. It’s probably not all that bad, I tell myself. I’m overreacting, falling victim to the worst travel tragedy: prejudice.

I consult my main guidebook for a bit of reassurance.

Downtown Buenos Aires, or Microcentro, is a loud, hurried mix of businesspeople, students, shoppers, and street vendors all vying for space on narrow sidewalks shaded by soaring modern towers. If you don’t like crowds, avoid Florida, a pedestrian street where shopping is a full-contact sport . . .

Okay, I’m not overreacting. Downtown Buenos Aires is going to eat me alive. I try not to think about it, to focus instead on planning my trip. Red, green, and blue subway lines weave their way across the transit map. I need the green line. I think. Six blocks to the nearest subway station, five stops, and about three blocks to the school. I can do this, I think, marking the school’s location on each map and highlighting the corresponding paths with a yellow marker. I am already doing this.

If I’m going to sit in a classroom again after all these years, I’m going to take it seriously. I throw on a pair of khaki pants, white button-down shirt, and comfortable black flats. I brush my hair back into a low ponytail and skip all but mascara and blush. Into my knapsack go four maps, one guidebook, a brand-new notepad, a fresh stack of Post-its, three pens, a pencil, a yellow highlighter, a bottle of water, what I hope is an Argentine protein bar, and an apple. Swinging the bag over my shoulder, I take one last look at myself in the mirror and laugh. It’s an absurd sight, to say the least, this twenty-eight-year-old woman from Washington State in Argentina, about to head off to Spanish class dressed like a seventeen-year-old prep-school senior. So absurd, in fact, that I almost miss the faint sensation, as I twist my key into the lock, that maybe, possibly, something wonderful is about to happen.

Getting on the subway is easy. Getting off is a little more difficult. The doors open on different sides for different stops. I’m not sure which side I need, and by the fourth stop, the car has filled to near capacity. (I’m sure there are dozens of interesting things to see if I were to look around, but I must concentrate on the stops.) I hover in the middle of two exits to hedge my bets, and when the doors open (on the right, I stash away in my memory), I let the flow of commuters carry me out, and up to the street.