The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club (20 page)

I’m roused from my thoughts by small scratching sounds, like nails on wood. “
Basta,
” I say toward the door, assuming it’s little Chico looking for a fetch partner as usual. The scratching doesn’t stop. I go to the door, but there’s no dog behind it. The house is quiet down below. The sound is coming from inside the apartment. The wind is strong, and the house is old and, no doubt, full of drafts, loose boards, and other charmingly noisy quirks. I walk around the room, trying to locate the sound, but just when I think I’ve found it—beside the desk, under the table—it stops and starts up somewhere else.

As though it’s moving.

I’m not sure I want to know what the noise is anymore, as long as it stops.

It doesn’t stop, but it does park itself behind the headboard. The bed is heavy. I manage to pull it half a foot away from the wall and peek my head around slowly, eyes squinting protectively. There, looking up at me—if those are its eyes—is an enormous cockroach.

I jump back and hear it scurry down the wall and then, oh, dear God, under the bed. I grab the closest shoe and scramble onto the mattress. All is quiet for a moment. Then the scratching starts again. It’s moving, I scream inside my head, it’s moving! I lean over the edge of the bed, armed with the tennis shoe. A shiny brown head, antennae twitching, pokes out of the shadows into the light. The body follows. I take a deep breath. Oh, God, I pray, please don’t move. Just stay right there. I raise the tennis shoe slowly, trying not to think about the sound of Andrea’s roach crunching against the wall downstairs, like squishing a grape and a peanut M&M at the same time. Another deep breath. Steady, Cassie. Steady.

But it hears me (or maybe it smells my fear) and scuttles away, toward the armoire. I’ve got to kill it now or it’ll be in there with my clothes, and that means there’s a good chance I’ll be wearing this cardigan and these capri pants for the next eight weeks. But it’s too fast. Scared to get off the bed, I throw the shoe. It hits the floor three inches too far to the right, and the huge shiny brown flying cockroach slips safely under the armoire.

I reach gingerly for the other tennis shoe, careful not to touch the floor. I perch on the foot of the bed, armed with the second tennis shoe, and watch the floor near the armoire for signs of movement.

“Please stay there,” I whisper to my new roommate. “I’ll stay here if you’ll stay there.” I sit like this until there is a crack in the sky and the courtyard beyond the French doors floods with light. The rain comes down hard. The sound is a relief. It drowns out everything else.

I reach for the phone and dial.

“
¿Hola?
”

“Okay. Dinner. I’ll go out with you. If you still want to.”

“Of course I still want to,” Dan says with a chuckle. “I’ll pick you up Friday at nine.”

We say good night. Dan hangs up. I fall asleep in a ball at the end of the bed, still clutching the phone in one hand and the tennis shoe in the other.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

O
ur Spanish course over, Zoey is going home, and I am already missing my smart, funny, stylish friend. I’d known that she wasn’t here forever—none of us is—but her imminent absence has still come as a shock to me. At our last meal together, surrounded by a dozen new and old friends, we fail miserably at our promise not to cry. As Rick from Calgary rounds the table, refilling everyone’s glasses with red wine, and Gina from Texas recounts the calamitous tale of her first post-divorce date with a taxidermist who gave her a stuffed chipmunk in lieu of flowers, Zoey and I huddle antisocially in the corner and play the “remember when” game.

“Remember when you first met Antonio?” she says. “Your face went bright red, and you could barely talk to him all through lunch.”

“Remember when that guy grabbed your arm and pulled you onto the dance floor?” I giggle. “I’ve never seen somebody flail his arms with such talent.”

These things may have happened only months or weeks ago, but it is our only history, so we hold on to every memory with both hands. It’s all we have. At the end of Gina’s story, we are wet-faced and hysterical. “It wasn’t that funny,” the Texan insists. We both burst into laughter.

Zoey and I promise to visit each other back home and to e-mail constantly, but behind these promises we harbor the unspoken truth that the friendship we embraced so voraciously here—for travelers, I have learned, must be voracious with their friendships—won’t be easily re-created on a Seattle pier or a New York subway.

“This was the best time, you know,” she whispers to me the next morning as we wait for her taxi to the airport to arrive. “Nothing will be the same as Buenos Aires.”

She didn’t tell me that Buenos Aires wouldn’t be the same, either. Without my new best friend, the sheen has been stripped from everything, and the city seems a little grayer, a little duller, a little less Zoey. Just when I thought I was getting to know Buenos Aires so well, the city turns on her beautifully crafted leather heels and disappears. When I stroll the streets of Palermo Viejo, I see only cracked foundations, loose stones, piles of dog crap crumbling in the South American sun. The history, the beauty, has evaporated in the fierce heat. The late-spring sun beats down on the sagging city, and the endless blue sky is a heavy blanket I can’t shake.

Not to sound like a weathergirl, but the heat in Buenos Aires has gotten positively oppressive. Or maybe it just feels hot in comparison to M’s chilly treatment these days. If any of you has any lingering doubts about my reasons for backing away—because I like to flatter myself with thinking there was something between us to back away from—he has made them moot. Aside from the concern he displayed on the street that night of the storm, he has become distant, almost unfriendly. Right back where we started.

Okay, I probably should have called him the next day to say I’d made it home alive, like he asked me to, but I’d have had to ask about Anna, out of politeness, and I’d rather shave my head than listen to M going on about his great new relationship. So hiding in my stuffy apartment all afternoon the following day was maybe a bit juvenile, but when I heard M downstairs, helping install a new security system, I panicked. And yes, sitting slumped down in my seat to avoid making eye contact with him the other night at El Taller wasn’t my finest hour, either, but it seems easier to avoid him altogether.

Besides, not having to think about M and what he’s feeling has freed up an unbelievable amount of time that is better spent on getting my new plan going. I really think things are turning around.

I don’t tell my blog readers that I miss Mateo—our talks, his quick wit, his devilish smile, his passionate cynicism. I hardly like to admit it to myself. What’s the point? Whatever my reasons for avoiding him, Mateo seems to have given in to them easily enough. He has stopped calling, stopped knocking on my door in the middle of the day to see if I want to go for coffee. That night at El Taller, he knew my group was there but never came over to say hello. I was relieved and disappointed.

And now I’ve gone and made things worse. I was heading out for a cup of coffee this morning, suffering through a massive caffeine craving because I’d run desperately low on groceries, and there he was, looking far too good in a tight T-shirt and jeans, oiling the hinges of the French doors in Andrea’s great hall. I was surprised to see him—couldn’t Martin take care of something that simple now that he was home?

“
Hola,
” I said weakly.

“
Hola,
” he returned abruptly. Then, his face softening into something resembling a smile, he asked if I might want to go for a cup of coffee. “It’s been awhile.”

I offered the lame but conveniently true excuse about needing groceries.

“I’ll come with you,” he offered, but I insisted I was fine by myself.

“No need for both of us to go out in this heat.”

He nodded slowly and turned back to his work. I watched him fiddle with his tools for a second or two, then caught myself and slipped out the front door.

I walked for over a mile, finally settling on a café where I have sat for almost three hours nursing one giant café con leche after another. How things have changed, I muse. When I first arrived I couldn’t get over how rude and unwelcoming Mateo was, picking over each new injury he seemed to throw my way. Now I am the one shunning his friendship. Every week I befriend a tableful of strangers, but with Mateo, this simple thing seems too risky. Dangerous.

And yet the time I spend with Dan doesn’t scare me in the least. Isn’t that how you know when someone is right for you? When he makes you feel perfectly at ease all the time?

We’ve spent several days together, and while I’d be hard-pressed to find a single thing wrong with Dan, something isn’t right. He’s great. Really, really great. Smart, fun, toothachingly sweet, ambitious but not obsessively so, and clearly into me. But I don’t feel it. And though I might not know exactly what “it” is, I sure as hell know when it’s missing. When Mateo’s eyes landed on mine from across the hall this morning, it was like a lightning bolt had shot straight through me. My mouth went dry, my palms damp. When he gave up on me and turned back to his toolbox, I felt as though all that energy had instantly drained out and onto the floor. Okay, so Mateo isn’t the guy for me, so I’m crushing on him like a teenage girl—does that mean I should settle for less than that feeling with someone else?

Can’t I have at least a little Mateo with my Dan?

Everything is backward here, is my theory. On the other side of the world, you can’t trust your impulses. How else to explain my temporary insanity those first months here, or why Dan—a sort of Jeff 2.0 but with all the bugs removed—doesn’t quite do it for me? If I’d met Dan in Seattle instead of Buenos Aires, as Trish has suggested, I might feel differently. Maybe after the sexual whirlwind of Antonio and the emotional confusion of Mateo, a decent, earnest, available guy like Dan doesn’t stand a chance. Then again, aren’t you supposed to fall faster in foreign places? Isn’t that the whole idea of the travel fling? Yet when I’m with Dan, there’s no denying it: I don’t want to be flung.

I take a final sip of coffee and start the trek back to the yellow house.

Reaching Andrea’s, I listen for sounds of tinkering but don’t hear anything. Just in case, I slink through the great iron gate as quietly as one can after consuming the yearly coffee export of Colombia. Only inside do I hear Mateo in the foyer, wrestling with the wires of the old chandelier that burns through bulbs every few weeks. The iron door latch thuds into place behind me, and he looks up from his work. He eyes my suspiciously empty hands. I realize that I don’t have any grocery bags with me. “Get lost?”

“Oh, yeah. Ha!” I look around the room, vying for time. “Actually, I forgot my wallet.”

“You’ve been gone for three hours,” he points out.

“I went for a walk.” His strong, accusatory gaze makes me squirm. “Lost track of time.”

Mateo doesn’t say a word, only nods curtly and turns back to his work. I climb the stairs to my apartment quickly, exaggerating my steps to drown out the sound of tools clanking in his toolbox.

I sit on my bed and kick off my shoes. What must Mateo be thinking? He’s probably happy that he’s free of the crazy American. I sigh. Oh, well. That’s the way you wanted it, right?

Head buzzing with coffee, I wake up my laptop and see an e-mail waiting from [email protected]. “Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!” she shouts at me from the subject line. I don’t realize who it’s from until I’ve read a ways.

Dearest Cassie,

What you have done is a wonderful thing. By telling people about our cause on your website you make us known and this is very important. Some people have sent money to help. Many people write with good thoughts. A reporter is going to tell everyone about us in a newspaper! Thank you for caring about the Madres. Please come and visit us again soon. We all love you.

Augustina

I stare at the screen for a long while, taking it in. I never expected much to come of that quiet plea on my little blog. An hour or so of time, a few square inches on a Web page. Nothing, really. But I’m glad to have helped, if only in some small way. I’m trying to express this in the simplest terms to Augustina in my reply when there’s a knock at my door.

Mateo calls my name softly.

Maybe it’s all the coffee, but my heart jumps into my throat at the sound. Between leaping from my bed and wrapping my shaking hand around the doorknob, the next few minutes spin out wildly before me. Screw The Plan! I will apologize for avoiding him, will throw my arms around him and beg him to forgive me for being so stupid. He will tell me it doesn’t matter, that everything is going to be okay. We will kiss a kiss to put every romantic kiss to shame, and he will lift me up and take me back to the rumpled bed. Grinning madly, I open the door and there he stands, an Argentine god, a slash of black grease on his forehead, his beautiful green eyes locked on mine. I can almost taste his lips on my lips, smell his skin against my skin.

“Mateo.” I inhale and hold the letters on my tongue, expec-tant, readying myself. For a moment, a long moment, he doesn’t speak, just stares at me, unreadable.

Finally, he says, “There’s someone here to see you.”

I exhale, deflated.

“Oh.” And then I remember—Dan insisting on the phone this morning that he would pick me up and walk with me to El Taller. “That must be my friend Dan.” I’m not sure why I feel the need to explain, but the explanation has little effect on Mateo anyway. He doesn’t say another word, just slips away down the dark stairs.

First Antonio, now Dan. I can only imagine what Mateo thinks of me. Or worse, that maybe he doesn’t think of me at all.

I check myself in the mirror. My face is flushed, my chest splotchy. I look away quickly, embarrassed once again at this man’s ability to turn me into a silly schoolgirl, at how ready I am to throw everything away. And for what? A man who lives on the other side of the world. A man who doesn’t believe in happily ever after. A man who will forget about me the moment I step on that plane in December. You’d think I would have learned from Antonio. Am I really willing to set myself back to where I started—with nothing and no one—for another fling with a man I can have no future with?

It’s the coffee, I tell myself. The stuff’s like crack here. It’s got me all jittery and jumpy and confused. Gotta watch that. I pat back a loose lock of hair, grab my purse, and slip into my sandals. Dan is waiting. He might not be my dream man, I tell myself, but there could be potential. At the very least, he won’t get in the way of the dream. I repeat this in my head on my way down the stairs.

As we walk to the café, Dan talks and I nod. He could be confessing he’s Seattle’s Green River Killer, and I wouldn’t have a clue. Inside my head, I am doing battle with the image of Mateo at my door. I conjure up Jeff’s face, a sort of aversion therapy. There will be no more time wasted on inappropriate men. There will be no more time wasted, period.

Dan says something that sounds like a question, so I say, “Sure.” Then his hand, warm and dry, is lacing itself through mine. What did I just agree to? I look at him for some clue. He looks straight ahead, grinning widely. Not knowing how to extricate my hand without hurting his feelings, I leave it there.

By the time we reach El Taller, Dan is positively beaming. But I can’t possibly walk into the café like this. Everyone will think we are a couple. Are we a couple? No, that’s silly. This is just a distraction. I mean, we haven’t even kissed yet.

But Dan is smiling an awful lot.

I break free from his hand at the café entrance, making a show of opening the door with two hands. Dan puts an arm around my shoulders. I break free again and make an even bigger show of saying hello to all the regulars and welcoming all the newcomers. Dan, unflappable, doesn’t seem to mind that I plant myself at the opposite end of the table—he simply gets up, asks Jeremy from Alaska to shift over one, and plants himself beside me. I promised myself I wouldn’t lead Dan on, but I wasn’t prepared for him to lead himself.

But my concerns about Dan are quickly replaced by something far more perturbing. As we make our toast, I sense someone behind me. I turn quickly, nearly spilling my beer on Mateo, who stands inches from my elbow. He is grinning that devilish grin, but tonight it looks more sinister than playful.