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. Sh
ortness 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.
Everything that made me happy is either thousands of miles away or gone for good.
Just when I’m ready to give up and free-fall into a full-on panic here in the middle of this strange park in this strange city where I’ll probably die and be eaten by feral cats, his face pops into my head. Mateo. Not the Mateo smirking at me from my doorway. Not the Mateo dropping me on the floor. The Mateo in the photographs, with the smile that’s somehow happy and sad, that smile that makes me want to smile back and comfort him, that smile that for a moment makes me forget I am the one in need of comforting. He’s the last person I should be thinking about right now; well, the second-to-last person. But I don’t want to let go of that smile. It’s a small indulgence, harmless, doesn’t mean anything. And it works like a charm. Everything else clears away. I can breathe. I am not going to die or become kitty kibble.
Ah, yes, I think, feeling myself again, the electronics store. That means venturing back out onto the street. Maybe just another few minutes or so. It’s nice here. With my eyes closed, I could be almost anywhere.
Something soft brushes against my bare leg, forcing me to open my eyes. A small black cat with white eyebrows is twirling herself between my calves. I reach down to pet my new friend, startled by the ridge of spine felt so easily through her fur. She looks up at me appreciatively but doesn’t make a sound. None of them does, I realize. I’ve been sitting in this park spilling over with cats for at least half an hour, and I haven’t heard a single meow. Are they that content, or have they simply become accustomed to their own degree of misery? I reach out a tentative hand to my benchmate, who is still sprawled across half the seat, tail flicking over the edge of the wood. He stretches his neck in my direction, then gives up, lolling his head back onto the wood. When I first sat down, I had the childish idea that perhaps I’d stumbled across someplace magic, but open your eyes, and there is a melancholy here that you can’t ignore. That might explain why there aren’t any couples strolling the grounds, hand in hand. There are at least a dozen people scattered about on benches, and they are each alone.
I’ve got to get out of here. Stepping gingerly around my little friend, I make my way back toward the entrance. I step into the flow of sidewalk traffic and let it swoop me along, heading south, farther away from Andrea’s yellow house. When I feel the panic begin to rise again, I summon Trish’s semi-facetious voice: Fake it till you make it. Map clutched tightly in one hand, I pump the other, mimicking the determined walk of the urban Argentine. Teenagers, businessmen, grandmothers, children. They all have it. Even kiosk patrons seem to merely slow down rather than stop completely, selecting and purchasing their newspaper, cigarettes, whatever, in one fluid motion. There are no dillydalliers, no aimless window-shoppers. Best of all, I realize gratefully, there is little time or space to be lonely with hundreds of people rushing around you.
It’s after four P.M., and I glide along in the throng of commuters and schoolchildren for a good five blocks before I see it. A window crammed with stereos, irons, microwaves, clock radios, and, yes, hair dryers. I’ve actually found an electronics store! I won’t go back empty-handed, defeated by traffic noise and a few troubling memories. My enthusiasm, however, is tempered by no small amount of dread. Now comes the hard part.
Inside the shop, a perspiring middle-aged man rushes to greet me. He offers up a flurry of Spanish to which I can only shake my head. Flash back to fifth grade, when we moved out of our old house and I transferred to a new school midyear. They were way ahead of my old class, and I sat absolutely silent for three whole days until the teacher asked me a math question I couldn’t understand, let alone answer. It was like being in a foreign country and not speaking the language. Kind of like this. “Por favor,” I say quietly, not even attempting to roll my R’s, and point to the hair dryer in the window. But it’s too high up, and I could easily be pointing at three different things. The man swabs his forehead with a handkerchief and looks at me curiously. I could mime drying my hair. No, I decide, this is embarrassing enough. But I need that bloody hair dryer. If I don’t get it, I will never have a good-hair day again, will never attract a man, will never get asked out, engaged, or married. My future hinges on that hair dryer. “Por favor,” I offer again, with more enthusiastic pointing this time. The salesman shrugs his shoulders sympathetically. The other shoppers turn and stare. My eyes feel heavy and hot. Oh no, Cassie. Not that, not here. Keep it together, girl. You’re doing fine.
I pull the pocket Spanish dictionary from my bag as discreetly as possible and look up “hair dryer.” I am that ten-year-old girl once more, trembling in her chair, admitting finally, eyes planted on the linoleum floor, that she is utterly, hopelessly lost in the math lesson. I don’t know what a fraction is. “¿Se-ca-dor del pe-lo?”
Unlike my new grade-five teacher, who shook her head and tsked loudly, the salesman lights up with a huge smile. “Ah, sí, sí, sí. ¡Secador del pelo!” He slaps his hands together and disappears through a door behind the counter. The curious shoppers turn back to their transactions. Seconds later, my damp, grinning salesman returns with a hair dryer in a box. He presents it with a flourish, as if it were a bounty of jewels. And that’s all it takes, this stranger’s enthusiasm to help an American woman who needs a hair dryer more than anything else in the entire world. There’s simply no stopping it. I let loose a sprinkling of tears. “Gracias,” I say. “Gracias, señor. Muchas gracias.” Somewhere between the next “muchas” and “gracias,” the sprinkling turns into full-blown sobbing. A fraud, I have my friends and family convinced that I am tougher than what life has thrown me, that I’m a survivor. But I am no such thing. I am, in fact, all raw emotions and seeping wounds. These last two weeks of pretending I was in control, that I knew what I was doing, that Jeff had done me a favor, that I was excited to start a new chapter, it all comes pouring out of me. “I. Am. So. Sorry,” I stutter through brief gaps in the crying. “My. Fiancé. Left. Me. For. Some. One. E-e-else.”
The next few minutes are a blur. As I squawk out the tale of My Black Wednesday—Jeff, job, etc.—I sense ghostly figures circling about me, feel the light touch of angels on my arms and shoulders. A hand helps me into a chair. Another pushes tissues toward me. Hushed Spanish trickles all around. I hear tsking, but the warm, grandmotherly kind. I am so grateful for it all, even their pity, but I’m also acutely aware of how embarrassed I will feel about this scene the moment I regain my senses. Here’s an item I forgot to add to my to-do list: Travel bravely thousands of miles to bare soul to electronics-store patrons and employees who haven’t got a clue what you’re saying. Check! Is this better or worse than having an anxiety attack in the middle of a park overrun by cats? Hard call. All I know for sure is that none of this was the way this day was supposed to go. Or maybe it was. How is one to know how one’s day is supposed to go if one doesn’t have a plan? What is wrong with me? Without a b
unch of lists, am I truly incapable of functioning? Trish likes to tease me about that very idea, but it’s just teasing, isn’t it? Life before The Plan was so long ago, I’m not sure. I am sure that I have to get out of here fast.
“Gracias,” I say weakly, rising from the chair. “I’m sorry. So sorry. Muchas gracias.” How much is the hair dryer? The tag says thirty-five pesos. Thank God I exchanged some cash at the airport. Waiting thirty seconds for my credit card to clear would be unbearable. I grab four ten-peso notes from my wallet, push them into the salesman’s damp hands, and rush outside. I clutch the dryer under my arm a little tighter as I head in the direction of the yellow house. Whatever the universe throws at me next, at least my hair will look good.
If I can just make it back to the yellow house, everything will be okay. There is, after all, a lot to do. Bags to unpack, travel books to pore over, lists to make. I should probably call my parents and then Sam and Trish. But didn’t Andrea say I need a phone card to make long-distance calls? E-mail will have to suffice for now. I stop and let out a breath. I’ve forgotten the plug converter I need for my laptop. I’m only a block from the scene of my public meltdown, but, as incredibly kind as those people were, there’s no way I’m showing my face there again. Ever. I’ll find another store tomorrow. Another store, another chance to humiliate myself. Do I really need the Internet? I could start reading more books and newspapers. And e-mail? I’ll single-handedly revive the lost art of letter writing. As great as spreadsheets are, plain old paper sufficed for thousands of years.
The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club Page 7
