“No, I mean two thousand a day.”
“Holy shit! That’s huge for a personal blog,”
“It’s not really a blog anymore. They mostly chat with each other. Some of them have actually started dating.”
“Really . . .” Even over the phone, thousands of miles away, I can tell that the wheels are turning in Trish’s head.
“Oh, yeah, they’re hooking up left, right, and center. I should have called the site Wheretofindyourreboundrelationship.com.”
“That would have saved me a lot of hangovers after my breakup with Joe,” Sam says, chuckling.
“Have you thought about looking for advertisers?” asks Trish.
“Well I hadn’t planned on making money off it. But one of the readers asked to post a personal ad, so my technical guy is working on a way to let people do it.”
“Really . . .”
“What?”
“Crazy idea: How would you feel if we covered the site in our newsletter?” asks Trish.
“Brilliant!” shouts Sam.
“Why would your readers care about my blog?”
“We’re supposed to keep them informed on what’s hot with the twentysomething crowd, especially high-tech stuff. I’d say this definitely qualifies.”
The idea of my blog being featured next to articles on the hottest jeans trends and Apple’s new teeny-tiny whatever makes me feel good. Almost proud, even. And that’s what friends do, isn’t it? Make you feel good about small, meaningless accomplishments like starting a blog or getting your hair highlighted in the perfect shade of blonde. “Okay. Sure. Why not,” I say. Sam and Trish squeal with joy. On this end of the line, I am positively beaming.
Once we hang up, I am filled with a restless energy. I throw on my sneakers and head out for a long walk. I round a couple of plazas, then make my way to the cat park. The cats are lazy from the heat, lolling about under the trees, sleeping in the shadows along the iron fence. Worried that their inactivity will be contagious, I move on to the next park. There are miles and miles of green in this part of the city. Not far from Andrea’s house, the parks are more urban—sparse grass, decrepit wooden benches, ponds filled with questionable water. To the west, flora and fauna gather sophistication. Forty-five minutes into my walk and the grasses are thick and soft, the benches are wrought iron, and the small, man-made lakes picturesque. Walk this far and you exchange the hum of city life for the sounds of birds singing, children laughing, and the occasional oar lapping at water. I’ve read that if you go even farther east, there’s a stunning rose garden, so farther I go.
I wind through the garden, over emerald mounds, under iron arbors painted an optimistic white, between rosebushes. There are dozens and dozens of them, each labeled with its Latin name. It’s a bit late in the season, though, and most hold only remnants of flowers, a drying petal here and there. I try to imagine how glorious they must have looked a few months before, when I first read about the garden. Back then I was too busy fooling around with Antonio. This annoying thought leads to even more annoying thoughts of time wasted on Mateo, and those I do not need. I notice a small white building on the edge of the garden. This must be the Japanese greenhouse I heard about from someone at El Taller. They’re supposed to have great sushi. I haven’t had sushi in forever. I duck inside.
But the building, it turns out, is home to a contemporary art gallery. The last thing I need is a trip down Mateo-memory lane. However, the woman at the desk looks so excited to see a visitor, I don’t have the heart to walk out. I pay the three-peso admission and step into the bright white exhibit space.
A large sign announces a new exhibit featuring local artists from the second half of the twentieth century. Some of these artists, the sign explains, have gone on to international recognition. Others have faded into relative obscurity. All, it asserts, have played an important role in the story of Argentine art.
There are so many beautiful pieces, each as different, I imagine, as the person who created it. Some artists have a whole wall devoted to their work. For others, there is only one painting. How sad, I think, that this might be all the world knows of this person’s talent. I rush through the watercolors—they’ve never held much appeal for me, too delicate and wistful for my tastes—and laze through the acrylics and oils. It’s just me and an older British couple happily snapping their digital camera at everything, so I can take my time winding through the mazelike building, discovering each artist slowly, quietly introducing myself with the respect they each deserve.
When I turn into a room lined with three enormous abstracts, I slow to a near-stop. I could look at these for hours. I'm held captive by every brushstroke, the thickest licks of paint wrenching themselves away from the canvas as if they could almost leap free. It takes guts to paint this big, to blow yourself wide open like that. My favorite is a massive city scene done in brilliant oranges, yellows, and reds. It should be angry, but it’s sad, instead. The short buildings twist and lean in to one another. A lone face, square and gray, peers out of a window. It reminds me of something I can’t put my finger on, stays with me as I move between the sculptures in the next room.
I am outside again, sunlight on my face, before I remember the red paintings in El Taller. Wasn’t there one with a square gray face? It can’t be a coincidence. It can’t. Ignoring the woman at the front, I run back into the gallery, to the room with the enormous paintings. There it is, printed on a small white card beneath the giant canvas: MATEO DE LA VEGA, 1995.
A few blocks from El Taller, I start to run. The speed of my legs matches the speed of questions storming through my head. How is that Mateo’s name on that painting? How is that painting in that gallery? Why were there only three? Why so long ago? What happened between then and now? There are too many things I need to know, and if I don’t know them soon, there’s a good chance I’ll spontaneously combust right here on the streets of Buenos Aires. There’s also the question of why I need to know these things so desperately, but I push that one away and run.
Bursting through the door into the half-full café, I head straight for the back wall, bumping into three chairs along the way and almost knocking over a waiter’s tray. There they are, all four enormous paintings, nearly identical to the one in the gallery. The small square gray face looks out at me again and again. At the bottom right of each canvas, written in thick black paint, is a large M.
The waitress with the tribal tattoos down one arm approaches and asks if I’m okay. I nod, unable to take my eyes off the paintings. My chest still heaving, beads of sweat above my lip, I ask if Mateo is here.
“No entiendo,” she says.
Right, I remember, she doesn’t speak English. I try again in Spanish. This is no time to be shy about my language skills.
She shakes her head. “No trabaja hoy.” He’s not working today. She turns her attention back to the refilling of salt shakers.
Does she know where I can find him? I continue in Spanish, surprising myself no small amount. As if I’m speaking a foreign language in a dream, the words flow easily and without thought or second-guessing. Suddenly, I am a Spanish-speaking savant. If only Marcela were here to give me a gold star. I have to talk to him, I tell the waitress. I have to.
She looks me up and down, skeptical, then nods with recognition. Am I one of those Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club people? she asks.
“Sí,” I say, embarrassed until I see that she is smiling warmly. “Sí, yo soy. Me llamo Cassie.”
“Ah, sí.” She turns to the painting closest to her, tipping her head toward it with reverence. “El es muy talentoso,” she whispers as though sharing a secret.
“Sí,” I agree. “Muy talentoso.”
“Y muy hermoso.” And very handsome. Where this is going, I have no idea.
“¿Sí?” I draw the short word out into a question, expecting her to finish the thought.
“Entiendo,” she says with Andrea-esque confidence, nodding sagely as though she knows something I don’t. As though
she knows something I should. “Sí, sí, sí. Entiendo.” What is it that everyone thinks they understand? I just want to know where Mateo is.
I press her for his whereabouts again. She holds up a finger and disappears into the kitchen. A few minutes go by, and that anxiety creeps into my skin again. My Spanish might be better than I thought, but it’s still shaky. I probably asked her for a turkey sandwich. She reappears with Mateo’s address. I recognize the street.
It’s nearby? I ask.
“Sí, muy cerca.” She gives me directions.
“Muchas gracias,” I call over my shoulder. Out on the sidewalk again, I start running.
I go into autopilot, flying past block after block of homes and stores, so familiar they barely register. The street signs need only a glance to confirm I’m not there yet. Finally, I come to the street written on the torn piece of paper and only then realize I don’t know which way to turn. Did the waitress say izquierda or derecha? Guess I should have listened better to those directions. I fumble for my map, hands shaking, and locate the street. “Left!” I shout. A woman cradles her small daughter against her chest as she passes, moving to the outside of the sidewalk, but I don’t care. “Left!” I shout again. “Left!”
2245. 2249. 2257. When I see it, I double-check the paper, then the address plate. There’s no mistake. She wrote 2257, and this is 2257. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this. The pink and blue house.
I stand there behind the rusting bars of the iron fence for a long time. At last I see him. The house is dark inside, but there’s no mistaking those paint-splattered overalls or the way he walks with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He crosses the gap of half-raised blinds on a second-floor window, and they fall shut. He hovers between the gauzy curtains of another set for a second, and they snap together. Like a ghost, he drifts from room to room closing out the light. His presence in that house is so ethereal, I don’t even think to hide myself. How is this where he lives? Why didn’t he say anything that day we walked by here together? Andrea was just as mute, though I specifically asked her about the house’s story. Unsure how to process what I see, unsure what this means—or if it means anything at all—I stand there behind the iron bars and watch.
Back at my apartment, I Google Mateo. I can’t believe I didn’t do this before. In Seattle, this was as much a part of my dating ritual as buying new stilettos. The oracle of search engines offers me twenty-seven pages of Mateo miscellany, from his name on a list of 1994 fine-arts graduates to an old advertisement for a cooking job at El Taller. Clicking on entry nineteen, I land on a short article on an art website that mentions an exhibit in 1998. I make my way through it slowly, with help from a translation site. The new pieces are full of promise, the critic proclaims. This is an artist to watch. Three other Web pages mention Mateo in passing. On another is a photo of him participating in a neighborhood rejuvenation project in 1996. The young Mateo, one hand holding a bag of trash, the other squeezing the shoulder of a pretty girl leaning on a rake, smiles widely at the camera. It’s the Mateo from Andrea’s photos, a Mateo at ease with the world. There isn’t a trace of cynicism in that face. He looks happy. Really, really happy. What could have happened to change that?
Beside the photo, someone has included a caption: Local artist Mateo de la Vega and fiancée Silvana Diaz. A slim girl with long dark hair stands behind them in the photo. She’s younger but unmistakable: Anna.
Downstairs in the kitchen, Jorge is helping Andrea make cookies. Her balls of dough are uniform and evenly spaced on the baking sheet. His, to the delight of the dogs, are mostly on the floor.
“Looks like you have a budding baker in the family,” I say, laughing. Jorge eyes me suspiciously. Over four months and I’m still the outsider, the interloper, the party crasher.
“Oh, Jorge is going to be great chef someday.” Andrea tweaks her son’s nose, leaving a splotch of cookie dough. He giggles softly. “Or maybe world-famous dog trainer. We haven’t decided, have we, hijo?”
“Can I help?”
“No, no. Just sit. Relax. Have some tea.”
I pour myself a cup and add a bit of milk. “So I saw something interesting at the rose garden today.”
“Oh, are the roses still there?”
“No, they’re long gone. But there was an exhibit at the little art museum. Do you know it?”
She rubs her jaw the way she does when she’s thinking hard. Bits of cookie dough fall on her T-shirt. “Ah, sí. En la casa blanca. Sí, I know it.”
“There was an exhibition on Buenos Aires artists.”
“Mmm?” She pops the baking sheet into the oven.
“And there was a painting by Mateo. Our—your Mateo.”
“Mm-hm . . .” She shoos away the dogs, who are licking dough from Jorge’s sticky fingers.
“It was dated 1995.”
“Mmm.” She holds Jorge over the sink while he plunges his hands into the stream of water.
“He was a painter,” I say.
“Sí.”
“And engaged.”
“Ah.” Andrea sets Jorge in his high chair, pours herself another cup of tea, and sits down. She’s smiling, but it’s a sad smile. “It is many years ago,” she begins. “Much things have happened.”
Andrea takes her time with the telling, each turn of events something to mull over and examine carefully before articulating. I appreciate the pace. It gives me time to digest. I sit, literally, on the edge of my seat, washing down her words with hot tea. Jorge squirms, bored and cranky, on the floor between us.
Andrea moved here from Brazil when she was nine, she says. Mateo and Silvana were her best friends. They went to the same school and lived a few blocks from each other. As children, they played together on the streets of Palermo Viejo, these streets I stroll each day. Mateo’s and Silvana’s parents were good friends. There were Sunday asados that rotated from backyard to backyard and legendary Christmas parties at the de la Vega house. Then Mateo moved to the U.S. with his family.
“He wrote letters sometimes, and we sent him pictures so we wouldn’t forget each other. We did, of course. We were thirteen, fourteen. But then he came home again.” Andrea laughs gently, shakes her head at the ceiling as though remembering a secret joke. “He was changed. A man now. Not so easy to forget anymore.”
I nod in understanding. I seem to have the same problem.
With his family still in the U.S., she continues, Mateo moved back into his empty childhood house and enrolled in the university’s fine-arts program. Silvana was in the psychology department. “Every girl in school wanted his attentions, but he only saw Silvana. She was beautiful. Long hair, huge black eyes. And a kind heart, you know? Even as a small girl, she was gentle and caring. Would catch spiders in a jar and put it outside.” It was no surprise to anyone, she tells me, when they fell in love.
“It was perfect,” she says, wistful. “They planned to be married when they graduated. The families were very happy. Everyone was happy. It was like a . . .” She looks at me for help.
“A fairy tale?”
“Sí, a fairy tale. Sí, sí.” Andrea pauses to take a long sip of tea. For her last year of school, she tells me, Silvana wanted to go to New York to study there, like Mateo had done. She wanted to see it, too, wanted to know the things that he had known. He didn’t want her to go, but he understood. So she went and he stayed behind, getting things ready for his bride-to-be. He arranged a date at their families’ church for the wedding. He bought Siamese kittens like the ones she’d had when she was a little girl. He started to paint his house pink, her favorite color. Andrea stops and looks down at Jorge, who has fallen asleep against her feet. His small chest rises and falls. The peace of a sleeping child fills the room. “He wanted everything perfect for when she came home.”
“What happened?” I ask, though I already know. It’s all crystal-clear now. Andrea doesn’t even need to speak the words. While his childhood sweetheart was away, he fell for a bewitc
hing girl named Anna. Poor Silvana. Mateo is the Argentine equivalent of Jeff, I realize. Thank God I didn’t let myself fall for him, I think. Thank God. Thank God.
Andrea lets out a breath, like a balloon deflating. “She didn’t come home,” she whispers.
That can’t be right.
“Because he hurt her?”
“No, no. She say she is in love with another student there.”
The puzzle shifts. Nothing fits.
My eyes open wide, I encourage her to continue. Mateo went to New York, she says. He thought that Silvana had cold feet. He would forgive her and everything would be like they’d planned. “I don’t know what happened there,” she says. “She stopped writing to me—but she never came home again.”
The puzzle shifts again.
“And he stopped painting.” I am the one whispering now.
“He couldn’t anymore.” Andrea rests her chin against her hand. Under the curl of her fingers, I can see her lips tremble slightly. “I wish you had known him before, Cassie. He was different before. Always laughing, always joking. He saw good things in everyone. You know that painting there?” She points in the direction of the foyer. “This is Mateo.”
“Really?” I should have known, I suppose, but it looks so different from the others, lighter and more hopeful somehow. “It’s beautiful.”
“Sí, sí.” Andrea pets Jorge’s brow, smoothing hair from his eyes. She shakes her head. “I loved Silvana, too. She was like a sister to me. But she broke him inside of his heart. Entiendes?”
“She broke his heart,” I say. “Yes, I understand.” And suddenly, I really do.
I try to read but can’t concentrate. What am I to do with this new information that’s turned my stomach into a pit of butterflies? I would blog, but this is one thing I wouldn’t dare share. Sleep comes, begrudgingly, fitfully. I dream I am back in my old apartment, pale gray walls, spare, sharp ebony furniture. There’s no music, just the sound of eggs sizzling in a pan, popping and crackling in the hot oil. I’m wearing an apron, the goofy kind my stepdad wears when he’s barbecuing, and my hair is in rollers. I call out to Jeff. Does he want eggs? The eggs are done. He doesn’t want any, he calls back, but I want him to try the eggs, so I take the pan and move through the apartment. Except it isn’t the apartment anymore. There’s a long staircase and shag carpeting, wallpaper and Pledged furniture. I enter the dining room, formal and set for dinner, and see them naked and writhing on the Persian area rug—that much doesn’t change. Jeff and Lauren, limbs entwined so intricately I can’t separate one from the other. Jeff, I scream. Jeff, what are you doing? Stop, Jeff, please stop. I stomp my feet and shake my arms at him like a child. The eggs slide from the pan onto the floor. I notice a dirty shovel in the corner beside the buffet and think how curiously out of place that seems. The room begins to swirl around the naked bodies. I can see them from every angle. Jeff looks up at me and then Lauren. Except it isn’t Lauren anymore, it’s Silvana. Jeff and Silvana, her long black hair trailing down her bare back, over his feet, and out the door.
The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club Page 24
