The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club

by Jessica Morrison

  I even let Dan drag me all over the city for a few days, checking off things from his must-see list. I’ve been making excuses not to see him since I got back—feeling like a complete and total fraud around him—but it’s his last week in Buenos Aires. Besides, I tell myself, a few daytime outings can’t do any harm.

  Monday we subway to Puerto Madero, the city’s docks. Recently refurbished, the area is new and white and clean. Once you’ve surveyed the water in either direction, there isn’t much else to see, so we drink cold beers at a stand on the boardwalk and shield ourselves from the sun with laminated menus. I make a point of using the word “friend” a lot, as in “Well, friend, that’s enough beer for me,” and punch him in the arm a couple of times like I’ve seen Trish’s brother do to her.

  Tuesday we visit Evita’s grave. Zoey was right—the famed tomb is rather unremarkable, with its sober black marble and simple engraved lettering. But the cemetery in general doesn’t disappoint. Grand sloping trees, Gothic angels, and—like Zoey said—rotting caskets so close you could touch them if you wanted. It all makes for an eerie walk, despite the noon sun overhead and the mews of grave cats sprawling in the heat. I snap a couple dozen digital photos. Dan with Evita. Dan with cats. Dan pretending to touch a casket.

  “I missed you when you were gone,” he says while I fiddle with the light settings.

  “Well you better get used to it,” I say as jovially as possible, punching him in the arm again. “Word has it Boston is pretty far from Seattle.” I feel like a jerk, but Dan just smiles and strikes a goofy pose in front of an ornate cross. “Hurry up, woman. You’re wasting my light.”

  Wednesday we spend an afternoon window-shopping in the posh neighborhood of Recoleta, eating helado and talking about the heat. The shops are beautiful, each display holding an immaculate collection of merchandise I can’t afford. One small outdoor mall has run its sidewalk with red carpet.

  “I feel underdressed,” I say.

  “You look lovely,” he says with all sincerity. “As always.”

  Dan is the one who looks lovely, dressed in cream-colored linen pants and a white shirt that shows off his not offensively large muscles. His hair is perfectly coiffed into waves. He’s gotten a bit of a tan these last few weeks, I notice. Other women notice, too. Wherever we go, female eyes seem to follow. And they don’t even know how good he is on paper, I remind myself. If I hadn’t been derailed by pointless feelings for Mateo, I surely would have fallen for Dan a long time ago. We always have fun together. We have tons in common. The few times we had sex, it was nice. Happy unions have been formed on less. And it would be so easy. Dan is plug-and-play, ready-to-wear. There are no deep secrets, no trolleys full of baggage to stumble over in the dark. He never talks about his ex anymore. He chose to move on and that’s exactly what he did. These are the qualities I’m looking for. These are the qualities I’ve written down in The Plan.

  “Aw, shucks,” I say and make a face. I’d punch his arm, but he’s too far away.

  Dan walks ahead, then stops at a jewelry store to admire a row of men’s watches.

  “See something you like?” I ask.

  He turns to face me. “I certainly do.”

  I blush, feeling instantly embarrassed and awkward. How sad that statements like this don’t fill me with glee. I look through the glass at the selection. “That red croc band is pretty sharp. Or the brown one—more classic.”

  “Everything’s nice,” he says. “If you could pick one thing from this window, what would it be?” Dan is always asking me questions like this, as though we are speed-dating. In the past three months, I’ve discovered that I would live in Italy first, then France; would rather be a rock star than a movie star; and want to come back as a horse. It’s best, I’ve learned, to go along with the game.

  “Hmmm. Just one, huh? I know what I definitely wouldn’t pick.” I point to the large diamond set in yellow gold near the front.

  “Too big?”

  “Too Jeff. My engagement ring was almost identical.”

  Dan nods, understanding. Dan always understands.

  “It’s funny,” I say with a sardonic chuckle. “Half my life, I wanted a ring like that. I saw a picture of one like it in a catalog that came to our house, you know, one of those fancy Christmas flyers. My mom and I picked it out.” We’d torn the page out of the catalog and put it in my jewelry box, like a wish. “Seems kind of strange now. I was only fifteen. I hadn’t even had a real boyfriend yet, but I knew I would get that ring someday.”

  “And you did.”

  “Yeah.” I smile, thinking of how I paid for this trip. “I sure did.”

  “So if not that ring, which one?”

  The question surprises me. The kind of ring I got was so important to me all those years, was one of the first things I wrote in the original plan, and yet I haven’t even thought about such things since I’ve been here. Too busy sorting out the more pressing questions, I guess. “I don’t know. Haven’t thought about it. Maybe . . . that one.” I tap the glass near the middle of the display. A demure square diamond, simple white-gold band. The opposite of what I’ve always wanted.

  “Excellent choice, madam,” he says in a bad English accent, and we move on to mock a display of bejeweled pet accessories. “For the dog who has everything,” Dan jokes.

  “When kibble isn’t good enough.” I chuckle. See, I am genuinely having fun.

  Thursday’s activities are my choice. I take Dan to the old café downtown, where elderly waiters in black vests and red bow ties serve strong coffee with delicate cookies. He marvels at the memorabilia on the walls. Every inch of wall is covered with old posters announcing the jazz and tango bands that played here decades ago, yellowing soda ads encased behind glass, and trumpets and trombones strung about. The Christmas decorations are nothing compared to the gleaming attraction of these ancient treasures.

  We have four cafés con leche, a chicken sandwich, lima bean soup, and three chocolate medialunas between us. Dan talks about Boston, its historic neighborhoods, his friends, the nightlife, the Red Sox. I’d love it there, he says. Everybody does. I’m jealous of his excitement. I try to conjure this enthusiasm for Seattle, to tell Dan about the things I love back home, but I sound like I’m reading from a tourist brochure.

  “You miss it,” he says, nodding with empathy.

  “What’s not to miss?” I say, shivering slightly.

  “Are you cold?” he asks. “Those fans are doing too good a job.”

  “Yeah,” I say and wrap my hands around the hot cup in front of me for comfort.

  When lunch is done and I can’t possibly eat another bite, I offer to take Dan to the English bookstore I found a few months back so he can buy something to read on the marathon plane ride home. After we’ve wandered in circles for twenty minutes and I’ve relived the first day of my Spanish lessons, I reluctantly admit that I’ve forgotten where it is. I ask at a newspaper stand, but the man has no idea.

  “That’s okay,” Dan says cheerily. “As long as I can sit down for a minute, I’m happy.” And he is. Thinking back over the months, I can’t remember Dan ever getting upset or bothered about anything. Dan pulls at his sideburns, which means he’s thinking. “We passed a park a couple of blocks back, didn’t we?”

  I nod and follow him back the way we came. As he passes a group of women eating their lunch on a bench, all heads swivel his way.

  “You know, you’re going to make some lucky girl very happy one day,” I say.

  He looks over at me, grins, and shakes his head. He points across the street. “There it is.”

  I stop abruptly. Plaza de Mayo. The Madres. I can see the top of the small obelisk that they circle every Thursday afternoon. I think of those old women taking slow, arthritic steps around the monument, Augustina and her grandmother Leonora gushing over me the last time I was here, the numerous e-mails they’ve sent thanking me for my help. The newspaper article. Mateo. So much for distraction.

  “Let’
s go somewhere else,” I say. I want to stay and see the Madres, but I can’t.

  “Where?”

  I try to remember the list of places that I absolutely had to see, but I draw a blank. “How about there?” I point to a sketchy-looking restaurant across the street. “I’m kind of hungry.”

  “Already?”

  I shrug.

  “Come on.” Dan grabs my hand and pulls me in the direction of the park. “I’ll buy you a bag of those candy peanuts you love so much.”

  “No, really, let’s go somewhere else.”

  “What’s going on?” Dan steps back and gives me a good look.

  “Nothing.” He’s not buying it, but he drops it. He’s so easygoing that way. Oh, why can’t I like him more? He’s perfect for me. There is something seriously wrong with me. I must be a masochist, falling only for guys with the potential to break my heart. Like him, I tell myself, for God’s sake, like him. Like him like him like him. If only it were that simple.

  “Okay,” he says. He threads his fingers through mine, and I let him. “Whatever your heart desires.”

  What my heart desires. I’m thinking of this as I help Jamie pack. Like Dan, she’s almost giddy, talking about home. “This is gonna be perfect for New Year’s,” she says, holding up a sequined halter dress we found at the craft fair near the cemetery. “Did I tell you about the massive party my friend is organizing? Vancouver isn’t known for its wild nightlife, but there’s this restaurant with a courtyard and they put all those little lights up in the trees. Very glam. You know, I’ve never been single on New Year’s Eve before. Not ever. I can’t wait. Just me, my friends, and all those cute boys in suits . . . Do you think this purse goes?” She holds a black satin clutch against the dress. I nod encouragement. “But you know what I’m really looking forward to? My bed. God, I miss it. That’s one relationship I can’t live without.”

  Although I smile at the joke, when she turns to tuck the purse into a suitcase, my smile folds. As our last afternoon ticks away, I should be getting sad; instead I’m jealous. Leaving is easy for her. She had a great time here, and she’s excited to go home. She’s been here only a month, I remind myself. It would never occur to her to think any differently. Buenos Aires is another place she can check off her list. She can pack it all up and take it with her—dresses to wear, photos and stories to share, souvenirs to display, and nothing left behind but unwanted guilt about leaving her fiancé.

  Jamie catches my sour face. “Thinking about him again?”

  “No.” Still, in a way, she’s right. I am thinking about Mateo because I am always thinking about Mateo. He’s always there, on my brain, under my tongue, in the pit of my stomach. But I might never see him again, and I’ve got to come to terms with that. It wasn’t meant to be. It was three galaxies over from meant to be. “I told you, I’m going home in three weeks. Period. End of story.”

  “Okay . . .” She looks around at the pile of clothes on the bed and grabs a pair of short red boots. “Then let’s talk about how fabulous I’m going to look in these.”

  Her taxi comes sooner than expected. While the driver risks dislocating a disk trying to get her giant suitcase into the trunk, Jamie gives me a big squeeze at the curb. I am accosted by shopping bags dangling from every shoulder and elbow. “Ouch,” I say, and we laugh. She shimmies into the backseat, and I shut the door for her.

  “We’ll always have Buenos Aires,” she says through the window and blows me a kiss. The taxi pulls away, and I hold back my tears until I’m certain Jamie won’t be able to see me crying. We’ll always have Buenos Aires. It’s normal to be sad, I tell myself. It didn’t turn out to be quite so awful here. There are things I’ll miss. Places. People. All perfectly normal.

  I walk to the closest busy street and hail my own ride home. A few blocks from the yellow house, I reach into my purse for my wallet. Tucked in between the bills is a note, scribbled on the back of a sales receipt in Jamie’s barely legible pseudo-doctor script:

  A good psychotherapist never gives advice. But screw it. I’m no therapist. So here goes . . . You are an amazing person, Cassie Moore, and you deserve everything you want from life. But love doesn’t come on schedule. Or in the right place or the right time, the right size or the right color. It just comes. Take it from someone who knows. If you wait around for what you think you need, you might miss out on what you really want. Be brave, chica. XOXO Jamie

  Romantic poison, my mother would call it, the kind of Hallmark sentiment that sucks the reality out of a woman. I leave the note on the seat beside me, retrieve five pesos from my wallet, and thank the driver. And then, hand on the car door, I reach back and grab the scrap of paper, stuffing it into my purse and swearing under my breath.

  Right about now Jamie is waking up in her own bed in her own bedroom in her own apartment to what is, no doubt, a perfect moment of pure bliss. Thousands of miles away, I am standing in front of a mirror that doesn’t belong to me in an apartment full of someone else’s things, getting ready for the wrong man.

  I’m wearing the Antonio dress again, but tonight it’s for Dan. He’s called four times to confirm our plans for his last night. He won’t tell me what we’re doing, but I’m supposed to dress up. I twist my hair into an unsuccessful bun. The crown is bumpy and there’s a big chunk of hair at the front that refuses to stay back. I take charge with a comb and a liberal dusting of hair spray. How is it that Argentine women always manage to look simultaneously flawless and effortless? Anna probably doesn’t even use hair spray. No doubt she wakes up every morning looking like she stepped out of a hair salon.

  Dan arrives at exactly seven o’clock, looking quite handsome in a pale gray suit and blue tie. “You look beautiful,” he says.

  “So do you. I can’t believe you brought a suit all the way from Boston.”

  “I didn’t,” he says.

  Dan ushers me into the waiting taxi. He still won’t say where we’re going, even insists on covering my eyes for the last minute of the ride. My eyes open to bright marquee lights. A poster in front of the theater advertises tonight’s tango show. It might as well have the words “tourist trap” written across it.

  “Oh,” I say. “How wonderful.”

  “Is this okay?” He looks concerned. I smile brightly. “You told me once that seeing one of these shows was near the top of your list.”

  “My list? Of course.” Seems like a million years ago that I made that list. “No, this is great, really. I’m just so surprised.”

  “That was the idea.” Dan’s chest puffs with pleasure. “Well, then.” He offers an elbow. “Shall we?”

  The room is packed with tourists, easily identified by their unkempt blond hair, slogan T-shirts, and menu squinting. No one is as dressed up as we are. We make the best of it, eating too much and drinking even more. The lights dim to signal the start of the show. Dan’s hand squeezes mine in the dark and I squeeze back. It doesn’t spark so much as a tingle. She doesn’t know it yet, but one day some lucky woman in Boston is going to be thankful for that fact.

  Touristy or not, the show is spectacular. Men in tight black pants and shirts and shiny patent-leather shoes move with smooth confidence. Women with red lipstick and hair slicked into tight buns float across the stage, their ruffled dresses fluttering birdlike. The choreography and music are raw, sexual, dangerous, but the dancers’ faces remain stoic, their bodies impossibly graceful. I can’t help smiling at my own efforts to learn tango—the two things bear little resemblance. Though with the right partner, the dance didn’t seem so daunting. There’s no point in thinking about that now, I remind myself. I push away the rest of that evening and focus on this one.

  I don’t know if it’s the tango or the hot summer night or the sweet champagne, but I’m buzzing when we leave the theater. I try to mimic the dancers’ steps and almost twist my ankle. I hum those last bars of music that won’t leave my head. Da-da-ta-da-da. I feel like skipping. Things aren’t looking so bad anymore. I don’t protest whe
n Dan suggests we go back to the grungy one-bedroom apartment he shares with an American student he met online. It is his last night, after all.

  The apartment is pitch-black and dead quiet. “Like the desert,” I whisper.

  “What’s that?” asks Dan.

  “Nothing,” I say and stumble over the suitcases lined up in the hall, cursing loudly, then clamping my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I say, giggling through my fingers.

  “It’s okay.” Dan laughs. “Be as loud as you want. John’s gone rock climbing for the weekend.”

  “You mean we don’t have a chaperone?” I ask jokingly.

  “No lifeguard on duty,” he says into the dark, finding my shoulders.

  “Which way to the couch?”

  Dan spins me around and gives me a nudge. I grope my way over to the gray outline of the couch and flop down. I sit and wait in the dark. Dan moves down the hall, flicking on a light as he goes. A slice of white carves across the living room’s hardwood floor in the shape of a question mark. I hear him fumbling with kitchen things. Sharp metal noises and soft cursing. Finally, he walks in carrying champagne in one hand, glasses in the other. He sets them on the small table in front of me and leans forward to light a couple of candles. Vanilla. The gold light glows and flickers and jumps.

  The rest happens too fast. One second Dan is pouring the champagne and talking about how happy he is that he met me, the next he’s down on one knee and proffering a small pink box. Before I can process it, there’s an enormous square-cut diamond on my hand. I study it in the candlelight. It sits like an alien thing on my finger, big and sparkly and strange.