“What did you do?” Even through the cell phone static, I could hear the panic in her voice. My mother has some lovely qualities, but I could hardly expect empathy from her in this situation. It’s not that she doesn’t love me, it’s just that she comes from a long line of disappointed women who have passed down hard-won lessons in self-preservation (and oddly small earlobes) to their daughters. She’s been married to my sweet, devoted stepdad for over twenty years, but she will always be the woman my father walked out on when I was seven. Security is to my mother what Manolos are to Sarah Jessica Parker.
“Why do you automatically assume that I did something wrong?” The words came out angrier than I had intended, but her criticism was the last thing I needed right now, especially when it sounded a lot like the criticisms circling in my own head. Besides, I needed to be mad at someone within shouting distance, and that was either my mother or the barista. “Let’s try being supportive for five seconds. After that you’re free to blame me for the world’s evils.”
“You don’t have to snap at me,” she said, clearly hurt. “And I don’t automatically assume you did something wrong, Cassandra. What I meant was what did you do when you found them?”
“Sorry,” I choked out. “I’m just a little . . .” Destroyed. Amputated. Flailing like a headless chicken. “On edge.”
“Of course you are, sweetie.”
“I don’t know what to . . . I can’t seem to . . . Mom, what did I do wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything. Men cheat. Period. End of story.”
“He said I’m too perfect.”
“Too perfect? What the heck does that mean?” Now she was the one getting angry, which was possibly the nicest thing she could do for me at the moment. A little parental indignation can go a long way in the right circumstance. Then she took a deep breath and added, “Okay, let’s not overreact.” And just like that, the old Gwen was back. “We can get through this. Let’s give him some time. Maybe he’ll—”
“Give him some time? He’s not exactly the injured party here.”
“Of course, sweetie.” She put on her best mom voice. “But we’ve still got some damage control to do. We need a plan.”
Her words triggered something inside me, and I couldn’t hold it back a second longer. This wasn’t going to be discreet. This was going to be Niagara Falls. I cupped a hand over the phone and held it out at arm’s length. My mother had begun talking about some woman named Margaret whose daughter had been left at the altar, and I was falling apart at the seams right here in the coffee shop beside a display of oversize, overpriced mugs. The guy behind the counter smiled sympathetically. He couldn’t have been over nineteen. This was probably his first job, some part-time work to put a bit of spending money in his pocket while he finished school. He had his whole life in front of him, years and years to get it all right.
I wanted to punch him in the face.
Instead I collected myself, told my mom I’d have to call her back, and finished my latte. The coffee was good and strong, and I felt better—for about ten seconds. No amount of caffeine and soft amber lighting could keep the day from playing over and over in my head. I needed advice from an impartial (nonparental) party. I needed a shoulder or two to cry on. I needed a drink. I called Sam and Trish’s office—so convenient having best friends who work together—and asked if they could cut out of work early and meet me at Jimmy’s. This was an emergency.
“What’s going on?” Trish asked over speakerphone. “Big sale at the Bon?” I started to speak but choked on Jeff’s name. All I could manage were several big gulps of air before I broke into sobs. “Hang on, sweetie. We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
When I got to Jimmy’s, our regular après-work venue, there was no sign of Sam and Trish, so I sat at the bar and sipped on a martini. Jimmy’s looked a lot different at two in the afternoon. In place of generically cute, suited guys swigging Heinekens, and PR bunnies spinning on the small dance floor at the back, were scruffy freelancers hunched over their laptops, modern-day cowboys roaming the cyber range. We used a lot of freelancers at my company, and I’d always assumed that to live without any real job security, you had to be either incredibly brave or incredibly crazy, maybe a bit of both. Yet at that moment, sucking back bar coffee and free wireless Internet access, they seemed full of direction. They had project, deadlines, purpose. What did I have? Termination papers, an eviction notice, and a two-carat diamond ring worth as much to me as the beer-stained cocktail napkin stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I threw back my drink and, choosing to ignore the bartender’s mixed expression of disapproval and curiosity, ordered a second. The girls would have to catch up.
Halfway through my third drink, Sam and Trish plopped themselves down on the bar stools on either side of me. I hadn’t told them anything on the phone, but Sam took one look at my face and threw her arms around me while Trish signaled the bartender for a round. “What did you tell them at the office?” I asked, always amazed by how much freedom they had at the market research firm they worked at.
“What we always tell them,” said Trish. “Field research.” She passed a martini to Sam and took a big swallow from her own. “Now start from the very beginning.”
I took a deep breath and started from the beginning, not sparing even the smallest detail. Sam and Trish listened. The bartender listened. I think a couple of the cyber cowboys might have been listening, too. Most importantly, I was listening. By the time I got to the nineteen-year-old barista, I was more depressed than ever. I’m too perfect. I’ve got it all figured out. I don’t take risks. Could it be that the qualities I prided myself on were actually faults? Jeff’s words, my boss’s words—it all flashed in my brain like giant road signs telling me I was going the wrong way. Instead of speeding down the fast lane to Success City, I was rolling into Loserville on bald tires and an empty tank of gas.
Sam and Trish stared, looking dumbfounded. I’d never seen them speechless before. Of course, it was only natural that they’d be surprised. If not about the job, then certainly about the guy. They’d liked Jeff. Everyone had liked Jeff. Jeff was very, very likable. Just ask Lauren.
“Unbelievable,” said Trish.
“Un-fucking-believable,” agreed Sam.
“He’s an idiot,” said Trish.
“They’re all idiots,” added Sam.
Trish slammed a hand down on the bar. “Screw ’em all. This could be the best thing that ever happened to you.”
I winced. That’s what people tell you when something truly, horrifically awful happens. I’ve said it to pining ex-boyfriends to alleviate my own guilt. I’ve said it to friends who fell victim to downsizing. Now I was the ex. I was the jobless. I smirked at myself, which seemed to make Sam and Trish feel better.
“That’s the spirit,” said Sam, giving me a squeeze. Trish took my hand and smiled enthusiastically. I nodded and forced a small smile. They were trying so hard to be helpful, needing me to be okay, that I couldn’t possibly tell them I knew it was all bullshit.
In fact, the only thing that made me feel even the slightest bit better came in a ridiculously shaped glass seemingly designed to maximize spilling. Cocktails thinly disguised as martinis for the I’m-not-really-sophisticated-but-I-do-drive-a-Jetta crowd are the best invention ever. I downed the drink in front of me, which may have been Trish’s, judging from the look she gave me, and ordered another.
“Maybe you could use a break,” said the bartender.
“Look, friend,” I began, though it sounded more like “Lick, fren” (those martinis were really strong). I was about to give him a piece of my mind. Who did he think he was telling me when I needed a break? Did he just lose his job, his home, and his Jeff all in the same day? I don’t think so. I leaned back, almost fell off my stool, and then tipped forward again, ready to let him have it, but as I opened my mouth, it hit me. The bartender was a genius!
A break. That was exactly what I needed. Not from martinis—from my life. I had worked long an
d hard to get the right job, the right fiancé, the right apartment, and I’d done it all wearing the right shoes. For over a decade, I ate, slept, and breathed The Plan. Hadn’t I earned some time off? You get two weeks for every year in a job, right? With a bit more difficulty than usual, I calculated in my head: ten years times two weeks . . . twenty weeks . . . five months. Heck, let’s call it six for good measure.
A girl could do a lot in six months, I figured. A girl could also do absolutely nothing. I could go somewhere I’d never been, spend time by myself. Hello, self. I could learn. Reflect. Get perspective. And, naturally, come up with a new plan. I’d come back six months later from Italy or Morocco or whatever fabulous place, tanned and thin and glowing with inner peace. It was all so Oprah. Maybe they’d feature me in her magazine. Maybe I’d get invited to appear on the show—one of those people who sit in the front row of the audience because their stories aren’t quite amazing enough to earn them a spot onstage but are still special enough that you’re on-camera and Oprah might even walk down and hold your hand while you tear up. Maybe I’d end up famous, or at least with an endorsement deal for a yogurt company. Maybe I’d even meet someone new.
My brilliant genius bartender was leaning across the bar, waiting for me to say something, his arms folded in that resigned, unshakable bartender way. There was only one thing to do. I grabbed his cheeks and kissed him, a big sloppy wet one, my long-lasting lipstick leaving an optimistic smudge under his nose. He jumped back, blushing cherry red. Sam and Trish laughed so hysterically, I don’t think they even noticed me throwing down a couple of twenties and tearing out the door.
The door swung shut behind me, muffling their calls as I stumbled into a cab. There was no time for goodbyes. I was too excited about my new plan to take a break from my old plan so I could figure out a new new plan. I couldn’t wait to get started. I’d explain it all to Sam and Trish tomorrow, and they’d understand. How could they not? It was so genius!
“Where to?” asked the driver.
“Any goddamn place I want,” I answered smugly. He looked at me in the rearview mirror as if trying to figure out whether I was high. “Oh, you mean right now.” I smiled sheepishly. I couldn’t go back to the apartment and there was no way I was going to my parents’ place, but other than a last twenty, all I had on me was the credit card that Jeff had insisted I get for emergencies. There’d never been one—until now. “To the most expensive hotel in the city,” I commanded. It was the start of a new plan, a new life. Might as well start it with crisp white sheets and room service. The cabdriver smiled approvingly into the rearview mirror and took a left.
We pulled up to the W Hotel on Fourth Avenue. I gave the driver my twenty, swiped a finger under the bottom rim of each eye, sensing smudged mascara, and staggered into the most beautiful hotel I’d ever seen. The walk to the check-in counter was a bit awkward, what with the room swaying the way it was, but the clerk was either too polite or too sophisticated to acknowledge this minor point. She took my platinum card happily and called me Ms. Moore. I felt like a movie star. Despite my lack of luggage, a bellhop escorted me to my room on the fourteenth floor. As I watched the elevator numbers rising, my smile got bigger and bigger. Things were looking up already.
A new plan. The very idea thrilled me to the core, hummed in the back of my mind. I was so young when I came up with the first one. Now I was sophisticated, worldly, twenty-eight, for God’s sake. Not that everything on the old plan was bad, not at all. In fact, I was certain most of it was dead on. But there was always room for improvement. Clearly. Like this break thing. Why hadn’t I scheduled that in somewhere between first college boyfriend and first non-minimum-wage job? I’d never been to Europe or Africa, or outside of the U.S., for that matter. Major flaw in the plan, that one. And Jeff—what was I thinking? A lawyer with a thing for classical music and Japanese minimalism? If I was going to find my ideal match, I would have to put more thought into it. No lawyers. No one who spends more on hair products than I do. No one with ex-girlfriend baggage, especially not in the shape of a cello. But what about MBAs who listen to jazz? Divorced doctors who speak Mandarin? I needed criteria. I needed a contingency strategy. I needed to check out the minibar.
A jar of macadamia nuts, two tiny bottles of vodka, and a list of amendments scribbled on hotel notepaper later, and it was time to get serious. The hotel notepaper, though elegant, would get me only so far. Taking a break was serious work. I needed some serious tools. I called room service.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Moore,” said a pleasant voice on the other end. “What can I help you with?”
“I need a laptop.” I realized as I said it that they probably don’t keep computer hardware in the same place they make your grilled cheese sandwich. Which reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “And a grilled cheese sandwich, please.”
“Certainly, Ms. Moore. They’ll be right up.” Half a rerun of Friends later, I was in full research mode and eating the best eighteen-dollar grilled cheese sandwich in the history of mankind.
God, I love the Internet! With one laptop and one high-speed wireless connection, I found everything anyone could possibly need to plan the perfect life break. Or Life Break, as Trish would call it. There are sites for people planning to travel, sites by people who’ve already traveled, sites for people who want to help you travel, sites by countries that want you to travel there. There are apartment rental agencies, language schools, hotels, hostels, homestays. There are cost-of-living numbers, travel warnings, vaccination recommendations, literacy statistics, personal anecdotes, e-zine stories . . . I bet some people look in a brochure and point to the prettiest beach photo. Not Cassie Moore. If I was going to take a break from my life, I was going to do it right. And the fact that the screen was getting progressively blurry as the evening wore on wasn’t about to stop me.
I woke up the next morning to my cell phone ringing. It was my mother, so I let it go to voice mail. My head throbbed “aspirin, aspirin, aspirin.” My tongue felt like it was wearing an angora sweater. My phone rang again. Sam. Probably checking in to make sure I’d made it home okay. It rang again; my stepdad this time. Strange, I thought. He never calls me during the day. He must be really worried about me. I’d get back to him as soon as I was finished throwing up.
When I finally checked my voice mail, there were twelve messages, but I never made it past the first one: “Cassie, this is your mother. I just read your e-mail. Is this some sort of joke, or have you gone completely insane? If it’s the former, I’m not amused.”
E-mail? What e-mail? I went online and checked my webmail, open from the night before, though I didn’t remember sending any messages. Please, I prayed, don’t let me have e-mailed something sappy to Jeff.
My in-box was flooded with messages, each subject line more cryptic than the next: “I am so jealous!” “Way to go, girl!” “Take me with you . . .” And then I saw the one that really mattered. An automatic response confirming my flight to Buenos Aires. My flight. To Buenos Aires. Confirming my flight to Buenos Aires. Where the heck was Buenos Aires?!
My head began to throb again, but I had a feeling that aspirin wasn’t going to help this time. What had I done? How drunk had I been? Clearly drunk enough to do something incredibly stupid, like book a flight to Buenos Aires, but not so drunk that I couldn’t enter the numbers of my credit card onto a Web form.
This had to be the worst hangover in the history of the world.
My brain switched to autopilot. I don’t want to go to Buenos Aires. I don’t want a break. I don’t want another martini to come within five feet of me ever. What I do want is to get back on track. I need to get back on track. I need a new job, a new apartment, and a new fiancé. Surely there’s a way out of this mess. Tickets are refundable. I could send a mass message to everyone saying the whole thing was a joke. Ha, ha. “That kooky Cassie,” they’d say and forget all about this in a few hours. Either that, I thought, or I’ll shave my head and join a cult in California.<
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As I roughed out a damage control plan in my head, my cell phone rang again. I dove to reach it before it went to voice mail, certain it would be Sam and Trish, who would tell me once again that everything was going to be okay. But it was Jeff’s name on the screen, and my thumb hit the talk button before my brain could veto.
“What the hell is this all about?” Jeff’s normally calm and slightly muffled speakerphoned voice was loud and sharp, piercing from right ear to left temple.
“Not so loud, please. Can you talk a bit quieter?” I rummaged through my pocketbook for aspirin. Echinacea, vitamin C . . . bingo.
“No, I cannot,” he said even louder. “Jesus Christ, Cassie. You can’t be serious about going to Argentina. I mean, Jesus Christ.”
Right. Argentina. Buenos Aires is in Argentina. That’s South America, right? “I’m about as serious as you are about Lauren.” I popped two aspirins and forced them down without water. They left a bitter film in my mouth that tasted a hell of a lot better than my morning-after breath.
“This has nothing to do with that. We’re talking about you here.” He took a deep breath and softened his voice. “I’m worried about you, Cassie. You’re upset and clearly not thinking straight.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Come on. Argentina? This is not exactly part of The Plan.” The words came out so snide. Jeff had always said he was supportive, but whenever he talked about my plan, I thought I’d sensed a bit of a smirk in his voice. I’d assumed I was being overly sensitive.
“Maybe I don’t have to do everything according to plan,” I said as dryly as possible. I wasn’t about to get emotional, not for him. “Maybe I’m not the automaton you’ve got me pegged for. You’re not the only one who can be unreliable—sorry, unpredictable.”
The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club Page 3