“Lo siento,” she says. “¿Te llama Cassie, sí?”
“Sí,” I say.
“¿Y está interesado en las pinturas de Mateo, sí?”
Yes, I say, I was interested in his paintings.
Do I like the new one? she asks, pointing at the wall behind and above me.
I turn and see what she’s talking about, a new painting completely different from the others in the room but similar to the one in Andrea’s house. The colors are mostly bold blues and bright yellows, with a dark punch of green here and there. It is spectacular, full of life and energy, full of hope. I was so worried about running into Mateo that I didn’t even notice it.
“Es maravilloso,” I say. It truly is marvelous. He’s painting again. Maybe something I said got through to him after all. I guess Anna can thank me for that someday.
The tattooed waitress smiles and nods and moves on to clear the next table. When her back is to me, I reach up and touch the canvas. The paint is still tacky to the touch; it leaves a bit of green on my fingertips and a small smile across my lips.
The morning before Christmas Eve, I help Andrea get a head start on dinner. We need to eat early (meaning before eleven P.M.), she says, if we’re going to make the neighborhood street party tonight. There’s already a huge pot of stuffing bubbling away on the stove.
“Why so much?” I ask.
“We will be twelve this year,” she says, adding chopped onions to melted butter in a saucepan. “The neighbors on that side, Martin’s parents, Mateo . . .” She doesn’t look at me, just takes my hand and places it on a spoon and says, “Keep stirring.”
“Oh, is he coming?” I ask casually, stirring as directed. “That’s nice. I assume he will be bringing Anna?”
Andrea adds a handful of chopped apple to the onion and butter. “Anna? I don’t think so. His sister takes Christmas with her husband’s family in Uruguay.”
“His sister?”
“Sí.”
His sister! His sister! Of course his sister. She came back from the States a few years ago. She married an architect from Montevideo. Her name is Anna. He’d told me about her months ago. How did I not make the connection? All this time and it was his sister. I’d feel like a complete ass if I weren’t so happy. Anna is Mateo’s sister! I want to scream it from the roof. I want to do cartwheels.
My mind crashes to a stop. If Anna is his sister, why is he avoiding me? Why didn’t he return my phone call? I don’t know, but I’m not making the same mistake twice. This time I’ll ask.
“Keep stirring, please, or it burns,” Andrea says. I look down at the spitting saucepan. Bits of apple and onion stick to everything, including my T-shirt.
“Andrea, I’m so sorry, but I’ve really got to go.”
She turns to face me, smiling her all-knowing smile. “Go, chica,” she says, laughing. “Go! Go!”
I throw my arms around her and squeeze tight. Her great Brazilian laugh follows me out the door.
I run all the way to his house, so fast I miss it. I stop at the end of his block, turn, and walk back to 2257. Am I seeing things? There’s no pink and blue house anymore. It’s been painted green, like the painting but lighter. I step through the creaky iron gate and walk down the tile path and up to the wall. I reach out and touch the wall. It leaves green paint on my fingertips.
“It was my hardest piece.” The front door opens, and Mateo leans against the frame, smiling. His overalls are covered in every kind of green. “It took me over twelve years to finish.”
“I saw the one in El Taller. It’s wonderful, really wonderful. I’m so happy for you.”
“Did you come to critique my work?”
“No, I came to . . .” Tell you I know about Anna. Tell you I’ve been an idiot. Tell you I love you. “I needed to tell you . . .”
“Come inside,” he says, holding out his hand to me. “There’s something I want you to see.”
I step inside the green house and follow him into a dark room. Mateo pulls back the curtains, and light floods in. Except for a simple wood chair in one corner, there is no furniture, only easels and paints and canvases. Dozens of paintings in various sizes and in varying states of completion line the perimeter of the room.
“There are more,” he says, taking my hand and leading me into the kitchen. The sink is full of dirty dishes, the floor littered with take-out boxes. And the counter is covered in canvases.
“Wait,” he says. “There are more.” He pulls me to the second floor. We pass canvases in the hall, up the stairs, into a bedroom.
“There must be a hundred of them,” I whisper.
“One hundred and three,” he says.
“What happened?”
“You happened.” Mateo takes my other hand and turns me toward him. The intensity of his green eyes sends a shiver through my body.
“I inspired you?”
“Not exactly,” he says, laughing. I blush. “When you came here that night, I was furious. I needed to do something with all that anger. The first one wasn’t a very good piece, but I couldn’t stop. A lot of it was bad, but I needed to do it so I could get back to something good again.”
“Then I guess I’m glad I made you hate me.” I try to look away, but he won’t let me, holds my face in his hands.
“No, Cassie, no. I hated . . .” His voice catches. I look up, and his eyes are heavy with tears. “I hated myself. I hated what you saw in me.”
Tears roll from his deep green eyes. He tries to look away, but I won’t let him. I hold his face close to mine, so close we are almost kissing.
“Ever since I came to your door that first morning, you have amazed me over and over again.”
“I have?”
Mateo laughs softly and shakes his head. “You must have noticed how I was always trying so hard to impress you. Always talking about important things and taking you to important places. But when I found your website, I knew I would never be enough for you the way I was.”
“You were trying to impress me?” I think of all the time we spent together, from our trip to the malba to the tango lesson, me always saying and doing the exact wrong thing.
“Of course,” he says. “But it was always you who was impressing me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this when I saw you at the supermarket?”
“I wasn't ready,” he says. “I was so proud of you, I wanted you to be proud of me, too.”
That’s it. I draw him to me. His dark curls fall into my eyes. I run my green-tipped fingers across his cheek.
Our mouths open, eyes close. Heart beats against heart. Lips meet lips. Tongue touches tongue. It is our second kiss, our first kiss, every kiss. It is the kiss to begin all kisses. It is a kiss brimming with the promise of something I’ve yet to dream of. I’ve deleted the future that haunted me, and he’s erased the past that haunted him. There is no plan, no past, and no future. Just these two people, this moment, this kiss.
I look down at a stack of canvases beside us and whisper, “I really hope there’s a bed under there.”
He laughs and lifts the canvases off the mattress. Then he sweeps me off my feet and lays me on the bed. Every part of me quivers. It is nothing I’ve ever known before, this feeling. It is impossible, irresponsible, imperfect, and unrelenting.
“Mateo,” I whisper. “Would it be horrible of me to say that I love you?”
The word is too small to contain what I feel for this man in this place at this moment in time, but it’s all I have.
“I love you, too,” he whispers back.
And when he says the word, when we’ve both spoken it out loud, it swells to contain us. I don’t want him to make things perfect, I only want him.
I hold out my arms to him. He stops at the end of the bed and looks at me gravely. “But,” he says, “I still don’t know what comes next.”
“Anything we want,” I say, taking his hand and pulling him down beside me. “Anything at all.”
It’s been almost two mo
nths since a club night at El Taller. With the holidays behind us, I figure it’s about time to start again. I post an invite on the website to all the Broken Hearts in the area. The following Friday night, twenty-seven people pour into the café, the biggest group ever. They are all strangers.
I give everyone the chance to order and introduce themselves to the people sitting beside them. When all the glasses are full, I stand up and wait until I catch everyone’s attention. A hush falls around the table. Every eye is on me. Some of these people will become friends; most I’ll never see again after tonight. I am in a country thousands of miles from where I started. I take a deep breath and begin.
“Welcome to the Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club,” I say. The table erupts into cheering. “My name is Cassie.” More cheering. “But I guess you already know that.”
When the laughter dies down, I raise my glass. From behind the bar, where he’s training the new manager, Mateo raises a glass of water and smiles. I smile back at him, a founding if silent member, and begin.
“Here’s to the ones we love.” To my surprise, a chorus of voices joins in. “Here’s to the ones who love us. Here’s to the ones we love who don’t love us. Hell, screw them all, here’s to us!”
The table bursts into laughter and cheering and glass clinking against glass.
I let out a slow breath. I have come a long way. Thousands of miles, six months, one marriage proposal, countless good friends, an old plan, a new plan, no plan, a new business, a surrogate family, a man who loves me and believes in me, a man I love and believe in. I am unsure and unsteady and occasionally convinced I’ve gone insane because I don’t know what the future holds—and I like that more and more. Whatever comes, I’ll be okay. I have learned that even a life shattered into a million pieces can be put back together, better than new. I have discovered that I am brave.
As I sit down, a pretty brunette beside me leans in.
“I’m Kate,” she says abruptly. “Is that your boyfriend?” She points to the bar.
“I guess he is,” I say, smiling.
“Let me get this straight. You live here, run your own website, and have a gorgeous Argentine boyfriend?”
I nod.
“So, basically”—she leans in closer, her eyes lighting up—“your life is perfect.”
“Oh, Kate.” I burst into laughter. “What an awful thing to say.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Like my main character, Cassie, I spent several, shall I say enlightening, months in Buenos Aires. Unlike Cassie, I never had much of a plan before, during, or after that time—unless you consider tearing pages out of a guidebook and shoving them into my pocket planning. This characteristic lack of foresight might explain why I got married at twenty-two and divorced at twenty-eight (the only true casualty being my parents’ hope that I would ever settle down); why I got my Master’s in English Literature (anything to prolong entry into the real world); and why I’ve changed hair color more often than Sarah Jessica Parker (will switching to Carmel Golden Blond No. 63 actually change my life? I think so!).
Yet somehow, despite or perhaps because of the zigs and zags my path has taken, I’ve managed to end up at a fairly good place. Indeed, had I the foresight to make a plan I might very well have planned for this exact life. Okay, I’m unmarried, I still rent, and I don’t have a nine-to-five job. But on the upside, I’m unmarried, I still rent, and I don’t have a nine-to-five job. Which is to say, also like Cassie, I’ve found happiness in unexpected places. So here’s my hard-earned advice for those of you tottering along your own winding road: Be true to yourself whether you follow a plan, follow your dreams, or follow the cute cowboy in the red pickup. And always, always, do a strand test first.
TOP 5 TIPS
FORFemale Travelers
1 Do not assume people in foreign countries don’t understand English. They will assume you are an idiot, and by shouting things like “Internet? Internet?” you only confirm their suspicion.
2 Do assume people in foreign countries will instantly dislike you for being a loud, brash American who shouts things like “Internet? Internet?” You can either prove them wrong or pretend you are from Uzbekistan or Canada or some other fake-sounding place.
3 Accept that you will forget your toothbrush, run out of tampons, and break the strap on your only pair of leather sandals; be grateful that these will likely be your worst catastrophes; and take a credit card with lots of room on it.
4 Say yes to the chicken bus. Say no to the street meat. A stay in the local hospital is not the adventure your travel agent was talking about.
5 There will be nights when you find yourself hungry or lonely or both. Keep a bar of very good chocolate on hand for just such emergencies.
The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club Page 30