The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club Read Online Free PDF

what I needed. Not from martinis—from my life. I had worked long and 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