The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club Read Online Free PDF Page B

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