Besos, pt. 2

We make a 10:30 PM reservation for Casa Cruz, another one of German Martitegui’s restaurants where we hope the food and the waiters will be as good as those at Tegui. And we are only slightly disappointed. The restaurant itself is in Palermo and not far from Podesta where we plan to dance. Casa Cruz is beautiful inside, with a large oval bar near the entrance and heavy accents of red velvet against black. We actually arrive late, and the hostess doesn’t even blink an eye – instead she asks us if we want to take more time and stop into the bar for a drink. Um, no. Clearly reservations in Buenos Aires are a sort of fluid thing, but we find they do get us primo seats along one wall where both Klover and I are able to stare out into the crowd as everyone goes by.

But the waiters at Casa Cruz are no match for B or the rest of the staff at Tegui. When our server, a young slender guy with a large, almost cartoonish mop of brown hair approaches with our menus, I can hear an audible sad sigh coming from Klover’s direction. She later notes, “Damn. He looks like he’s fourteen years old.” Actually, all the Casa Cruz staff looks pretty young and inexperienced and this is also reflected in the service we receive – it’s sort of awkward and clumsy all around. 

But the food is actually quite good. Though I find I don’t have wine or agua sin gas whenever I tend to have food in front of me, we enjoy our poached oysters with brioche crumbs, our marinated octopus with bits of avocado and tomato, and our main dish – which we split – of crab ravioli with a champagne sauce and small morsels of grapefruit. And for dessert, which takes place almost an hour and a half after we enter the restaurant – as mentioned, the portenos like to luxuriate over their meals – we ask the waiter to help us decide between all sorts of options that marry savory and sweet, classic Argentine with modern foams and methods that started in Spain at El Bulli. And he actually comes in handy, insisting we order the dulce con leche flan.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t order the helados?” Klover asks.

“No,” he says, snatching away our menus and showing us he really does know how to take charge. “It is the flan.”

“Not the strawberry tarte with black pepper?” Klover wonders aloud.

“No. It is the flan. Definitely the flan,” he tells us anxiously.

“And if we do not like we can send back…?” Klover teases with only the slightest smirk.

“Yes,” he says, with a sudden smile. “But you will like. I know this.”

When we receive the flan, we’re initially disappointed. It looks like a cube of golden Jello in a pool of sweet cream. But then we taste it. With our waiter hovering over us like a mother hen as he waits for our approval, we notice this little flan is something not to be expected – the texture so fine and light and like no other dulce con leche concoction we’ve sampled thus far.

“You like?” he asks, maybe nervous for a moment.

 And Klover repeats one of our favorite sayings of the trip. “Si! Me gusta!”

After dinner, we head over to Podesta, and on the way Klover wonders aloud about Nicolas. “It’s like, he’s not even offering me a real date or a drink or anything. He just wants me to jump in his car. What is this?”

We both laugh at the sad state of romance and how it’s not even like we want anyone to ever necessarily buy us anything – we just want a little fun courtship, some flirting, and maybe some verbal foreplay. And it seemed like this was so obviously a huge part of the way the men would operate in Argentina, yet – alas – Nicolas proves it isn’t so.

“What do you think? Is Nicolas a step down from B?” Klover asks.

“He’s cute, but B was sort of otherworldly,” I note.

“Should we go by Tegui? It’s right near here, right?” And for a moment I think Klover really is going to go stand outside that restaurant and wait for B, but she’s joking. Again. And we continue on our walk through Palermo.

Initially, we have a hard time finding Podesta since, as usual, our maps are so screwy. We wander a bit before asking a café worker for directions. I also try to see if there’s any wi-fi available to check if we’ve received messages from the Casa SaltShaker folks or Emilio and Ignacio. And then we finally find Podesta only to see that it’s closed! Bummer - not only no dancing, but the whole place is shuttered completely.

At this point, it’s 12:30, and we have no idea when any of our peeps will be showing up. Also, since we don’t have phone access, we can’t call anyone, though with wi-fie access we can email. Also, I sent Ignacio and Emilio our photos, so they know what we look like, but we don’t really know what they look like. Ah, the confusion of living without true access to our phones! But then Klover hears her name being called, "Klover! Klover!" and spots Nicolas sitting in his car across the street. She goes over to talk to him while I see via my iPhone that – magically – I do have sudden wi-fi access through one of the nearby cafes. Woot!

A part of me is a little nervous for Klover, not sure that she should go anywhere with Nicolas, and another part of me wonders what I’ll do on this last night if Klover finds her novio and I can’t find our friends. I wander a little ways down the street so I can look at a few of the emails I’ve received. One message is from Emilio who says he can’t make it to Podesta because he and Ignacio are at a dinner party with a friend in San Telmo, but we’re welcome to come over there (they’ll be there until 2AM, at least). Or, they could make us lunch the next day – Ignacio has a nice flat and they would like to meet up with us. Another message is from Iris and Bobi who say they came to Podestas and they also found it closed.

As I finish reading, I see Klover stomping back across the street. She quickly grabs my arm and hustles me down the sidewalk and away from Podesta, trying not to look back at Nicolas who is still looking at us forlornly from his car.

“He has a ring on!” she says.

“Wha-?”

“Yeah, he was just talking away, flashing his hand in front of me, and I asked him, ‘What’s that?’ He said it was just a little promise ring, and I said, ‘You have a girlfriend!?!’ and he said, ‘Oh, you know – girls ask for these things. It is not important.’”

As she relays this, I’m looking at her in shock while still trying to get another look at Nicolas. He’s just watching us with his deep brooding eyes that now appear somewhat more psychopathic than before.

“And so I ask him,” she continues, “’How long have you been with your girlfriend?’ And he says, ‘Ah, seven months.’ Of course, I say, ‘No. You do not go asking out girls when you have a girlfriend. No besos for you!’” Klover has her pointer finger waving at this point, and I’m half in shock and half in laughing hysterics. “And then he tried to say something about how that’s not what I was saying on the phone,” she says. “Can you believe it? Of course, I said, ‘Ciao!’ and I walked away.”

We’re still walking at this point, one foot in front of another, and we haven’t gotten all that far and we’re not sure where we’re going.

“We need to get out of here. Quick,” she tells me, and despite the humor in the situation, I can feel her hand slightly shaking. “What’s the Spanish word for sleazebag? Does that translate?”

I tell her about Emilio’s email. Not long after, we flag down a cab and we’re on our way across town to San Telmo to join a few guys at a dinner party (in a foreign country) where we won’t know anyone or necessarily speak their language. Alora! How plans change.

During the car ride, Klover is exasperated. “Once a month! So stupid! Isn’t he stupid?”

But we both can’t stop laughing.

“This is funny,” Klover says, “but – wow- I might’ve been date raped!”

It’s almost 1 AM when we arrive in San Telmo. The streets are empty and we’d heard this – along with La Bocca – is one of the worst neighborhoods at night in Buenos Aires. We ring the bell, nervous for who may be inside, or even who might be lurking around the corner. We tell the cab driver to wait until someone comes to the door, and he nods vigorously in agreement. We wait a bit, and as we’re about to turn around and take the cab back to Palermo, we see a light inside. It’s Emilio.

“Buenos noches,” he says smiling, and he gently kisses us each on the cheek. He’s tall, slender, and he’s got scruffy sideburns. He’s wearing skinny jeans, a v-neck t-shirt, and some sort of light sneaker; he might be any guy in the Mission if one didn’t notice his Argentine accent.

He politely escorts us into the building, through a passageway, and into an apartment at the back. The whole time he explains that they have been celebrating and the doorbell doesn’t work that well and he’s so happy to see us. He’s absolutely charming and at each doorway, he stops and politely lets us go first, opening doors and behaving like a gentleman at every turn.

Once in the apartment, we see a set of very precariously narrow stairs that lead up to an upper floor at the top of the building. We go up these steps and past a few bedrooms and a sitting room with candles and records. At the top, we find a patio with a table set up – we might be in Paris or Istanbul, it’s so far away and ancient and mystical. We find there are six people there in the shadows with only the moon and the stars overhead to provide light. 

We’re introduced all around – there's the very handsome Ignacio, or Nacho. He’s tall and slender, and he appears to have light eyes – maybe grey or green, and he is very sweet with longish brown hair and a big grin on his face. There’s also Manuel, who isn’t wearing a shirt and sort of looks like a surfer boy in long shorts. He’s the one who lives in the apartment and he has a haircut that looks like it’s out of the sixties – very short on the sides and pretty poofy and slicked back on top. He also has a cigarette balanced behind his ear and he's not afraid to ask questions and hope that someone will translate. There’s a girl with long dark hair named Charmine, and her boyfriend, Alberto, and another guy with scrappy dark hair and a bit of a beard who smiles quickly and often and is very interested in everything we say.

It’s hard to catch everyone’s names, but there are light Argentinean kisses that go all around and Manuel finds Klover and I chairs and makes us feel comfortable. They ask if we’d like food and Emilio quickly pours us beverages – they have big bottles of Imperial and Stella Artois – and they explain that Manual just bought a grill and they were having an asado, or a bbq, to celebrate. I feel bad we didn't bring anything to offer them, but then I remember Klover has her little package from the French girl and she shares this with everyone.

After introductions, Alberto tells us he used to live in San Mateo for awhile and he also lived in Sausalito – we can definitely tell since his English is so good. Also, Emilio speaks English, but the rest do not, which means that during our conversation Klover must fully utilize her espangliano and I do my fine work of saying things like “si!” like I know what I’m talking about, or adding an “o” to words that I know have Latin roots. We find we really are so GOOD at this communicato thingy!

During our conversation, we learn that everyone at the asado has one thing in common – they’re all from a small town outside of Buenos Aires called San Pedro, though they didn’t necessarily know each other there. This makes me think of my friends in San Francisco who are friends with others who are from places like Cleveland, or the Central Valley, or Syracuse or Boston. It’s interesting how these ties bind. We also learn that most of this bunch are in a band together.

“We just started, but we are going to concentrate exclusively on the band,” Emilio tells me.

“Well,” I say. “It’s important not to do it half-way.”

 “Yes!” Emilio says, sounding relieved that I understand how important a band can be. “This is true. We know we must truly believe! It is important.”

I laugh, thinking about how I’d just written about this earlier. “She Believes!” And this makes me think about how great innovators, great successes – geniuses – believe. Belief with a sort of madness that inspires. Confidence is also essential in art and at the heart of belief and I’m always amazed at what my friends can create – paintings, graffiti, books and songs - when they’re fearless. They believe – in their own taste, their own vision, in themselves. I had a talk recently with a friend about this – how this sort of confidence can be hard to come by, particularly for women. And confidence sometimes seems to be about class – the idea that you have family there to fall back on should anything go awry. I haven’t ever actually had this sort of security and though my belief in myself is sometimes tentative and confused, I’m still a dreamer and I know I can depend on myself, so I can appreciate Emilio’s need to create something himself and really hold onto a belief of something.

Emilio asks Klover and I what we’ve been doing in Buenos Aires and we begin listing off our very touristy outings. And then we recall that we saw Pavement – maybe something not so touristy.

“Pavement!?!” they all shout in unison. This is very exciting to them, and they all say they would’ve liked to see them but the tickets were too expensive – the equivalent of $50 US Dollars, which would mean $200 dollars to a porteño. We recognize this is extravagant, and Klover notes that I actually knew someone in the band. It takes a bit, but it comes out that I have an ex who plays in Pavement – something I normally don’t share (except on very public blogs?) – and everyone there immediately thinks I was married to Steve Malkmus.

“Uh, no.” I say, and I clarify.

And their excitement makes me realize that I really should’ve been in touch sooner since I could’ve gotten them into the show – making that one good deed of the trip.

From here, we talk about music – they all have great taste and reference bands like Justice and Devendra Banhart and Emilio tells me that he’s really into old soul, Mississippi blues, and that this is what their band is going to sound like. Of course, they ask us what we’re listening to and I pull out my iPhone and this becomes our little boom box for the night. I don’t have a whole lot on there, but I play Deerhunter and Sufjan Stevens and Wavves, and Manuel immediately wants me to write everything down for him. Also, Manuel says he likes Rock-steady and his favorite is Alton Ellis.

“Wha-? Really?” I say. “I’ve been listening to a bunch of Alton and Hortense Ellis this year.” And I play this for them, as well.

As we listen, it all feels pretty rare that we should be at the other end of the Earth, so far away from San Francisco and everything that's familiar, and here we were listening to music coming out of my phone - and that this music should actually connect us all. I’m not surprised that it does this, but art, literature, music really has an intense power over people. And where it seems that so often I meet people where I don’t feel like I have anything in common with them, there are moments like this where something so arbitrary can make me feel really close, even when language isn’t available.

At some point, Klover gets lost in a conversation with Nacho – he’s using his broken Spanglish, and she’s speaking in her token espangliano. I talk to Emilio for a while about San Pedro, the economy in Argentina, and how people live in the United States.

They understand that there are these things called suburbs – they’ve seen them on The Simpsons and in Edward Scissorhand, and he wonders if this how we live in the US? Of course, I explain that these sorts of places are in parts of the US, but in San Francisco people live similarly to the way they live in Buenos Aires – we have flats and multiple families in one building, and many people, especially if you’re young, live the way they do with multiple room apartments and plenty of roommates. We also talk about buying houses and how this works, and Emilio tells me that it’s really rare that people would buy a place in Buenos Aires – it’s so costly and pretty much useless.

Also, in the midst of this, we tell the story of what happened earlier in the evening and how Podesta’s was closed and how Nicolas almost carried Klover away. Klover is able to tell this whole story in very animated espangliano, and the whole tale becomes more colorful and full of hilarity.

She tells them, “He had a ring on his finger! And I thought: no, he does not have a ring!”

Manuel takes this opportunity to raise all ten digits in the air so Klover can take note. “No ring!” he says, and we all laugh.

“And I didn’t even get my chocolate postre!” Klover complains.

“He thought you were the postre!” Emilio astutely observes.

We continue talking through the night as it gets later and later. Alberto and Charmine go to sleep, and as the only legitimate English speaker, Emilio politely continues to keep my cup of beer full and ensures we're entertained and don't need anything. And I think, these are really the sorts of guys we like – not the Nicolas’s, or the unreachable B’s. Emilio and Nacho and all the others in San Telmo on the little patio below the stars are truly sweet and thoughtful, and they are genuinely curious about the world and what we're about.

As we talk, Emilio ends up telling me that he’s just lost his job and I see that he’s actually somewhat worried. It was a small firm and they simply went out of business and suddenly closed shop. He doesn’t really know what he’ll do next. But he also seems to want to enjoy each day – he explains how the Argentines are familiar with change and upheaval. They think about the future, maybe even worry about it a bit, but this doesn’t stop them from enjoying their life in the moment.

And this makes me think about how we must seem to them – traveling all the way to Buenos Aires, and visiting fancy restaurants with our iPhones and rented apartments. I can see that we come off as Americans with big wallets, and with all the financial disparity’s with the current state of the Argentine economy, it’s hard to prove this wrong.

As we’d learned since visiting Argentina, the Argentineans are proud people. And during World War II, this was the richest country in the world. They have beautiful old buildings and lavish boulevards that stand as evidence of this history, but they – like us – have been struggling through an economic crisis, and theirs has been much more severe than ours. I can see this with the guys and they don't need to tell us.

At close to 4 AM, it’s time to leave and Emilio and Nacho insist on getting us a cab and making sure we get home okay. For a moment, this makes me think of someone I briefly dated. Though he was the sort of guy who always seemed to have pretty impeccable manners, there was a time he let me walk to my car alone at night in a pretty sketchy neighborhood. I thought it was sort of weird of him at the time, and I was surprised. But then I remember feeling too proud to insist that he come along to protect me. And as I walked down the street in my heels, I felt sort of shaky - I was frightened of some of the people mulling around and I felt dumb for not speaking up. Later, I kept thinking about this incident and I realized, damn - it actually hurt that he didn’t care enough to watch out for me. It felt mean. And, the truth is, I'm so used to friends who are polite and gracious, and I'm so used to feeling free to be polite and gracious back that it was a shock to find myself in a situation where I was actually dating someone who didn't treat me as well as one of my friends would.

And seeing the way Emilio and Nacho behaved, it reminded me of how really good it felt to be around guys who knew how to behave. They made it look easy to have good manners. Oddly, most of the guys I've dated since getting divorced seemed to be missing this gene, which clearly says something about me. And this reminded me - I LIKE being treated well. It may sound obvious, but I know I need to hold out for this. I like my door opened, my wine glass full, and I like it when a guy walks me to my car. This is the sort of machismo I don't want to do without. And it reminded me that if a guy wasn't acting right, it's a red flag that he really doesn't care.

Standing there in the entry way to the apartment with Emilio and Nacho, we find ourselves looking at the rows of skateboards near the door. We didn’t notice them when we entered. Also, the walls are hung with a few neatly arranged rock posters and there are tons of CDs everywhere. We talk to Emilio and Nacho for a few minutes and Emilio tells us he plans to take a bus back to his apartment at the outskirts of town – cabs are far too expensive - and Nacho's planning to walk home the eight or so blocks away to where he lives. In between, they’ll get us a cab, and with this they escort us back through the narrow passageway between the buildings and I look up and see the moon is incredibly large above us and inordinately bright.

On the street, Emilio and Nacho walk us out toward the center of San Telmo to a street near the subte stop. They tell us that we must always take a Radio Cab since the rest aren’t safe.

“Um, really?” we ask, looking at each other dumbly since we know this isn’t a rule we’ve followed since arriving in Buenos Aires.

“Yes,” they say. “It is very important.”

It seems the other cabs don’t have radio contact and it’s possible that they may do anything to you, or charge you anything. This is news to us – we’ve been taking all different sorts of cabs the entire time we’ve been in Buenos Aires, including cabs with plastic windows and packing tape. But we’re relieved to receive this little nugget of wisdom, even this late in the game.

When we find our cab, there’s another rush of sweet porteño cheek kisses to go around, and I like the feel of the scruff of their beards against my face. We also make plans to meet up the following day to go to the La Boca stadium and maybe get a tour.

Once Klover and I are in the car, we sigh heavily – oddly enough, we think these are our true novios for Buenos Aires. They're too perfect. We only wish we'd met up with them earlier. And, in the end, we decide that if we really thought about it, there actually are a few potential novios like these guys somewhere back in SF. We just needed to say si instead of no.