12
DAUPHINE
THE DAYS OF only seeing photos of beautiful places were over. That was the first thought that came to me when I woke as Captain Nathan, in his soothing accent, announced the plane’s descent. I was expecting to see pasture out the window, but when I peered out, the sun was rising over a carpet of city, Buenos Aires stretching as far as I could see. Its scope took my breath away. I had read about the dazzling sprawl, but I was actually seeing it, and from high up. I’d never seen any city from this vantage point before, and it felt otherworldly, like having a superpower. Soon, I would be more than a mere observer. I’d be immersed in the city itself, the Paris of South America.
I privately thanked S.E.C.R.E.T. and, while disembarking, quite publically thanked my pilot by kissing him on the cheek as I passed.
“That’s for helping me,” I said.
“The pleasure was all mine,” said Captain Nathan, tipping his pilot cap.
Two drivers stood behind a placard with my name on it: one would take me to the hotel; the other would bring Carolina’s painting to a secure facility until the auction. Waiting for me in the back seat of a limo was a bowl of chilled fruit, pastries and hot coffee, which I savored along the way. I was ravenous, for food, for people, for life, my eyes scanning every detail out the window, as wide as saucers.
All in one block, I saw neoclassical French facades, Italianate cupolas, art nouveau gates and modernist glass block rectangles wedged between six-story walkups, laundry strewn over every balcony. I couldn’t keep up with the feast of curves and cornices. People seemed oblivious to traffic lights, a hazard in a place where a quick turn off an eight-lane avenue could send you down a narrow one-way street with no sidewalks. So this is what it’s like, I thought, to be a stranger on an adventure in a new place. My senses were alive, my whole body tingling with possibility.
My driver, Ernesto, was an eager tour guide, pointing out all the relevant signposts, like when the highway from the airport turned into Avenida 9 de julio, one of the widest streets in the world.
“It is … comemorativo,” he said with a crisp accent, “this one celebrating Argentina’s independencia. Most streets in Buenos Aires are named in celebration of something or someone.”
Approaching the hotel, we cruised through the heart of a dense and hectic neighborhood called Recoleta, a posh part of town, Ernesto said, where people still lined up to pay homage to Eva Perón in its famed cemetery.
Stopping in front of the Alvear Palace Hotel felt like we were pulling up to a castle. I chastised myself for feeling like a princess, something from which I thought my workaholic tendencies had inoculated me. But there I was stepping out of the long, sleek car with Ernesto’s help, feeling utterly prized. A line of international flags whipped loudly in the wind, highlighting the fact that the hotel took up nearly an entire city block.
“This will be your home for the next little while,” he said, removing his cap and bowing slightly.
I caught a better look at his face. His creamy dark skin and slightly Asian eyes were an alluring mix; for someone so young, he had an air of gravitas about him.
“It’s beautiful, thank you.”
My bags disappeared through the gold doors and I quickly followed them. That regal feeling was heightened when I took the elevator to my eighth-floor suite, where I kicked off my shoes. My sitting room faced a street already choked with morning rush-hour traffic, but the triple-paned windows meant it was as silent as a tomb. Good lord, this was a real suite, the kind where you ate in a room separate from where you slept. I flung open the heavy, gold floor-to-ceiling curtains, my bare feet caressing the deep pile of the Oriental rug. The porter left clutching his tip, and I stood for a moment in the middle of the rooms, squeezing my fists. Then I let out a high-pitched cry of joy, ran to the bed and flung myself onto it.
It was still a few days until the auction, the responsibility of which suddenly flooded my body. I was on a kind of mission, like a woman of mystery and intrigue, I decided. If I were afraid of anything, I would just pretend to be that woman, the fearless kind, the kind who took delicious pleasure thirty thousand feet up and received a suite of rooms for her daring.
After a hot shower, I peeled back the downy layers of bedding and slid between the heavy covers. Just a quick nap, I thought. I hadn’t slept well on the plane. I closed my eyes and woke three hours later to a gentle knock on the door. I opened it to a bellhop, who rolled in a trolley. Perched between a carafe of coffee and a tray of crustless sandwiches was a thick, square envelope, Dauphine spelled out in that familiar S.E.C.R.E.T. scroll. It was odd, if not a little discombobulating, seeing something familiar in a place so far from home. I plucked the card off the tray and sliced it open with a butter knife. Step Four was traced out on one side of the heavy card stock, the word Generosity on the other, and beneath it the line “We are with you every Step, Dauphine.”
It was happening! Another one.
Suspended on a hook above the trolley was a thick garment bag that felt hefty as I carried it to the bed. I unzipped it, exposing a fanciful red dress, sequins on the bodice, cascading to a riot of feathers around the hips and legs. It looked like a giant crimson swan. I held it up against my body in front of a full-length mirror. An invitation to a midnight tango show came drifting out of its wings.
Dancing? No. Not dancing. I avoided it almost as much as I avoided flying. As much as I loved music, I could never do more than nod to the beat in the dark corners of the clubs. Sometimes I danced alone in my apartment. I danced for Luke once, until I undermined the seduction by hamming it up, too self-conscious to pull off a real striptease. But the idea of dancing in front of strangers curdled my stomach. I wasn’t lean or graceful, unlike my sister.
“If Bree only had Dauphine’s discipline, or Dauphine Bree’s thighs, we’d have had a ballerina in this family,” my mother often said. I think she thought it was a compliment, but it gutted me.
I set aside my terror for a moment to marvel at the dress, the bodice’s expert construction, hand-stitched and lined strategically to soften the boning that held it stiff. Its asymmetrical hem suggested tango, for sure, and while red looked good on me, I can’t say that this dress was my style. No. Not at all. A sweat broke across my brow. I could not, would not, dance in front of people. Not with my body, in that dress. And S.E.C.R.E.T., as Cassie and Matilda kept reminding me, was about doing everything you want, nothing you don’t.
It was hours before the tango show. I hit the streets wearing my trench coat and comfortable shoes. Buenos Aires was cool, loud and busy, the mix of old and new clashing on every corner. And porteños seemed to love their outdoors spaces as much as New Orleanians. Even on a crisp fall day, the Plaza San Martín was full of strollers and cyclists, and dogs of various sizes were pulling on dozens of leashes held by incredibly strong walkers. I felt a warmth overcome me. Were it not for S.E.C.R.E.T., I’d never be sitting in the middle of a plaza across from the Casa Rosada watching old men—wearing well-made tweed coats—playing chess, while nearby couples caressed each other in the sun.
I walked the neighborhoods from Recoleta to Palermo, from San Telmo to Boca, scouring second-hand shops, finding out who their suppliers were and how they priced goods. First thing I noticed in a city of tall, thin brunettes with aquiline noses (some inherited, most purchased) is that my curvy ”Americanness” stood out. Nothing I tried on in the vintage stores fit, which left some of the shop girls more mortified than I was.