The Night I Ate Hearts With My Sweetheart

Spoiler Alert: This is not a dark humor story

Right after taping “Um só Coração” — “One Heart,” a Brazilian TV miniseries — and returning to São Paulo, I met a girl on Orkut, the most prominent social network here at that time. She was a beautiful blonde who lived in Joinville, a city 325 miles from mine. We got along really well and quickly started chatting on MSN. We had contact daily, and text conversations turned into video calls that lasted for hours. Within a few days, I began to feel like I was in a relationship.

We needed to see each other personally.

I had several miles on Smiles, the late Varig’s frequent flyer program. It is one of the good sides of working in Rio de Janeiro when you live in São Paulo; I flew every week. With the number of miles I had, it was possible to take a round trip to Joinville. I talked to the girl who accepted my conditions: I would only go if she stayed with me at the hotel.

And there I went.

I still remember the anxiety before I met her in person… I knew I would not be disappointed since we talked on video every day. The tension was to be able to touch her finally. To my surprise, Joinville airport closed due to the weather. My plane had to land in Curitiba, and from there, they took us to Joinville by bus. I ended up being quite late for the meeting, but she was there to receive me when I arrived in the city.

We went straight to the hotel and, look… What a night! This story of long-distance relationships is fascinating. Because you achieve tremendous intimacy with the person without ever having seen them in person, and when the thing happens, the intimacy is already there. It looks like you “skip a few steps.” Anyway, it was a fantastic night. And I would stay in Joinville for a whole week!

Then you think, “For a week? You must have known the city, strolled around the tourist spots, etc.”

And I tell you what I did. In the MIDDLE of this week, we went to a mall to have dinner and go to the cinema.

And on the LAST DAY, we visited a city park.

We went to her house three times throughout the week since she lived a block from the hotel and wanted me to meet the family.

But apart from these days, the only place you could find us in those days, except for the cafeteria next to the hotel where we ate, was in the room.

We REALLY enjoyed that trip.

But I just told all of this to contextualize the moment of our first dinner together in that cafeteria.

I didn’t know that in Santa Catarina there was a sandwich called “X-Coração” — something like “Cheese-Heart.” As we were in love, it is logical that I told her that I wanted to eat the “Cheese-Heart.” I spoke jokingly… But she asked the waiter for two.

“And what’s in that Cheese-Heart, sweetheart?”

“Chicken heart, of course!”

I… I didn’t think it was a good idea. I liked chicken hearts; I’ve already eaten at barbecues and other similar occasions… But inside a loaf of bread? At the very least, I found the thing quite awkward… After all, a lot of little hearts didn’t have the cohesiveness of a good hamburger.

I was right.

The feeling I had was that I was eating something alive, trying to get out of my mouth all the time. It wasn’t bad, however, quite the opposite…

But the work of eating, coupled with the constant tension of the fear of a heart falling out of the sandwich during a bite — which has happened several times — made that experience unique.

Oh, and I finally understood why there were so many street dogs hanging around that cafeteria…

Paying a small tribute to the miniseries that I had just taped, there was not “One Heart” left on the floor!