Signal to Noise (11 page)

He felt like waving and smiling back, but Constantino turned his head and saw him. Sebastian continued on his way, eyes fixed straight ahead.

“Y
OU KNOW WHAT
it’s like? It’s like reverse engineering.”

“What’s reverse engineering?” Sebastian asked.

“Umm... it’s when you lack the software specifications so you poke around the program interface trying to find the solution. That’s what we are doing with magic.”

Meche grabbed another record, looking at it critically. They had tried four different albums and none of them had produced the same magic effect as last time. Meche had been sure all they had to do was focus and be specific, but apparently that was not enough.

“I don’t understand,” Sebastian said.

“Okay, like the TU-4.”

“The what?”

“During World War II the Russians didn’t have a strategic bomber like the US and they wanted one. But they couldn’t figure out how to build it. Then a few B-29 bombers had to make emergency landings in Russia and the Russians looked at them, figured how they were made and made their own bombers. It’s like... like building a puzzle without the instructions. Figuring it backwards. Something like that.”

“You mean it’s like taking a stab in the dark,” Sebastian said.

“An
educated
stab.”

“How’d you learn about World War II?”

“That time they punished me and I had to spend a whole month during recess in the library. I had to read the encyclopedia and write a report on Russia during World War II.”

“Who’d know,” he said with a smirk.

“What?”

“You can read.”

Meche punched his arm and Sebastian chuckled.

“I still don’t understand what we are doing,” Daniela said, holding up a bunch of record sleeves in her hands.

“We don’t know either,” Sebastian said.

“Oh.”

Daniela blinked, then looked at her records. They had been at this for more than an hour and he sensed that soon enough Daniela would ask to go home. If they were going to figure how to cast a spell a second time around, they had to do it quick.

“Okay, let’s try Money’s Too Tight To Mention,” Sebastian said. He was out of other ideas.

They crowded around the portable record player, holding hands tight, just like last time. The little beat began and then the chorus, “We’re talking ’bout money, money!” But nothing happened. The room remained cold and still.

“Ugh,” Meche said, falling back against the floor. “What’s wrong? We’ve done obvious songs, not so obvious songs...”

“We can try Material Girl again,” Sebastian suggested.

That had been the first song they’d attempted to use. A second try might not amount to anything, but Sebastian did not know what else to pick. Meche rubbed her hands against her eyes.

“Okay,” Daniela said, sounding chipper. “Let me find it one more time.”

Sebastian sat down next to Meche, bumping his sneaker against hers.

“Hey, we have time to get it right,” he said. “We’ll wish for the money, wish for the—”

“I so wanted to get a decent dress that’s not like two sizes too big,” Meche muttered. “And maybe get rid of the pimples... somehow.”

“They’re not
that
bad,” he said, trying to be kind, though they were bad. Meche often had pimples all around her mouth and smack in the middle of her forehead. She tried to hide them with her bangs, but it didn’t help. “Just fucking hormones.”

“Gee, Doctor Soto, you think?”

“Don’t be annoying.”

Meche bumped his shoe back and turned to look at him, frowning. She looked very solemn, but a grin was about to break through, shattering her sour expression.

“Ouch!”

Sebastian raised his head. “What’s up, Dani?”

“It’s hot!”

“What’s hot?” Meche muttered, taking a long pause after each word.

“The record.”

That was about the weirdest thing he’d ever heard.

“Records are not hot,” Sebastian said.

“Wait,” Meche said, sitting up at once. “Hot?”

“Yeah.”

“Which one?”

Daniela looked at the floor, at a record sleeve next to her foot. Meche scrambled forward and lifted it very carefully.

“Dead or Alive.”

“You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” Meche said. “Sebastian, touch it.”

“Alright,” he said.

He didn’t expect it to really burn him, but as soon as he touched it Sebastian felt like he was handling a potato that had been pulled out of a boiling pot of water. He thrust it back into Meche’s hands and she set it down on the floor.

“What’s that?” Sebastian asked.

“I don’t know,” Meche muttered.

She knelt down, took the record out of the sleeve. Her fingers hovered above the shiny, black vinyl surface, very carefully.

“It’s very warm. It’s like... there’s electricity here.”

“There can’t be.”

Meche pressed her index finger against the record and a little blue spark actually shot up. She laughed. Daniela pressed both hands against her mouth. Sebastian just raised an eyebrow.

“You know what this means, right?” she told them. “It’s not just any record. Some of them have power and some of them don’t. Look, feel it.”

Sebastian and Daniela both knelt down. He carefully touched the edge of the record. Another blue spark shot up.

“You think?” Sebastian asked.

“Look for other records which feel warm,” Meche said.

Daniela began to go through one of the cardboard boxes. Sebastian grabbed another box, his fingers dancing over the sleeves, pulling some out, leaving others in its place. Nothing, nothing... and then bingo. A sleeve that itched his palm. He pulled out a single. It felt like a warm tortilla, just wrapped in a cloth.

“Hey,” he said. “This one’s the same.”

“What is it?”

“Billy Idol,” Sebastian said. “Dancing With Myself. Touch it.”

Meche extended her hand, carefully setting it against the sleeve. She nodded very slightly.

“I feel it.”

“It’s... is it beating? Can you feel it?”

It was very weird. A sensation similar to the one you might get if you pressed your palm against your chest, over your heart. A little thumping.

Meche frowned. “I don’t feel the beating.”

“This is the one, Meche,” Sebastian said. “The one for our money spell.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Then put it on. Daniela, are you ready?”

“Yes.”

They gathered close to the record player, hands joined. The music began and Sebastian slowly moved his foot. Just a little bit, heel lifting and falling. Lifting and falling. Meche and Daniela’s feet followed his lead, raising and falling and then Billy screamed and he grabbed Daniela and they began to dance.

Daniela was a terrible dancer but she moved quite easily now, and despite her ridiculous pink dress she could have danced in Billy Idol’s music video. Sebastian felt a jolt of electricity when their palms touched and they laughed, jumped back and forward.

He turned around and grabbed Meche’s hand. He spun her, one, two, three times. Her long skirt, reaching beneath the knee, flared up, showing her legs for an instant, her knee-high stockings with the loose elastic pooling down by her ankles.

He spun her again and Meche stepped forward, her palms pressing against his chest for a moment.

Golden tendrils spilled from her fingers, curling up in the air. Sebastian raised his left arm and another golden tendril rose from his hand. He glanced at Daniela and she pointed at them, a gold ribbon extending and touching the two ribbons hovering near the ceiling. They knotted themselves together.

The room glowed golden for a second, as though a small sun had installed itself over their heads. Then little flecks of gold began to fall like snow. Their little sun was chipping away into nothingness.

The needle lifted itself and Sebastian brushed his hair from his face.

“We are going to tear the town up,” he muttered.

“What?” Meche said.

“We’re going to tear the town up, baby!” he yelled, grabbing Meche by the waist and lifting her up.

“Yeah, baby!”

Daniela giggled, jumping up and down. “How much money will we get? How will we get it?”

“Treasure. Hidden in some distant location and we’ll need a shovel to dig it out,” he told them, still holding Meche up. “Aye, aye, Jim Hawkins.”

“Jim, who?”

“Really, Meche?” he said, putting her down. “You don’t even open my birthday presents, do you?”

“Not if I have to read them.”

“You suck.”

“Sticks and stones, Sebastian Soto,” she said, standing on her tiptoes and jamming her finger against the hollow of his throat. “Let’s find that cash and spend it.”

They rushed down the stairs together, trying to see who made it out of the factory first.

Mexico City, 2009

M
ECHE FOUND THE
old boxes where her mom said they would be and pulled them open. There were ancient textbooks there, old toys. A video game she had not played in years and years. Meche scooped them all out and set them on the floor.

She found Sebastian’s books at the bottom.
Treasure Island
. Shakespeare’s complete works.
El Lazarillo de Tormes
. Sebastian had definitely been an optimist, thinking one day she might develop a taste for reading.

The smallest of all the books was the last one he had ever given her: Auden.

She opened it to the first page and looked at the inscription, the letters crisp and very straight. Sebastian’s handwriting.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,

And all the brooks and soldiers run away?

Will Time say nothing but I told you so?

—Always and always your best friend. Sebos.

“Always and always,” she muttered.

Meche lifted the book and a picture fell out. She thought it might be another snapshot of her with Daniela and Sebastian. But the Polaroid was of her father, holding her as a toddler. He was helping her take an uncertain step.

Her mother had gotten rid of many of the photos of her dad. Meche disposed of the ones she had with indifference. This Polaroid had escaped the culling.

There had been no photos of Vicente in his apartment. Meche had only been able to picture him tenuously, like a jumble of half-remembered features. This picture brought his features into the light, sharpened him, made him real.

And damn it, she looked a lot like her father. She’d forgotten that.

Meche wandered into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. She would have to go to her dad’s apartment again. There were so many things to sort out and another night of food and prayer to look forward to.

“Are you hungry?” her mother asked, wandering into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator.

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t had breakfast.”

“I never have breakfast.”

“That’s not good for you. I’ll make you some eggs.”

“Ma...”

“Just two eggs.”

Meche knew it was futile to fight back. She sat down at the kitchen table. The kettle whistled and her mother poured the boiling water into a cup, then handed it to her along with a little box full of tea bags.

“Did you ever feel sorry for dad?”

“Sorry about what?”

“In general.”

“Your father made his choices. No, I didn’t feel sorry for him.”

Her mother turned her back on her, her attention on the eggs she was frying. She grabbed a spatula and flipped them over.

“I have no idea what he was up to these last few years,” Meche said.

“The same thing as always. Pretending to write. The bar. Smoking like a train. The last few times he came over...”

“He’d come over?” Meche asked, quite shocked at that.

Her mother turned off the stove and plated the eggs. She set them down before Meche and handed her a fork.

“In the last couple of years. Not a lot. He wanted to know how you were doing. I showed him some of the pictures you sent me, of the Northern Lights. ‘Too cold,’ he told me.”

Natalia sat down across from Meche, holding a glass of orange juice between her hands. Meche really did not want to eat, but she took a tiny bite.

“He wanted to write to you. I gave him your e-mail...”

“Why would you do that?” Meche asked.

She had told Natalia not to give her personal information to her father. He’d had it before and they had few, sparse conversations over the years, generally on Christmas and her birthday. When she lived in London he phoned one night, teary and drunk, talking about music. An incoherent babble of self-pity, of “Let me explain a few things to you about myself,” and all of it mixed with lyrics from songs. A mess. She told her mother not to give her phone number to him again and changed the number.

“He was dying, Meche,” Natalia said, palms up. “What else was I supposed to do? He said he was going to write to you from an internet café. I guess he didn’t.”

“Nope.”

Meche added a couple of spoons of sugar to her tea, stirring it slowly.

“Do you miss him?” her mother asked.

“My father?” Meche asked. “How could I miss someone I hadn’t seen for half my life before he died?”

“Because you look like you miss him.”

M
ECHE CONTINUED CATALOGUING
her father’s albums. Around noon, she realized she should have eaten the eggs instead of just taking a bite. Her father’s cupboards were barren, the kitchen minimally stocked. Above the sink she found a big box of animal crackers. There was also powdered milk.

She thought of eating the crackers, but the memories of her father and a younger Meche enjoying them with a glass of milk made her pause. She grabbed her jacket and walked two blocks away, to a narrow Chinese café. She asked for tea, but this being a Mexican-Chinese café, there was none. She settled for café-au-lait and fresh bread rolls, watching the woman half-asleep behind the cash register; thinking that this café could be right from the 1980s, so old and worn it looked.

Meche grabbed her earbuds and pressed play, but despite the cheery assurances of Elvis Presley the world seemed dim and grey. She paid, went back to her father’s apartment, and found it dimmer and greyer than the café.