Signal to Noise (26 page)

Meche turned her head and raised an eyebrow at him, with that
come-again-asshole
look she sometimes sported when a random construction worker yelled an inappropriate comment at her.

“Do I need to answer that one?”

“Yeah. Bad question.”

E
IGHT O’CLOCK AND
all hell was about to break loose. Since Vicente had moved out, Meche’s mother had apparently decided she would quarrel with Meche in what Meche could only imagine was supposed to be a display of motherly concern. It smelled more like bullshit than love.

“You think I’m stupid.”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

Meche’s mother looked like her head was about to start spinning like the girl in
The Exorcist
. In Meche’s experience backing down would be an admission of guilt. She was not going to be bullied into the guilty square. It was not the 17th century and she was tired of getting the Inquisition treatment.

“You skipped school again and you standing here, a complete liar, in front of me.”

Meche crossed her arms and glanced over her mother’s shoulder, at the face of Sting on the wall.

“What were you doing?”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Out with Sebastian Soto again?”

“Oh my God,” Meche muttered under her breath.

“Do you two have to meet every single day? You go to school together. Then you spend every moment outside school together. What is going on?”

“Nothing!” Meche yelled. “God, is your life so boring you have to invent this drama to keep you entertained? No wonder dad dumped you!”

The slap came as a bit of a surprise. This was a new level of theatrics. Meche rubbed her cheek, knitting her eyebrows together angrily.

Her mother gave her a long, cold stare and slammed her bedroom door shut. Meche put on the headphones and gritted her teeth.

S
EBASTIAN DID NOT
understand how Principal Estrada knew they had been behind the public humiliation levied upon her during the school assembly, but she knew. That killer instinct which helped her pounce on teenagers trying to smoke in the bathrooms must have also prepared her to recognize the undeniable stench of a hex. Whatever it was, she was onto them and a confrontation was imminent.

Just after recess on Friday, when Sebastian, Daniela and Meche were preparing to drag their feet to Biology class, Estrada appeared, blocking their way, just like the robot in the bad B-movie from the 50s he had been watching on the TV the night before.

“Mr. Soto, I’ve had enough of that hair of yours. You are getting a haircut.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Over the weekend. I promise.”

“No, Mr. Soto,” the principal said. “Right now.”

Estrada grabbed him by the arm and pulled him towards the office. Meche raised her voice in protest.

“You can’t do that.”

“Watch yourself, Miss Vega, unless you want to be in detention for the rest of the school year.”

Estrada walked with quick steps, her heels clicking upon the pavement and down the hallway towards her offices. She told him to sit down and Sebastian just stared at the woman.

“You’d like to be expelled, Mr. Soto?”

He could imagine his mother’s face if that happened. She’d have one son who had impregnated his girlfriend and was dropping out of university, plus another one kicked out of school. It would be too terrible to bear. If his father found out... well, that would be an epic beating. Just because his dad didn’t live with them anymore didn’t mean he wouldn’t make a special guest appearance to kick the crap out of Sebastian.

Between the humiliation of the haircut and the dicey outcome at home, he picked humiliation and sat still as Estrada took out a pair of scissors and unceremoniously chopped off his long hair.

“Now people can see your face,” Estrada said. Like she’d done him a favour.

Sebastian saw his faint reflection in a glass display case and quietly disagreed.

He hurried out of the principal’s office, only to hear Daniela and Meche calling for him. He ignored them and hurried towards the west wall. There he climbed one of the trees, stood on the wall and lowered himself onto the other side.

Sebastian held on to the straps of his backpack and began walking, head down.

“Hey!”

He did not bother looking back nor did he quicken his pace and soon Meche was at his side, brushing leaves from her uniform and glancing at him.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “We’ve got Bio.”

“I don’t. I’m going home.”

“It doesn’t look so bad,” she said, sounding like she was about to laugh.

Sebastian stopped. He looked down at her, wanting to kick her.

“Really?” he said. “Because I have the feeling it looks like a donkey chomped on my head.”

Meche sighed and stepped on his toes, then stood on her tiptoes in order to reach him. Her fingers brushed his hair.

“You’re still cute.”

“I think ‘still’ and ‘cute’ are incompatible in that sentence.”

“Then you’re such an ugly motherfucker that no one will notice the difference, so stop crying like a baby,” she said, her hand slipping down and away.

Sebastian caught it and frowned.

“You’re serious?”

“The baby part or the motherfucker?”

“The cute.”

“Not if you’re going to get weird about that. Can you let go?”

“Sure.”

He released her hand. Meche stepped down and pulled at her sweater’s sleeves, hiking them up. Then she took out her Walkman, tugging at the headphones and he spoke quickly, before she could shield herself with songs.

“Thanks. I never thought you thought... I’m... like, okay looking.”

“Gee, should I fax you a notice about it? Forget it,” she said, looking uncomfortable.

Sebastian nodded. Later, in the factory, Meche played music and he sat on the floor by the couch, one knee drawn up. He watched her as she grabbed some albums, read the liner notes and stood by the record player.

Sebastian pulled himself up and hovered by Meche, feigning an interest in the record she was examining.

“What... which one is this?” he asked.

“Sarah Vaughan. Body and Soul. It’s jazz.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“It never rings a bell for you,” she said, chuckling. “Look, you’ll know this one. It’s Nat King Cole.”

Meche knelt down and placed the record on the turntable, dropping the needle. The man’s voice was spectacular and it seemed to tickle something in his brain.

“Isn’t it from a TV commercial?”

“It’s Unforgettable,” she said, rolling her eyes. “The day you learn anything about jazz I’ll know you’ve lost it.”

“Maybe I will one day. To keep up with you,” he said kneeling next to her.

“Start with Fitzgerald.”

“Who?”

“Ella Fitzgerald. And then maybe Louis Armstrong. Thelonious Monk. Chet Baker. There are like dozens and dozens of people—”

“It’s romantic. This song.”

“It was written by Irving Gordon. The arrangement is by Nelson Riddle... you have no idea who I’m talking about.”

“No.”

“I can put something else on.”

“I like it,” he whispered.

Nevertheless, she heard him, her head turning slightly towards him. Meche’s hands were resting on her lap and he stretched his fingers to clutch one of them. Meche let him hold it for maybe a second before she scooted forward and pulled the needle up.

“I don’t think it’s a day for Mr. Cole,” she said very seriously.

V
ICENTE
V
EGA HAD
fucked up again. With the profits from his investment, Vicente had planned to quit his job at the radio station and dedicate himself full-time to his book, which was bound to become a bestseller once he could find the right publisher.

Now he was back to square one. In truth, he had never even left square one.

He smoked his cigarette and sat in the bar, nursing a double scotch, with his notebook in front of him. He’d been writing song lyrics but they wouldn’t come right, so he’d decided to have one drink. That had turned into two and now he was on the sixth.

A couple more and he’d be ready to shuffle back to his apartment. A couple more and he could start smiling at the songs playing inside the joint. A couple more and he could whistle a tune as he walked out.

It was going to be better. One day. Soon.

Mexico City, 2009

M
ECHE BLINKED AND
raised her hand. Sunlight slipped through the curtains, sneaking through her parted fingers as she shielded her face. She turned around and frowned. It was a narrow bed and long-limbed Sebastian was taking up most of the space.

She slipped on her t-shirt, running quickly towards the kitchen. She decided to make tea.

The kettle whistled and Meche poured the hot water into a cup. She sat on the counter and tilted her head, looking at the cheap calendar on the wall, the kind one gets from a grocer every year. It read May 2009 and had a sappy picture of puppies. Her father had forgotten to change the month—or had not been bothered enough to do it.

What would Mr. Vega have said about this development? He would have laughed, no doubt. Her father had a sick sense of humour and he would have found some pleasure in her embarrassment. He might even have pointed out that they shared a genetic code and thus a proclivity to make really bad choices; to fuck people they shouldn’t fuck, and fuck themselves into a corner.

She had always considered herself a bit more level-headed, at least since she’d grown up.

Turns out she was wrong.

“Awesome,” Meche muttered.

She wish she had music. Her iPod was in the bedroom but she was reluctant to fetch it. She decided to think about songs, go over lyrics in her head. Love Will Tear Us Apart was the first thing she could conjure. No, not
that
. Jazz, that old friend, would do. Sebastian interrupted her before she had even reached the third line of “How High The Moon.”

“You always get up so early?”

Meche did not look at him, finding the puppies a good focal point.

“I usually get up around noon,” she said. “I code at nights and wake up late.”

“And then you don’t have breakfast.”

“Breakfast in Norway is pickled beets and sweet pickles and
Gammelost
. Maybe
fårepølse
. I’ve never been able to get into it.”

He stood in front of her, shirtless, and Meche blushed even though she was far too old to be blushing.

“I can’t believe how short your hair is,” he said, raising a hand to touch it.

“I’m sorry, this is too weird,” she said, jumping down from the counter and evading his touch.

“What?”

“I’ve never seen you naked.”

“You have now.”

“That is not... yeah, that’s why it’s weird. We never had a
thing
. It wasn’t like that.”

“Of course not. I was too dumb. I barely even kissed you that one time.”

“Sorry. I can’t talk without my trousers,” Meche said. “It’s freaking me out.”

She marched back into the bedroom and scooped up her jeans, buttoning them and wondering if she shouldn’t have just run out of the apartment when she woke up. It might have avoided this very awkward conversation.

“Shoes,” she whispered, looking under the bed. Where the hell had they gone? “Okay, yeah, explain that to me.”

Meche knelt next to the bed and set her hands upon the sheets, frowning and looking in Sebastian’s direction.

“Why are you suddenly developing this bizarre passion for me?” she asked. “You were not even into me.”

Sebastian lay on the bed and placed his hands behind his head, looking at the ceiling.

“You think so?”

“Absolutely. I mean, you had a thing for Isadora Galván.”

“I did.”

Meche tilted her head and smirked. “So is this like a stamp collection or something? Diddle all your ex-classmates and you get a prize?”

“No. I didn’t understand back then, what you meant to me. I assumed I could find the same easy feeling with many other people. But time passed, people passed and it was never quite the same. Then the other day I was walking to my mom’s place and I saw you across the street. It all just... hit me. I haven’t been able to stop feeling... I’ve felt things I haven’t felt in ages. It’s all because of you. I was so alive when I was with you. It was like... like it even hurt.”

“Sounds like a book I read,” she said. “It was shelved under ‘sappy.’”

“You didn’t feel like that about me?”

He looked at her with dark, steady eyes. Meche had to avert her gaze, sitting cautiously onto the mattress.

She remembered being a teenager, being near Sebastian, very clearly. It had been thrilling. Every single morning, walking at his side to school, their shoes dipping into puddles, their easy smiles and the easier banter. Oh, she had been so in love with him and not in the ‘sappy’ way. Not the crush a teenager has for a handsome boy, like Constantino. She loved him absolutely and if she never kissed him then—
really
kissed him, not whatever microsecond of a kiss they had shared—never made him her lover, it was because they had already touched more deeply than any youthful caress.

“Maybe. It was a while ago.”

“How long have you waited for someone?”

“Oh come on, you got married,” Meche said, flipping on her stomach and pressing her chin against the back of her hand. “You probably had two dozen girlfriends after that. You weren’t waiting for nothing.”

“I have been waiting for something, always without knowing it.”

He peered at her from beneath thick eyebrows and Meche half-smiled because maybe—just maybe, this was no admission—she had walked the streets of Paris once-upon-a-time expecting to stumble onto
somebody
. Maybe she sat by the river and read her map and wondered if
someone
would turn a corner and appear there.

“God, the way you talk,” she said, trying to rub the half-smile off her face. “You didn’t spew those lines when we were young.”

He’d seen it though, recognized her mirth, and was now giving her a sly look.