Signal to Noise(24)

Meche opened her mouth; heat that had been accumulating inside escaped. It rose like a golden streamer, drifting like smoke, touching the ceiling. Golden tendrils also escaped from Sebastian and Daniela, coiling together.

The three of them looked up, amazed.

“What is that?” Daniela asked.

“Magic,” Meche whispered.

The golden streamers coalesced into a ball and the ball grew larger, then began to collapse and dissolve, bits of it floating away until there was nothing left.

“Is that it?” Sebastian asked, sounding disappointed.

As if punctuating his words, several dirty glass panels shattered. Daniela yelped. Meche laughed.

“Let’s see if it worked!” she yelled and rushed out of the room, leaving the record spinning.

They stomped downstairs and made it to the street, heading straight for Sebastian’s building. When they reached it they were all out of breath. Meche slid down against the doors to his building while Sebastian fumbled for his keys. He kept the motorcycle inside, on the first floor, beneath the stairs.

“Go check it out,” she said.

He nodded, turned the key and stepped inside. Meche, too exhausted to move, just waited. Daniela half-collapsed next to her, her hair in her eyes.

Sebastian walked the motorcycle out. Meche straightened up, carefully watching him as he straddled it and placed the key in the ignition.

The motorcycle coughed, sputtered and did not move.

Meche bit her lip.

Sebastian tried again and this time it worked. The old, banged-up machine roared into life. Meche jumped, clapping.

Sebastian was beaming. Daniela seemed in shock.

“Fucking yes!” Meche said jumping up and down.

“Get on,” Sebastian said.

Meche turned to look at Daniela and Daniela nodded. “Go ahead. I want to rest.”

Meche hurried towards him, quickly throwing her leg over. She scooted close to Sebastian, holding on to his jacket.

He twisted the grip, applied the throttle, and they sped away, turning the corner. She leaned forward along with him and they zoomed past the corner store, then the pharmacy, the small video store, the tortilleria.

At some point her hair band snapped and Meche’s hair streamed freely down her shoulders. She laughed.

“It works!” she yelled.

“Of course it works!” he yelled back.

At the stoplight, she squeezed Sebastian tight and stared at the cars as they crossed the junction in front of them. Catalina Coronado looked at them, with a disapproving glare, as she crossed the street. Meche chuckled.

She didn’t care if Catalina told her mother she had been riding around on Sebastian’s bike. They had power. Real power.

Things were never going to be the same again.





Mexico City, 2009





MECHE SAT IN the restaurant, looking at her cup of tea, absently folding and refolding her napkin.

“Baby, baby what are you going to do when you grow up?” asked Miguel Mateos in her ear, singing like it was the 80s again and he was pushing the cause of “rock in your language”—Spanish-language music to compete with the imports introduced by MTV.

“Meche, is that you?”

Meche looked up and tugged out the earbuds.

Daniela was pleasantly plump. She had traded her pink sneakers and pink shirts for black shoes in a ballerina style and a white peasant shirt. She looked warm and sweet, similar to the Daniela she had known.

“Yeah,” Meche said extending her hand.

Daniela hugged her, planting a kiss on her cheek. A typical Mexican greeting, though it startled Meche a bit, unused to such a personal hello.

“It’s so good to see you,” Daniela said, pulling out a chair.

“Do you want something?” Meche asked.

“Just a latte.”

Meche motioned to the server and the woman took their order.

Daniela looked at Meche expectantly, a big smile on her face.

“So, is Norway cold? What am I saying, of course it’s cold.”

“It’s fine,” Meche said. “I’ve been there for four years now.”

“Where were you before that?”

“Spain. The United Kingdom. Wherever there’s work. You’d be surprised. Software development is actually quite big in Romania.”

“Well, that’s awesome.”

Daniela’s smile faltered a little.

“I heard your dad had passed away.”

“Who told you?”

“Sebastian.”

“How would he know?”

“When something happens in the neighbourhood people know. He knows.”

“So you still talk to him?”

“Oh, maybe once a year,” Daniela said with a shrug. “He’s been living in Tijuana for a long time now so we don’t see much of each other. He only moved back this spring.”

“I saw him yesterday,” Meche said, taking a sip of tea.

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“Nothing. I just saw him standing across the street.”

“You didn’t say hi?”

“He didn’t say hi either.”

Daniela’s coffee arrived. She opened three little packets of sugar and poured them in.

“Are you still angry at him?”