Signal to Noise(34)

Sebastian and Meche ignored the bad food and bought a bunch of tokens, dumping them into the machines of their choice. For Sebastian, that was Pac-Man. For Meche, it was something which involved shooting.

Eventually they both got behind the steering wheel and competed in several driving games. The pixelated car did the Monaco circuit, animated girls in bikinis holding up signs saying ‘Number 1’ and ‘Race On!’ while some muffled music—Meche thought it might well be Eurythmics—pumped through the arcade.

“Win, win, win!” Meche yelled.

“Let’s try the air hockey table.”

Meche knew Sebastian wanted to play air hockey because he could easily beat her and rub it in her face, paying her back for her previous wins at the racing machine, but she felt like being a good sport and followed him.

They both stopped in their tracks once they were near the table: Constantino and some of the other boys were gathered around it.

Sometimes, when Meche looked at Constantino, she could almost feel her brain flying through her skull and exiting her body. Coherent thought escaped her and she was left with a terrible longing.

This was one such moment. The lights and sounds of the arcade seemed to dim, leaving only Constantino, standing by the table, looking down, a lazy smile on his lips. She had the urge to extend her hand, touch his shoulder or brush her fingers through his hair. To hold a minuscule part of him, just for a few seconds. To cup the sound of his laughter against her ear.

The boys, taking note of them, looked at Meche and Sebastian and grinned. One of the boys chuckled and someone—she did not know who—must have said something funny because they all started laughing.

Meche and Sebastian moved away, back to a corner of the arcade and she threw a coin into a slot, her fingers trembling as she gripped the joystick.

The sugar-high she had been on had emptied out and she felt herself crashing down, her stomach heaving and turning with the unpleasant taste of sadness.

Would they also laugh at them at Isadora’s party, when they wore their new clothes? If they did, they could curse them, make their teeth fall out; the benefit of becoming teenage witches.

From now on, Sebastian, Daniela and Meche were the ones with the upper hand. Which is why she had a hard time understanding why obstinate tears were prickling her eyes.

No crying. Ever. That was her motto.

Sebastian leaned down, rested his chin against her shoulder and whispered into her ear.

“It’s fine,” he said.

She turned her head by a small fraction and tried to smile.

Meche looked back at the arcade machine. Sebastian also threw a coin into the slot and pressed the start button.

Now that she paid attention, Meche was pretty sure Eurythmics was what they were listening to. It sounded like Here Comes the Rain Again.





PEOPLE WHO HAVE never spent time inside a radio cabin cannot understand the appeal of that small enclosed space, its turntable and its microphone. Behind insulated walls and tape reels hides a spark, a magic, you can’t find anywhere else.

Music.

Vicente sat in the cabin, closed his eyes and the world spun away.

Television, movies—they can’t compare to radio. To the music over airwaves. It’s like a portal to another world.

He was needing other worlds more and more these days. Things at home were nastier than ever and the book was going nowhere.

Vicente smoked his cigarette and opened his notebook, re-reading his notes from yesterday. He had his great ideas, all scribbled tight, but when it came time to type them out he seemed to lose his rhythm. The brilliant sentence turned limp and stale. The turn of phrase was dull.

Maybe his wife was right. Maybe he was never going to finish the book. It would be just like his musical career: down the drain and away.

He quietly pulled out the hip flask he had taken to carrying inside his coat’s pocket and saw his face, distorted against the metal, before taking a sip.





ANIMAL FETUSES OF different kinds sat in jars filled with formaldehyde. They floated in the yellow substance and seemed to stare at the students. There was a big vat with whale ambergris in a corner, which you could supposedly use to make perfumes. A large poster of the periodic table was pinned to the back wall. The blackboard was filled with symbols of a vague, alchemical cast.

Everyone was supposed to have a chemistry partner during lab work, but Meche, Daniela and Sebastian worked as a trio. Miss Costa already had enough trouble trying to enforce the necessity of lab coats and safety procedures, so she let them have their way.

But Daniela was missing today.

“Remember to put on your goggles,” the teacher said in a monotonous drone.

Sebastian placed the stirring bar in the large beaker and began pouring the potassium iodate.

“You think she’s had another episode?” Meche asked.

Daniela was often sick and they knew the drill. They’d bring her candy, sit by her bed, maybe even take turns reading one of those horrid romance novels to her—Sebastian often read parts of Flowers in the Attic or Corazón Salvaje, which took much aplomb on his part—then pat her hand and she’d be back in class in a day or two.

“Maybe she just caught a cold or has an upset stomach,” Sebastian said. “It could be nothing.”

“We should go see her, after school.”

Isadora laughed. Sebastian raised his head and looked in her direction. Their pretty classmate was playfully sitting next to Constantino, in a position which was strategically hiking her skirt up. Meche thought Sebastian was going to turn into jelly and collapse upon the floor, foaming from the mouth. She wondered if she shouldn’t finish the chemistry demonstration for fear he would blow them up.