Signal to Noise(39)

“You’re not having fun?”

Meche glanced to her left and saw Constantino leaning against the ivy-encrusted wall. His cigarette glowed faintly in the dark.

“Not a lot,” she admitted.

“You don’t like the food.”

“The music,” she said. “And you?”

“I’m just having a smoke.”

Meche nodded, licking her lips. Surprise had overridden her nervousness but now as the seconds dragged by she tried to recall the dialogue she had rehearsed. But she had not rehearsed any dialogue. She had thought he’d be struck by her looks, would ask her to dance, and they’d place their arms around each other, swaying gently to the music. A good song. Not something stupid and corny.

Alas, there was no decent soundtrack playing and Meche clasped her hands together behind her back.

“What don’t you like about the music?”

“It’s trite.”

“What would you play if you could?”

“It would be Jimmy Fontana singing Il Mondo.”

“Wanna see if they have it?” he asked, tossing his cigarette butt on the ground.

“Okay.”

Meche followed Constantino back into the house and he guided her towards the sound system and the big shelving unit with lots of records.

“Do you see it?”

It’s not going to be here, Meche thought.

But she forced herself to think the opposite. To think it would be there. That all she had to do was reach forward and her hands would alight upon the right record. Meche closed her eyes and pulled a record sleeve...

... and it was Jimmy Fontana.

“Il Mondo,” she whispered.

Meche lifted the lid from the record player, lifted the needle.

She felt all the heads in the room turning, surprised by the sudden interruption. Meche placed the record in its place, lowered the needle.

And Jimmy began to sing in Italian.

There was a collective groan from the crowd, but slowly they began to shuffle their feet. Slowly the teenage boys slid their hands around their partner’s waists, slowly the girls began to follow the boys’ lead. Slowly they stepped left and right. Sway. Rise. Fall.

Ask me to dance, she thought and she willed it just like she’d willed the record, feeling that it could, would happen.

“You want to dance?” Constantino asked.

Meche nodded. She put one hand on his shoulder and clasped the other. Forward, step to the side, and then a step to close the feet together. She realized, as she glanced down, that she had not put her high heels on again, had misplaced them at some point, and was dancing barefoot.

Constantino glanced down, chuckling at the sight of her bare toes. A good-natured chuckle matched with a good-natured smile.

She looked up at Constantino and smiled back at him.

As she turned, Meche saw Sebastian, standing by himself, holding a napkin in his hand. He stared at her.

No smile adorned his face.





THERE WAS NO reason for Sebastian to be upset. But he was upset. On Monday, when they walked together to school, he did not speak a word to her. He failed to appear during recess and after school he walked back alone.

Meche did not understand what was going on in his head. She did not care to find out either but Daniela—quiet Daniela, who seemed to know very little of what happened around her, but who in this case seemed to know much—said he was hurting.

“He tried talking to Isadora at the party and she rebuffed him,” Daniela said. “And then you danced with Constantino.”

Ah, so that was that. He was jealous of her. Jealous because Meche had achieved what Sebastian could not: the attention of the object of her desire, followed on Monday by the briefest of nods, the briefest of affirmations proving that she now existed, that he knew her, remembered their stunted chat.

If Sebastian had been too tongue-tied, too stupid, to achieve similar results with Isadora, then Meche was not to blame for his lack of success. Meche decided to have a chat with him. Around six p.m. she went to his apartment building and sneaked inside when she saw a lady come out.

Sebastian’s elevator was perpetually broken, ever since she had been eleven and first walked into his building. Meche walked up the six flights of stairs, humming to herself, and knocked loudly—three times, as was their practice.

“I know you’re there!” she yelled.

The door opened and he looked down at her, all in black and all gloomy depression.

“What do you want?”

“I’m seeing what you are up to.”

“I’m doing my homework. You should be doing the same.”

“Uy, so serious.”

He moved towards the kitchen. Meche closed the door and followed him. Sebastian filled a bowl with Choco Krispis and poured himself some milk, then turned around to look at her.

“What crawled up your butt?” Meche asked, tilting her head a little and smiling at him.

“You know, Meche? You think you’re cute when you behave like this, but you are annoying and bratty.”

“Good, because I wasn’t trying to be cute. Why are you angry at me?”

“A pastar fang!” he cried, setting the bowl down on the counter, then stomping towards his room.

“Did you just insult me in Catalán?” Meche asked, scoffing, because Sebastian had picked a few choice words from his grandfather, the yellow, weathered gentleman of Barcelona.