Signal to Noise(43)

“Yep.”

They roared away together, through the darkened streets of the city.





Mexico City, 2009





JIMENA HAD A placid smile on her face. A smile Meche knew well. The smile said I know something you don’t. Meche drank a cup of atole and ate a piece of tamal, trying to ignore the smile. It had never boded well in her youth and she did not think it could bode well now. There were sweet tamales and salty ones, some filled with chicken and others with pineapple. There were even tamales chiapanecos, wrapped in a banana leaf and stuffed with pork.

All this business of eating and praying was having a narcotic effect on Meche. When her mother came to her side and spoke she did not hear her. On a shelf, a photograph of her father looking younger than he had ever been presided over the dinner. He stared at Meche with a sad, startled expression.

“Huh?” she asked.

“Are you going to put on another record?” her mother said again.

Meche realized the turntable had gone quiet. Meche nodded. That was her job: keep the music going. Jimena was in charge of the food, her mother, the greeting of people, her stepfather seemed to be managing the distribution of the atole and the soft drinks. All Meche had to do was keep some soft, pleasant music playing. She had decided she could not stomach CDs. Her father would have hated that. So she had hooked up the old turntable.

Meche picked a collection of jazz songs. She started with Stormy Weather.

She mouthed the lyrics to the song and felt comforted by the familiar tune, the trumpet and the piano and Billie’s voice.

“Hey, Meche, come here.”

Meche raised her head and saw Jimena motioning to her, by the kitchen door.

“What?” she asked, wondering if she was going to have to distribute tamales. She didn’t want to. Meche was happy standing in her corner, blending in with the curtains and avoiding chatting with her relatives and former neighbours.

Jimena gestured more emphatically and Meche hurried to her side.

“What?” she muttered.

“Here she is,” Jimena said brightly. “Meche, your buddy is here.”

Jimena was grinning from ear to ear. Sebastian stood next to her, looking very sober, a cup of atole in his hands; well-dressed and well-groomed.

“Hi,” he said, stretching out his hand.

Meche shook it stiffly.

“Hello.”

“I’ve come to pay my respects to your mother,” he said, like a perfect gentleman.

“I can find her for you,” Meche offered.

“Oh, I’ll find her,” Jimena said. “I need to get this tray out, anyway. I’ll be back. Don’t you move.”

Jimena flashed a wide smile to Sebastian and shoved Meche, carrying her large tray with the tamales. Some things never changed. Jimena was still able to flirt with anything that had a pulse.

Sebastian looked at his cup.

“I thought I saw you the other night but I wasn’t sure it was you.”

“Then it probably was me,” Meche said.

“I would have said hi—”

“No worries,” Meche said brusquely. “Didn’t Daniela talk to you?”

“She phoned me promptly yesterday.”

“Then you still like being a dick.”

Sebastian looked up at her, lifting the corners of his mouth into a wry, small smile.

“Daniela’s coming tomorrow. We’re long past being teenagers and we’re not afraid of you. We have a right to say hi to your mom and pay our respects.”

“And I have every right to ignore you. Eat up, it’s all free.”

Meche pivoted on her heels, slowly walking out of the kitchen.

“Cry Me a River.”

“Excuse me?” she said, turning around and placing her hands on her hips.

“That’s what’s playing. Ella Fitzgerald is singing Cry Me A River.”

Meche realized he was right. The previous song had finished and Cry Me had started to play.

“Did you become a jazz fan at some point?” she asked, with that easy, snide tone she liked to employ with him from years and years back.

“No. But I do know my Ella.”

“Congratulations. Should I give you a medal?”

Sebastian chuckled. “Daniela was right. You’re exactly the same.”

Meche walked away.





“DID YOU KNOW he was coming?” Meche asked her cousin.

They were tidying up the apartment. Moving empty glasses to the kitchen, tossing any garbage which had found its way onto the floor into a bin, and trying to implement a degree of order. Meche had positioned herself behind the sink, dutifully scrubbing dishes, while Jimena brought her more dirty cups.

“No,” Jimena said.

“Are you sure?”

“I said no. What’s wrong? He’s cute, isn’t he? Why, if I could get my hands...”

“Aren’t you married?” Meche asked sharply.

“That doesn’t stop me from looking at the menu,” Jimena said with a shrug. “What about you? You’re single, no?”

Meche’s last serious relationship had taken place two years before and lasted eight months. She knew it caused her mother much anxiety to know she remained unmarried and childless. In Natalia’s eyes, Meche was a spinster, doomed to a life of unhappiness. She viewed her as dangerously contaminated by foreign traits. Marriage and motherhood were a woman’s ways. Anything else was an aberration stemming from too many imported shows. If Meche chanced to remind her mother that she herself had divorced her husband and was therefore not exactly a paragon of Catholic virtues, Natalia would deny any wrongdoing. Comically, Natalia had even asked Meche—in a quiet little voice—if she was a lesbian.