Signal to Noise(49)

“Maybe I could wish to be swept off my feet by Luis Miguel.”

“That’s not very realistic,” Meche replied.

“Magic doesn’t have to be realistic. Does it?”

“I wouldn’t push it too far.”

“Then maybe a kiss from Mr. Rodriguez.”

“Eww. He’s our teacher and like a billion years older than us.”

“Mr. Rochester was older than Jayne Eyre.”

Daniela wished life were more like books. Well, not all books, but at least the books she read. Caridad Bravo Adams was her favourite author, though she also appreciated the work of Danielle Steel and Barbara Cartland. Her fantasies were embroidered with details from a multitude of novels, but they all concluded with a handsome man, a wedding, a kiss and a picture-perfect happy ending. All she wanted was a little tiny taste of that.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if life were like the novels?” she said. “Then Constantino could be the handsome general who saves you from a band of robbers. Mr. Rodriguez could be a dashing pirate who kidnaps me for a ransom but ends up falling in love with me. Sebastian could even be the daring young man who wins over a princess.”

“No way.”

“I’m going to buy this,” Daniela decided, grabbing the Luis Miguel record.

“Just promise you won’t play it when I’m around.”

“Awww. Hey, do you want me to make cupcakes in my Easy-Bake oven?”





SEBASTIAN AND MECHE sat together atop a table in the courtyard of the mall, right by the Nutrisa store, and ate frozen yogurt. Sebastian was spending all his spare time wrapping gifts for a mob of crazy shoppers, who thrust packages and bills in his face, asked for red or green bows, all demanding it be done in five minutes. If she wanted to hang out with him she had to do it during his lunch break.

Daniela was off to Mazatlán for a week, to spend Christmas by the sea with all the assorted uncles and cousins who lived there. This left Meche to her own devices, with Sebastian as her only companion. Her strategy was to hunt around the record shops in the morning, visit him for lunch, then head home to listen to whatever she had bought while she played on the computer.

That day she was carrying a Queen album under her arm after another failed attempt to find the perfect copy of A Whiter Shade of Pale. She was beginning to think the record was her own white whale, and although Sebastian might be proud to know she had internalized some of his knowledge about Moby Dick, she would much rather find the damn thing.

“Do you really have to head back?” Meche asked.

“Yeah. I have another four hours, maybe six if I pick up some extra time.”

“You’re working like all day long.”

“I’m making money.”

“Bo-ring.”

“That’s because you have money.”

“I only have my allowance and that ain’t much.”

“More than I have. It’s just a couple more days.”

“No, after Christmas comes Epiphany,” Meche reminded him. “You’ll be wrapping presents ’til January and we won’t get to do anything.”

“Well, that’s the way it is.”

“We could cast a spell to get some more money.”

“Just the two of us? I thought that wasn’t a good idea.”

Well, that was the official rule. Not that Meche wasn’t ready to bend the rules a bit, though she wasn’t sure she should tell Sebastian that.

“Do you want to come over and play a video game later? Daniela lent me her Nintendo and we can rent a game at Chaplin’s,” he suggested.

“My mom doesn’t like me going to your place.”

“Do you want her to phone my brother? He’s around today.”

“I don’t know.”

Meche finished her frozen yoghurt and jumped down from the table, tossing the plastic container and the spoon in the garbage can. Sebastian also tossed his away and they headed back towards the gift wrapping station.

Meche eyed an instant photo booth with interest.

“Do you have coins?” she asked him.

“What for?”

Meche did not bother answering, she grabbed Sebastian by the wrist and pulled him into the photo booth, swinging aside a tattered red curtain. The compartment was small and long-limbed Sebastian barely managed to fold himself in, Meche squeezing next to him.

She lifted her palm and he handed her a few coins. Meche threw them into the slot and waited.

The first flash went off with Meche sticking her tongue out. The second was much of the same, her hand lifting behind Sebastian’s head to make a pair of horns. Flash a third time and she smiled sweetly.

“Last one,” Sebastian said.

Meche turned to look at him and Sebastian picked that moment to also turn his head and look at her.

Time slowed down. The seconds crawled, lazily, and she looked at Sebastian and Sebastian looked at her for what was maybe two, three months. A whole season passed in his gaze and her heart—which she knew should beat at 60-100 per minute, knowledge gleaned from her science textbook—beat maybe once or twice.

The walls of the booth, which had imprisoned them in its narrow space, drifted away further and further and the roof melted, all of which caused Meche to panic.

Then the flash went off, bathing them with its white light, illuminating every corner of the booth and making Meche gasp in surprise.