Signal to Noise(51)

“I’ve been looking for this stupid Procol Harum record for the past few days so I can cast a love spell... have Constantino fall in love with me.”

“What? You think if you play a song from that band he’ll go nutty and start making out with you in a flash?”

Meche blushed, looking down, as though she were trying to find out if the lettering on her t-shirt was still there.

“Would that be so bad?” she asked. “I was also thinking maybe a glamour spell...”

“A what?”

“Something to make me look pretty.”

“Meche, you are pretty.”

Meche raised her head, her eyes dark and cold. “I’m not and I don’t like it when you lie to make me feel better,” she said flatly.

“I’m not a liar.”

Meche said nothing, though skepticism danced in her eyes. Fine. Maybe he was trying to be nice; was that such a big crime? When had a kindness become a slap in the face? The truth was it would take some spell for Constantino to pick Meche over Isadora, but he didn’t want to say it outright.

“I’m polite.”

She was getting ready to come back at him with a quick, witty jab and Sebastian found himself holding his breath, waiting. Before Meche could speak and needle him with some cynical line from a song, he leaned down and in a sudden case of insanity—maybe because he felt bad about her, maybe because he felt bad about himself, maybe because Constantino was never going to pick her but Isadora was not going to pick him either—kissed her.

Meche opened her mouth, no doubt to insult him, but all this did was deepen the kiss.

Sebastian knew he probably wasn’t doing it right because the only time he had kissed another girl before had been in sixth grade, when he’d been invited to a dreadful game of Spin the Bottle and ended up locking lips with a classmate who seemed utterly grossed out by the fact that it was Sebastian instead of the boy sitting next to him.

Meche’s sharp intake of breath made him pause and he drew back, just staring at her in utter confusion.

Meche looked like she had been run over by a truck, her eyes all big and wide.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it.” He paused and added, “Are we cool?”

“Jesus,” Meche said, reaching behind the couch and grabbing her jacket.

“Meche...”

“My backpack. Where is it?”

She looked around the couch, finding the backpack on the floor and quickly zipping it closed.

“Why are you mad?”

“Because you’re right. You didn’t mean it,” she said.

Sebastian raised his hands, unable to articulate a proper response. She slammed the door shut on her way out.





MECHE DID NOT understand. The room was dark, the apartment was quiet. She had her Walkman by the pillow, the cassette tape turning, playing Leonard Cohen. This was a quick recipe for sleep but sleep did not come.

She got up and brushed past her poster of The Police, her hands dancing over her records, the familiar shapes of the action figures sitting on the shelves.

She peeked out the window and tried to find the moon but she did not see it and sat back on her bed, wondering if Sebastian was also awake.

Meche did not understand what happened. Had Sebastian gone mad? Why had he done a thing like that? And then, he had been sorry... obviously.

She pressed a finger against her lips and opened the window.





VICENTE SAT LISTENING to his wife and his daughter. It was like tuning into one of the old radio dramas on XEW. All it lacked was the appropriate, tear-jerker music. He wasn’t in the mood for dramas and every word was like a nail into his skull. He wanted to tell them to fight outside.

“What did I say?”

“I don’t know,” Meche replied, ignoring Natalia and opening the refrigerator door.

“I said I don’t want you to spend so much time with that boy. Catalina Coronado saw you together.”

“Oh my God. Is that woman with the Federal Police or something? Can I go work on my computer now?”

“It’s not funny. Catalina happens to be a good friend—”

“She’s a nosy bitch,” Vicente said, folding his newspaper. “Go work.”

Meche huffed and stomped towards her room. Natalia gifted him with one of her deadly stares.

“Thank you. Now she’ll never get the point.”

“The point being, what?” Vicente asked.

He was playing a record by Joaquín Sabina and did not want to get into an argument, but Natalia’s tone and the way she was shaking her head at him irked him to the core.

“If she keeps hanging out with teenage boys she’ll wind up sleeping with them.”

“Don’t teenagers generally sleep with each other? Or are we selling her off to some feudal lord?”

“Watch her get pregnant.”

“Get her condoms, for God’s sake. You work at a pharmacy.”

“She’ll pick the wrong kid and ruin her life.”

Natalia didn’t say “just like me,” but she did not have to. Vicente burst out laughing. He could not help it.

“You are useless,” Natalia muttered.

Vicente just kept laughing. He clutched the record’s liner notes and sank into his chair, feeling all the misery of his marriage dripping down his shoulders and pooling at his feet.