Signal to Noise(54)

He glanced at her, looking very sombre all of a sudden.

“I don’t play vinyl because it reminds me of you.”

Meche frowned and stared at the stereo.





SHE DECIDED TO pay herself back for all those lunches Sebastian had eaten. All those free meals he had stolen, the pieces of sandwich he had pinched away, the times he sipped from her bottle, the popcorn he grabbed from her bag. A big freeloader, that’s what he had been, but now he had shiny, fancy shoes and she bet there was a nice, fat wallet to go with them. She ordered the most expensive item on the menu—steak—and added a cocktail for good measure. A double, because she needed it.

The restaurant was very stylish, but the tablecloths were too white and the chairs too stiff. She was used to eating her meals by the computer or at a little café around the corner from her apartment.

Meche leaned both elbows against the table and took out her iPod, looking at the playlist. Force of habit. She listened to music when she ate. Well, she listened to music all the time. When she coded and when she went for a jog. Music was there, the constant in her life.

“You always have dark circles under your eyes?” Sebastian asked.

“It depends on the project.”

“Were you working on a big project?”

“Yeah. Now I’m here. Unfortunately.”

Meche shook her head and attacked her steak, cutting off a piece and chewing on it with gusto.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he said.

“Yeah, me too. It kind of spoils the thing. I was trying very hard to keep that enemy-mine thing going but I don’t know if Mothra ever had lunch with Godzilla.”

He smiled and it reminded her of the goofy smile of his youth. Goofy but charming because it was so dumb. But there was a dusting of grey in his hair, faint but marking the passage of time and the long stretch between the teenager and the man was she was eating with.

“You’re still funny.”

“I’m a f*cking riot,” Meche said. “So?”

“I don’t know. I thought about contacting you before but I didn’t think enough time had passed.”

“For me to forget?”

“For you to remember.”

Meche lifted her fork and looked at the piece of meat sticking from it.

“Remember, what exactly?”

“How we used to be friends.”

“Two decades ago. Before,” Meche made a little circular motion with the fork, “the whole stabbing in the back thingy.”

“We had fun times.”

“We were teenagers. Scoring enough coins to play at the arcade for an hour was the crowning achievement of the year. What do you want me to do? Get all teary-eyed and tell you I’ve missed you?”

“I’m not sure how you remember it, but I remember that the world used to stop spinning when we were hanging out and it felt like everything was possible.”

“Magic,” Meche said. “Magic was possible.”

“Not magic. Not spells. Before the magic. We got each other.”

“And then?”

“And then I don’t know,” he said. “I wanted to see you again.”

Meche put her fork down. The steak looked kind of bloody and not so appetizing anymore. She grabbed the glass of water and took a sip.

“There’s nothing to see.”

“I know you hold grudges. Hell, you like to hold them.”

“Compartmentalizing works. You build systems like that.”

Sebastian sat back. He tilted his head just as she remembered he used to, like he was taking a mental pause to process something.

“You’re really going to hate me forever?”

“Forever is a very irrational concept. Let’s just leave it at a very long time. Can I order dessert? I need more tea and some sort of pastry.”

Meche waved to the server, not caring if it was a crude way to get his attention.

“I can believe that,” he said.

“Catching on, are you?”

“Well, holding grudges was your forte.”

“It does wonders for the complexion.” Meche looked at the server. “I’ll need a strawberry tart and some tea with milk.”

“What movie are we watching tomorrow?”

Meche looked at him with an are-you-f*cking-insane look in her eyes. He looked back at her with an innocent smile.

“A what?”

“I owe you a movie. 1989. I promised we’d go out and we never did.”

Ah, yeah. That night.

“Um, it’s okay? You can do your own thing and I’ll do mine,” Meche said.

“We can go to the latest show.”

“You really think I’ll go with you,” she said flatly.

“What was my forte?”

“I don’t know,” Meche said with a shrug.

“I was stubborn. I gave you eight books for presents even though you said you did not want another book.”

“I’m still pissed about that.”

“How does The Ambassadors end?”

“Not a clue,” Meche said. “I never read it.”

She was lying and he knew she was lying. She had actually spent a whole weekend trying to find that same book the first time she went to Paris, just because she thought she ought to read it in the damn city where it took place. But she was not going to prove his point.