Signal to Noise(75)

Her hand rose and settled on his cheek. She kissed him there and Sebastian couldn’t help smiling, despite everything.

“You’re very brave,” she said. “Again, I’m sorry. I’ll see you at school, alright?”

“Sure.”

She slipped back into the car and waved at him.

The car rolled away and Sebastian stood in the middle of the street, hands in his pockets. He waited there for about ten minutes thinking perhaps Meche might come around.

She did not.

Sebastian took a deep breath and saw the moon hiding, skittish behind a cloud. He shook his head and decided to call it a night, erasing the faint path she had traced in his mind.





TWO DAYS LATER she offered him revenge with the same casual tone a vendor at the tianguis might offer to discount you a bunch of rotting bananas.

He had not talked to her about the incident. Her refusal stung, the look on her face had torn him apart. There were so many things he wanted to tell her and knew very well he shouldn’t. So he kept his mouth shut.

“We should hex the guys who beat you,” Meche said, licking a chilli lollipop. “Make them pay for what happened.”

It was a cheap trick to buy his sympathy or a blatant misinterpretation of his emotions. Either way, it showed she did not understand him at all.

“Why?”

“They deserve it.”

“It wouldn’t fix anything.”

“Well, we could at least heal your wounds.”

“The exterior ones don’t matter.”

“You are so lame sometimes.”

“Most of the times,” he corrected her.

“Why, if some boys beat you to a bloody pulp, wouldn’t you beat them back? Why—”

“Because they don’t matter,” he snapped at her.

“You’re a *.”

“Yeah, and I’m gay too, no? ‘Sebastian Soto, el Joto’, right? Thanks. Many thanks.”

Meche gave her lollipop a final lick and tossed it away, raising a petulant eyebrow at him. No doubt she thought herself very smart, very talented, because of the spells. Superior to him in every way because he was a coward who wouldn’t respond to fire with fire.

“If life offers you something, you should take it,” she said. “Life’s offering you a chance to get even.”

“Take it, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll remember next time.”

He’d show her one day... yeah.

They did not say anything else the rest of the way home.





Mexico City, 2009





SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THREE and four a.m. Meche rose from her bed and walked across the room, staring at a wall where there used to be a poster of The Police. It had come down many years before but the wall still bore its outline, the marks of yellowed tape showing where it had been.

This, she thought, is the real meaning of a haunting.

She grabbed her father’s manuscript and went into the kitchen. She made tea and put her earbuds in, idly turning the pages as she took little sips. She ought to read it. Ought to go through the whole thing and yet—

She kept getting distracted.

Around nine in the morning she phoned Daniela.

“Hey,” Meche said. “Today is the last night of the novena. I was wondering if you’re coming over.”

“You’ve had a change of heart?”

“I’m leaving soon. I’d like to say goodbye to you.”

“Sure. I’ll be there.”

“Um... Sebastian can come too.”

“Do you want to see him?”

Meche ran a finger down the page, frowning. Yes. No. Both.

“Just tell him it’ll be okay if he comes over.”

“I can give you his phone number. You can phone him yourself.”

“No, it’s fine. I have some stuff to do now. See you.”

Meche pressed her forehead against the table, slowly straightening up.





GENTRIFICATION HAD SWEPT through the colonia but it had left the factory intact. There was a sign announcing the upcoming construction of an apartment building in its place, but the factory still stood for now. Still ruinous, the outside now sprayed with all kinds of graffiti.

Meche looked at it, looming over her like a strange stone idol. Their usual entry point had been half-heartedly boarded up, and she pulled the plywood apart easily. She slid in, dragging the portable record player with her.

The interior of the factory—definitely no designer’s wet dream in her younger days—had become even more of an eyesore. Rusted pipes, peeling walls, debris, bits of glass, all these were familiar sights, but twenty years had made the decay more prominent.

Meche climbed the stairs, creating echoes as she moved.

The door to their room was open.

Meche paused before it, holding her breath, and walked in.

It was empty. Disappointment hit her like a wave. She did not know what she had expected to find, but it wasn’t there.

Someone had stolen the couch and the tables. All the posters—the great musical collage she had created—had been taken away.

She moved towards the circular window and looked outside. The neighborhood had changed, but the light filtering through the window still had the same spectral quality and the view was hazy, as though the city were shrouded in mist.