Signal to Noise(81)

Once she was outside she surveyed the sky, trying to blink the tears away and managing only to sniffle. She wiped her nose with the back of her jacket.

A couple of hours later she returned to the factory. They were gone by then.

A Whiter Shade of Pale had been left on the turntable, like the remnant of a shipwreck upon the sand. Meche touched the record, but it felt cold. There was no warmth in it. She played it and heard only ordinary music. There was no magic in the recording. She looked at the sleeve, looked inside it, shook it, desperate to find a crumb of power but the power was gone. Her father was coming over in an hour and the record was useless.

Desperate, she looked for her object of power, thinking perhaps it might fix the problem. It might furnish the useless record with new magic. But Sebastian had taken the Duncan Dhu record with him.

Meche unpinned the photographs taken inside the photo booth and stomped on them.





SEBASTIAN WAITED FOR Meche, knowing she’d show up that night. She had to. He read for an hour, then shifted to the couch and watched some television, zipping through the channels.

He felt nervous. Like maybe he had overdone it. He’d wanted to best Meche, but as the minute hand dragged itself around the face of the clock, he felt he’d made a mistake.

He remembered dancing with Isadora, the kiss. He smiled. But then he also remembered the look on Meche’s face. He’d only seen it for a couple of seconds, but her eyes had seemed so pained.

He should apologize. Make it up to her.

Then he frowned, thinking about all her little cruel comments, her coldness when he’d needed her, the indifference which sometimes punctuated their exchanges.

Let her be angry. At least for a little while.

At nine o’clock the knocks came. Three in a row.

He smiled when he opened the door, feeling smug and content, savouring the acid expression on her face, the ways her eyes lit up with righteous fury.

“Hey,” he said. “How you doing?”

He expected Meche to launch into a long, angry tirade. To stomp and yell and use barbed words which would sting, lacerate the soul. He was not prepared for the cold, long stare she gave him and the very hard slap that followed.

Sebastian blinked, aghast, and rubbed his cheek, too stunned by this greeting to even speak. She had punched him in the arm before, in jest, but never this.

Meche shoved him away and marched into his apartment.

“Where’s my object of power?” she asked.

She headed into his bedroom and began tearing his maps from the walls, ripping the postcards and tossing the sheets from his bed.

“Hey!” he yelled as she opened the doors of his armoire and pulled out his shirts, throwing them on the floor.

“Where do you have it?”

“It’s not here and I am not giving it back to you tonight.”

“When are you going to give it back, *?”

“When I damn feel like it!”

She turned around, shoulders raised, and walked away.

“Come back here!” he yelled.

“Go to hell,” came the reply.

He chased her down the stairs, furiously stomping on every step.

“You’re jealous, isn’t that right? That’s what this is about. You’re jealous of me.”

“Like I’d be jealous of you!”

“Well, you are.”

“You knew I needed that record,” she told him, stopping on the second landing and turning around, slamming him against the wall even though he was much bigger than her. “You knew it and you stole it!”

“I borrowed it.”

“You are a thief!”

“Didn’t you say to take what I wanted? When life offers you something, grab it. I’ve grabbed it, alright.”

“How did you dare, to go into my house, into my room...”

“You wouldn’t lend it to me! You were being selfish! Now you’re angry because I used it, because I have the girl and you don’t have the guy.”

“What goddamn guy?” she asked.

“Constantino! Which other guy would it be?”

“You thought I was going to play that record to get together with Constantino?”

He grabbed her by the shoulders, gripping her tight and flipping her around so that she was now against the wall, his fingers digging into her flesh.

“Who else?” he muttered.

Meche let out a low laugh which startled him. Confusion, doubt, flashed across his face.

“I wanted to play that record for my parents. So they’d get back together.”

His hands grew slack and she brushed them off her.

“I didn’t know.”

“Of course not. You’re too busy being selfish.”

“You can have it back. The record—”

“—I tried it. It has no power left.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You drained it! You took it all for yourself and for her! Are you in love now, Sebastian?” she asked, pushing him back so that his back hit the bannister. “Does your heart beat a little faster?”

“I didn’t know records could be drained.”

“Doesn’t matter now, does it? Pat yourself on the back. You have the girl of your dreams and I have nothing.”