Signal to Noise(90)

Meche opened her mouth and then shut up when she saw Sebastian entering the apartment. He nodded at her and waded his way through the crowded living room, evading Jimena and her tray of empanadas.

“I’ll let you talk,” Daniela said, moving aside.

“Hey, wait,” Meche said.

“I don’t think you need me to translate for you.”

“Well...” Meche said, grabbing her arm. “Thanks. I don’t think I ever said thanks to you.”

“For what?” Daniela asked.

She thought about all the times Daniela had put up with her, showing kindness when Meche was a bundle of irritated nerves and impatience. Smiling at her when Meche made a sour face. Listening patiently when Meche ranted. Meche had just accepted all of this as fact, never questioning Daniela’s devotion.

“For everything.”

Daniela smiled, drifting towards the other end of the room.

“Hi.”

Sebastian was holding his jacket under his arm and he looked very formal, though he carried a backpack on his right shoulder. She still could not quite square his current self with his former self.

“Just got off work?” she asked.

“Yep. I came right over.”

Meche nodded. She wished she had a plate of empanadas, a glass of water, something to keep her hands from fluttering nervously in front of her face. She placed her hands behind her back as a last resort.

“You could have asked me to come yourself, you know,” he said.

“I never do,” Meche said, thinking about poor Daniela, who had served as her messenger on more than one occasion. “Bad habit of mine.”

Meche glanced down, softly moving one foot to the rhythm of Carlos Gardel’s “Volver.” In a baritone Carlos told her the stars mockingly look on and in their indifference observe the return of an old lover. She shuffled her feet to each word. Impatient. Annoyed. Tense. He just looked at her, which didn’t help.

“I wasn’t trying to insult you at the restaurant,” she muttered.

“Of course you were.”

“I did, but I wasn’t trying,” Meche said. “It just came out all wrong. I’m not exactly a perfect orator.”

“I noticed. I think the first time we ever spoke you called me ‘horse-faced weirdo.’”

“It was just horse-face,” she muttered. “I called you weirdo the next time we talked.”

“Yeah, and I still befriended you.”

“That good old masochism.”

“Well, you made a very compelling case for yourself: you told me I could eat from your bag of potato chips. How’s a guy going to resist a gal offering him chips?”

Meche laughed. She felt like slapping his arm, like she might have done when they were younger. Then she sobered.

Sebastian was quiet, as though he were waiting for her to say something. When she did not, he finally spoke.

“I brought you something.”

Sebastian unzipped the backpack and took out a mangled, old box. Meche frowned.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Open it.”

She took the lid off and saw his old sneakers with all the inked doodles.

“This is my object of power,” he said. “I’m giving it to you.”

The room seemed to suddenly go... muffled. As though someone had pressed a pillow against the speakers, drowning out the sound. Only that wasn’t possible. The emptiness in her ears was a bizarre auditory hallucination.

She stood in that silence staring at Sebastian, not knowing what to say.

“I’m... what do you want me to do with them?” she asked, and hated the hesitation in her voice. Like she’d swallowed peanut butter and it was sticking to the roof of her mouth.

“Do what you want with them. I also have this,” he said and he showed her a record sleeve.

Duncan Dhu. El Grito del Tiempo. Track one: En Algún Lugar.

Meche put the box down and grabbed the sleeve. She took out the record and immediately saw the cracks running down its surface.

“I glued it back together years ago.”

“You can’t glue it back together,” she whispered. “It can’t be fixed. You can’t undo...”

“I know we can’t undo anything. I know that,” he said sternly. “I’m not asking for that.”

“What are you asking, then?”

He brushed her cheek with his thumb and smiled the faintest smile.

“Don’t leave me behind this time.”

Meche clutched the record and frowned. She had thought about it, but it was an entry under ‘idiot things that occur to me.’ Only an idiot would think about starting something with someone they hadn’t spoken to in years, someone who was a total stranger. Especially when she had somewhere to be. The little apartment in Oslo with her ferns, her computer... her entire life.

“Oh, whatever for... it’s ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head and coughing because something had lodged in her throat.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure it is.”

“I didn’t... I mean, I didn’t want you here for... that. I wanted to tell you something. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have cast that spell on you. I should have been kinder. I should have understood you better.”