Signal to Noise (7 page)

Daniela heard the front door opening, her mother and her sisters’ voices heralding their arrival. Whatever uncertain power still remained in the room now definitely dissipated with the intrusion of the women.

Meche began gathering her records, putting them back in her bag.

“A
SIX PAGE
essay on Cervantes and his connection with modern realist literature,” she told him as they walked home.

She was wearing a heavy, green jacket which made her look like a bag lady. He’d told her that one time and Meche had punched him, but it was true. It was a formless sack. Meche resembled a very large, very green jellyfish from behind. She drowned in that jacket, but then again she seemed to drown in all her clothes. Only the fingertips peeking out from the sleeves, the neck erased by folds of clothing. Beneath the jacket she tended to wear oversized t-shirts with names like Iron Maiden, Queen and The Who emblazoned on them.

“He must be very mad at you.”

“It’s a scam. He wanted me to take this tutoring session with him. All he wants is to make extra money.”

“You could use some tutoring.”

“Not with Rodriguez. He is such a dick.”

Sebastian was carrying the portable record player, Meche had the bag. They walked down the narrow streets, side by side. It seemed to Sebastian they were always walking, going from or to school, going to the market together, stopping at the store to buy a soft drink. Except, that was, when he took the motorcycle out for a spin.

The motorcycle had belonged to his older brother, but his brother had given up on it. He’d called it a piece of crap and left it to rot. Sebastian tried to get it going again, and it sputtered to life now and then, though it was an unreliable creature. He liked riding it, when he could, because he thought the leather jacket he had found at the
tianguis
—used, Sebastian could never buy new stuff—coupled with the sunglasses made him look more masculine.

The boys called him Sebastian Soto el Joto and Sebastian Puto, and sometimes, to be creative and not rhyme, Sebastian Pansy. No matter what the nickname was, the crude conclusion was always the same: he was gay. Sebastian was straight, but accuracy did not have much say when it came to these things. Marking him as effeminate was just a way to toss him into the pile of the undesirables, to mock his everything, to serve as an excuse for their rudeness.

He remembered one time when Constantino caught him looking at Isadora and snapped, “What are you looking at, faggot?” Sebastian had wanted to beat the crap out of him, to paint the pavement red with the guy’s blood.

Sebastian wondered if the magic would fix this. If he might grow more muscled, leaving his scrawniness behind. Maybe Isadora would look at him if he looked tougher, if he had nicer clothes, new sneakers. Sneakers that weren’t painted with a black marker.

They stopped by the bakery and stared at the confectionery for the Day of the Dead: the little candy skulls glittering in the twilight, the sugar looking like tiny diamonds. He liked this time of year. The end of October, the appearance of the orange and yellow flowers, the
papel picado
and the colourful skeletons which heralded the arrival of the festival, and with it, the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the cold months of the year.

“Is your grandma going to bake bread for the Day of the Dead?” he asked.

“Yeah. Next week.”

“Can I come and eat some?”

“Sure.”

Meche entered the shop and bought two pieces of sweet bread. Sebastian didn’t have any money. One more reason why he walked everywhere. She gave him one of the breads and they sat on the steps of a nearby building, eating and watching the few people go by as it got dark and the street lights bloomed into life.

“Do you think it’ll all be different in the morning?” he asked.

“You still do not believe me?” she asked.

He licked some cream which was spilling from the bread onto his hand and shrugged, not wanting to look too excited by the whole idea. Not wanting this too badly, although he did.

“I’m not sure.”

“Fine.”

“Hey, don’t get mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

He sat back, his head against the door of the building. Meche, in turn, rested her head against his shoulder. For others, it might have been an intimate gesture. Maybe it was, but not in the way most people might think. Meche and Sebastian were used to each other, comfortable in their proximity. They folded and kept their dreams in the same drawer, spun fantasies side by side, lived in the easy harmony of youth which did not know the need for tall walls and sturdy defenses.

Sebastian popped the last bit of bread into his mouth and chewed it slowly. The sweet potato seller pushed his cart in front of them, the hiss of steam announcing his arrival, his voice slicing the night.

“
Camotes
! I sell
camotes
!”

The man paused and glanced in their direction, but his small, black eyes did not seem to see them. They skipped over Sebastian and Meche as he moved away, the wheels of the cart turning, the steam rising towards the night sky.

Though he was not particularly musical, Sebastian thought of a song. Duncan Dhu, singing En Algún Lugar, and for a reason he did not understand he had this image of Meche stepping onto a plane. He put an arm around Meche’s shoulders, holding her tight.

M
ECHE WOKE UP
the next morning with the giddy excitement of a child heading to open her Christmas presents. She brushed her teeth, combed her hair, rolled up the sleeves of her sweater and put on her shoes. Then she bounced towards school, eager to meet up with Sebastian.

He was waiting for her at the street corner and they walked together, as they usually did, quiet and filled with hope.

Hope began to disintegrate around noon when it became obvious that nothing had changed for them. They were still the same losers as the day before, still sitting in the same corner of the schoolyard, still looking forlorn at the more popular, more beautiful, more-everything kids. When the bell signalling the end of the day rang, Meche could barely contain herself. Jaw locked tightly, she hurried back home.

“Hey,” she heard Sebastian say, but didn’t slow down to let him catch up with her and she dashed home, hands tight around the straps of her backpack.

They had failed.

She stomped up the steps towards her apartment, rushing into her bedroom and tossing the backpack on the floor. Meche put on a record and listened to Frank Sinatra promising to fly her to the moon. Tears threatened to leak from her eyes so she rubbed them. She hated crying. Hated feeling weak.

Meche sniffled and cleaned her nose with the back of her hand.

She had seriously thought it would work. She had pinned her heart on a stupid record, like a modern-day Jack showing off his beans.

Of course it would never work.

They would always be the same.

Life would always be this dull shade.

Meche turned her head and looked out the window, at the fragment of mocking grey sky. Birds sometimes dropped dead in Mexico City. That’s how polluted the city was. Because of the overwhelming smog, you couldn’t even hope for a glimpse of its snow-capped volcanoes.

Meche draped a blanket around her shoulders and went to sleep. She did not bother changing out of her uniform and into her regular clothes.

When she woke up it was dark and there was the smell of food wafting into her room. Meche walked towards the kitchen and found her grandmother busy, humming over a pot. She smiled at Meche.

“I’m making chicken soup today,” she said. “It has the potatoes and carrots all nicely chopped, the way you like them.”

“Thank you,” she muttered.

Meche’s grandmother filled a chipped bowl with soup and Meche began to eat. The warm food soothed her belly and she slowly started feeling better. Her grandmother poured her a glass of lemonade. Meche sipped it, holding the glass with both hands.

“Are you getting sick, Meche?”

She shook her head.

“Okay.”

Grandmother was quiet. She didn’t push or ask questions. But her silences pulled the truth out of you anyway, made you speak despite the desire to remain silent. So Meche spoke, her hands sliding against the cool glass.

“Mama Dolores, what did you mean when you said magic will break your heart?”

“You’re still going on about that?” she asked, placing a bunch of tortillas wrapped in a warm cloth by Meche’s plate.

Meche peeled open the wrapping and pulled out a tortilla, dipping it in the broth.

“Maybe.”

“Magic gets you what you want, but it doesn’t solve your problems.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It does,” Mama Dolores pulled out a chair, sitting next to Meche. “There was a man in my town who wanted to get married but he could not find himself a bride. He went to a witch and asked her for a charm. Something that would get him a wife.”

“Did it work?”

“It did. He was married within a month’s time.”

“Then it did solve his problems.”

Mama Dolores cut a lemon in half and carefully sprinkled a bit of sugar on it.

“No. Because one year later she ran away with another man.”

“That’s a bad story.”

“Blame the magic, not the story.”

Mama Dolores bit into her lemon.

“But you also told me witches fly through the night, they turn into animals, they put curses on you—”

“True. They do all that.”

“But then?”

“Nothing, that. But a man may turn into a coyote as many times as he wants and may steal chickens from the farm, but the chickens won’t be his and they will still be stolen. And the coyote will still be nothing but a large, ugly dog.”

Meche sighed, staring into the contents of her bowl of soup. She didn’t understand what her grandmother meant.

“If I was a witch—”

“Ugh, it’s pouring outside. You could not believe the rain,” Meche’s mother said, shaking her umbrella out as she entered.

Even soaked and with her mascara running, she looked very beautiful. Meche’s mother had once held aspirations to become an actress, make it big in the movies or maybe a soap. Natalia certainly had the looks. She only lacked the talent. She had given up on her dreams several years before and had gone to work at a department store. Now it was the pharmacy, where she worked as a cashier and part-time model: her photos adorned some of the flyers advertising the pharmacy. This was not as much an achievement as a form of charity because the owner of the pharmacy, Don Fernando, was Natalia’s godfather.

“What did you make?” Natalia asked.

“Chicken soup,” Meche’s grandmother said.

“Did you take off the skin from my piece of chicken? You know I can’t eat chicken with the skin on.”

“Yes, yes.”

“I don’t want a lot of rice in my bowl. No potatoes either.”

“You have to have one potato.”

“It’s too starchy. Is it warm? I have to go back to the drugstore for the rest of my shift. Leona is sick again this week.”

Natalia sat across from Meche. Meche looked at her mother, waiting for her to say something to her. Eventually, possibly because Meche just kept staring at her, Natalia spoke.

“How was school?”

“Alright.”

“Do you have a lot of homework?”

“Some.”

There was a systematic indifference to Natalia’s voice. It was a chore doing this, playing the mother-daughter bond. Meche saw her fret in discomfort. Normally she would have simply stepped away, back to her room, and let her mother eat in peace. She did not feel charitable that evening, so she stayed put.

“I saw you walking with that boy yesterday.”

“Sebastian?”

“Yes.”

Meche did not remember if they had gone by the drugstore. Possibly. Their path had zigzagged through the whole neighbourhood as they chased stars which could not be seen in the night sky, hearts filled with promise. A promise which now lay squashed beneath the soles of their feet.

“You say his name like you don’t know him,” Meche muttered.

“Meche, he’s here all the time. Or you’re somewhere with him. You act like you are Siamese twins. It’s not healthy.”

“Daniela is also with us.”

“Yes, that chubby little girl is also not a good role model. Plus, I don’t want you catching something from her.”

“You can’t catch lupus.”

“Well, I don’t know about that.”

“It’s not scientifically possible,” Meche said.

“Never mind. Meche, running around the block with a boy was OK when you were a little girl. You’re fifteen now.”

“And?”

Mama Dolores held up the cloth with the tortillas, but Natalia shook her head.

“I don’t eat tortillas, you know that.”

Mama Dolores set the tortillas down. Meche grabbed the saltshaker and began salting her broth. Her mother shook her head.

“Salt will bloat you.”

“It needs salt.”

“Too much salt is not good for you.”

Meche kept slowly salting her soup, even though she knew now it would be
too
salty. She felt like making a point.

“What I’m trying to say—and perhaps I’m failing to express myself clearly here, Meche—is that it doesn’t look right to be with a boy so much.”

“It doesn’t look right to whom?”

“Well, Catalina Coronado was telling me she saw you going into the abandoned factory with him the other morning.”

Of course. Catalina Coronado. The neighbourhood gossip, with her sharp, hawk-eyed gaze and her forked tongue. Ready to spill bad news at a moment’s notice and spit venom in your face. She had probably relished the opportunity to tattle on Meche.

“When did she tell you that?”

“She was at the drugstore today, buying some cough drops, and she told me she happened to see you. Meche, you do know what teenagers do in that factory, don’t you?”

They had sex, drank booze, and smoked dope. Meche, feigning stupidity, stared at her mother.

“No, please tell me what they do.”

Natalia did not reply. She stirred her soup with her spoon, carefully inspecting each chunk of vegetable, each scrap of chicken.