“I’m going to find her,” Sebastian said.
“Good luck,” Meche said, dismissively because—as far as she was concerned—Isadora mattered squat.
Daniela bobbed her head up and down and smiled. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“Hang out.”
“Do you want to dance?”
Meche considered her high heels, the possibility of slipping and falling on her ass. She shook her head. Nope.
Daniela looked a little crestfallen. Meche did not have time to baby her, so she simply sipped her beer and tried to strike a pose, ready to chat with Constantino when he happened to walk by.
SEBASTIAN FOUND ISADORA in the kitchen. She was trying to drag a large box towards the table.
“Hey, let me help you,” he said, cheerfully grabbing the box and hauling it onto the table.
“Thanks,” she said.
“No problem.”
Sebastian opened the box and found more beer bottles inside. He smiled.
“You must be making Tecate rich.”
“Well, it’s Saturday.”
“That it is,” he said.
Sebastian wiped his hands against his jacket and nodded. He had nothing else to say and felt his mouth clamming shut.
The heart necklace, he thought. I should give it to her.
“Well, you came,” she said, plucking a bottle. “Bye.”
Sebastian was going to say something witty, but he couldn’t string the right words together. Isadora turned around and walked away, leaving him by himself.
He looked down at the floor, furious with himself. He felt the little necklace tucked in his jacket and knew he was a coward and a fool.
Sebastian grabbed a bottle and drank it quick.
CONSTANTINO WAS STILL chatting with his friends, apparently glued to his spot. Meche had been standing very straight but after a while she began to tire and sat on a chair next to Daniela.
He had to walk by eventually. Unless he was planning on peeing in the bushes.
Meche leaned forward, resting her chin against her knuckles.
She had pictured it all before coming to the party: he’d walk by, notice her beautiful outfit, her improved appearance, and immediately start talking with her. She did not expect to be sitting in the same spot after one hour with no Constantino, exactly like the loser she’d always been.
DANIELA TRIED TO be a good sport. She tried to chat with Meche. But she was so stiff, so unpleasant. She gave up and decided enough was enough. Daniela placed her little pink purse on the chair she had been sitting on and headed towards the centre of the room.
“Where are you going?” Meche asked.
“I’m going to dance.”
“By yourself?”
“If I have to.”
Meche opened her mouth, probably to protest, but Daniela did not want to hear it. She had come for the party and she was not going to go unless she had one good dance. At first she danced by herself, but eventually a couple of classmates joined her and the three of them began joining in with the song’s chorus.
MECHE LOOKED AT the clock. Nine thirty. An hour and a half and Constantino had not even moved close to her. It was impossible for her to approach him, not when he was shielded by all his friends. When he finally did move, he was intercepted by Isadora.
Meche watched them as they spoke. Isadora seemed upset. She was shaking her head and making little motions with her hands.
Sebastian plopped himself next to her, in the chair Daniela had been occupying, long limbs spreading carelessly.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she muttered.
He nodded, lifted his beer and before it touched his lips, he frowned.
“Is that Daniela over there?”
“Yeah.”
“Dancing.”
“Yeah.”
“Ha! Good for her.”
The swirl of bodies—more people kept arriving—made it difficult to see if Constantino was still at his place by the window. Had he moved? Had he gone somewhere else? Was he still talking to Isadora? Meche began to panic.
“Do you want to dance?”
“My shoes hurt.”
“You could take them off.”
“I’m not taking them off.”
Sebastian took a swig. He offered her his bottle. Meche had not touched her own beer. It was still sitting beneath her chair. She shoved his hand back and the beer spilled all over her new pants.
Meche shot up, horrified.
“You ruined them!”
Sebastian stood up too.
“I’ll get a napkin,” he said.
Meche did not reply. She rushed towards the bathroom, locking the door behind her. She grabbed a towel and tried to clean the pants; the stain was bad. It looked like she had peed herself. Her lips, under the glare of the light bulbs, looked a horrid crimson. Meche hurled the towel into the sink.
She leaned against the door, feeling the beat of the happy music outside, and winced.
Meche slid out, crossing her arms and walking across the room, evading Sebastian and sneaking outside, into Isadora’s walled garden. She stepped away until the ridiculous pop music was nothing but a faint whisper behind her.
Meche closed her eyes and took off her shoes, just like Sebastian had suggested, holding them in her left hand and staring up at the moon.
“You’re not having fun?”
Meche glanced to her left and saw Constantino leaning against the ivy-encrusted wall. His cigarette glowed faintly in the dark.
“Not a lot,” she admitted.
“You don’t like the food.”
“The music,” she said. “And you?”
“I’m just having a smoke.”
Meche nodded, licking her lips. Surprise had overridden her nervousness but now as the seconds dragged by she tried to recall the dialogue she had rehearsed. But she had not rehearsed any dialogue. She had thought he’d be struck by her looks, would ask her to dance, and they’d place their arms around each other, swaying gently to the music. A good song. Not something stupid and corny.
Alas, there was no decent soundtrack playing and Meche clasped her hands together behind her back.
“What don’t you like about the music?”
“It’s trite.”
“What would you play if you could?”
“It would be Jimmy Fontana singing Il Mondo.”
“Wanna see if they have it?” he asked, tossing his cigarette butt on the ground.
“Okay.”
Meche followed Constantino back into the house and he guided her towards the sound system and the big shelving unit with lots of records.
“Do you see it?”
It’s not going to be here, Meche thought.
But she forced herself to think the opposite. To think it would be there. That all she had to do was reach forward and her hands would alight upon the right record. Meche closed her eyes and pulled a record sleeve...
... and it was Jimmy Fontana.
“Il Mondo,” she whispered.
Meche lifted the lid from the record player, lifted the needle.
She felt all the heads in the room turning, surprised by the sudden interruption. Meche placed the record in its place, lowered the needle.
And Jimmy began to sing in Italian.
There was a collective groan from the crowd, but slowly they began to shuffle their feet. Slowly the teenage boys slid their hands around their partner’s waists, slowly the girls began to follow the boys’ lead. Slowly they stepped left and right. Sway. Rise. Fall.
Ask me to dance, she thought and she willed it just like she’d willed the record, feeling that it could, would happen.
“You want to dance?” Constantino asked.
Meche nodded. She put one hand on his shoulder and clasped the other. Forward, step to the side, and then a step to close the feet together. She realized, as she glanced down, that she had not put her high heels on again, had misplaced them at some point,
and was dancing barefoot.
Constantino glanced down, chuckling at the sight of her bare toes. A good-natured chuckle matched with a good-natured smile.
She looked up at Constantino and smiled back at him.
As she turned, Meche saw Sebastian, standing by himself, holding a napkin in his hand. He stared at her.
No smile adorned his face.
THERE WAS NO reason for Sebastian to be upset. But he was upset. On Monday, when they walked together to school, he did not speak a word to her. He failed to appear during recess and after school he walked back alone.
Meche did not understand what was going on in his head. She did not care to find out either but Daniela—quiet Daniela, who seemed to know very little of what happened around her, but who in this case seemed to know much—said he was hurting.
“He tried talking to Isadora at the party and she rebuffed him,” Daniela said. “And then you danced with Constantino.”
Ah, so that was that. He was jealous of her. Jealous because Meche had achieved what Sebastian could not: the attention of the object of her desire, followed on Monday by the briefest of nods, the briefest of affirmations proving that she now existed, that he knew her, remembered their stunted chat.
If Sebastian had been too tongue-tied, too stupid, to achieve similar results with Isadora, then Meche was not to blame for his lack of success. Meche decided to have a chat with him. Around six p.m. she went to his apartment building and sneaked inside when she saw a lady come out.
Sebastian’s elevator was perpetually broken, ever since she had been eleven and first walked into his building. Meche walked up the six flights of stairs, humming to herself, and knocked loudly—three times, as was their practice.
“I know you’re there!” she yelled.
The door opened and he looked down at her, all in black and all gloomy depression.
“What do you want?”
“I’m seeing what you are up to.”
“I’m doing my homework. You should be doing the same.”
“Uy, so serious.”
He moved towards the kitchen. Meche closed the door and followed him. Sebastian filled a bowl with Choco Krispis and poured himself some milk, then turned around to look at her.
“What crawled up your butt?” Meche asked, tilting her head a little and smiling at him.
“You know, Meche? You think you’re cute when you behave like this, but you are annoying and bratty.”
“Good, because I wasn’t trying to be cute. Why are you angry at me?”
“A pastar fang!” he cried, setting the bowl down on the counter, then stomping towards his room.
“Did you just insult me in Catalán?” Meche asked, scoffing, because Sebastian had picked a few choice words from his grandfather, the yellow, weathered gentleman of Barcelona.
“Ah!”
Meche was more energized than angry at his welcome, so she simply followed him, right into his room, chuckling and shaking her head.
“You are jealous,” she said. “You just can’t take the fact that I got what I wanted and you didn’t. It’s not my fault Isadora dissed you.”
“Rub it in, won’t you?”
“Loser.”
Sebastian was picking his sneakers from his bedroom floor. He promptly dropped them and hurried towards Meche. She was leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed, smug and confident. Sebastian stretched up his whole, tall, bony length and glared down at her and for the first time in her life Meche felt much smaller than her friend. Meche tilted her head up, staring back into Sebastian’s eyes, her teeth bared in a harsh smile.
“What?” she asked.
Sebastian leaned down and she thought he was going to bark another insult at her. Maybe in Catalán, maybe in Spanish.
He opened his mouth and said... nothing. Sebastian stomped away as quickly as he had come, falling onto his bed and pulling the cover around his shoulders.
“Just go,” he said.
Normally, that wouldn’t be enough to shoo Meche out. But there was a new intonation in his voice that afternoon. It prickled Meche’s skin and made her step back, confused, and she left without another word, not bothering to close the front door behind her.
ROMUALDO ARRIVED AROUND eight. Sebastian was still in bed. He had not moved an inch, curled up under the covers, staring at the wall and feeling like there was a piece of lead in his stomach.
“Are you sick, asshole?” Romualdo asked, his usual, cheery hello.
“No,” Sebastian asked.
“The front door was open.”
“Nobody would come in to steal.”
“It doesn’t matter. Get up and go to the living room. I need to phone Margarita.”
“Why don’t you use the pay phone down at the corner, asshole?”
Romualdo punched him in the ribs, hard. Sebastian sat up, rubbing his side and glared at his brother.
“What?” Romualdo asked. “Wanna fight?”
Romualdo was a lot stronger and beefier than Sebastian. Any fight would end with Sebastian bleeding. For a moment, though, he considered it. Then it all seemed like such a bother. Sebastian shook his head, too worn to bother with his brother.
“No. Excuse me, my cereal must be getting all soggy.”
Sebastian walked past his brother and headed into the kitchen. It was beyond soggy. He threw the cereal down the drain and poured himself a fresh bowl.
“So what did you fight with Meche about?”
“How’d you know that?” Sebastian asked, his spoon frozen in mid-air.
Romualdo laughed. “Oh, come on. You’re having chick trouble. And the only chick who ever hangs around with your sorry self is Meche. Or maybe Daniela. And I know Daniela wouldn’t rile you up like this. So what’s going on with you two?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
“Fine,” Romualdo said, lifting his hands in the air.
Sebastian rolled his eyes, he thrust the spoon into his mouth and spoke while chewing at the same time. “I dunno. She irritated me. Sometimes Meche thinks she’s so much better than me. It’s like she rubs it in my face. She can be such a major bitch.”
“Then stop being friends with her.”
“Well... it doesn’t mean I hate her,” Sebastian said carefully. “It’s just we’ve been talking about this magic... um... music and magic thing and it all kind of started with this spell—”
“You are so funny.”
“What?”
“Look, you are fucked up in the head. Meche is too. You’re just both really weird.”
“Thanks,” Sebastian said dryly.
“It’s true. I was never like you and you’re definitely not like other kids. But it’s okay because Meche gets you. I don’t know why or how, but she totally does get you. And that’s a good thing. Most people, they’ll never understand you. So, after you deal with this hormonal attack or whatever it is you’re having, make up.”
“Yeah,” Sebastian said, running a hand through his hair.
He stirred his cereal and smiled a bit, then glanced at his brother, feeling contrite.
“I’m sorry. You should phone Margarita.”
“Ah, it’s okay,” Romualdo said. “I already know what she’s going to say.”
“Is she... is she really pregnant?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea.”
They stood in silence, nodding. Sebastian felt, for a brief moment, like he was actually close to his brother.
“Did you really fix my old motorcycle?” Romualdo asked. “Mom told me you were out riding it the other day.”
“I did.”
“How?”
“Magic,” Sebastian said taking another spoonful of cereal.
DANIELA WAS DREAMING of an adventure in the South Seas. A ship. Pirates. Marooned on an island. She imagined herself in a flowing 19th century dress, a parasol between her hands, the blinding sun scorching the sky. White sand dunes and a man appro
aching from afar, his shirt open to his waist. Mr. Rodriguez in the role of the hero.
“Maybe I should just ignore it. I don’t have to apologize. Do I?” Meche asked.
Daniela sighed. Meche had been going on about Sebastian all morning. She did not like it when they fought because Daniela often ended up in the middle, a courier between two upset parties. But she was not willing to play mediator this time. Besides, Meche was cutting into her daydreaming.
“I don’t know,” she said.
The bell rang. Meche grabbed her books. Mr. Rodriguez raised his voice, trying to be heard over the drone of teenage voices and the shuffling of feet.
“Remember. I have two tutoring spots left in the afternoons,” he said.
Daniela and Meche hurried to the bathroom. They had chemistry lab next and that meant they had to change into their lab coats before climbing the narrow steps to the classroom. If the coat was not spotless Miss Costa would deduct points from their lab work. Meche, as usual, had neither washed nor ironed her coat, and was trying to quickly clean a ketchup stain which had landed smack on the front of the coat.
“I was thinking of taking some tutoring sessions with Rodriguez,” Daniela said, checking her hair in the mirror to make sure her bangs were still stiff with hair spray.
“Man, I hate Rodriguez. He smiles too much.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being friendly.”
“It’s annoying. Okay, what’s good for cleaning ketchup stains?”
“I don’t know. Bleach?”
“Ugh!”
“You asked.”
Meche tossed the coat in the sink and pressed both hands on each side of it, staring into the mirror.
“I hate Sebastian.”
“Meche...”
“He’s being unfair!”
“He’s hurt. The girl he likes doesn’t give a crap about him and then you are all mean to him.”
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