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The needle found the groove beneath a veil of dust and answered with a soft rush. Helena kept two fingers on the arm until she was certain it had settled, then lowered the lid without closing it. The last of Friday’s daylight pressed pale gold against the window screen. Somebody nearby had cut grass before supper, and the smell came through with the cooler air and the faint smoke from Helena’s menthol cigarette, balanced in the ashtray beneath the open window. From the back room came the rise and fall of a television audience. Beatriz and Angela had been permitted to watch until the end of the programme provided they kept the volume low enough not to wake Gracie, who had fallen asleep sideways across Helena’s bed with one bare foot outside the blanket. The telephone number Marisol had left remained under the sugar bowl, though Helena had already told her twice that she knew where the girls’ parents had gone and did not require written instructions to keep children alive for one evening.
Debbie sat beside her on the short couch, close enough that their sleeves touched. Her shoes were lined neatly beneath the coffee table, their toes facing the same direction, and one red sock and one pale yellow sock showed below the cuffs of her trousers. She had chosen the pair herself and had endured Angela’s opinion of them without changing either one. Now her hands rested between her knees while she watched the record turn, following the red Victor label around until the lettering passed too quickly to read. Helena had read it for her before lowering the needle: “Manteca,” by Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo. Debbie repeated the title once under her breath, giving each syllable equal care.
The drums arrived first, low and busy, gathering the room around them. Helena leaned back and crossed one ankle over the other. Her thumbnail began tapping the wooden arm of the couch in a rhythm that didn’t imitate the record so much as live beside it. Debbie noticed the movement and looked down at Helena’s hand, then back toward the speaker as the band pushed forward and the trumpet came over it, bright enough to change the shape of the room.
“Is the trumpet happy or sad?” Debbie asked.
Helena did not answer at once. She drew on her cigarette, turned her face toward the window and released the smoke through the screen. The trumpet climbed while the drums kept their steady argument beneath it. “Both,” she said.
Debbie watched the speaker grille. Her brow tightened. She had expected one answer or the other and had already prepared a place for either of them. Both required more room. She listened through the next burst of brass, her shoulder leaning almost imperceptibly into Helena’s. The trumpet struck upward again, brisk and shining, and the band answered in a crowd.
“More happy,” Debbie announced.
Helena gave a small nod. “More happy.”
The words settled the matter only until the phrase changed. The trumpet thinned above the rhythm, holding itself there while the noise beneath it seemed to travel farther away. Debbie’s lips parted. She turned her head slightly, not toward Helena but toward the darkening window, as if the sound had passed out through the screen and she might still see where it went.
“More sad now.”
Helena tapped ash into the tray. “Mm.”
Debbie looked at her, waiting for something firmer, but Helena’s face offered neither correction nor praise. She was listening. That was enough. Debbie tucked one foot under herself and faced the record player again, newly intent upon proving the answer rather than arguing with it.
The chanting entered among the horns and percussion, rougher than singing and too rhythmic to be ordinary speech. Debbie listened to it without classification. Her attention remained with the trumpet, tracking its appearances through the larger sound. When it cut across the voices with a quick, upward cry, she lifted one finger. “Happy,” she said, then lowered the finger when the note curved away. “No. More happy. Not all happy.”
Helena’s mouth moved at one corner. She did not smile fully. A full smile might have made Debbie suspect she was being indulged, and Helena understood that this was serious work. She reached down instead and smoothed the skirt over her knee while the record continued.
The brass crowded in again, louder now, several instruments speaking at once. Debbie’s eyes widened, though she did not move away. At home she disliked voices piling over one another, particularly when their edges hardened and nobody seemed willing to wait. The horns did not frighten her in the same way. They could interrupt without being cruel. They could shout and still leave room for the drums. She studied the noise, listening past its volume.
“That one is more happy,” she decided. “Because everybody came.”
From the back room Angela laughed too loudly at something on television. Beatriz hushed her with an urgency almost as loud as the laugh, and a moment later both girls went quiet, listening for Gracie. Nothing came from the bedroom. Helena turned her head toward the hallway, held still for two beats, then returned to the record. Debbie had done the same. Once the silence behind them proved safe, she resumed her examination without mentioning it.
The trumpet returned over a passage that moved heavily despite the percussion beneath it. The note did not droop or weaken. It remained clear, but something in its clearness troubled Debbie. Her fingers found the tiny bracelet at her wrist and turned it once, drawing the chain across her skin.
“More sad,” she said.
Helena glanced at the bracelet, then at Debbie’s face. “Why?”
Debbie considered the question for several measures. She disliked answering before the answer had finished becoming true. “It wants somebody.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” Debbie listened again. “That’s why it’s sad.”
Helena’s nail stopped against the couch arm. She watched the record turn through another circle, her cigarette neglected between two fingers while a long ash formed at its end. “Sí,” she said quietly. “Sometimes that is why.”
The next trumpet phrase broke loose before the sadness could become still. It rose with a hard, joyful force, and Debbie straightened. “Happy again.” She glanced quickly at Helena, then corrected herself before Helena could respond. “More happy. It still wants somebody.”
The room had darkened enough for the record player’s small indicator light to show against the cabinet. Outside, a car moved along the street with its windows open, carrying a few seconds of pop music that passed behind the Latin rhythm and disappeared. Debbie waited until it was gone. The record belonged to the room again. Helena crushed out her cigarette and set both hands in her lap. Without the smoke between them, the scent of carnations on her clothes became clearer.
The band pressed toward its ending. Trumpet, percussion and voices gathered together, none yielding enough to become background. Debbie leaned forward, elbows near her knees, her whole small body listening. The trumpet sounded bright, but not cleanly bright; the earlier ache remained inside it, carried upward rather than left behind. Debbie’s mouth tightened with concentration. She did not name the first phrase. She let the next one pass, then another. Helena remained motionless beside her.
As the final calls drove across the drums, Debbie sat back. Her hands folded over one knee. She gave a slow nod, satisfied that the question had at last answered itself properly.
“Exactly both,” she declared.
Helena looked down at her. “Exactly?”
“Exactly.” Debbie’s eyes remained on the turning record. “Same amount.”
The music ended with no gradual fading, only a final crowded certainty followed by the soft scrape of the needle travelling through the empty groove. In the sudden quiet, the television behind them seemed far louder than before. Helena reached toward the record player but did not lift the arm yet. Debbie listened to the scratch for several revolutions, as though happiness or sadness might still be hiding there after the instruments had stopped.
Then she placed her hand over Helena’s tapping fingers and said, “Again.”