“I still haven’t told Juan Carlos,” the upstairs neighbor continued. “That we’re not going to come to your apartment anymore and that . . .” She stopped speaking. She shook her head, as if confused by her own words. She seemed more unsure than usual. “I mean . . . What I mean is . . .” she stuttered. “We’re not going to come, and Juan Carlos doesn’t know anything. Neither thing, and Juan Carlos, Juan Carlos . . .”

She didn’t go on explaining, it wasn’t necessary. Denise understood, and the neighbor lady was finally sure of something too. She had made a decision, and the name Juan Carlos, the man’s name, went on resonating above them, imposing itself on them, contaminating them like smog, aiding them like a reference point on a map, consuming and caressing them at once, like love.

The first time Carolina talked to me, we were walking home from school down Berna. I was flipping through my Sailor Moon album, so spellbound I was incapable of watching where I was going, and every once in a while I tripped. Beyond my fanaticism for the cartoons, my delight was heightened by the fact that my mother had forbidden me to spend money on stickers. I collected them in secret, and in a couple of blocks, when I got home, I would have to hide the album in the neighbor’s privet hedge.

“You like Sailor Moon?” I heard a voice say beside me, and I started in surprise and slammed the album shut.

“Which one are you?” the voice spoke again.

I squinted at her: a girl I didn’t know, but whose sweater bore the same insignia as mine.

“Mercury,” I replied, hesitant. Mercury was the character I told other people I was. I chose the silent, studious teenager with short hair, even though deep down I longed for the starring role of Serena, all high ponytails and spontaneity.

“I’m Pluto,” said Carolina.

I nodded, trying to hide the fact that I didn’t know the character, but fully aware that my unenthusiastic expression gave away the terrible fact that I didn’t have cable, that I was doomed to spending afternoons watching reruns of El Club de los Tigritos.

“She’s in ‘Sailor Moon S,’ along with Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune,” she clarified. “How many are you missing?”

“Eight,” I said proudly, to redeem myself for my ignorance.

“You have to buy them outside of Salo,” Carolina advised with a knowing air, seemingly unimpressed by the number. “There are guys who sell them for fifty pesos . . . a hundred for the hardest ones. I’m missing a lot, but it’s because I also collect Saint Seiya. Do you like The Knights of the Zodiac? I like them a lot more than Sailor Moon.”