The neighborhood
A building with four apartments, a block with a corner store and a hair salon, and the place next door. Everyone knows everyone, and nobody tells anyone everything.
You
23 years old · Apartment B
One of five siblings, raised in a house where the church was the shelter and your father was the problem. You saved yourself for a girl who didn't wait, and you found her in the parish hall with someone else. Your mother sent you to Villa Nueva — the neighborhood she grew up in — to study physics and start over. You arrive with five hundred pesos, a room you rent cheap because the landlady owes your mother something, and three things you want at the same time: money to send home, a degree, and everything else.
The building
Four doors along one hallway. Thirty steps from yours to any of them.
Valeria
The landlady · Apartment A
The building belonged to her parents and she's been running it alone for seven years. She went to school with your mother: she says your mother was the well-behaved one, and that she was the other one. She doesn't elaborate. Rent is due on the 10th, and she collects it with the same face every time. «On my own. And before you ask: yes, it can be done. And no, it isn't pretty.»
Camila
22 years old · Apartment C
She's been living alone in her parents' apartment since they moved to Mar del Plata four years ago, when her father first got sick. She studies and works at a café. She types in lowercase with no periods, and she's far bolder over text than she is in the hallway. She'll tell you so to your face. «you're a different person over text, you know»
El Tío
Apartment D · the one with the mate
Thirty-one years teaching first-year physics, and now the rooftop, the mate and the pigeons. There's a photo on his living room wall: his sister, his wife, and a barbecue from '82 where three people are missing. Ask about the ones missing and he'll pour you another mate and the conversation is over. «Well, they're missing.»
The block
The corner store, the hair salon, and an empty storefront on the corner.
Yanina
The hairdresser next door
Fourteen years in the trade: three washing other people's hair and eleven with a chair of her own. She watched the whole neighborhood grow up from that chair, and everybody tells her everything, which means she knows everything. She'll be the first through your door — and the only one who'll notice you have no idea what you're doing. «And everyone tells me everything, sweetie. EVERYTHING.»
Sofía
The corner store
The store was her father's. When he got sick she stayed to mind it for a week, and it's been four years. She's married to a truck driver who leaves for five days at a time and comes back to sleep. She runs at night, and when you ask why, she gives you an answer that sounds like a joke and isn't one. «Running is the only thing I do in a straight line.»
Luciana
Camila's best friend
They've known each other since the first day of their first year of high school: Luciana was crying in the school bathroom and Camila walked in to do her makeup, asked nothing, and handed her the eyeliner. Ten years. She has an answer ready for everything, except when you ask her why she's nice to you. «Because I like you and you're Camila's neighbor. Those two things together don't work for me.»
Darío
36 years old · truck driver
He goes on the road for five days and comes back with his back in pieces. You'll meet him before you find out who he is. Appears in 0.5.
The apartment next door
Camila's parents come back from Mar del Plata, and apartment C stops being hers.
Héctor
49 years old · Camila's father
He came back from vacation worse than he left. The couch you've sat on a hundred times now has a permanent occupant, blanket up to the waist and the remote resting on the armrest. His problem isn't the illness — it's his dignity. And there are things he'll ask you for because he can't ask his wife or his daughter. «Kid. Sit down.»
Silvia
43 years old · Camila's mother
She does the math out loud in the kitchen, under her breath, and goes quiet the moment someone walks down the hall — with the speed of a person who doesn't want anyone counting her money for her. You're the only one who's heard her do it. «Nothing, nothing. I talk to myself. It's my age.»
Gladys
46 years old · the nurse
Twelve-hour shifts, and then she sleeps in Camila's room. She decides who comes in and who waits on the landing, and she never calls Héctor by his name in front of you — he's «the gentleman». She isn't cruel: she's worn out. And she can't be bought with money — only with someone having bothered to stop by the corner store. «Are you the one with the groceries or the one here to see the girl?»
The university
Physics, at the EDAUN. What lies outside the neighbourhood.
Andrea Bonetti
39 years old · Physics II
She teaches Physics II practicals and was a student of the Tío back when he still taught. By day she's Dr. Bonetti. After eleven at night, in this neighbourhood, nobody goes by their own name. In 0.6 she grades your midterm.
Rocío
21 years old · classmate
She has every set of notes, rewritten clean in two colours. She commutes an hour from Lanús. Serious, not shy: short answers, eyes on the board. Since 0.6.
Mili
24 years old · taking Physics II for the third time
Smokes in the courtyard and laughs at everything and everyone, herself included. She knows all the university gossip and says what nobody else will. Since 0.6.
Paula
20 years old · classmate
Barely speaks in class and draws in the margins of her notebook. On Saturdays she's at the comic shop, and there she never stops talking. Since 0.6.
Tomás
22 years old · sits next to you
Plays five-a-side on Tuesdays, wants to quit Physics and can't bring himself to tell his family. Bad jokes, good guy. Since 0.6.
Garmendia
61 years old · Classical Mechanics professor
Demanding and curt, he lectures without looking at anyone. He knows some names from your building better than he lets on. Since 0.6.
Neli
58 years old · photocopies and canteen
She'll let your coffee and copies go on the tab. She knows everything about everyone, but she doesn't tell: she hints. Since 0.6.
The comic shop
Fede runs it, and on Saturday afternoons he opens the back room for the club.
Fede
runs the comic shop
He sells «RANGO E» and «EL CABALLERO QUE VUELVE»: you buy them at the counter and read them inside the game, page by page. Appears in 0.5.
Nacho
25 years old · the one who sets up the meetings
He makes deliveries on his motorbike and always knows where everyone is. Talks a lot and explains things nobody asked about. He's been hung up on Luciana longer than he'll admit. Since 0.6.
Gastón
31 years old · the collector
He owns everything and has read everything. Argues canon with Fede until closing time. Lives with his mum and says so without drama. Since 0.6.