Chapter Text
Even though she’s used to going on stage, Maya Étienne will never fully get accustomed to it. That old stage fright is always there, ready to catch her throat in the hours before she goes on stage with her band. However, there is something delicious about this feeling. Once the first notes fly out of her mouth, she knows her anxiety will leave with them, and she lives for the rush of adrenaline that inevitably accompanies that moment.
“Seriously, Max, admit it. You’ve robbed my guitar again!” Jo’s screams are also part of the daily routine. Besides Maya, Sekou rolls his eyes with a knowing look, but she can guess the glint of amusement that shines behind the glasses. Sekou never creates drama before a concert. He’s always ready, dressed to the nines in his button-down shirt and suspenders, his hair carefully combed, his bass polished as ever. Tonight is just another night where he won’t play a single false note. No one else can claim such perfection.
Sekou is the darling of the public. They love his valedictorian style, such a stark contrast with the strange patchwork Lamifex band is.
“There it is, dumbass,” Max retorts while grabbing the guitar still stored in its case, just in front of Jo.
If Sekou is the crowd’s favorite, Jo is definitely the real star of Lamifex. One might think that her popularity is only due to the fact that she’s the guitarist, as it’s often the most appreciated musician in a band. However, Jo has never made any effort to be liked. She just remains true to the person she is on and off stage, that is to say a mass of energy, humor and bright mood, sprinkled with a good dose of temperament. Her acting is utterly chaotic, her performances always unpredictable, yet she has this gift of hitting exactly the right spot every night — even if it isn’t in the way they decided in rehearsal — and that’s why she sets the audience on fire at every concert.
Settled on an old plastic chair in the small room at the back that serves as the backstage area, Maya closes her eyes to try and isolate herself from the ambient chaos for a few moments. She needs to focus, to work on her breathing and prepare her voice. Tonight is different from the other nights, even if it should not be. Except that Maya can’t stop thinking about it.
She opens her eyes. In front of her, in an old, chipped mirror on a table, which they use to touch up their make-up at the last minute, she sees a reflection she knows all too well. Tonight, the public will see the same purple sleek bob haircut, the same carefully-applied eyeliner, the same bright pink jacket that she wears at every concert. Same singer, same musicians, same time, same bar. Everything is the same as usual, except for one detail — what’s going on in Maya’s head.
As though he’s reading her mind, Max sneaks behind her. Maya watches his reflection while he crouches down to be at her level. He doesn’t need to bother with clothing considerations to make all the groupies simp, although none of them ever manages to win his heart. He wears his usual cap and a shirt, like Sekou, with the major difference that his own is open on a white T-shirt and he carelessly pulled up the sleeves on his forearms. He’s handsome — always has been. Even when he was she, when only Maya held the privilege of winning his heart.
What happened between Max and her — even if the story is now written in the past tense —did not drive them apart. They only kept the beneficial side of their relationship: Max is the one that knows her best of all the band, and so does Maya the other way around. He has become her confidant. “How do you feel?” he whispers in her ear.
She takes her eyes off their reflection and focus on her hands, then shrugs. “I don’t know.”
She didn’t have to mention anything to him. He must have noticed today’s date, or, more likely, a change in her attitude despite her best efforts to behave as usual.
Three years ago, her life changed radically, for the first time after her parents were killed in a car accident when she was eleven. Today, Maya’s twenty and keeps a second tragedy on her record, although this one might seem much less serious.
Three years to the day, she lost her best friend.
The girl’s not dead. Well, Maya couldn’t say for sure, since she has no contact with her anymore. She knows her best friend didn’t have a choice in leaving town, though. On the other hand, she certainly had the choice to abandon Maya, since that’s what she did. Leaving Maya without answers, without news, in utter darkness. Maya was supposed to forget her, to erase her from her life as the person she loved the most in this world erased Maya from hers. Yet not a day goes by that she doesn’t think about her.
“Lamifex, you ready? You’re on in five minutes.”
Maya looks up and meets Tom’s eyes. He’s the manager of the Violon Dingue. His bar owes at least half of its turnover to the gigs Lamifex performs every Saturday night. It’s a win-win situation: Tom gets customers, and they get enough money to eat until the next month. Maya gets up, clears her throat and straightens her hair, which she knows is already flawless. “Let’s go.”
Max gives her a questioning look while absentmindedly twirling his drumsticks between his fingers. She mouths “Don’t worry” with a reassuring nod. She doesn’t want him to spend the evening worrying about her. He needs to focus on the show. The audience is getting their usual entertainment, and Maya’s personal story isn’t going to change that.
Jo puts a flowery sunhat on her head and walks past Maya, patting her on the shoulder as she goes. Maya realizes that Jo is aware of what today means, too. She inhales sharply, trying to chase away the inextricable jumble of thoughts that are tangled up in her head, then she follows Jo, with Sekou and Max behind her.
They walk onto the small stage that faces the counter. Max slides behind the drum kit he had already set up before the opening, and Maya takes her spot at the front of the stage, facing the mic fixed at her height on a tripod. She beholds the whole room, trailing her gaze on the customers crowded around the tables who are leaning against the counter to watch them, most of the time with a glass in their hands. They all look impatient, happy. She must not disappoint them.
She turns towards Jo, on her left, who stands firmly on her two feet, clutching the neck of her guitar as if her life depends on it. She winks at Maya. On the other side is Sekou, Maya’s quiet strength. She draws from him the serenity needed for tonight.
The lights dim and the removable colored spotlights in front of the stage are switched on to put the band under the spotlight.
Three. Two. One. Let the show begin.
Lamifex hardly play original compositions, although Maya does happen to jot down a few melodies or lyrics that pop into her head at times. Their band’s main concept is song covers, from the most famous ones to little gems that nobody has ever listened. As soon as the first note played by Jo echoes in the bar, Maya feels all her worries fly away, leaving her to think only about the music. She closes her eyes to cut herself off from the world, and all that remains is the sound of her voice, the instruments of her friends and the increasingly loud applause of the audience between each piece.
After an hour and a half of performance, the show comes near the end. There is only one song left, and Maya asked the band to play it last specifically. Max was the first to understand why, but she knows that Sekou and Jo were quick to add two and two as well, considering their attitude towards her today. They both give Maya an encouraging look from their side of the stage — then Jo strums the first notes.
This time, Maya is in no capacity to absorb herself in the present moment of the concert. She winds up in a sort of parallel dimension, where she haunts Maya’s thoughts.
Got a picture of you I carry in my heart
Close my eyes to see it when the world gets dark
Her face. Maya feels like she can see it in the audience, standing out in the middle of the indistinct, dark mass. She could have sworn it. She hasn’t seen her best friend in three years, but she's almost she could’ve made out that long nose, that sharp jaw, which the spotlight swept over for a second. In the blink of an eye, it all disappeared. Maya must have dreamt it, once again.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you
After all this time, you’re still with me, it’s true
Somehow you remain, locked so deep inside
Every single day she thinks about how that girl pushed her away, and how Maya should have insisted on helping her. She should’ve gone against her. Now she pays with her remorse and anguish the price of her weakness.
Minutes turn to hours and the hours to days
Seems it’s been forever that I’ve felt this way
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of you.
She sings the lyrics as if she were sitting in the audience, in front of Maya. As if there was a chance she’ll hear everything Maya has to say. It’s been three fucking years tonight.
The song comes to an end, and with it Maya’s moment of musical confession. Her voice doesn’t shake until the last second. However, when the final notes fade into silence, she feels the strength leaving her body and a lump forming in her throat. After a few seconds of deafening quiet, the audience explodes into the most delirious ovation of the evening, but even the cheers fail to draw a smile on Maya’s lips. As the spotlight fades, she takes advantage of this second-long break to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. Then she feels Max’s arms embrace her from behind. “You did it,” he murmurs.
Yet, this end of the concert doesn’t taste like a success. It tastes of bitterness, of despair, of unfinished conversations. It tastes of the silence of Maya’s long gone best friend.
“I need to take five,” she informs Max before slipping out the emergency exit of the bar at the back of the stage.
The rest of the band doesn’t follow her. They know she needs to be alone right now. She pushes the door open and takes a deep breath of the freezing air that rushes into the bar. She closes the door behind her, then walks a few steps into the night, pulling her pink jacket tighter around her body. The street, illuminated by the street lamps, is empty at first sight.
That’s when she sees her, hardly a few inches away. Perched precariously on one of the metal barriers that are lined up at the back of the Violon Dingue, the girl is casually scrolling on her phone. Maya hadn’t been dreaming earlier, during the gig. She may have recognized her immediately, but something about her seems off, fundamentally different — and Maya can’t quite put her finger on it. Heart beating wildly, she says her name in a hoarse voice. “Lola.”
The girl raises her head and meets Maya’s gaze. Her hair and eyes look lighter than Maya remembers, but after all, her memories are three years old now. Her best friend could’ve legitimately become unrecognizable in the meantime. Judging by her puzzled expression, the feeling must be mutual.
“Sorry, did you just speak to me?” she asks gently. Her voice, which Maya plays over and over in her head every day, has become radically higher pitched, but that again must be a consequence of the time that has passed.
“It’s me, Maya. You… you don’t recognize me?”
The girl frowns. “I think you must be confused,” she finally replies with a smile. “I don’t know any Maya, and I’ve never met you.” She sweeps her eyes over Maya’s outfit with an admiring expression, then winks at her. “If I did, I would remember!”
There’s no way. This must be a prank. Struggling to contain her rising panic, Maya looks at the girl more closely, and finally figures out what’s wrong. She may have lost Lola, but she still knows some certain facts about her. Her best friend would never be able to afford the latest iPhone. She would never dress so elegantly, with a long off-white coat and a tight leather skirt. Most of all, she would never give out smiles around so easily. The person in front of Maya, on the contrary, gives off a sort of warm aura that naturally makes everyone turn their head, which leaves Maya breathless.
In spite of everything, she’s Lola’s carbon copy, except for a few details. She could be her twin sister so effortlessly that it’s frightening. Dazed, Maya shakes her head to regain her senses. She feels like she’s just entered a parallel universe where cloning humans is an actual possibility.
“But… who are you, then?”
The girl makes a face, but it’s an adorable face that Lola would never be able to copy. “I’m— I’m Flavie. Just Flavie.”
Maya remains speechless. That’s indeed a perfect stranger who stands in front of her. And yet, how is it possible to ignore this striking resemblance? The girl’s face twitches slightly at her reaction, and she seems to regret having shared this information.
“Sorry,” she stammers, “you just… you are— well, I mean, you’re the perfect dead ringer for my best friend. Well, my former best— whatever, who cares? That’s why I called you Lola at first. I’m sorry.”
For some reason, the girl’s features suddenly relax at these words, as if she were relieved beyond measure. Why would she be relieved that I’ve mistaken her for my no longer best friend?
“Wow, well, funny coincidence!” the stranger comments with yet another smile. “First time someone mistakes me with a real person!”
“Uh, a real person? Why?”
“Nothing, I just said it like that,” she shrugs, but Maya doesn’t miss her shifty eyes.
She doesn’t insist, though. Everyone has their own secrets, starting with herself. But this girl, Flavie, as she says her name is… she looks so much like Lola that Maya is consumed with an almost animal urge to talk to her, to stay with her. As if she’s willing to settle for anything, even a pretense, to feel like she reunited with her best friend. “I’ve seen you in the audience,” she says.
Flavie nods, seemingly impressed. “You have an eagle eye! I was trying to blend in with the crowd…”
Maya’s about to explain that a person like her, with the magnetism she gives off, would be forever unable to blend in with any crowd, but Flavie goes on. “By the way, the gig was incredible! Your voice… it’s…wow. And the guitarist, too, she killed me! She’s so funny, I love her.”
Maya looks down and smiles, slightly embarrassed. “Her name is Jo. We just do what we love, and we’re lucky that people enjoy it.
“Well, please don’t stop! I’ll try to come back and see y’all again, it’s definitely worth it.”
“That’s nice.”
At this moment, Flavie’s phone starts to ring. She looks at the screen, then awkwardly at Maya. “Sorry, it’s important…”
“Oh, don’t worry, go take it, I was gonna come back in anyway.”
“You’re Maya, right? I hope we’ll see each other again!”
Maya just nods without saying anything, as Flavie walks away with her phone to her ear. She realizes that she forgot to ask Flavie what she was doing there, alone in the street at night. A few feet away, Flavie turns around, puts her arm in the air to greet her, then finally leaves. At that distance, if she didn’t look so classy and laid-back at the same time, Maya would be unable to tell who’s who between her and Lola.
Lola. Flavie. Lola. Their faces merge perfectly in her mind.
She remains leaning against the barrier where Flavie was still sitting a few seconds earlier, stunned by this strange, to say the least, encounter. Is it a coincidence to meet the doppelganger of your best friend, three years to the day after she left for a psychiatric hospital? Maya can’t bring herself to believe it is.