Page 38 of Your Echo
10Kamikaze || Walk the Moon
STÉPHANIE
After three weeksof private classes, my sessions with Ace have become such a regular part of my schedule that it’s strange to remember there was a time when I didn’t tutor Montreal’s most famous rock star in the art of meditation.
“I still can’t believe you teachAce Turnerhow to meditate,” my best friend, Jacinthe, drawls from where she’s putting mascara on in front of her mirror, reminding me that Ace and I’s arrangement is far from normal.
“It’s weird,” I tell her, the two of us speaking in our native French. “Sometimes I totally forget he’s famous, and then sometimes it’s all I can think about. It’s like there’s two of him, you know? The one I’ve seen in newspapers and heard on the radio, and the one I actually know.”
“Mmm,” she hums vaguely, her bottom lip dropping open as she coats her eyelashes one final time.
Jacinthe has much more experience in the famous people department than I do. She dances professionally and once spent a year on tour with a big time company, but now she mostly does things like movies and music videos. She also has a cult following on Instagram and picks up modelling jobs from time to time. Celebrities don’t often faze her.
“Are yousureyou don’t want to come out tonight?” she asks me. I know her pout is because of the lipstick she’s putting on and not for me, but her pleading sounds genuine all the same.
“I teach an intermediate ballet class at nine in the morning tomorrow,” I remind her, “and you know I don’t like going out.”
We’re spending a few hours together at her apartment before I know a swarm of glamorous girls are going to swoop in and sweep her off into the night.
“Anymore,” she answers pointedly. “What happened to the old you, Stéphanie Cloutier-Hébert? You used to be fun.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “What happened is that I got my shit together and stopped destroying my own life.”
“Hein, attends.” She sets her lipstick down and turns to face me. Her bottom lip is dark red while the top one’s still nude. “I’m just kidding. I’m proud of you, and I support your decisions. That’s why I just spent the past three hours watching reruns ofYamaskawith you when I could have been pre-drinking with all my bitches and hoes.”
She says the last part in English and makes what’s supposed to be a gangsta hand motion. I groan.
“Seriously,” Jacinthe urges, “I’m glad you’re not that girl anymore. You seem happier.”
You seem happier.
I’ve heard that from almost everyone who knew the ‘old’ Stéphanie, the one who would have been halfway through a bottle of vodka at this time on any given Friday night. I thought I was happy then, surrounded by people who would have done anything to get a piece of me. I thought I’d found a way to feed the fire inside me, the one that threatened to burn me up from the inside out. I thought if I laughed hard enough and sang loud enough and danced in enough crowded rooms pressed up against faceless men, I could be as happy as I told myself I should feel.
“There!” Jacinthe smacks her lips together and puts on a Bostonian accent. “Goy-juss! Justgoy-juss!”
Sheisgorgeous. She’s three inches taller than me, with the same willowy body but slightly more boobs. Her hair brushes the small of her back when it’s down, and shifts between shades so much when she moves that I’ve never been able to decide if it’s brown or auburn.
We met at a dance competition when we were eleven. It was one of the only chances I ever had to compete as a kid, and I won my division. Jacinthe placed second. Her parents came over to demand who my coach was and where I took classes, and when they found out I didn’t have a coach and was only at the competition because one of my studio’s teachers had been nice enough to bring me, they brushed off the thought that I could be a threat to their daughter’s career.
I didn’t see Jacinthe much for a year or two after that, but we talked almost every night on MSN. When we finally got old enough to hang out without parental supervision, we were inseparable. We used to choreograph our own routines to Taylor Swift’s country ballads, shouting along to words we barely understood since neither of us spoke great English.
A car horn honks on the street, and Jacinthe glances out the window beside her. “Oh, they’re here.”
“In a car?” I ask. “Do I have to get all responsible and ask if you have a DD?”
“Yvonne’s family has a driver,” Jacinthe says breezily, like the answer should be obvious. She catches me staring at her and laughs. “Mon dieu,I sound like such an entitled bitch. How did I become such a douchebag, Stéph?”
She’s one of the only people I let call me Stéph.
“You’ve always been a douchebag,” I tease her.
She smoothes her ponytail in the mirror and then stands up, grabbing a purse that matches her burgundy bodycon dress.
“Do you want to call an Uber or something?” she asks me.
“I live eight blocks away, Jazzy. Some of us still know how to walk.”
We leave the giant studio apartment Jacinthe’s parents found for her after I announced I’d be moving out of our old place. We’re only on the third floor, but we take the elevator because Jacinthe’s heels are so high they’re an actual health hazard.
