I take a couple of steps to my right and now I can really see. There’s Keira, sitting up, one hand holding an ice pack to her forehead and the other grasping a book. Her dark curly hair’s long and loose, her glasses are sliding down her nose a bit.
I could say hi. Just an everyday hi, not too loud, and normal-friendly. But then I think of her glancing up and not saying it back, and that’s not someplace I want to go.
“Looks good!” says Mrs. Underwood. “Thank your dad for me.”
I just nod and get the hell out of there.
Sometimes I think of an invisible cord connecting Nate and Keira and Felix and Rory and me. It’s made of something thin and deceptively powerful, like the stuff Spider-Man squirts out of his wrists. Then I wonder who spun it. Was it Lance and Leslie? Was it everyone who’s ever watched the Five At documentaries? Or maybe it was me. All I know is that it’s always there. It stretches and winds but will never break.
I’m home after school and my sister has sent me an email with this persuasive note:
Dude, you have to read this post about the Five At films.
Olivia has pasted a link below it, but I don’t click yet. Just like I’ve avoided the series’ website, I’ve avoided the stuff an online search might dredge up. Sometimes when I’m bored, I’ll type out “Five At films” or my name, but never actually hit the search button. Like when you’re terrified to call someone, so you dial the first nine digits over and over but always hang up before pressing the tenth.
Today, though, I dial that tenth digit. I click the link.
It’s an entry from a blog by someone who calls himself DocuGeek, dated about a month ago.
When I was in college, a girlfriend dragged me to what sounded like a snoozer of a doc called Five at Six, about a group of kids in the same kindergarten class in an upstate New York college town. Precious, right? Mundane and probably someone’s vanity project, I was sure.
I was wrong. Five at Six was the opposite of a snoozer: It was a wake-up call. It was funny and fascinating, probably one of the best films I’d seen in a long time, thanks mostly to the gifts of Lance and Leslie Rodgers, whose choice of subjects and tragicomic sensibilities are brilliant. It remains one of my favorite documentaries ever.
Five at Eleven is right up there too, for different reasons.
It’s been five years. These kids are sixteen now, so we’re due for another installment. Is it coming? I emailed Lance Rodgers but got only a vague reply of “We’re working on getting things in place.”
So for the time being I have to just wonder about Justine, Keira, Nate, Rory, and Felix. They must be sophomores in high school. Who are they now? I could do some online detective work, but what’s the fun in that? (Although I will admit I happened upon Felix’s personal blog; I’ve included one of his videos below.) Instead, I’m going to make some predictions.
I read on.
According to DocuGeek, the most likely scenario is that Rory’s been diagnosed with some kind of autism spectrum thing (okay, that is eerie) and Nate has been bullied out of school (so way off) and Felix, based on the personality shown in his videos, is the most popular kid in the class (he wishes). He’s got a couple of theories about Keira: She probably rebelled and is a total pothead (not that we know of), or she and her father moved cross-country to start fresh after all the heartbreak (which nobody would blame them for, but this is a miss too).
What’s really striking, and I’m not being egotistical here, is that this guy, who’s probably blogging from his man-cave surrounded by gaming consoles and sex dolls, is mostly wondering about me.
Justine was the one who always snagged my attention. Much of the drama in Five at Six revolves around what happens after she’s rushed to the hospital with terrible stomach pain. She was fascinating to watch at age six and again at eleven. So now, at sixteen, I see Justine having started a badass girl band or become the star of the drama club. She could be into painting, or designing clothing, or writing an underground newspaper. She’s the class president or has dropped out of school.
I don’t read any more, although I notice the bottom of the post says “24 Comments,” which means DocuGeek’s readers have weighed in as well. I slap the laptop shut and put my head on my desk.
I am none of these things people have wanted for me.
I am none of these things because I am nothing in particular, period.
What comes to mind suddenly is my last sit-down interview in Five at Eleven, where Leslie asks me a question I don’t have a smartypants answer for.
“What do you think the next five years will be like, Justine?”
“They’ll be super awesome.” At eleven I’m fast and loose with the double adjectives.
“Rephrase part of the question in your answer, please.” She still needs to remind me.
“The next five years will be super awesome.”
“Why? What’s going to happen?”
“I’ll be in junior high and then high school and be a teenager and get a boyfriend and wear makeup. And I’ll be a great guitar player by then too.”
“That does sound awesome,” says Leslie, and you can hear the smile in her voice. Not because she wants that for me too, but because I just gave her a great sound bite.
“Yeah, I can’t wait to be sixteen,” I say. And of course that’s what they use for the last line of the movie. I would bet the classic anime shelf of my DVD collection that they’ll use that in the trailer for this next one, too.
I couldn’t wait to be sixteen. Now I am. I don’t have a boyfriend, and actually hate wearing makeup except for ChapStick and a little eyeliner. I stopped playing guitar three years ago. I feel so sorry for eleven-year-old me.
Don’t rush, Justine! You may have peaked in fifth grade!
It still blows my mind, sometimes, that so many strangers watched me go through what I did when I was six. Those tests they did in the hospital, the alien probes that snooped around in every possible orifice. My parents let Lance and Leslie film some of it (not the gross parts, but certainly the tense parts), because my father the pediatrician wanted other parents to learn from his process of figuring out what the hell might be wrong with his kid.
The doctors found nothing. The pain kept coming. Eventually, they suggested it was caused by stress and I should see a therapist. One of them dared to wonder if it was related to the experience of being the subject of a documentary, but of course that didn’t appear in the film.
The cramps went away for a while, so the therapist idea did too. I don’t tell anyone, but they come back from time to time; we seem to have a drop-in-whenever arrangement. I’ve developed tricks for dealing with them. The tricks seem to work. I am fine.
Except right now.
Get inside the pain. Okay, what does this pain feel like?
The way it felt to see Lance and Leslie by the library. The way it felt to wonder why Ian came to sit with me at lunch. The way it felt for everyone to look and whisper and question.
Olivia’s words from this morning are in my head now.
You can just say no if you want to.
I know she has an ulterior motive. My sister came off terribly in the second movie: a fourteen-year-old airhead who represented everything I didn’t want to be—obsessed with clothes, boys, and hair, like she ordered her entire personality from the back pages of a teen magazine. Plus, she hated how it all affected our family. When our parents split up, so perfectly timed after the film experience was done, she accused them of keeping things together just long enough for the cameras to go away.
Olivia was right, of course, but they didn’t have the guts to admit it.
Could she be right here? Can I just say no? That seems impossible. Or maybe it’s one of those things that only seems impossible because you’ve never questioned it.
Dad still has a place at our table, even though he hasn’t lived in our house for almost four years. When he sits at it, every Thursday night without fail, he reminds me of a little boy who’s been p
lopped onto the driver’s seat of a fire truck. He’s not really in control, but he likes to pretend to be, and by the look of pure pleasure on his face this must be the highlight of his week.
After Five at Eleven came out and the publicity died down, my parents took Olivia and me to our favorite mini-golf place, and in between the pirate ship at hole nine and the giant caterpillar at hole ten, told us they were splitting up. “We decided that we’re better off not married,” said my dad. My mom just nodded, and then later when we were driving home with ice cream cones, decided to add, without looking at us, “You can love someone, but not be in love with them.”
So now they “love each other” but are not married, which equals the Thursday night dinners. When Mom doesn’t have another Three-Week Boyfriend and Dad isn’t dating one of those moms who think pediatricians are automatically hot, he stays over—and it’s not on the couch—and he makes breakfast the next morning like there’s nothing messed up about it. I chose to stop being confused by this years ago.
On these nights, it’s easy to pretend our family is the way it used to be and my parents cared enough to fight for their marriage. It’s easy to keep eating and talking despite the side dish of bittersweet that always seems to sit at the edge of the table, untouched.
Olivia tries to take the salad bowl from Dad, but he holds it teasingly just beyond her reach.
“Grow up,” she snaps, and grabs it from him.
Once we all have our food, Mom clears her throat and announces, “Jeff, we have some news.” I gave her permission to be the one to do this.
Dad looks at her, then me, his eyes lit up mischievously.
“Lance and Leslie Rodgers are in town. It looks like the third movie is a go.”
“I heard a rumor about that from one of my patients,” he says simply. I won’t ask who it was, because then I’ll picture that person in a white paper gown, and sometimes that picture is not pretty. Now he turns to me. “That’ll be exciting, yes?”
My parents’ clueless grins. Olivia’s silent scowl. My window of opportunity is open, and I can fit through.
“Actually, no,” I say. “I don’t want to do it.”
Now Olivia explodes into laughter and offers her hand for a high five. I gently oblige.
“What?” asks Dad.
Mom overlaps with, “Why not?”
“I’ve thought about it, and I have my reasons.”
“Is everyone else doing it?” asks Dad.
“Are you going to tell me that if everyone else does it, I should too? Isn’t that the opposite of the standard jumping-off-the-Empire-State-Building speech?”
“Consider what it means,” says Mom, who looks at Dad for approval. He nods back. “Not just to Lance and Leslie but to the other kids, and the fans, and—”
“And to you?” asks Olivia. I’m so glad it’s her and not me who says this.
“To us?” asks Dad. “Why, what would it mean to us?”
“Oh, please,” says Olivia. “Like you don’t want all the attention and publicity.”
Mom and Dad exchange a sharp glance and Mom lets out a sigh.
“We’ve talked about this before,” says Mom. “Don’t for a second think we have our own interests at heart.”
“We made a commitment ten years ago and I think we should stick to it,” adds Dad. “Unless you have a really good reason not to. Justine, do you have a really good reason not to?”
I look at my parents’ faces, serious and united now.
Olivia reaches out and touches my wrist. “Don’t let them pressure you.”
“Justine?” Mom nudges. “Why would you say no?”
These are my parents, and they’re always telling me I can be honest with them about anything. They tell me this so much it’s annoying and makes me want to do the opposite. But right now, maybe I should give it a try.
“I just . . . I’m not . . . I’m not what I was hoping I would be by now.”
My mother melts a little. “Oh, sweetie.” Which means she doesn’t get it.
“Mom,” I say evenly and, I hope, firmly. “You can’t even get me to be in family pictures. Why do you think I’d want a camera crew on my tail?”
It’s so much more than the way I look, but I’ve thought about this and decided my best strategy is to focus on what they already know about me.
Dad leans back in his chair and nods; maybe I hit the mark with him. “Remember when I didn’t want to go to my twenty-fifth high school reunion because of my bald spot?”
“No way,” says Olivia. “If you tell that story again, I’ll puke.”
“It applies!” Dad’s raising his voice now.
I look at my family squaring off against one another and my resolve falters. If I hold firm, the pressure would make life a living hell that would be worse than the much briefer living hell of just doing the film. Either way, I will hate them for it.
Olivia leans in and whispers, “Don’t cave.”
I stare at my plate. “I won’t.”
“This makes me sad,” says my father.
“Yes, because it’s all about you!” shouts my sister, as she pushes away from the table and huffs upstairs.
A stunned, hear-a-pin-drop silence follows. Mom is making shapes with her potatoes, and Dad squeezes the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger like he does when he’s thinking or sad.
I’m not sure what to say now, so I just turn to Mom and ask, “Will you call Leslie and tell her for me?”
Mom pauses, staring into my eyes, then, mercifully, nods.
Dad says, “Jussie, you wanna walk me out?”
Usually I invite him to stay and watch a movie with me, but tonight I just get up and find his coat.
FOUR
Saturday afternoon, Felix calls. I know his “screening party” is tonight and he still wants me to come. I let it go to voice mail.
Then he texts me. Cmon u know u want to be there! Plzzzzzz!
I haven’t told anyone about my decision. It’s easier if the whole thing begins as a rumor, so I’ll just ask Olivia to start a blabfest; she excels in that area.
The truth is, the only thing I’ve been able to think about today is all those people from school watching me on the screen in Felix’s basement. Making comments about my hair, my clothes, what I’m saying. And I can’t stand the idea of not being there to feel insulted by it.
This is why, at 8:30 p.m., I am pulling my dad’s car into the driveway of Felix’s house. There are a dozen cars, and for a second, I’m happy for him. Felix is always trying to be Mr. Social, always grasping for anything that resembles popularity. He’s got other friends besides me, a tight-knit gang of techie-music nerds, but nobody takes him seriously. Unless he has something special to offer, like this screening with the digital projector he bought with his own savings.
I knock loudly on the front door and Felix’s mother, Ana, answers. “Hola, Justine!” she says, as she hugs me. I haven’t seen her since the last time I stopped in to the Hunter Farms store, which she runs, and it’s weird seeing the lower half of her body because she’s always, you know, behind a counter. Over her shoulder in the living room, the TV is blaring a news program in Spanish. Felix’s dad, who is also named Felix and manages all the Hunter Farms employees, swivels in his La-Z-Boy to wave at me. I wave to him. He swivels back to the TV.
Ana asks me the standard questions about my family and school, and I nod, saying “Yes” and “Good” while inching toward the door to the basement. Finally, she lets me go and I’m making my way down the stairs.
I hear the sound of Keira’s six-year-old voice.
“My daddy doesn’t let me watch TV,” she’s saying. It comes out proud, but she pauses after she says it and her mouth twitches downward.
Good, we’re just a few minutes in. I hang back and check out the room. There are at least thirty kids sprawled on two faux-leather couches and countless floor pillows, munching popcorn. I spot Ian’s friend Dashiell, which makes my heart spazz.
And now I’m instantly sorry I came. Or not. It’s very confusing.
The movie is showing on a giant white sheet tacked to the wall. It doesn’t hang completely straight, and Keira’s light cocoa skin has strange wrinkles in it, her curly hair has extra swirls.
Felix is sitting behind everyone, next to the projector. Jotting things down in a little notebook.
“Has your daddy told you why he doesn’t want you to watch TV?” asks Leslie’s voice. Sometimes I have to remind myself that most people who watch this have no idea what Leslie looks like. They can’t see her small, intense eyes and her nail-biting, her hands running nervously through her hair, as she listens to what you’re saying with a camera pointed at you.
Keira stares off for a moment. She thinks, then shrugs one shoulder.
The next shot is Keira and her parents sitting on the floor of their living room, playing some math board game. Keira’s mom is lying on her side, her head propped up by an arm, and she’s rolling the dice for Keira. I forgot how beautiful Mrs. Jones was and feel a terrible pang of grief for this family scene that can’t exist anymore.
Suddenly, there’s a hand on my elbow and I jump.
It’s Felix, smiling. Not smugly, like he could be, but as if he’s genuinely happy to see me. “I’m so glad you made it,” he says. “Here, take my chair.” And I don’t protest, because I’d rather not shift my eyes off the screen. I’ve watched this movie many times in the privacy of my bedroom—too many to count, and nobody knows that—but seeing it big like this is a different story. Keira is nearly the size of her real kindergarten self projected on the sheet, and it’s pretty weird, like having your memories yanked out of you and tossed onto the nearest wall.
You Look Different in Real Life Page 3
