You Look Different in Real Life

by Jennifer Castle

  “Ten minutes!” snaps Ana as she leaves to go back outside, a bag of ice in her arms. “You come out in ten minutes!”

  Felix waits until she’s gone, then starts shuffling through his brother’s loot. He’s looking for something in particular, and when he finds it, he smiles wide. It’s a kid-size electronic keyboard, packaged so you can play it without removing it from the box. Felix glances over his shoulder to make sure nobody else is around, then starts fiddling with the keys, stringing them together one by one into aimless melodies.

  Another cut. Felix has been asked a question. We can tell because his brow is furrowed in concentration.

  “I’m not embarrassed by my family,” he says. “I wish I could relax and have fun like they do. I just . . . sometimes I don’t know where I want to be. When I’m hanging out with Nate at his house, I never feel like I belong there. Then when I’m here with everyone, I don’t really fit in either. So it’s hard.”

  The camera stays on Felix as he continues to mess around with the toy keyboard.

  The next thing we see is Ana coming back into the room, calling Felix’s name. But he’s gone. One final shot of the scene shows us Felix sitting cross-legged in the bed of his dad’s pickup truck in the driveway. He’s playing something on the toy keyboard, but it’s completely drowned out. His fingers move and his head sways and he seems to be in a good place, but all you hear is his mother shouting and music he didn’t make.

  Lance and Leslie got some heat for how Felix was portrayed in Five at Eleven. Of course, the one kid who’s a full ethnic minority gets reduced to a supporting character, people complained.

  It was much smaller heat, just a puff of warm air really, compared with the criticism over that scene with Keira and questions about footage of Nate. The scenes everyone loved and laughed over were mine. Rory came across as odd but charming and memorable. But there was Felix, with his own quiet story in the background.

  I realize now that by starting his blog, Felix took it upon himself to continue telling it.

  TEN

  Leslie calls me on Saturday morning. They’re not shooting today. Lance’s back is killing him and Kenny’s got a family commitment, and she sounds almost happy about it.

  “I’m going to check out the Walkway Over the Hudson while I’m unencumbered,” she says. “Do you want to come with me?”

  I remember when I was eleven and Leslie took me bowling. Just her and me. It made me feel Chosen. “Sure.”

  An hour later, Leslie and I are driving east from town in her rented SUV. She’s wearing black yoga pants, hiking boots, and a faux-fur leopard-print hoodie. This is a departure from what I now realize is her “shooting outfit” of jeans, boots, long-sleeved tee, and a fleece vest. What she’s wearing now seems more casual, yet still carefully arranged.

  “I’m so glad you were able to do this with me,” says Leslie.

  “Was I the first person you called?”

  “You mean, out of the five of you?” She looks sideways at me, a little pained. “Well, yes, you were the first person. If you hadn’t been able to come with me, I may have called someone else. Or maybe I would have come alone. It’s hard, being here without any friends around.” She glances at me again, and when she does, I catch a glimpse of myself reflected in her aviator-style sunglasses. “But I consider you a friend.”

  I know I’m supposed to say I think of you as a friend too, and then I remember all the things they wanted me to say on camera and I never did, so I go ahead and say it. Leslie smiles but keeps looking at the road.

  We grab the last open spot in the Walkway parking lot. Before Leslie gets out of the car, she reaches into the backseat and grabs a camera bag along with her purse.

  “I’m just going to get some B-roll while we’re here. You don’t even have to be in the shot. In fact, I don’t want you to be. Okay?”

  I nod, but can’t help feeling disappointed. I’d imagined our walk to be camera-less, but now it’s like she’s invited along a friend I can’t stand.

  We walk past some food trucks and a display detailing the origin of the Walkway—how it was an abandoned railroad trestle over the Hudson River until they raised a gajillion dollars to turn it into a pedestrian bridge. Leslie shoots the display for a few seconds, then moves on. We walk a little farther, and once we’re out on the bridge, under the wide, clear sky and over the shimmering river, Leslie takes a deep breath.

  “Oh, I miss this kind of water,” she says, moving to the railing and leaning over.

  “You’ve got the ocean in Los Angeles,” I say.

  “I don’t like waves. They’re loud and always seem angry. Plus there’s all the stuff like seaweed and jellyfish. No, I’m a lake and river kind of girl.” She takes out the camera, shoots for about a minute, panning from one side of the river to the other. A commuter train moves along the eastern bank, a silver snake against lush green. “You know, when I was a kid, we had a summer house on one of the Finger Lakes. I waterskied all over that area.”

  “Where did you grow up?” I ask, trying to remember if that was in her bio.

  “Connecticut,” she said.

  “I know so little about you,” I say, “while you know so much about me.”

  Leslie considers this. “True. What do you want to know?”

  I think for a moment. “What were you like in high school?”

  Something not-so-happy travels across her face. “I was a total jock. Field hockey and volleyball.”

  “Were you good?”

  “Very.”

  “I totally wouldn’t have guessed that, but now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense.”

  Leslie smiles now. I didn’t mean it as a compliment.

  “You probably had a million friends,” I add, not wanting this conversation to end.

  She laughs. “Hey, that’s one of my tricks. Asking a question without it being a question.” Then she grows suddenly quiet, her forehead falling so easily into the shape of her frown line, and looks down at the camera. “I don’t know why I never thought to do this before.”

  Now she holds up the camera and offers it to me.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, even though I totally know what she’s doing.

  “Here. Take it. You know how to use it?”

  She pushes the camera into my hands and my hands accept it. It’s actually lighter than it looks.

  “I’ve never used one this big,” I say.

  “It’s not much different than your average home video camera. Except you should use both hands to keep it steady. You see the record button and the one for pause?” I nod. “Then the T and W for tight and wide? That’s for zooming in and out.” She reaches over to close the small LCD display screen that swivels out of the side of the camera. “Use the viewfinder, not the display. The display is easier once you get the hang of things, but I find that the viewfinder is more . . . pure.”

  I run my thumb over the buttons. “What do you want me to shoot?”

  “Me. Ask me that question again about my friends.”

  I look at the camera, then back to her nodding. She seems really intent on this, almost urgent. Well, okay. I press record and point it at her, then use the viewfinder to frame the shot so there’s some hills in the distance over her shoulder.

  “You must have had a million friends in high school. . . .” I say.

  “My teams and I were tight,” replies Leslie, looking uncomfortably at the camera. “But it was actually kind of isolating. Kids who weren’t on the teams were too shy to ever talk to me.”

  “Are you still in touch with them? Your team friends?”

  Leslie pauses. “No.”

  A woman walks into the frame behind Leslie, then realizes she’s in our way and moves. But she hovers nearby, curious.

  “Really? You don’t keep in touch with a single high school friend? Even online or something?”

  “No,” says Leslie. Even more firmly.

  “They don’t come find you? Even after the movies
were out and you won the Oscar?”

  “I went by my middle name in high school, and then I took Lance’s last name when we got married.”

  This is really interesting to me, but it’s also interesting how this woman is watching us. She’s about my mom’s age, with one of those short haircuts that can best be described as efficient. Another woman, holding a guidebook, joins her now. They both have purple fanny packs and unnaturally white sneakers.

  “Oh,” the first woman says in a thick accent when she realizes she’s diverted my attention from the camera. “I don’t want disturb you. We are walking from that side”—she points to the far side of the river—“to that side. Can you tell us we should go all the way? What is over there?”

  “Just some food carts,” says Leslie, her face lighting up into helpfulness. I don’t press pause on the camera. “There’s no real town like there is on the side you came from.”

  The woman turns to her friend and says something in a language I don’t understand. It has sharp edges and catches in her throat. Leslie touches my wrist. When I turn, she points to the camera, then nods toward the women.

  I pan over with the camera to get them into frame. It feels really rude. Intrusive. But looking at these women through the viewfinder, their conversation takes on a totally different feel. Like this is a story, somehow. While they’re talking, one pulls a guidebook out of her fanny pack and starts flipping through it nervously, front to back, back to front. I press the T button to zoom in on her fingers. It’s jerky at first, but then smoother. I zoom out. Back in.

  “Okay,” says one of the women. “We go back the way we came. Thank you!”

  “Good luck with your movie,” says the other.

  I shoot them as they walk away, talking again in their painful-sounding language. I’d need a throat lozenge all the time if I spoke what they’re speaking. They pass a sign that says, “Mental Health Hotline.” I zoom in on that. There’s a phone receiver hanging on it and some writing. A message for anyone contemplating a bridge jump into the Hudson as a way out.

  “When you’re shooting,” says Leslie, watching me, “you never know what’s going to be interesting and what isn’t. Sometimes you don’t even know until after the fact.”

  I nod, keeping my eye on the viewfinder. Leslie is trusting me, instructing me. It feels genuine.

  We’re quiet like this for a bit, until Leslie’s cell phone rings. She pulls it from her bag and checks the caller ID. “Hey, babe,” she says, then mouths the word Lance to me.

  I move away from her, closer to the Mental Health Hotline sign so I can read the words on it. “Life Is Worth Living,” it says. “There Is Always Hope. Please Call.” I don’t go so far away, though, that I can’t hear her conversation.

  “The Walkway is incredible,” says Leslie to Lance. “We’ll come back when you’re feeling better. What’s up?”

  She paces and listens. I pan across the width of the bridge, shooting whatever I see. A family on bikes. Two men running in tiny tight pants. One woman walking a whole mess of mismatched dogs.

  “I don’t understand,” says Leslie. I look away from the camera at her, and at that exact moment she looks back at me, then moves farther away so I can’t hear her anymore.

  But I can see her, and I just keep the camera on her, zooming in on her face as she frowns and shakes her head and sighs. It doesn’t feel intrusive at all. It’s just another story. When she notices me shooting her and turns her back to me, well, that’s when the story starts to get good.

  After a few minutes, she turns and walks back to me, tucking the phone deep into a pocket of her vest. I keep the camera on her, not ready to look at things without it yet. Her face is sagging like it can’t hold the weight of whatever she’s thinking about.

  “We have to go,” she says.

  “Bad news?”

  She smiles, but sadly. “Hopefully not.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  Leslie winces. “Eventually.”

  “Why wait?”

  She stares out at the river, looking more depressed by the second. “No point in putting it off, I suppose. Let’s walk over to the side so we’re out of the way.”

  Yeah, this can’t be good.

  When we get to the railing, Leslie reaches out and takes the camera from my hands. I force myself to uncurl my fingers, let her reclaim it. She clutches the thing to her chest and gazes at the water, sighing deeply in preparation for something.

  “We had a long conference call with our coproducers last night,” she finally says, avoiding my glance. “You know, they’ve seen a lot of the footage so far. We’ve talked about our general vision for this film.”

  “You have to have a vision?” I ask. “I thought your vision was as simple as showing people what the five of us are up to now that we’re sixteen.”

  Now she turns and meets my eyes. “Well, there has to be an arc. You start the film at one point and end at another. There’s a little high point of drama along the way. And we lucked out with the first two films. There were arcs. For better or worse, they happened naturally. But this time . . .”

  “No arc,” I say.

  “Not yet. We’ve had some . . . ripples, shall we say. But they’re not coming out on their own.” Leslie searches the distance again. “I’m sure if we could have extra crews and follow you guys around for months, the stories would emerge. But we don’t have those luxuries. And it seems like these ripples only happen when certain people get together. Like that scene with you and Rory, or in the library with Felix and Nate.”

  I’m starting to see where she’s going with this, and it scares me.

  “Last night, one of the Independent Eye people suggested the idea of asking the five of you to participate in a special kind of experience. Together.”

  “That sounds gross and sexual,” I say.

  “Not gross and sexual,” says Leslie calmly, and now she reaches into her backpack and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, opens it. “Team-building,” she reads. “Self-realizing.”

  She shoves the paper toward me and I take it.

  “Lance called just now to tell me that the head of production loves the idea and is insisting we make it happen.”

  I unfold the paper. It’s a printout from a website. “AIKYA LODGE YOUTH RETREATS,” it says, above a photo of a smiling boy and girl holding menacing-looking papier-mâché masks, covered in sticks and feathers. I remember Josh Gordon made one like that in fifth grade art class. They sent a note home to his parents about it.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” says Leslie. “This is not what we’re supposed to be about. This is fabricated and fake and not observational documentary at all.”

  I might have been thinking that.

  This is where Leslie starts to lose it. She takes a deep breath and it comes out in short, shuddering bursts. Her eyes well up. “I cried when we hung up from the conference call,” she says. “It’s that far from what we originally planned. But we’re sort of . . . trapped. We need the Independent Eye backing, and we need the distribution. Lance says he agrees with them. Lance says he’d rather make no film at all than a film that doesn’t add anything to your stories.”

  “What do you say?”

  Leslie pauses and seems to be really putting together an answer for me. “I say, if we have to do this, let’s find a way to make it different. Not like some trashy TV show but . . . meaningful.”

  “And what happens if we don’t want to take part?” I ask.

  “Honestly? I haven’t thought about that yet. I’m hoping I won’t have to. And if you agree to do it, you know everyone else will too.”

  Is that true? Felix will say yes if I do. So will Nate and Rory. That leaves Keira. Why Keira would go anywhere with these guys, let alone to a lodge in the woods, still baffles me. But she keeps showing up when they ask her to.

  So. Me. Why am I not repulsed by this idea? Why am I picturing Felix and Rory and Nate and Keira and me at this creepy-sounding Aikya Lodge to
gether, with just the cameras, and not hating it?

  “I’m sorry, Justine,” says Leslie, dabbing at her eyes with a fingertip.

  “You probably should be,” I say, forcing a smile. “But I think it’s going to be okay.”

  ELEVEN

  Everything happens quickly after that. As predicted, once I agreed to go to the Aikya Lodge, the others did too.

  “Whether we want to admit it or not,” said Felix about the whole matter, “we’re too invested to bail now.”

  This “experience” is scheduled for the following weekend. We’re supposed to arrive on Friday at 5:00 p.m. and get picked up Sunday at 5:00 p.m. The exactness of forty-eight hours is important, somehow. They haven’t told us much. They just gave us a list of what to pack.

  Dad drives me along the roads that cut what seems to be an excessively winding path up the mountain. We’re stuck behind a car that has two bikes strapped to the back, and in front of another with a kayak on its roof. Most people gain this altitude for the sake of fun, but not us.

  “Will you call me tomorrow and let me know how it’s going?” asks Dad. We’ve been silent up until now.

  “We had to leave our cell phones at home,” I say. “But if you want, I can ask Lance or Leslie to report in.”

  My father considers that for a moment. “No, that’s okay. I don’t want to be a pain. As long as there’s a way for you to reach us.” He glances at me. “You seem rather non-resistant about all this.”

  “Is nonresistance the same as acceptance?” I ask. “Because that’s how I see it. I’m accepting. You signed away my life ten years ago. I have to make the best of it.”

  He takes his eyes off the car in front of us for just a second, so he can get a confused look at me, then turns back. I guess it’s not fair I brought this up while he’s driving. “Is that really how you feel?”

  “Yes. No. I’m not sure.”

  “Well, damn,” he says, his voice growing soft.

  “I understand that you didn’t really know what it would mean.”

  “Why?” he asks slowly. “What does it mean?”