You Look Different in Real Life

by Jennifer Castle

  “Hi, guys,” she whispers, her voice catching, and Nate does something unexpected: he wraps her in a hug.

  Lance, who’s holding the camera, regards them with something that’s half-jealousy, half-remorse, like Well, shit, I should have thought about hugging my own wife. But then he snaps out of it and says: “The thing about making a documentary film is that these things happen, and you can see them as a setback, or you can see them as a kind of gift.” Leslie and Nate both give him a dirty look and he adds, “Assuming, of course, that nobody gets harmed.”

  “So you still want us to do the bouldering,” I say, as if I’m so smart that I already figured that out and did not benefit from Rory’s mutant eavesdropping skills.

  It’s Pam who answers. “Yes, we do. It’ll be a little different than I originally planned, because now there’s just four of you, and we can break into two teams.”

  “In the meantime, we’d like to talk to you about Keira leaving,” says Lance.

  On cue, Kenny steps out onto the porch with the boom mic. It’s all so seamless, I wonder for the blink of a second if this was set up and they asked Keira to leave. Right now nothing seems impossible.

  “Can I go in and grab my sunscreen first?” I ask, and don’t wait for an answer before darting inside and upstairs. I walk into my room—the girls’ room—and sit on Keira’s bed. She was here, thinking. Fuming. Planning. The dark and the quiet, making everything seem worse than they really are because they always do. How she was sleeping in a room with two girls she’s known for ten years but doesn’t know at all, and maybe felt more alone than she possibly could have anywhere else.

  Nate’s voice in my head. I have to find out where she went.

  Keira’s face now. Her face from that scene five years ago, of pure and open devastation. Then her face at the campfire. A face that is secrets and hiding and total fear that anyone will find out what you are really thinking and who you really are.

  And maybe there’s some kind of brilliant-plan mojo coming off Keira’s bunk, because suddenly I have one.

  The boulders waiting to be bouldered lie just a mile into the woods, a medium-size rockface set into a steep hill. It’s a pretty spot even if it does make me think of Ian. Nearby, we can hear a creek rushing and a waterfall.

  “I had no idea it was going to be this loud,” says Lance. “We’ll have to mic them two at a time.”

  “That’s fine,” says Pam, removing the crash pad strapped to her back and laying it on the ground. “Because they’re going to climb two at a time.” She motions to a little circle of logs I hadn’t noticed yet, and we take that as our cue to sit. Felix and I share one, and I enjoy watching Nate decide whether or not he’s going to share with Rory or find a spot on his own. Without Keira here he seems floating, untethered. After a few awkward moments, he sits next to Rory. I like this pairing. For the purposes of the film, it will be interesting. Not that I’m thinking about the purposes of the film.

  Once Lance and Kenny have chosen a spot, Leslie again shooting the second camera, Pam continues.

  “This is my favorite part of the programs I do,” she says, looking up at the trees. “Climbing a rock seems like such a simple, even silly thing to do. Why do it? Isn’t that for little kids? We’ll talk more afterward but for now, let me say that this activity is all about teammates being conscious of each other. There’s no winning or losing. There’s just . . . doing.”

  “Winning and losing not there is,” says Felix in his Yoda voice. “Doing, there is just.”

  A burst of cackling laughter from Rory. No doubt in her mind about that being funny.

  Pam smiles too, and then says, “Rory, why don’t you partner with Felix?” She looks at me. “And Justine, you’ll be with Nate.”

  What? No. That’s not right. I need to be with Felix. Felix. So I can talk to him about my idea.

  I glance over to Leslie, who meets it with a raised eyebrow and a sideways smile. Dammit.

  “Who wants to start us off?” asks Pam, and Nate holds up a finger like Keira did last night. Before I know it, Kenny is coming at me with a lavalier mic and I’m avoiding looking at Nate and now we’re at the base of the rock and Pam is talking again and the camera is rolling.

  “I call this Plus One. One of you climbs first, maybe four moves up the rock. The other one has to watch exactly where the footholds and handholds are. Then it’s that person’s turn to climb the same sequence, but you’re going to add one more. Then the first person goes again, and adds one to that. You have to pick a move that you know the other person can do. Help each other, remind each other of the sequence. The goal is for both of you to make it to the top with the sequence you’ve come up with together.” She turns to Felix and Rory. “Now, you two need to go someplace where you can’t see them. We don’t want you using the same moves when it’s your turn.”

  Felix and Rory glance awkwardly at each other for a moment, then Felix motions Rory in a direction away from us. They quickly disappear into the greenery.

  Nate does some swimming-type stretches, circling his arms so he looks like a little boy pretending to be a helicopter, then bends back the palm of each hand. I assume this means he’s going first. And now he looks right at me with those green eyes.

  “How easy do I have to be?” he asks.

  Totally insulted and not thinking straight, I say, “Not easy at all. I’ve done this.” At day camp, years ago.

  He nods, and I wonder what I’ve set myself up for.

  Nate hoists himself onto the face, putting a foot not on the obvious first hold, so prominent it’s like the rock has a front stoop, but rather a few inches higher in a small bump. And I watch him.

  He climbs until he’s put his hands or feet in three more places, then turns and says, “Got that?”

  “Yep,” I say, although I’ve never said “yep” like that in my life.

  Instead of climbing down, he launches himself off the face of the rock and into the crash pad. Stands up, dusts himself off. It’s my turn to go.

  “Put your right hand over there,” he says.

  I look down and snap, “You don’t have to say anything until I ask you to.”

  “Okay, okay. Just trying to help.” He holds up his hands in defense and starts backing away.

  Next move. I close my eyes and see it in my head. Then I put myself there. The next one is harder. I have to stretch one hand all the way out to my right, even though there’s a hold closer than the one Nate used. His arm is longer. That didn’t occur to him. I take a moment to figure out how I’m going to make it work, and out of the corner of my eye I see movement. The crew changing position, getting closer. Fantastic.

  I will be damned if I don’t reach this. Not on my first turn.

  And somehow I become more elastic and make myself long and my fingers touch the edge of the hold and then my palm is there and I’ve grabbed it. It’s just a tiny little bump in the rock, but I grip it like a lifeline.

  “Yes!” says Nate, and I jerk my head down to look at him. He seems surprised by his own positive encouragement.

  The other three moves are easier. I pick my fifth move, the move Nate will have to replicate. I decide to get him back by adding a foothold that’s actually a little too close to the one I’m already on. It’s a little tricky for me, but it might set him off-balance.

  “Awesome work, Justine!” says Pam. “Can you jump down?”

  If he did it, I can do it. And I do. The letting go is the hardest part. The landing is soft and actually fun.

  When Nate gets back on the rock, he has trouble remembering the second and third moves so I talk him up the rest of the sequence. He doesn’t complain; surprisingly, he just accepts my help, then adds another move that I can barely see since he’s almost at the top already. When he falls back down to the pad, he lands a bit wrong and lets out an “Oof.”

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Side impact,” he mutters, then looks up at me from the pad and grins.

  When
I’m on the rock, I have no trouble with the first three moves and then my mind goes blank. I just look at him, and he tells me where to go next. By the time I get to my add-on move, I’m practically at the top. All it takes is one well-chosen grab at the ledge and I’m up. I will do this.

  “Yes!” shouts Nate when I finally grip a hold and pull myself to the rock’s “summit.” I look down to see Nate pumping his fist, Pam beaming, both camera lenses staring up at me with their gaping, empty eyes. Now Nate has to make it up the rock with no help from me below, and he does. Quickly. Like now we’ve unlocked some formula for doing this. Got a mountain that needs climbing?

  When he pulls himself up to where I am, I instinctively reach out a hand. Instinctively, I’m guessing, he takes it, and now we’re standing next to each other, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, on top of a rock in the middle of the woods and somehow, it does not seem at all preposterous.

  Pam claps. Leslie claps. Lance nods emphatically. Off in the distance, I hear Rory’s and Felix’s voices mixing in with the hum of the creek.

  “You can actually walk around that way, and just come down the hill over there,” says Pam. “Or, of course, you can jump again.” Nate peers over the edge of the boulder to the crash pad, sizing up the drop. Then he shakes his head.

  “No need to undo the success here. I’m taking the easy way down.”

  When we’ve followed Pam’s directions and we’re back on the ground with everyone, Leslie comes over and puts her hand on my shoulder.

  “That was so cool,” she says.

  I just take off my mic and hand it to her.

  “Why don’t you guys go find Rory and Felix and tell them to come over.”

  I walk ahead to the spot where we last saw Rory and Felix, and I can hear the rustling behind me that means Nate is following. When we get there, however, we find no trace of them.

  “Felix?” I call.

  “Over here!”

  I follow the sound of his voice, toward the creek, and peer down to see him and Rory sitting together on the bank, each holding a stick and poking the water, as if they’re trying to stop it. Nate is right behind me.

  “You guys are up,” I say. I can’t tell if they’ve been talking or not. Felix looks a little relieved to be rescued from the situation.

  “How was it?” he asks as he climbs up the bank.

  I look back at Nate and we exchange a look. “Not bad,” I tell Felix. “You’ll do fine.”

  “Ha,” says Felix. He pauses to wait for Rory, and when she catches up to him, not even glancing at either Nate or me, they walk off toward the others.

  Nate and I watch them go for as long as it gives us an excuse not to look at or talk to each other.

  “Felix has never done any bouldering,” I say when they’re finally out of sight.

  “He’s afraid of heights,” says Nate, and steps down toward the creek, sitting in the same spot Felix just occupied.

  “He is?” I ask, following him, but I don’t sit where Rory sat. I pick another rock, on Nate’s other side, farther away. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, he used to be, at least. When we were little I could never get him to climb anything.” Nate shakes his head. “I’m really surprised he’s going along with this, but I guess he wants to save face.”

  “They told him he’d be the . . .” I don’t want to say star. “Focus. This time around.”

  Nate frowns a bit, seems disappointed. Hurt, even. “I didn’t know that.”

  We’re silent for a moment. Nate and I have found a way to interact: Talk about other people, not ourselves. Where else can I go with this?

  “Are you worried about Keira?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says flatly.

  The expression on his face, the expression that’s still overwhelmingly protective, gets to me. And then I realize that Felix is not the person I should be talking to about my idea. It is Nate.

  Should I do this? Suddenly I’m just way too curious to see what would happen if I did.

  “I was thinking,” I say slowly after a few seconds, “that I would go find her.”

  Nate turns to me, eyebrows raised. “She said not to.”

  “She said that to her father and Lance and Leslie. She didn’t say it to us.”

  He pauses, realizing this is true. “You would go find her?”

  “Me, and Felix.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me about this?”

  No, I wasn’t. Isn’t it obvious why?

  “I didn’t think you’d be . . . interested. You seem very committed to doing everything they want you to.”

  Nate’s shoulders droop a bit. I’m right, I guess. “I’m interested,” he says. “For Keira’s sake.”

  “Okay.” I flash on the image of Nate and me together in search of Keira. It doesn’t seem possible that this could actually take place.

  “But how do we know where to start?”

  “I’ve got that figured out. I just need to get to the house before they do so I can use the phone.” Silence again. We watch the water.

  Finally, casually, Nate says: “I’ve got just the thing.”

  Half an hour later, we’re all ready to head back to the house. Rory and Felix took much longer with their climbing game, and Felix returned looking disgusted with himself. Now we’re supposed to make lunch together in the enormous kitchen, and eat it together, and process everything from the morning and talk about it in a string of golden cinematic truths.

  I plan my timing carefully. Right after Leslie removes the battery on her camera to replace it with a fresh one, I start grabbing my stomach.

  “Are you okay?” asks Leslie.

  “Yeah, I’m just getting some cramps. I’ll be fine.”

  Two minutes later as we start to walk, I stop dramatically in my tracks and clutch my stomach again, try to seem panicked. I feel Pam’s hand on my shoulder. She looks pretty ridiculous, with the big crash pad on her back like she’s dressed up for Halloween as a giant bar of soap.

  “Justine, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s too embarrassing,” I say, waving her off.

  “If you’re feeling sick, you need to tell me.”

  “I . . . just, uh . . . I really have to get to a bathroom. Is there an outhouse nearby or something?”

  Pam shakes her head. “We’ll be at the lodge in ten minutes. Can you make it?”

  “I think so . . .” Then after a pause, I grimace. “Maybe not.”

  I mean, really. This is Oscar-worthy fake diarrhea.

  “Do you want to run ahead?” Pam hands me a key on a beaded keychain. “Go, go. We’ll see you in a few.”

  I nod quickly, gratefully, grabbing the key and then taking off, ahead of the others, not even looking at Nate, as fast as I can. All I can think is, The phone, the phone, the phone. Please let her pick up. Please let her pick up.

  FOURTEEN

  When we come downstairs from changing into clean clothes, Pam has laid out a make-your-own-sandwich spread. I’m not sure how we’re supposed to bond over deli turkey and half-green tomato slices, but whatever. Lance has the camera set up on the tripod and Kenny’s already positioned with the boom mic.

  I’m wearing two tees—my vintage black E.T. shirt on top of a long-sleeved plain white one—and my jeans are tucked into my high-tops because, for some reason, this makes me feel more prepared.

  What the grown-ups don’t know is that I’ve done more than change. I’ve packed. Nate too. I build myself a huge sandwich. Eat up. You have no idea when you’ll be able to grab some food again. Nate and I exchange a glance and I know he’s doing the same thing.

  The clock says 1:04. She could be here any minute.

  Rory sits down first, with her plate full of food items carefully arranged so nothing touches. I notice she’s changed into an outfit that looks funkier than she probably planned: a ruffled turquoise blouse and deep purple track pants. She’s got the turkey and swiss cheese rolled up and aligned parallel, an inch apart. One tumbles t
oward the other as she puts the plate down, and she takes a moment to even them out again.

  I sit two seats away from her at the big round table and Felix joins me.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks.

  “Better. Thanks.”

  “To be honest, I’m kind of glad that happened to you because now nobody remembers how awful I was on the rocks.”

  “Good thing they got you on film, then,” I say. I mean this as a joke, but Felix drops his sandwich onto the plate and sighs. I guess he’s officially reached the point where he forgets the cameras are there. I’ve never been to that point myself.

  After we’re all situated, Pam sits down with a glass of water and no food. I have not yet seen this woman eat.

  “So. Reactions to the bouldering activity? What sticks in your head?”

  “My fingers hurt,” says Nate. “I forgot about that feeling.”

  “We would have expected you to climb with confidence. Because you’re an athlete. Did you feel those expectations?”

  “Yeah, of course,” says Nate. He gets a faraway look. “I’m used to those expectations.”

  “What about you, Justine? You had a moment on the rock where you looked . . . surprised.”

  “I was,” I say.

  “Can you elaborate?”

  “I surprised myself.”

  “Why? Didn’t you think you could do it?”

  And then, right at the moment when I need it, I hear a car in the driveway.

  Pam frowns, then looks hopefully at Leslie, who returns the look and passes it over to Lance. Leslie rushes to the window and when the hope turns into confusion, I know this is my ride.

  I get up, fighting the urge to wrap my sandwich to go, and glance at Nate with meaning before leaving the room. I can hear him follow and then, when we reach the foyer, he turns to run upstairs.

  “Justine?” asks Leslie on our heels.

  I’m at the front door now. Then I’m out the door and onto the porch. The car sits in the driveway.