You Look Different in Real Life

sheet-screen. I’m standing on a makeshift stage in our elementary school cafeteria, wearing red top-to-bottom long johns. Our teacher is off to the right, giving me line cues as I perform the lead role in our kindergarten version of The Emperor’s New Clothes .
    A few of the kids in Felix’s basement turn around to see me hovering nearby, their faces alight with pure entertainment. One of them flashes me a thumbs-up, and I just smile politely. It always feels strange and a little wrong totake credit. What was I doing, besides getting up, going to school, doing my thing, living through the day? I wasn’t trying to amuse. At least, I don’t think so.
    I move a bit so I can see Ian’s face. He’s grinning, totally enjoying what he’s seeing.
    Felix turns to me with both eyebrows raised. “You need this,” he says, almost tenderly. “You just don’t know it.”
    “You don’t know what I don’t know!” Yeah, that sounds moronic but whatever. I rocket toward the stairs and up, up, up to the outside world.
    In no time I’m driving back to Dad’s, thinking about the totally screwed-up-edness of people watching me and for some reason enjoying themselves. The rhythm of the tires against the uneven road slowly curls itself into a pattern of almost-words.
    The pattern sounds like, Felix is right, Felix is right, Felix is right.
    The next afternoon, there’s a message in my email inbox from an address I don’t recognize. No subject line either.
    Justine,
    Please change your mind about the movie. I think I understand why you’re saying no. You may not be able to see it now, but good things will come out of it. I’m sure about that.
    We are part of a whole, and without you, nothing will work. If you’re doubting that this came from one of us, then I’ll just say:
    Five stickers under the table. Yours was the polar bear.
    See you soon, I hope.
    The first thing I do, of course, is feel tremendously creeped out.
    Then I think, This is a trick from Lance or Leslie.
    But they wouldn’t do this. They would potentially ask one of the others to do it, but my gut feeling says that’s not the case here.
    There was a day in kindergarten, after shooting ended, when our teacher had to duck out for an hour and left an aide in charge. The aide was new and young, and many of the kids saw their chance to mess around. Rory, Felix, Nate, Keira, and I all decided to do sticker art on the floor. (It was my idea. I wonder if they remember that too.) A few of the stickers ended up on the rough underbelly of our table. Yes, mine was the polar bear.
    I look at the email address again. I didn’t notice this before, but the first part is “lancehasbananabreath.” I laugh. Who else would remember that? And who else would care whether or not I say yes or no? Felix. This is from Felix. And although he gave himself away, he managed to get me where I’m most vulnerable.
    Part of a whole.
    Well, dammit.
    I go down to the kitchen to stress-chug a whole can of diet soda before I call Leslie and tell her I’ve changed my mind.

FIVE
    M y morose princess!” says Amelia as I slide into her chair. “The usual trim today?”
    Amelia is the hippest hairstylist in town in the un-hippest salon in town, a cruddy little place wedged between a comic book shop and an insurance office. She will tell you that because she has a couple of piercings and a borderline offensive tattoo on her neck, nobody else would hire her. But I know that as soon as the secret’s out—that she doesn’t suck the way everyone else does and actually knows what to do with hair—she’ll soon be able to buy the shop for herself.
    “I need something,” I say, shaking my head hard, myhair falling loose and a little wild so it says Style Me! like one of those big disembodied Barbie heads. It’s been two weeks since I agreed to do the film, and it’s taken me this long to get up the courage for this.
    “Anything in particular?”
    “Just different. Maybe a little surprising.”
    Amelia bites back a smile and runs her fingers through my hair. Her eyes grow intense, and okay, I’m a little scared now, but it’s already too late.
    “Are you sure?” she asks.
    “Yes, I’m sure.” I’m so glad to feel this way about anything.
    Lance and Leslie will be here any minute.
    They’re coming to shoot their first sit-down interview with me, and my mother is making scones. She does this when she’s nervous about impressing someone. They are Mango-Anxiety