You Look Different in Real Life

dress up at a carnival.”
    I glance at the camera, then turn back to smile at her, a little forced. “It’s not . . . that kind of carnival. This isn’t the Renaissance.”
    Rory nods slowly, frowning, as if filing a mental note. “Sorry,” she says. “Do you want me to change?”
    The question seems too large for the moment. A guilty look travels across my face.
    “Come on,” I say, almost tenderly now. “You can borrow something of mine.”
    Rory turns to pick up the hem of her gown and when she does, the camera catches the disappointment on her face. But she follows me into the house and the door closes behind us.
    It was the last scene in Five at Eleven with Rory and me together.
    I never saw her in that costume again, and I have no idea if her collection has grown to two more cabinets or five more or twenty. But this is a small town with a thick grapevine, and I know that at some point, Rory discovered an online community of people all over the world who, like her, have a thing for that particular pocket of history. Every year they have some big convention and at the last one, Rory was asked to be on one of the panels. On the heels of that, she started the school History Club, and it even has a few members.
    Rory has a passion. She gets recognition for it. It connects her with people.
    I have never felt so jealous in my life.

EIGHT
    D on’t! Mess! Don’t! Mess! Don’t mess with the best! ’Cuz the best don’t mess!
    If you think that cheer sounds stupid, imagine it shouted against hundreds of feet stomping on ancient wooden bleachers, pounding an echo across the grungy tile and glass surrounding the college pool. I look down at the water from my perch near the top of the bleachers, the way it’s jiggling slightly, like Jell-O. I bet the world is blissfully muffled down there, and that’s the draw. Maybe that’s worth wearing a Speedo in front of all these people.
    I’m sitting with Felix, and this is some kind of importantswim meet for our high school boys’ team—our school doesn’t have its own pool, so the team swims here. We’re supposed to care about who wins and who goes splashing away in shame and defeat. This is my first time at an event like this. And really, I’m not here by choice.
    I look for Lance and Kenny and there they are, standing in the aisle alongside the bleachers. Lance is panning the crowd as it whips up this inane cheering. Felix is actually participating while I actually am not. The only reason I’m even mouthing the words, sort of, is because we’ve got Leslie positioned in the aisle next to us, shooting the smaller camera they sometimes use for extra footage in big crowd scenes.
    Here comes the team out of the locker room wearing sweatshirts and track pants. There’s Nate, rolling his neck and his arms around. He raises his hand to the crowd and smiles, and they go crazy.
    Several rows below us and off to the side, I see Rory. She’s sitting by herself with headphones on, reading a book, which makes me suddenly burst out laughing. If I could do that, I would. But Rory doesn’t care that it looks ridiculous. She’s not even doing it because she wants to make a statement or create a terrific shot. It’s just what she wants at the moment. I’d like more than anything to climb down, sit next to her, and crack open a book of my own.
    “Ah, her Royal Highness has finally graced us with herpresence,” says Felix, nudging me and pointing with his chin toward the door. Keira has just entered with two of her friends. The front row is full but people make room for them, and their heads disappear into the crowd.
    So we all got the same call from Leslie the night before. It’s always Leslie, when they want us to do something special.
    “We’d like all four of you to attend Nate’s swim meet,” she’d said to me on the phone. It had been a week since my Follow Day. In that time, they’d done Nate, Keira, and Rory.
    “Isn’t that against your usual, you know, method?” I’d asked.
    “Yes, we wouldn’t normally be asking this. We’d try to find an organic situation where you’re all together. But things are different than they were five years ago. Your high school is much bigger than middle school and your interests are, well, varied. We need to have all five of you in the same place at the same time, at least once.”
    “But I don’t go to these things. Neither do most normal people.”
    “Can’t you just pretend . . . I mean, suppose . . . Felix