You Look Different in Real Life

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 forzooming 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 atotally 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.” Idon’t go