You Look Different in Real Life

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 together, 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
    E verything 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?”
    I shrug. “That it would change me. That instead of my life shaping a film, a film would shape my life.”
    Dad is quiet and I can see him swallow hard. After a few seconds he says, “We didn’t consider that. But I guess this time around, I’ve noticed. I just didn’t notice that I was noticing.”
    My dad. The pediatrician who can tell in an instant if a kid has, like, lactose intolerance, but can’t see that a decision he made a decade ago has altered his own child forever.
    “I’m sorry for that,” he continues. “But let me ask you this. If you could, knowing what you do now, would you undo it? Would you time-travel and stop us from signing that first contract?”
    The line of cars has slowed, as it always does leading up to the state park entrance, and my mind slows with it. That is a truly excellent question he’s asked me. I can’t answer it lightly.
    “I’ll let you know after the weekend,” I finally say, and he laughs.
    After we pass the park, the other cars have peeled off and we’re on our own, pointed ever-so-slightly downhill now as we reach the other side of the ridge.
    “There. That’s it,” I say. Nailed to a tree up ahead is a wooden sign that reads “AIKYA LODGE” in letters so ornate, you’d have no idea what they said if you didn’t already know. Dad turns down the road, which very quickly goes from paved to pebbles to dirt. Another minute and we pull up to the lodge. It’s all wood and looks likesomething you’d see in Frontierland at Disney World. I’m instantly suspicious.
    “Nice,” Dad says. Lance and