You Look Different in Real Life

and starts again. “Did you bring Angel Dog?”
    Ah. Angel Dog is a black stuffed poodle wearing a fairy costume that I won at the county fair one year. My dad paid off the carnie at the Clown Head Water Balloon race so it was only him and me playing, and he let me win, and I pretended I didn’t know that. Rory was with us, andwithin minutes she had planned out an elaborate future for our favorite stuffed animals. Angel Dog and Misty were going to shack up in a purple castle somewhere and have androgynous horse-dog babies. Once, I suggested that Angel Dog may not be down with interspecies romance, and Rory freaked out about that. I had questioned her vision, and she couldn’t deal; it was a pattern that had repeated itself so many times during the course of our friendship.
    “No,” I say. I don’t add that Angel Dog is lost-on-purpose somewhere in our basement playroom.
    Rory is silent and still for a moment, staring warmly at the dish in her hand. “That’s a shame,” she finally says, and resumes her washing. “It would have been good to see him again too.”
    I look up and see the boom mic hovering above us, and the camera, which has caught this whole exchange. Leslie is not biting her pinky nail anymore.

TWELVE
    A re you kidding me?” asks Felix, standing outside his room, still holding his backpack and keyboard case. I’ve accompanied him up along with Pam, Leslie, and Lance, but the others are downstairs. “Nobody told us about this!”
    “This is part of the program,” says Pam. “Besides, we don’t have the space to give everyone a private room. Kenny and I each have one and that’s only by default.”
    “Can I share with Kenny?” says Felix, brightening, ignoring the irony that it would be less awkward for him to share a room with Kenny than with Nate. I look over atLance, who clearly wants to help talk Felix down but also doesn’t want to stop the camera for even a second.
    “Just by virtue of this objection,” Pam says evenly, “I’m thinking that it’s important for you and Nate to share a room. This is why we’re here. You don’t have to talk to each other. You just have to sleep. Share some space.”
    Something occurs to me and I turn to Leslie. “Are you guys going to shoot in the rooms?”
    Leslie looks at Felix, who returns the look imploringly, and says, “No. Not tonight at least. Tomorrow, maybe, for just a few minutes. If everyone’s okay with it.”
    “If everyone hasn’t left by then,” mumbles Felix, and he picks up his bags.
    “Keep your keyboard for now,” says Leslie. “We’d like you to have it at the campfire.”
    Felix’s reaction starts off as a glare, then morphs into a caged-animal thing. Like he wants to heave the keyboard case at someone’s head but knows he shouldn’t. So now, he just nods, tosses his backpack into the room, closes the door, and walks way too slowly downstairs with his keyboard.
    Nate, Keira, and Rory are waiting on the couches in the living room, and even with the size of the house, I’m sure they’ve heard everything. Nate stares at the ceiling when Felix walks in but lowers his eyes when I enter. Those eyes, so deep green, meet mine and hold me therefor a second. There’s something in them that looks and feels achingly familiar. Something personal. A memory, maybe.
    Or a reflection.
    A few dozen yards from the house is the campfire ring, a small circle of small stones inside a larger circle of larger stones. Low canvas chairs fill the space between the two circles.
    “Wood’s over there,” says Pam, pointing to a shed. “Who knows how to build a fire?”
    We’re bundled up in jackets, hats, gloves. It’s chillier than I expected, on the mountain at night in May. I’m just hoping there will be marshmallows involved at some point.
    Felix walks to the shed, grabs as many pieces of wood as he can, then glances back at Nate, the only other guy here who doesn’t already have something in his hands. Nate takes the cue and goes to the shed. Felix steps aside just as Nate gets there. Now Keira moves in behind Nate to get some wood, and I feel lame so I follow suit. Rory just bends down and pets one of the rocks.
    “Are these naturally shaped like this?” she asks nobody.
    Then Felix is directing us to put the wood in certain configurations, and I can see that Nate sort of has his own ideas but is afraid to contradict him. Leslie, Lance,and Kenny get to stand in the background, not helping. Observing. Leslie’s got