You Look Different in Real Life

heard back from her by Sunday night.”
    “That sounds incredibly thought out,” I say.
    “That’s Keira,” says Nate. “She plans.”
    “Did she say anything to you about where she was going?”
    “No,” he says, his head drooping. “But Leslie said something cryptic about knowing where she might have been headed.”
    I’ve been thinking about the conversation I heard last night, trying to make sense of it. It sits like a tiny sparkling something in an inside pocket of my jacket, and I need to show it off.
    “They had some kind of information for her,” I finally say.
    Nate’s head snaps back up and looks straight at me like suddenly, miraculously, I matter. “What do you mean?” he asks.
    “She was in Lance and Leslie’s room last night, and I overheard her talking to them about finding an address for someone, and she was pissed.”
    “Her mom,” says Nate after a pause.
    “I figured.”
    He thinks about that for a moment, then shakes his head with I should have known heaviness. We’re all quiet again. Rory has stopped reading and is staring out at the woods. Felix has stopped trying to find the world’s saddest chord. From inside the house, Leslie’s voice is rising and Lance’s voice is rising with it, and it sounds like they’re performing a bad operetta.
    Finally, I can’t stand the silence so I state the obvious.“Keira went to find her mother.”
    “It would seem,” says Nate.
    “When was the last time they saw each other?”
    “Not since, you know, that day. But Keira told me she’d gotten a few letters from her, over the years. Nobody was even sure where she was living these days.”
    “If Keira’s driving to the last address, it can’t be too far away.”
    “True,” says Nate, who seems microscopically comforted by this idea.
    “I bet it’s killing L and L that they can’t go along and shoot,” I add.
    Nate puts his head in his hands. Felix and Rory continue to say nothing. I try to see what this means for the rest of us and keep talking. “If she doesn’t want help, if she’s got money and transportation and a way to get in touch, then why are we worried about her? We can go home and the rest of our weekend is saved, and we’ll hear about it all later.”
    Nate shakes his head. “But if she does find her mom, who knows how that will go down. And then she’s alone. . . .” He pauses, maybe playing out a mental scenario, then adds, forcefully, “I have to find out where she went.” And I realize he’s in love with her. They may not be a “couple” or public about it and maybe she doesn’t even feel the same way, but it’s like a title card with big red letters inserted into the scene: KEIRA MEANS THE WORLD TO NATE.
    I keep returning to the facts. They’re all I can offer. “Lance and Leslie know where she went. They gave her whatever info she has.”
    Now Nate gives me this look of pure duh . “They’ll tell us.”
    “I wouldn’t bet on it.”
    “That’s right,” says Rory, now standing up to join us. “They won’t tell us. They’re going to make us stay here and talk about what happened, and then we’ll still have to do the bouldering thing, which will actually be easier now because there’s an even number.”
    “How do you know this?” asks Nate.
    “Because while you guys have been talking, I’ve been listening to every word they’re saying in there.”
    We all freeze and listen. It’s just murmurs now.
    “Wait for it,” adds Rory. “They’ll be out here in a second.”
    So we do. And they are.
    Pam looks paler, if that’s even possible. Leslie’s eyes are red and she’s clearly been crying, and although this thing has seemed mostly amusing to me so far, it hits me how this must hurt her. How she must really care about Keira and maybe even about all of us. It’s very possible that she’s a much nicer person than I am.
    “Hi, guys,” she whispers, her voice catching, and Nate does something unexpected: he wraps her in a hug.
    Lance, who’s holding the camera, regards them with something that’s half-jealousy, half-remorse, like Well, shit, I should have thought about hugging my own wife. But then he snaps out of it and says: “The thing about making a documentary film is that these things happen, and you can see them as a setback, or you can see them as a kind of gift.” Leslie and Nate both give him a dirty look and he adds, “Assuming, of course, that nobody gets harmed.”
    “So you still want us to do the