You Look Different in Real Life

relaxed.
    “Where are we turning?” he asks Rory.
    “Not until First Avenue. The odd number avenues run north on the east side, so you’ll have to turn left. Then go up to Sixty-Ninth Street and turn left.”
    It takes another ten minutes to get to First Avenue. But then we’re turning uptown, and the lights are with us so we coast as the numbers on the street signs tick higher. Sixty-Seventh, Sixty-Eighth, Sixty-Ninth, and here we are turning onto this pretty little block lined with brownstones.
    “There,” says Rory, pointing to a redbrick one with a double wooden door. And just in front of it, so amazing that I don’t quite believe my eyes at first, is a pickup truck pulling out of a parking space.
    “Put on your blinker!” I shout, and Nate startles but does as he’s told. We’ve made our claim.
    “Whoa. That is damn good parking radar, Justine,” says Felix, patting me on the shoulder from the backseat.
    “It’s usually impossible to park in the city,” says Nate as he maneuvers into the space. “We don’t even have money for a garage, thanks to my boneheadedness. What a score.”
    “The parking gods must be watching over us,” I say. I get out of the car and check the sign. The space is legal until the next street cleaning day, on Tuesday.
    Nate is suddenly beside me. “You wouldn’t happen to have a comb, would you?”
    I turn to examine him. It’s gotten so easy to do this, now. To just look at him with purpose.
    “A comb,” I simply repeat. His hair does look a little crazy.
    “In my rush to pack, I left mine. And I’d like to look presentable.”
    “Are you nervous?”
    “I guess I am. I . . .” He glances down and notices the camera in my hand. I’m holding it by the handle and it’s hanging by my side.
    “You’re not thinking of coming, are you? With that?”
    I look at it, the lens like a mouth shaped into a questioning O . “I don’t know.”
    “Let me go alone,” says Nate. “If Keira’s here, I’ll tell her we’re all here, then we’ll see what happens.”
    I stare at him for a moment, then go to the trunk of the car, find my backpack, pull out my hairbrush. It’s black with multicolored glitter all over it.
    “Here,” I say, holding it out to him. The sunlight catches some of the glitter and it sparkles.
    “This is very girly,” says Nate as he takes the brush and examines it.
    “It won’t cause you to magically grow a ponytail, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    He smiles, but at the brush. “Just surprised you have something like this.” Then he starts running it through his hair.
    “You don’t think I would own anything so girly?” I ask, keeping my voice jokey.
    Nate stops brushing and runs his finger over the glitter. “I guess you’ve never seemed like someone who needs a glitter anything to make an impression.” He hands it back to me. I’m too stunned to do anything but take it andget really interested in something on the sidewalk.
    Nate runs up the steps to the brownstone’s front door and looks at the list of names and buzzers.
    “It’s Weston on the Post-it, right?” he calls. “What the roommate told me she changed her name to?”
    I nod, and he presses a buzzer. We wait.
    Silence.
    Nate bobs his head and seems to be counting. “Again?” he asks me.
    I nod. He buzzes again. Nate bobs to the count of ten. Nothing.
    “What now?” he asks.
    “You’re asking me? You’re the one who’s been cruise directing this whole thing.”
    Nate sits down on the top step. I’m standing on the bottom step. We’re eye level this way. He rests his elbows on his knees and his cheeks against his palms for a moment.
    “I think we should just wait for a while,” he says.
    “Can’t we just call Keira and see what’s up? Maybe the two of them are somewhere together.”
    Nate considers that for a moment. He stares at the top of the buildings across the street, the now-afternoon sunlight catching his face. The little tug at my brain starts again. I should be shooting this. But another tug, pulling in the opposite direction, says Uh-uh.
    “Let’s walk over to First Avenue,” says Nate. “We can get a snack, hang out. Come back in an hour.”
    I’m hungry, and it feels good to stay put for a little while on an exquisite spring day in Manhattan, and I want some more of this experience of talking to Nate like we are regular human beings. I nod and walk over to the car, where Rory and Felix are watching from the