You Look Different in Real Life

cool to hang out on campus and they’re all LBNF: Loud But Not Funny. The space looks great but has terribleacoustics. You can’t even hear yourself drink.
    “Hey,” I say as I sit down across from Felix, who has his computer open on the table. “Thanks for the assist at lunch.”
    “Just spreading the joy because, guess what? My visitors more than doubled since news broke about the film.”
    He slides the laptop over so I can see the screen. It’s a graph of traffic statistics for Felix’s blog, where he posts a lot of sci-fi fan art and stills from The Big Lebowski , with what he thinks is brilliant commentary but is really stuff like, “The Dude is the bomb, yo!” And then there are videos of him performing original songs on his electronic keyboard while sitting on the floor of his bedroom. His music is either brilliant or awful, I’m still not sure. I tell him it’s the former.
    “I’m happy you’re so happy,” I say.
    “I hope my stats will climb even more between now and the start of production. Lance said they’ll be here in a month.”
    “Maybe that’s enough time for me to figure out a hobby.”
    Felix tilts his head and regards me with a sad familiarity. “You watch a lot of movies. Even the old ones nobody’s heard of. Being a film buff—that’s a hobby, isn’t it?”
    “I think that involves way too much lying around in sweatpants to count.”
    “If you start a hobby now, won’t it be obvious you’rejust doing it for the cameras?”
    I shrug. Yeah, maybe. Probably. That could be my “story.” Justine at sixteen, trying to find something to keep her from dying of boredom.
    I glance out the window, which overlooks the sidewalk in front of Muddy Joe’s. One of the employees is on her break. She’s leaning against a tree with her apron thrown over one shoulder, smoking a cigarette. It’s this striking, almost bittersweet picture because she looks totally at peace with the world, but it’s wicked cold and I know she only gets a few minutes before having to go back to the kitchen to decorate five hundred red velvet cupcakes or something.
    “Be right back,” I suddenly say to Felix. I grab my jacket and head downstairs. Outside, the snappy air hits me hard, but I try to look unfazed.
    The girl tips up her chin in greeting. “Justine, right?”
    “Hey.” I have no idea what her name is although she’s waited on me countless times, and they even wear name tags.
    “What’s up?”
    “Would you . . . can I . . . bum a cigarette?”
    She smiles at me in this condescending, Oh, you little high schooler way. After a long few seconds where I get the sense I’m being appraised, she produces the pack and holds it out to me. I hook my finger around a cigarette andslide it out. She’s ready with a lighter and a hand cupped around it, and I lean forward to get the thing started.
    I don’t smoke. Olivia does, sometimes, and she taught me how to do it one night when we were home alone during a thunderstorm and the power was out. I didn’t feel one way or another about it, which I took to be a sign that it wasn’t worth the trouble.
    I take a drag on the cigarette, avoiding Felix’s What the hell? face in the window above. I blow the smoke out slowly, remembering Olivia’s coaching. Fight back a cough. It feels a little great. Even shivering and with the bakery girl watching, I get a sensation like, I could do this . It would give me something. All the people who wanted me to be some kind of symbol of youth in revolt would expect nothing less.
    I’m on my third drag when I turn my head casually and see this sudden weirdness: the petite figure of Rory Gold walking down the street, her too-big, aggressively puffy down coat zippered all the way to her chin. She stops dead when she sees me. I’m wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt that says “STOP WARS” in the Star Wars logo, and the familiar blank look on Rory’s face stabs me a little right on the O .
    Rory Gold and I have not spoken in almost five years. To my credit, or at least I like to think, for the last year I’ve been meaning to change that.
    There are best friends Justine, whose parents are enjoying professional success, and Rory, whose family is struggling with recent job layoffs. The two families have been close since the girls were babies. Will their friendship be affected by their changing economic situations?
    I wonder how the press release might read for this new film. I wonder how Lance and Leslie will figure out