You Look Different in Real Life

toward the car and I step in alongside him. I don’t want him to see me grab the credit card. I’m not sure why this is important, but it is.
    Nate still has the keys so he uses them to pop the trunk, reaching in to grab my backpack and then his. He hands me mine and slams the trunk shut.
    I’m focused on the credit card but there’s something else gnawing at me. I think of the front seat. Leslie’s bag. I know from the camera’s display that I have plenty of shooting time left on the memory card but eventually, I’ll run out of battery charge.
    “Hang on,” I call to Nate. I reach in, find the bag on the floor of the front passenger seat. As I’d hoped, inside is a spare battery, which I grab and stuff in my backpack.
    Nate is distracted by something up the street so now I open the back door, crouch down like I’m searching. I flip up the floor mat on one side. Nada. Then I flip up the other. Oh, come on, Olivia. Please don’t tell me you borrowed your own emergency credit card and then forgot to put it back. At first, I see nothing. Then, way in, almost under the front seat, I see a corner of colored plastic. Bingo.
    Nate’s still watching two drivers argue about who cut off the other. I tap him on the shoulder and he snaps outof it, uses the keys to beep the car locked. Then we move back toward Rory and Felix.
    “Ready?” Nate asks Rory, hoisting his backpack onto his shoulders. It’s like we’re about to embark on some treacherous hike in the woods. Which we sort of are.
    Rory just starts walking, hugging herself.
    Felix falls back, returns the camera, and asks me, “Would it help if I offered to hold her hand?”
    Rory has never been one for touching. She might have changed, what with all the therapy. But I see in my head the image of Felix and Rory walking down the street, hand in hand, and even though it would make a great shot I already feel the sting it would cause me. So I shake my head no, slowly, like Don’t even go there.
    We get to the corner and the light is with us, so Nate gestures and we follow, across the street and on our way downtown. I hang back so they’re all in front of me and start shooting.
    Nate leads us, and Felix tries to slow his pace so he’s behind him and not next to him, but also not next to Rory but not too far ahead of Rory. He looks ridiculous, and maybe a little drunk. Rory walks in a steady and careful march, not taking her eyes off the sidewalk.
    Traffic roars by, a tide of mostly yellow taxis, like loud breaking waves that keep coming and coming. A car parked at the curb honks, and Rory jumps, then freezes, breathes in with her whole body to the count of three, andstarts walking again. Up ahead, Nate’s at the corner and the light has just turned to a red hand so he has to wait, and we catch up to him.
    “You good?” he asks Rory. Rory just nods. “Okay. One block down. About fifty-four more to go.”
    He says this with a supportive and earnest smile, but Rory turns pale.
    The light changes again. We cross. As we walk, I experiment with panning the camera to the right and left, up and down. It feels embedded now. Like a second pair of eyes searching for things my regular eyes could never see.
    These are the things the camera notices:
    Nate walks looking straight ahead. Felix can’t stop looking skyward in all directions. Rory has not glanced up from the ground.
    Here in the city, Felix has lost his swagger; he moves like he’s in a new body. Experimenting, trying it out. Unsure of every step.
    Nate seems to be striding confidently the same way he does at home, in school. But it’s like he’s Superman and we’re back on Krypton. He has no powers here. Occasionally I see a girl or a young woman pass him and let her glance linger for an extra second, but no longer. That’s the most Nate Hunter, in all his country-boy stunningness, is worth in Manhattan.
    Within the rhythms of Rory’s controlled pace, there are tiny spasms. She winces every time someone shoutsacross her and at the particularly loud rumble of a truck, the cry of a baby strapped on to a woman’s chest, and the sharp-pitched barking of a pair of German shepherds.
    We’ve gone four blocks now. It feels like we’re in a groove, that we can do this.
    Out of nowhere, a screaming fire truck cuts through what’s already become a familiar hum of city noise. It’s loud and painful. I’d stick my fingers in my ears if I didn’t have the camera to deal with. Then I realize why it’s so