You Look Different in Real Life

intense; behind the fire truck is an ambulance, and their two sets of sirens don’t match up.
    We all turn to look at Rory, statue still, her eyes fixed on the pavement. This seems to be working for her, so none of us goes closer.
    Then, from behind me, comes a pair of little boys, sprinting down the sidewalk like they’re chasing the fire truck and ambulance, shouting with glee because this is clearly the coolest thing they’ve ever seen. Rory’s in their way. In their rush past her, one of them knocks into her hip and pushes her off-balance.
    The sound that Rory makes, at this moment, is full of so much frustration and anger that you know it’s been building up, that some kind of floodgate has burst open. She throws herself to the nearest wall, a narrow strip of brick between a deli and a shoe store, and slides down to the ground. She wraps her arms around her head and closes her eyes.
    Felix is the first to reach her and he kneels down, instinctively reaching out to touch her, but then he hesitates. In seconds, Nate is on her other side. I press stop on the camera and join the circle.
    “I’m sorry that happened,” Felix is saying.
    Rory has not lifted her face yet. It’s almost freakier down here, with all the feet and dog paws and stroller wheels rushing past us.
    “Rory?” pushes Felix. “What can we do for you?”
    She takes a deep breath, long and slow. Her whole body expands and retracts with it.
    We wait.
    Finally, she unspools her arms and raises her head. She doesn’t look at us. She doesn’t seem to be looking at anything. Her eyes are blank, unfocused.
    “I want to go back to the car,” she says.
    Nate glances at me, panicked. I just shrug. Then he digs the car keys out of his pocket and says, “Justine, you should drive her home to Mountain Ridge.”
    Nate opens his palm so the keys sit there. Olivia has a tiny Lego man on her keychain and it stares up at me, ready to be claimed. Nate pushes his hand toward me. I understand the sense of it. Nate must stay for Keira, and I must go for Rory. Maybe the extra time alone with Rory will result in an actual Important Conversation. The beginnings of something beyond I forgive you.
    The fact is, none of us should be leaving yet. Thecamera feels warm and eager in my hand. But it’s not up to me.
    “I really want to be where you all are,” says Rory, defeated, clearly fighting back tears. “I want to stay part of this.” She’s talking to nobody, looking at nothing. Or maybe just something the rest of us can’t see.
    I think of that day we went to Radio City. After the show, after the Endless Rorys in the ladies’ room, we had to somehow get out of the building and back to the car. I watched her mom use Rory’s favorite poem to bring Rory to the point where she could do that. Soon after, I started using the same poem when I needed her to calm down about something. I thought it was kind of fun, just another one of the songs and rhymes we learned in school.
    “Rory,” I say now. “Bluff King Hal was full of beans.”
    She just shakes her head.
    I repeat it, more urgently, ignoring the befuddled looks on Nate’s and Felix’s faces. Knowing how crazy I must sound and almost liking it. “Bluff King Hal. Was full. Of beans .”
    Something quiets in Rory and settles into recognition. She closes her eyes and says, softly, “He married half a dozen queens.”
    “For three called Kate they cried the banns,” I add, keeping my voice steady, hiding my own amazement that I actually remember this.
    Rory takes a deep breath. “And one called Jane.” Another breath, even slower and longer. “And a couple of Annes.”
    “You do the next one,” I say gently. Rory opens and raises her eyes to me now and they are no longer focused on nothing. They are right here, deeply pooled with sudden gratitude. She keeps them this way as she starts to recite the next stanza.
    “The first he asked to share his reign, was Kate of Aragon, straight from Spain. But when his love for her was spent, he got a divorce, and out she went.”
    Our locked gaze must be too much for her because she looks away to continue the rest of the poem, each pair of lines detailing the fates of Henry’s wives. When she’s done, and Henry is dead and survived by lucky Catherine Parr, Rory rests her head against the wall and takes one more shuddering breath.
    “Better?” asks Felix.
    “Yes,” says Rory, almost dreamily. “Much better.”
    In my mind, I enjoy the quickest of