You Look Different in Real Life

say hi. Just an everyday hi, not too loud, and normal-friendly. But then I think of her glancing up and not saying it back, and that’s not someplace I want to go.
    “Looks good!” says Mrs. Underwood. “Thank your dad for me.”
    I just nod and get the hell out of there.
    Sometimes I think of an invisible cord connecting Nate and Keira and Felix and Rory and me. It’s made of something thin and deceptively powerful, like the stuff Spider-Man squirts out of his wrists. Then I wonder who spun it. Was it Lance and Leslie? Was it everyone who’s ever watched the Five At documentaries? Or maybe it was me. All I know is that it’s always there. It stretches and winds but will never break.
    I’m home after school and my sister has sent me an email with this persuasive note:
    Dude, you have to read this post about the Five At films.
    Olivia has pasted a link below it, but I don’t click yet. Just like I’ve avoided the series’ website, I’ve avoided the stuff an online search might dredge up. Sometimes when I’m bored, I’ll type out “Five At films” or my name, but never actually hit the search button. Like when you’re terrified to call someone, so you dial the first nine digitsover and over but always hang up before pressing the tenth.
    Today, though, I dial that tenth digit. I click the link.
    It’s an entry from a blog by someone who calls himself DocuGeek, dated about a month ago.
    When I was in college, a girlfriend dragged me to what sounded like a snoozer of a doc called Five at Six , about a group of kids in the same kindergarten class in an upstate New York college town. Precious, right? Mundane and probably someone’s vanity project, I was sure.
    I was wrong. Five at Six was the opposite of a snoozer: It was a wake-up call. It was funny and fascinating, probably one of the best films I’d seen in a long time, thanks mostly to the gifts of Lance and Leslie Rodgers, whose choice of subjects and tragicomic sensibilities are brilliant. It remains one of my favorite documentaries ever.
    Five at Eleven is right up there too, for different reasons.
    It’s been five years. These kids are sixteen now, so we’re due for another installment. Is it coming? I emailed Lance Rodgers but got only a vague reply of “We’re working on getting things in place.”
    So for the time being I have to just wonder about Justine, Keira, Nate, Rory, and Felix. They must be sophomores in high school. Who are they now? I could do some online detective work, but what’s the fun in that? (Although I will admit I happened upon Felix’s personal blog; I’ve included one of his videos below.) Instead, I’m going to make some predictions.
    I read on.
    According to DocuGeek, the most likely scenario is that Rory’s been diagnosed with some kind of autism spectrum thing (okay, that is eerie) and Nate has been bullied out of school (so way off) and Felix, based on the personality shown in his videos, is the most popular kid in the class (he wishes). He’s got a couple of theories about Keira: She probably rebelled and is a total pothead (not that we know of), or she and her father moved cross-country to start fresh after all the heartbreak (which nobody would blame them for, but this is a miss too).
    What’s really striking, and I’m not being egotistical here, is that this guy, who’s probably blogging from his man-cave surrounded by gaming consoles and sex dolls, is mostly wondering about me.
    Justine was the one who always snagged my attention. Much of the drama in Five at Six revolves around what happens after she’s rushed to the hospital with terrible stomach pain. She was fascinating to watch at age six and again at eleven. So now, at sixteen, I see Justine having started a badass girl band or become the star of the drama club. She could be into painting, or designing clothing, or writing an underground newspaper. She’s the class president or has dropped out of school.
    I don’t read any more, although I notice the bottom of the post says “24 Comments,” which means DocuGeek’s readers have weighed in as well. I slap the laptop shut and put my head on my desk.
    I am none of these things people have wanted for me.
    I am none of these things because I am nothing in particular, period.
    What comes to mind suddenly is my last sit-down interview in Five at Eleven , where Leslie asks me a question I don’t have a smartypants answer for.
    “What do you think the next five years will be like,