Nate pulls the car away from the fire hydrant and the police car watches us go. When it feels safe, I turn to get a shot of it in the rear window.
“Where are we going?” Felix asks two blocks later, when it becomes painfully obvious that Nate doesn’t know.
Nate hands me the Post-it and his phone; I pass them back to Rory. She studies both, then tells Nate to get back to Tenth Avenue. “We have to drive through Central Park to the Upper East Side,” she says. “I’ll let you know where to turn.”
Nate tries to turn at the next big street, but it’s going the wrong way. “Arrrrghhh,” he mutters. We’re all quiet for a few tense minutes, because he’s stressed and it’s the kind of stress that needs respect.
Once we’re turned around again and back on Tenth Avenue, Nate visibly relaxes. I study his face, then turn on the camera again.
“Does Keira know her way around the city?” I ask Nate.
He raises his eyebrows. “With all the theater and ballet and museums her father drags her to? Yeah, I think she’s getting where she needs to go.”
“I knew you guys were friends, but I didn’t realize you knew so much about her.”
I want Nate to tell me that they’re a couple, that they’re doing it on a regular basis, some kind of concrete information that would explain the mysterious signals I’m picking up.
Then Rory says from the backseat, “You love her,” in this way that’s so simple, it’s too complex for anyone but her to say.
Nate frowns. “I guess I do.”
“You love her love her,” adds Rory.
“If you mean we’re in love, then no. We’re not in love. I mean, at one time, I had a crush on her. Who hasn’t? But we . . . shared something once.”
“Bodily fluids?” asks Rory, and I snort involuntarily. Felix laughs too. Rory grins because she made an attempt at a joke, and it was successful.
Nate looks at both of us and smiles. “Not bodily fluids. Just an experience. Sorry to disappoint you.”
Out of nowhere, a taxi cuts us off and Nate slams on the brakes, hard enough that I have to brace my hand against the glove compartment to keep from lurching forward. My other hand instinctively smothers the camera.
“You okay?” I hear Felix ask, and I turn to see he’s talking to Rory, who has curled into the fetal position with her arms wrapped around her head.
“Like I said,” squeaks Rory, “too much of the sudden stuff.”
Felix reaches out tentatively and touches the tip of her elbow, like this is the one secret spot that might steady her. “What helps?”
“Fresh air. Holding something familiar.”
Felix leans across Rory and rolls down her window halfway. Then he looks around the backseat, finds Misty on the floor. He hands the horse to Rory and Rory takes it, surprised, as if she forgot it was here. She clutches it to her neck and says, “Thanks.” It doesn’t sound very sincere. To Felix it probably sounds mechanical. But I know that for Rory to even say it, to remember that she’s supposed to say it and then actually do the thing she remembers she’s supposed to do, is pretty huge.
What would I have done if I’d been sitting back there with her? Would I have thought to ask, like Felix did? What helps? It makes so much sense, I probably would have overlooked it.
At the next red light, Rory says softly, “You’re going to turn right here. That should take us through the park.”
Nate nods and when the car is stopped, fiddles with his iPod. “We don’t need road-tripping music anymore,” he says. “We need techno.” He turns around to Felix. “Felix, that’s your thing. What do you suggest?”
Felix meets Nate’s eye for a few seconds. Then says, “Hand it over,” in a way that almost sounds affectionate. I unplug the iPod and pass it to him. Felix scrolls through it, making some judgey faces, then hands it back to me after he’s selected something. I plug it back in and as we turn, a series of electronic chords fills the car, eardrum-splitting but beautiful. Haunting. Suddenly, it seems like everything around us is moving to the beat of this music. People on the sidewalk, a bus in the next lane, as if the world is now set to our tempo.
“Nice,” says Nate. Felix turns to the window, but he looks content.
We’re quiet for a little while, listening, as we drive to the east side through Central Park and then hit Fifth Avenue. Traffic is slow, but Nate seems more 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 and get 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 backseat.
“We’re going to go around the corner, get something to eat. We can check again later.”
Felix glances at Nate, then opens the car door. “Starving,” is all Felix says.
Rory shrinks further into her corner.
“You coming?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Rory, you have to face the city eventually. It’s a quiet neighborhood. You’re with us. It’ll be okay.”
She shakes her head again, then leans over and picks up the magazine, which she has surely read from cover to cover by now.
I sigh, frustrated, and close the car door extra tight as if hermetically sealing Rory from the world.
Felix peers back at her, worried. “We’ll be back in a little while,” he calls, but she doesn’t seem to be listening, or caring, or aware there’s anyone else in the world.
SEVENTEEN
We start walking to the corner of First Avenue. I’ve got Nate on one side and Felix on the other. The buffer between them, apparently. I think about shooting, but it feels good to take a moment to look at things with my own eyes rather than filtered through a lens.
We pass an elderly woman with three small dogs on leashes. She wears a straw hat tilted sideways and glances at the guys, then at me, with a sweet smile. For an instant, I see what she sees. Yes, I’m in New York City on a perfect afternoon, flanked by handsome boys. Aren’t we the quintessential picture of youth? We’ve got everything ahead of us. We’ve got everything, period.
The feeling is so strong that, for a moment, I believe it too.
We round the corner and stop, scanning the block. At first glance, it’s got a little bit of everything, like a movie set of a typical city street. “That looks good,” Nate says, pointing a few doors down to a café, where there are tables set up on the sidewalk. We walk there together but as we reach a table set up for four, Nate and Felix hang back. At first, I think this is chivalry, but then quickly realize it’s because they want to sit on either side of me.
A waiter comes by and puts water on the table, hands us menus.
“We could get the Smothered Nachos,” says Nate, scanning our choices. “But it would pretty much blow the rest of our cash.”
“Go for it,” I say, thinking of the credit card under Olivia’s floor mat. “And add on the chicken. We’ll figure out the rest when we need to.”
Nate nods but doesn’t look convinced. After he orders, we sit in silence. I take a long sip of water. Nate starts chewing his ice. Felix watches him. At least they’re actually looking at each other now.
“Do you think Rory’s okay?” Felix asks after a minute.
“Trust me,” I say. “She’s safer in the car.”
Felix looks at me sadly, then says, “I know you’ve been trying with her.”
“Trying, and failing.”
Instinctively, I glance at Nate. Because I get the sense he has been trying, and failing, as well. With Felix. There’s an awkward silence and Felix gets up. “Bathroom. I’ll be back.”
As soon as he’s gone, Nate says, “Let me ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“You want to shoot this?” he asks, indicating the camera with a tilt of his head.
“Sure.” I pick it up, turn it on. Get him in frame.
“Why is it so important for you and Rory to be friends again?”
I stare at him on the LCD display; Leslie was right—it’s easier to use this now that I know what I’m doing. His face, so close, when the camera should really be registering my reaction. It’s weird that he wanted me to shoot him, but a good weird. A glad weird. “Because I was shitty to her, and she didn’t deserve that.” I watch his face soften into curiosity and add: “She shouldn’t have to be alone.”
After a moment, Nate shrugs. “It seems like she’s doing okay. Finding her niche online, and all that.”
“But that’s online,” I say. “It’s not real. Or at least, not the same real.”
“You wanna know what I think?” he asks, then takes a long drag on his water.
“Sure. You seem to have a lot of stuff figured out here.”
“I think maybe it’s not about her at all. I think it’s all about you.”
He says that with such confidence, I have the urge to punch him, and maybe this is why he wanted me to be shooting this conversation because I can’t punch him, unless I do it with the camera. Which may not be such a terrible idea.
“You’re tired of feeling guilty,” he continues, and there’s something about his voice now. His sad stare at the middle distance past the camera. Instantly, I know what he’s saying is true, and I also know that on his side of the lens, Nate is feeling the same thing. He must. Something has changed and I feel like we’re equals in this conversation.
“Yes,” I finally say. “I am.”
“But do you actually want to be friends again? I mean, do you truly want to hang out and do stuff and have it be the way it was? If it even could be in a million years?”
I haven’t thought about that. I’ve only ever thought about getting to I forgive you. Holy crap. I don’t yet see us together on the other side of that.
I’m aware of what my face would look like on camera, if it were flipped around. I can even see it framed, the window of the restaurant behind me. I wish I were shooting it. Maybe the least I can do is keep things going, build on them.
“What about you?” I ask Nate. “And Felix?”
Nate glances up to see if Felix is coming, but he’s nowhere in sight.
“I hope every day that he changes his mind,” he says matter-of-factly. “But in the meantime, I’ve moved on.”
Changes his mind?
Now the waiter appears with our nachos and three small plates. Nate digs in and I put the camera down so I can eat too.
“Dear God,” he says, chewing. “This is good.”
I can’t not ask. Even without the camera recording, if I don’t pick up this notion it might drop and roll away forever.
“What do you mean, you hope he changes his mind?”
Felix reappears, seemingly from nowhere because I’ve been focused on this conversation. “Changes whose mind?” he asks, grabbing a tortilla chip covered with guacamole before his butt is even completely in the chair.
“Yours,” I say.
Felix freezes, the chip halfway to his mouth, the guacamole sliding off. He looks at Nate. A terrible look, full of anger and betrayal. He flicks the chip back at the plate and slaps his hand on the table.
“You asshole!” says Felix. “You told her!”
“I didn’t!” snaps Nate.
“I knew it was only a matter of time, with you guys suddenly so chummy.”
“Oh, Felix, give it a rest. I made you a promise and I’ve kept it all this time. Why would I break it now? Especially now?”
Their voices are raised enough so that people are looking at us, even the jaded New Yorkers who aren’t supposed to be fazed by anything. I feel like I just walked into the middle of a play and have no
idea what’s going on in the plot.
The camera sits on the table. I can’t believe I’m not recording this, whatever this is.
Felix narrows his eyes at Nate, and Nate does not waver. He sits still with his gaze lasered at Felix, so intense I would be afraid to cross the beam for fear of getting vaporized.
“Felix,” says Nate slowly. “We were talking about you changing your mind about being sorry you came. That was it.”
Felix turns to me and I nod. Hating the lie. Hating not knowing what I’m covering for.
“Nate?” asks someone behind us, a voice quivering and unsure.
We all turn to see Keira standing on the sidewalk. Her mouth hangs open, her brow scrunched. It is so unlike her. She seems tiny compared with the tall buildings around us. I notice she’s dressed in a dramatic red V-neck sweater and skinny jeans, but with hiking boots, and somehow this outfit she packed for the Aikya Lodge looks quirky-chic in the city.
Nate bursts out of his seat and steps toward her. He wants to reach out, to touch, to hug. But he holds back.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Keira asks slowly, not angry but overwhelmingly confused. She looks at Felix and me, lumping us in with her question.
“We wanted to be there,” says Nate. His voice catches in his throat. She’s made him nervous. “For you . . . if you should need it.”
“How did you . . .”
But Keira’s brain seems to be doing its job, because I can actually see the process of her figuring it out. The first address. The second. I slide the camera off the table and keep it in my lap. I’m not going to push my luck by turning it on right now, but that familiar tug is too much and I want it ready.
“Are you mad?” asks Nate. He turns on his trademark charm. “We ditched Lance and Leslie. We took off right in front of them, and it was all kinds of awesome.”
Keira relaxes a little, but shakes her head with affectionate disapproval like you would at a puppy who just peed on the rug. “I know you mean well, Nate. I know you’re worried about me. I don’t blame you.” Their eyes lock for a moment, serious. “But this is something I need to do on my own.”
You Look Different in Real Life Page 17