The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen

by Katherine Howe

  “Definitely,” I say. “In fact, it was absolutely imperative that I find you. Did you know that?” I wonder who this guy is, who’s flirting so effortlessly with a hipster New York City girl. Because it’s definitely not Wesley Auckerman from Madison, Wisconsin.

  “Aw,” she says, eyelashes lowering over those black eyes. “You’re teasing me. You’re not really here.”

  “Sure I am,” I insist. I plop myself down onto the stoop next to her, my knees drawn up, too, my sneakers alongside her slippers. I nudge her with my elbow. She feels firm, fleshy. In that fleeting pressure my elbow finds room between her ribs, and I dig it in gently, to tickle her. She giggles.

  “See?” I whisper.

  Her tentative smile breaks into a huge grin. She laughs and nudges me back. Her elbow is sharp in my side, but I like it.

  “So how did you find me?” she asks. “Wes.” She rolls my name around in her mouth, like an unfamiliar flavor.

  “It wasn’t easy,” I confess. “Given that I don’t know your name.”

  She doesn’t pick up my gambit. One of her eyebrows draws up into an inquisitive arc.

  “Wes,” she says again. “Is that a nickname?”

  “Maybe,” I say, arching my eyebrow back at her.

  She bites the inside of her cheek, waiting, but two can play at this game, and I don’t pick up her gambit, either. We wait a long beat, daring each other with our eyes. She nudges me in the ribs again, and then we both laugh. When she laughs, her whole face squinches up until the bridge of her nose wrinkles, and I can feel her shoulders shaking where she’s pressed against my side. The curls over her ears vibrate from the energy of her laughing, and it’s all I can do not to put my arm around her shoulders and pull her to my chest and bury my nose in those curls. But that would be completely crazy, and so I don’t.

  “So, listen,” I say after our laughter subsides to eruptive snorts. “This may sound really weird, but I did have to find you.”

  “Weird?” she echoes.

  “I mean. It’s not a big deal or anything,” I rush to reassure her.

  I go to pull out Tyler’s release form from my bag. She watches me rummage in my backpack with interest. I finally find it, smooth it out on my leg because of course it got all crumpled up while I was carrying it around, and then pass it to her.

  “I just need you to sign this. I’m sorry. I should have done it when I was here before.” I’m feeling foolish now. Like she’ll think that I’m just flirting because I want something from her. When actually, I want . . . I want . . .

  She looks the release form over, a baffled expression on her face. Then she glances up at me, questions in her eyes.

  “I mean . . . ,” I fumble. “I’m just as glad I didn’t. Remember to get you to sign it, I mean. Before. Because then I had to . . .”

  I trail off, staring at her. A long moment falls between us. She’s watching me. I can’t tell what she’s waiting for.

  “Anyway,” I say, looking back into my backpack as a flush reddens my face. “Here.” I hand her a pen.

  She takes it gingerly, weighing it in her hand.

  “Sign?” she says at length. “But what is it?”

  I don’t know why she looks so worried and confused. In a flash I wonder if maybe she’s famous. What if she’s some cable-show teen sensation and I don’t know? What if I’ve been so into my video games and documentaries that she’s someone everybody’s heard of except me, and people bother her to sign stuff all the time, and I’m being a complete jerk? It would explain the funky hair. And the expensive, high-concept dress. But as soon as the thought blooms into being, I discard it. She would have shown up on my image search, if that were true. Even if the funky hair is new, Google would have found that face. That perfect mole.

  God, that mole.

  Then I wonder if maybe she’s in trouble. Maybe she’s run away from home and doesn’t want to let on where she is. She certainly wouldn’t want to be in some art film on the internet, in that case. That must be it. Maybe I should offer to help her? I could protect her. She’s younger than me. Someone as young as her shouldn’t be on her own. I bet she has nowhere else to go. That’s probably it. She’s in trouble. She needs help.

  “Seriously. Is everything okay?” I ask gently.

  Those black eyes turn to me again. “Is . . . everything . . . okay,” she repeats, in the same way that she repeated my name. Like she’s trying it out, in her mouth. “Oh. Kay.”

  “Is it?” I press. I drop my voice to a whisper and say, “You can trust me. It’s okay.”

  She blinks once, twice, and then smiles again. The smile fills her face with light, and I see that I’ve guessed wrong.

  “It caps the climax,” she says with a grin. “Got any ink?”

  “Um. What?” I’m confused. I don’t even understand what she just said.

  “Ink?” She peers at the pen, dandling it in her fingers. “You want me to sign it, don’t you?”

  “Well, yeah, but . . .” I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say at this point and am about to ask her what she means, when she freezes, ears pricking up, listening.

  “Are you—” I start to ask her, but she shushes me, pressing her fingers to my lips. My skin tingles where she touches my mouth, and I feel myself growing light-headed. Her fingertips are warm and soft.

  “Shhh,” she whispers.

  She listens intently, her gaze moving to the façade of the building where we’re sitting. All I can hear is the faint buzzing of the neon clairvoyant sign, and the abrupt shutoff of the bodega guy’s hose at the end of the block. There’s a long minute of listening silence, and then her face twitches with recognition, as if she’d just heard someone call her name. But there’s nothing. Only the hot summer wind ruffling the pear tree leaves.

  I’m about to ask her what’s going on when her fingertips disappear from my lips and she leaps to her feet, her dress bunching in her hands. Her ankles look skinny and pale above the slippers on her feet.

  “I’m sorry,” she says in a rush, dumping the release form and pen in my lap. “I’m sorry, Wes, I’ve got to go. That’s my mother.”

  “Your—what?”

  She’s already dashed up the town house stoop and opened the door and started up the stairs that lead to the palm reader, and then I guess to the couple of apartments up above. But I haven’t heard anyone. The building is silent, still lost in morning sleep.

  “My mother. I’m sorry, I have to go,” she calls from inside the vestibule.

  “But—” I get to my feet, palms sweaty where they’re crumpling the release form. “Hey. Listen. I’m sorry, look, I know you don’t know me, but I really need your help with this.”

  She hesitates on the inside stairwell, one hand on the banister, staring back at me.

  “Help?” she says in a small voice.

  But then something startles her, and she looks up with urgency to the curve where the stairs disappear into the dark.

  I can’t stand to let her leave. I want her to stay here on the stoop with me, sitting close, making private jokes and elbowing each other. I mount one of the steps on the stoop, reaching a hand toward her.

  “Please?” I say. I’m trying not to beg. It’s so not working, though.

  “I . . .” She hesitates, torn.

  She clearly feels bad about ditching me like this. But she is going to do it anyway.

  “Look,” I say. “If you have to go right now, I can just wait. Okay? You go do whatever, and I’ll just wait down here. It’s no big deal. I mean. You won’t be long, right?”

  “Um . . .” She’s almost persuaded.

  What else am I going to do with my morning, anyway? Maybe I can hang out in the pizzeria, find a couple more people for Most. That would be pretty cool. Maybe she’d want to be in it. Maybe she’d let me film that bowlike mouth with its perfect
mole talking, and talking, telling me what she wants most in the world.

  “Please?” I say, more softly this time, my eyes pleading.

  She chews her lip, hand still on the banister, considering. All at once, she relents. I can see it in her face. I have to suppress the urge to fist-pump in the air.

  “All right,” she whispers. “Wait down there. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Okay,” I say. I’m grinning like I’ve just won Powerball. “Okay. I’ll be right here.”

  She smiles at me and turns to hurry up the stairs.

  “Wait!” I call out, and she stops, looking over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know your name. What’s your name?” I don’t even care if I sound desperate. I can’t let her get away again.

  She hesitates, but only for a second, and then she smiles.

  “Annie,” she says. “I’m Annie.”

  Then she’s gone.

  CHAPTER 7

  I think what I’d really like is my own place,” the pixelated kid says. “I been living with my moms since I got out of school, right? And she’s just . . . You know, she’s on my case all the time.”

  The frame is tight on his face, his nose the same aquiline one I’ve seen on ancient Roman sculpture busts at the museum uptown. Heavy eyelashes, wavy dark hair. I zoom out about 20 percent so I can show the pizza ovens behind him and get the deadening quality of the fluorescent light. His white T-shirt is soft from washing.

  “Where would you live?” I ask. “When you move out from your mom’s.”

  He shrugs and his eyes slide to the right, over my shoulder. “I mean, the city, right? I’d like to get out of Jersey. You know. Get some sweet place downtown, like a loft? With a doorman, yo. Then when I roll up in my Lambo, with some tight little model, you know? I just throw him the keys. Forget about it.”

  The kid smiles, gazing into his daydream. The digital video camera whirs softly, and I zoom back in, very slowly.

  “Hey!” the older guy at the register hollers. “You got people waiting. What’s the matter with you?”

  Shaken out of his reverie, the kid’s face darkens. He looks down, then back up at me.

  “We done?” he asks, with a new challenge in his eyes.

  “Yeah,” I say, shutting the camera off. “We’re done. Thanks. That was awesome.”

  “You gonna put that on TV or something? Am I gonna be famous?” The kid grins. He’s kidding. Mostly.

  “As if anyone wants to see you, on the television. This guy,” the older man behind the register says to a woman he’s ringing up for a soda and two slices. She rolls her eyes.

  “Nah,” I say. “Sorry. It’s a project. For school.”

  “Oh.” He’s hiding his disappointment, and now I feel guilty for filming him for Most. Like I shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up.

  “I mean,” I stammer. “It’s hard to say, you know?”

  “Oh yeah.” The kid shrugs me off. “Sure.”

  He turns his back to me, ladling out tomato sauce in an expert circle of red on raw dough, showering it with cheese, placing pepperoni like punctuation marks to show that our conversation is over.

  I check my phone.

  12:32.

  I blow an irritated sigh through my nose and lean my cheek against the pizzeria window for probably the thirtieth time, looking at the door to the apartments upstairs. I don’t know how much longer I can wait here. I mean, I sat on the stoop for an hour ’til they opened, and I’ve been parked in here ever since. I’ve bought about a slice an hour, and now my belly is sticking out a little over the waistband of my cargo shorts. I still haven’t showered, my hair is sticking up in all different directions from having been slept on, my chin is bristly, and I think I’m starting to look kind of sketchy, hanging out here all day.

  But I told Annie I’d wait.

  So I’ve been waiting.

  “This guy,” the register guy says again. I don’t pay any attention. “What, he thinks real estate is free in New York?”

  There’s a pause, and then I feel eyes on my back.

  “Huh?” I say.

  “You gonna sit in here all day?” the guy barks at me. Having abused his underling enough, I guess now it’s my turn. He must be really great to work for. Man.

  “Um . . .” I pause, trying to come up with the right response. I guess it’s whatever keeps my ass from getting kicked.

  Dammit. I told her I would wait here ’til she came back. I can’t stand the thought of breaking my word to her. Anyway, I need her to sign the stupid form. This guy is thinking about rearranging my face into a Cubist painting, and it’s all for nothing.

  “This is a respectable business, you know,” the guy continues.

  “Paul,” the Roman-looking kid says, putting a hand on his sleeve. “He’s been buying slices. He’s okay.”

  I spread my hands in a what-can-I-do? sort of gesture, and smile my most apologetic, nice-guy-from-the-Midwest smile. I don’t know if those really work in New York, though. Paul glares at me. So much for my big plan of interviewing Paul to kill more time.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. I pull out my phone, checking for I don’t know what. Do I think she’d have texted me? It’s not like she knows my last name.

  Instead, I find half a dozen texts from Tyler, wanting to know where I am and what’s happening. If I don’t get the release he has to cut the footage she’s in, and he’s running out of time before fiction workshop, and he’s going to kick my ass and I’d better text him back.

  Great. Just really terrific.

  I stuff my camera into my backpack, toss a dollar onto the Formica countertop next to my greasy napkins and stack of paper plates, and slink out of the pizzeria. But on the stoop I hesitate.

  I mean, I can’t just leave.

  I try the door to the town house, but it’s locked. Outside the front door there’s a row of brass mail slots, the kind that open with a small key, and an intercom buzzer with peeling paper labels stuck next to each button.

  I spend a long minute inspecting the buzzer, daring myself to push one of the buttons and get let in. There’s one that says FATIMA, which I think is for the palm reader. Then there’s one that says EINBERG, with the first letter missing, and one that says HERNANDEZ in pretty cursive. The other four are either blank, or whitened from rain.

  I cup my hands around my eyes and peer into the stairwell, blocking out the yellow summer sun. Honestly, other than the palm reader on the second floor, it doesn’t look like the apartments are occupied. No window-unit air conditioners jut out over the street. No window propped open with a spinning box fan. No catalogues on the floor. No menus.

  I take a deep breath, roll my head back and forth on my shoulders to loosen up, and push my thumb against one of the unlabeled buzzers.

  Nothing happens.

  “Dammit,” I say aloud, stepping back to look up at the indifferent façade of the town house. It stares back at me, giving away nothing.

  I don’t understand. She definitely hasn’t left. I’d have seen her. I was sitting right by the pizzeria window. I had a clear view of the apartment building door. I watched the door the entire time, even when I was filming the Roman kid.

  I push the buzzer labeled EINBERG.

  Nothing.

  “Ha,” a voice laughs behind me. “Good luck with that.”

  “Huh?” I spin, startled.

  I’m met with the amused expression of Maddie, in cutoffs and ripped fishnets and combat boots and tank top. Her bangs perfectly straight, hair braided into Princess Leia coils around her ears. She’s laughing at me, and I’m gripped with irrational panic, like she’s caught me doing something wrong.

  “Making social calls?” she asks me, eyebrows arched. “I hope you’ve got a calling card. There’s nobody here.”

  “What do you mean?” I a
sk, staring back into the depths of the stairwell.

  “I mean, there’s Fatima Blavatsky’s. But the rest of the building’s empty.”

  Her smile is getting mischievous, mainly by seeming to take over one side of her mouth more than the other. She shifts the grocery bag she’s carrying onto her hip, cocking a combat boot out in defiance.

  “Empty? Are you sure?” It comes out more suspicious than I mean. But I can’t tell if she’s just trying to mess with my head. I mean, I saw Annie go inside.

  “Oh yeah,” she says. “I’m sure.”

  Empty? So where did Annie go, if it was empty? If she wanted to brush me off, she could have just said no. I hear no from girls all the time. More often than not. My ex-girlfriend could say no like it was going out of style. Why would Annie pretend to like me if she didn’t?

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  Maddie sighs and puts the grocery bag down at her feet, stretching her arms overhead. I can hear her spine pop when she stretches.

  “I know,” she says patiently, “because I was squatting here until three weeks ago. Then they came through and cleared everybody out.”

  “You were . . . What?” I’m confused. She seems kind of young to not have anywhere to live.

  Maddie shakes her head, dismayed by how dense I am. “Squatting. I told you. Come on. I’ll let you carry the bag, and then if you’re really nice, you can buy me breakfast.”

  “But—” I start to protest.

  Maddie’s already picked up her grocery bag, which upon closer inspection mostly contains takeout boxes and spotted fruit, and started walking back down the steps to the sidewalk.

  “Hurry up,” she calls to me.

  I glance one last time into the deserted stairwell, disappointment crushing the breath out of me, pulling my mouth down. I don’t understand. I thought we were . . . I really . . . She must have felt it. How could she not have felt it, too?

  I sling my bag over my shoulder, shake my head, and turn away.

  For a minute Maddie and I trudge along together in silence. The street is busy now, crowded with people picking up lunch, striding with purpose from one place to another. In New York everyone’s in a hurry all the time.