The Appearance of Annie Van Sinderen

by Katherine Howe

I lie down on my back in the grass, a dandelion tickling my ear, my feet sticking out between the bars of the gate. I stare up into the sky overhead. An impossible angel-bird streaks past, leaving a pale cloud-path behind.

  One of the stories in my Diedrich Knickerbocker book was about a man who fell asleep in the Catskills while hiding from his nagging wife. He met some giants and played ninepins in the thunderclouds, and then when he awoke he found that twenty years had passed. The revolution had come and gone, his nagging wife was dead, and the world around him was completely changed.

  One of the horseless landaus rolls past on the street outside where I’m hiding. But no one comes, and eventually the sunlight fades, becoming thin and gray. More people stride by, laughing and talking and shouting, just like they did in the evenings that I remember.

  I close my eyes, thinking about Wes.

  I wonder if he knows, about me. Did he know, when he sat with me on my stoop? Wouldn’t he be afraid? When I find him, I’ll have to be careful not to frighten him.

  I feel my tight muscles loosen. Presently the dandelion doesn’t tickle anymore, and the sounds in the street outside begin to recede. They feel farther away. I let myself drift, floating, my eyes still closed. A breath of cool air smooths my brow, and the curls around my ears stir softly. My skirts move around my ankles.

  Wes, I think.

  Wes, where are you? Are you close by? Do you know that I’m looking for you?

  I picture him, his mop of dark hair like Herschel’s, his wet puppy eyes. I remember how his elbow felt, pressing into my ribs, and how safe he made me feel. I think of looking into him, as he looks into me.

  I hunt around for him, in my mind, trying to discern where he might be. He won’t be back at my house. Maybe he’s tired, like I am tired. Maybe he wants to rest, too.

  Wes.

  He’s not far. I’m certain of it. He’s close! How close?

  I picture what he might look like, while he’s sleeping. Even the cruelest men look innocent in sleep. And Wes isn’t cruel. Is he? I don’t think he is. I think he must look very sweet, when he’s asleep. Like this. If he were asleep, and I found him, he would look just like this. His eyes would be closed, and his hair would be sticking up at funny angles, and he’d have a red pillow crease across his face.

  I open my eyes and discover myself standing in a dark room. A few pinpoints of red light wink along the walls, and I can just make out a sleeping form in a narrow bed pushed against the wall.

  I am in a boy’s bedroom. At night. In the dark.

  Mother would kill me.

  I laugh grimly to myself at the thought.

  Wes?

  I hate to wake him. But I have to. I try to ease him awake. He’s dreaming, and it’s making him move about under the white sheet. I reach a hand out to touch his shoulder, but I hesitate.

  He thrashes against the bedclothes, struggling in a nightmare, and I feel sorry for it, because I don’t want him to be afraid.

  “Wes!” I whisper, leaning to put my lips close to his ear.

  He kicks his blankets away, his eyes pressed closed.

  “Wes!” I say again, my face breaking into a happy smile, because I’ve found him.

  “Arrrrgh!” he gurgles into his pillow.

  I put my hands gently on his shoulders like I used to do when easing Ed out of a nightmare. But I’m so happy and relieved to see him I can’t stop myself.

  “Wes, wake up!” I say. I dig my fingers into the flesh of his shoulders and rattle him hard. “WES! WAKE UP!”

  His eyes open, and he twists away from me, scooting up against the headboard of his bed, pushing pillows out of his way. My smile collapses.

  I’ve frightened him!

  “You’re . . . you’re . . .” He’s gasping for air, his face contorted with shock and semi-recognition. When he sees who I am, his eyes fill with horror, and he opens his mouth to scream.

  “Shhhhh!” I stop him, putting my finger to my lips.

  He gulps back his scream, but only just.

  “But . . . how did you . . .”

  He’s fighting to understand, I can tell. I reach for him, to soothe him maybe, or to reassure myself that he’s really there, I’m not sure which. When he sees my hand coming, he cringes away.

  “Wes,” I say his name. It feels so good, to talk and know that someone can hear me.

  “What,” he pants, pulling the sheets up to his chest. “What. How did you get in? How did you know where I . . . What are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I bite my lip. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.

  “How did you get in here?” he whispers with a glance across the room, where I observe another boy sprawled on a matching bed, abandoned to sleep.

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “But I told you I’d be right back.” I’m hurt, that he doesn’t remember. He said he’d wait for me, after all.

  “What?” he says.

  “Wes,” I say, and I’m so anxious to feel him there that I impulsively put my hand on his foot and hold it, hard. “Can you help me?” I sound desperate, I know I do, but I can’t help it. I’m afraid.

  He stares hard at me.

  “Please?” I say, my voice shaking. “Could you? I’m sorry to have to ask, but . . .”

  “What’s going on?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say with urgency.

  “What do you mean?” He puts a hand atop mine, and it feels so warm and reassuring that it’s all I can do not to sob with relief. I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know how to make him see.

  “I,” I stammer. “I’ve lost my cameo.”

  I show him my naked hand.

  “You’ve . . . what?” He doesn’t understand.

  “I don’t know!” I wail, burying my face in my hands and letting the sobs come. I didn’t think I could have any more tears, after today, but they spring into being anyway, filling my hands.

  “Oh, hey, don’t do that,” Wes says, and before I know what’s happening he’s put his arms around me and pulled me to his naked chest. I weep into his neck, coiling my arms around his waist. His skin feels smooth and warm.

  “It’s okay,” he soothes me. His fingers comb through my hair.

  I can’t stop my sobbing. I’m too overcome to talk.

  “What’s going on, Annie?” he says, and I hear his voice through his chest.

  I can’t say it. I can’t make the words that are the truth. Instead I say the only thing I can bring myself to admit.

  “I’ve lost my cameo!” I wail.

  “Okay,” Wes says, concerned but uncomprehending. “We’ll find it. Okay? We’ll find it.”

  I disentangle myself from him, wiping my nose on the back of my wrist. My cheeks are hot from weeping.

  “I said I’d come right back,” I plead. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

  He just stares into me, his eyes stricken.

  “Wes,” I gasp. “I came right back.”

  PART THREE

  WES AND ANNIE

  CHAPTER 1

  I’m a Rip van Winkle,” Annie says dully, sprawled on her back on my bed, feet dangling just above the floor, staring up at the ceiling of my dorm room. Her eyes are so dazed that she could be counting the divots.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  She kicks one foot and then the other, letting them swing. The dawn is starting to break outside, and the pigeon that’s nested on my air conditioner for the past couple of weeks coos as she stirs awake. We’re talking quietly, so as not to wake up Eastlin. I don’t think he’ll freak, finding some random girl in our room, but you never can tell.

  “You know. Rip van Winkle. From the Knickerbocker book.”

  “You mean, like, Washington Irving? The guy who fell asleep?” I ask, half remembering a story I read as a kid. A picture bo
ok of a guy in breeches and long shaggy hair.

  “Yes,” she says, closing her eyes and putting her hands over them. “The guy who fell asleep.”

  I’m sitting on the bed next to her, hiding my boxer-shorted self under a pillow. It’s completely awkward, having a girl wake you up when you’re not expecting it. I reach down to find a T-shirt to pull on, since it’s kind of weird to just be sitting here with only my boxers on while she’s in a crazy dress. How the hell did she get into my room?

  Eastlin rolls over, groaning. He’s probably even more hungover than I am.

  Annie and I freeze, watching to see if he’s going to wake up.

  He pulls a pillow over his head and sighs. Then he lies still.

  “Annie,” I venture, figuring I can ask now that she’s calmed down a little. “No offense or anything, but how did you get in here?”

  “What do you mean?” She looks at me curiously.

  “I mean,” I say, ticking a list off on my fingers. “One, you don’t know where I live. Two, even if you did know which dorm was mine, you don’t know which room, and three, you have to swipe downstairs to get in. Also, four, the door was locked. Like with a dead bolt. How the hell did you get in?”

  Her lower lip is trembling again, and her eyes start welling with tears.

  “I . . . I don’t know!” she snivels. “Wes, I don’t know anything! I don’t understand anything! I just need your help!”

  “Okay, okay. Look. You probably know more than you think you do. Right? Let’s start from the beginning. So you’ve lost your cameo.”

  She nods, wiping her face with the corner of one of my sheets.

  “All right,” I say, edging nearer to her on the bed. “So. Question one. What’s a cameo?”

  She peeks at me from behind the sheet with disbelief.

  “Come on,” she says. “You’re kidding.”

  “As far as I know, a cameo is a guest appearance by a movie star on a TV show,” I point out.

  She sits up, pushing her curls out of her way, and stretches her hands out in front of my face.

  “Guest appearance,” she mutters. “That’s funny.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “A cameo”—she points to her bare finger—“is like a little carving, made out of shell. Usually they’re someone’s face. You wear them. Like jewelry. Mine was of Persephone. On a ring, set in gold. Herschel gave it to me.”

  Eastlin rustles under his sheet, pressing a forearm to the pillow over his head, his hand in a fist. I glance at him, and lower my voice further.

  “Herschel. What is he, like, your boyfriend?” I say more sourly than I mean. She called me that name, the other day. A flush of jealousy burns my cheeks.

  “He’s—” she starts to say, but is interrupted by Eastlin shouting, “God, will you SHUT UP already?”

  Annie shrinks to the back of my bed, her eyes full of fear. Eastlin throws the pillow off his head and gets up. Without looking at us he stalks to the door.

  “Wes, for serious, I am really freaking tired. Okay? Do you think you could stop talking for two seconds? It’s practically tomorrow.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but Eastlin has already slammed the door behind him.

  Slowly I turn to look at Annie. She shrugs.

  “I guess we were too loud,” I say.

  She gives me a tiny smile.

  I grin back at her.

  “So. Where do you last remember having it?” I ask her.

  She furrows her dark brows, thinking. The light in the room is growing more pale, and I can see her clearly now. Her fingers are knitted over her belly, slippered feet swinging. Her head is propped against my dorm room wall where she lies on her back on my bed. She chews the inside of her lip, and it twists her mouth in a funny way, making her mole move.

  “I was wearing it at the Grand Aquatic Display,” she says. “That’s the last thing I remember. I definitely had it on then.”

  “Um. Okay,” I say, not really clear on what a Grand Aquatic Display is, unless maybe it’s some kind of hipster summer sprinkler party in Red Hook that I wasn’t invited to. Which is probably what it is. “And when was that?”

  Annie gets a vague, faraway look in her black eyes. Something about that look frightens me. She’s on the point of answering when Eastlin slams back into the room and stalks back to his bed.

  “. . . swear to God, Wes,” he’s saying, as if continuing a stream of invective that started in our room, followed him into the bathroom, and then back down the hall to our room unbroken, even though I wasn’t there to hear it. “You could be just a little more considerate, you know? Do you have any idea how tired I am? Between classes, and my job, and I realize you don’t have a job”—he walks right past me and Annie without glancing in our direction—“but it’s six in the morning, and I don’t have to be at the store until ten. I could be asleep, right now.”

  Annie and I both watch him stalk about the room in nothing but his boxer briefs. I can tell from Annie’s expression that she’s pretty shocked. Like maybe she’s never seen a guy in just his underwear before. Or maybe she just thinks he’s hot, I don’t know. Eastlin is ripped, I’ll give him that. God, I should give her a towel to wipe the drool off her chin.

  “I’m sorry, I was just—” I start to apologize, with one eye on Annie.

  “I know you’re, like, an artist, or whatever, but that doesn’t give you license to sit there jabbering in the middle of the night,” he interrupts me. “God. Screw this. I’m going to the gym.”

  He pulls on a pair of gym shorts and leans down to glance in the mirror on his desk. The gym is kind of a pickup scene, he’s told me, so I guess he has to make sure he looks good even at six in the morning. As if anyone could look good at six in the morning. From where Annie and I are sitting on my bed we can see his face reflected in the mirror. He peers in close, examining a nascent pimple on his otherwise flawless chin. His eyes shift focus from his chin to us in the background.

  “Holy shit!” he says, stumbling backward and staring at Annie.

  I have to suppress a smile, but Annie looks between us, worried. She’s sitting up now, curled in a little ball with her knees drawn up.

  “Where the hell did she come from?” Eastlin demands, pointing at Annie.

  “Eastlin,” I say, ready to placate him.

  “You had a girl in here?” he asks me with a flash of annoyance. While I watch, though the annoyance changes shape. “Jesus,” he says, pulling his T-shirt over his head. “You should’ve said something. Scared the crap out of me. Have you been here the whole time?”

  “I’m sorry,” Annie says, her voice small.

  “Don’t be sorry. Christ. I should be thanking you,” Eastlin says with a wry smile at me. “Saved me the trouble.”

  “Man. Come on. Shut up.” I give him my best approximation of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter.

  “This is her, right?” he says. “Hello.” He sticks his hand out.

  Annie hesitates, then extends her own hand. They shake. She looks sort of shell-shocked by the whole exchange. “We really didn’t mean to wake you up,” she says. “Did we, Wes?”

  “No,” I say. “Definitely not.”

  He watches us both. I think he can tell something weird is going on. He’s smiling, but it’s an uneasy smile.

  “It’s no problem,” he says, eyeing Annie.

  He’s looking at her dress. He gets this appraising look in his eye when he’s evaluating clothes. A strange expression crosses his face, but he tries to act like everything’s normal.

  “I was just going to see if Annie wanted to get some breakfast,” I say. “Do you?” I turn to her. “Want some breakfast?”

  “I guess so.” She doesn’t sound convinced.

  “Great,” Eastlin says.

  We all sit there for a second, unsure w
hat’s supposed to happen next. Eastlin picks up his gym bag and says, “All right. Well. I guess I’ll see you later. Nice meeting you . . .” He trails off, giving her time to fill in her name.

  “Annatje,” she says.

  “What?” Eastlin and I say together.

  “Sorry. I mean, Annie,” she says. She blinks at us without explaining anything.

  “Right. Annie.” Eastlin nods. He gives me a long look as he heads to the door, but I don’t catch what it means.

  After he’s gone, Annie and I stare at the door. The sun is fully up now, and we can hear morning sounds drifting up from the street. My temples are throbbing, my mouth feels like something crawled inside and died, and all I can think about is pancakes and bacon and coffee.

  “Come on,” I say, plucking at her skirt. “Let’s go eat. Everything looks better after you eat.”

  “All right,” Annie says. She slowly climbs off my bed, testing her weight when she puts her feet to the floor.

  My hands twitch for my camera bag, and I pick it up and swing the strap over my head with a practiced motion, feeling fully dressed once I have it on. I gesture to Annie to go out the door first. I’m a gentleman, anyway. Most of the time.

  “Annie?” I ask.

  “Yes?” She looks up at me with her bottomless black eyes.

  “Would you say that your cameo is what you want most in the world?” I smile at her.

  • • •

  It’s early enough that we beat the competitive weekend brunch crowd, and get a table almost immediately at this diner I like down the street. Brunch is like a contact sport in New York, I swear. Everywhere you go you have to wait, like, three hours on a Sunday. A waitress plops us in a booth and throws menus at us like she wants us both dead. Annie sits uncertainly across from me, looking at the menu, flummoxed.

  “What?” I ask, glancing at her.

  “It’s just . . .” Her eyes are wide. “There’s so much! I don’t even know what a lot of it is.”

  “Like what don’t you know?” I peer at her. Fancy girls don’t go to diners, I guess.

  “Grits?” she asks me over the top of her menu.