The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen (27 page)

“To me,” she says.

Just then some short kids in bright white sneakers come in carrying a huge boom box. I didn't even realize they still made those things. It's massive, with gigantic speakers, and it's blaring Kanye. The kids plop it down onto the floor like it's no big thing and all stare at the pizzeria menu, adjusting their athletic shorts and shifting their weight back and forth.

“Hey! Turn that crap down!” hollers the guy behind the counter, Paul, who yelled at me for loitering that day that I thought Annie ditched me. The kids mutter and resist, but eventually turn it down, sulking. The promise of pizza outweighs the promise of
Yeezus
.

“It was from the United Brotherhood of Luddites, Annie,” I say.

I rummage in my camera bag for the newspaper articles that the librarian helped me find, and fan them out on the table in front of us. Annie leans over and peers at them with interest.

“You found them!” she exclaims.

“Oh yeah. It was easy,” I say. Okay, it wasn't easy, exactly, but I want Annie to be impressed.

She reaches a tentative finger forward and traces it down the crumpled surface of the printouts. I can hear the whir of Tyler's zooming in for a close-up on her face while she reads. While she looks over the newspaper articles, I feel my phone vibrate in my shorts.

“Dammit,” I mutter, pulling it out for a quick look.

Crap. It's Maddie.

Where R U?

I don't mean that, obviously. I'm excited to see her. I just didn't notice how much time had gone by. I was supposed to meet her fifteen minutes ago.

“You guys,” I say. “Come on. We have to go.” I'm quickly texting her back that I'm sorry, I'm right around the corner, and I'll be there in five minutes.

“Go?” Tyler asks from behind the camera. I don't think he's turned it off once. I wonder how much memory I've got in there.

“Where are we going?” Annie asks.

“I have to meet someone. It'll only take a minute. She's cool, you'll like her.” As I say this, I wonder if it's true. I mean, I don't know that it's
not
true. But sometimes it's hard to tell, with girls. Especially girls you think would have a lot in common. They can sometimes ricochet off each other like identical pool balls.

“Oooooooh,” Tyler says, understanding how much trouble I might be in right about now.

I give him a warning look from under the flop of hair on my forehead.

“No, really,” Tyler tries to cover for me. “She's cool. You guys will totally hit it off.” To me, he says, “We going back to the same place?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“We late?” he asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah,” I say, stuffing the newspaper articles back into my bag and clearing the paper plates and napkins and everything into a heap and into the garbage.

Tyler stops recording and looks between Annie and me.

“All right, kids,” he says with a smile. “Into the abyss.”

W
hen we get to the street outside, Annie stops me with a hand on my arm, and says, “Wait.”

I'm worried about making Maddie wait any longer, but I don't know how you get a girl like Annie to hurry. The normal rules don't apply to her.

“Please?” I urge. “We're already late.”

“Wes, just wait a minute,” she says, and the rosebud upper lip of hers hides a subtle tremor.

I lean over so Tyler won't hear what we're saying. “What is it?” I whisper.

“I don't know. It's just that . . .”

She trails off, looking up at the shuttered face of the condemned town house. The palm reader's neon sign is off. There's no life behind the windows at all. I watch her as she stares up at the building's empty windows. She's studying it, hard, her dark brows furrowed, as though she were trying to memorize it.

“I finally figured it out,” she whispers to me. “How I can control where I go. If I'm afraid, I'll think about what will make me less afraid, then I can make myself go there. Sometimes.” She glances up
at me from under her eyelashes. “That was how I found my way back to you. Each time.”

I swallow, my ears burning pink under her admission.

“But it also brought me back here,” she continues, looking back up at the dilapidated building that used to be her house. “It brought me back home.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and fold her into me. We stand like that for a long minute, hidden in the shadows.

“You guys!” Tyler shouts from a little ways up the block. “Come on! Let's go!”

I pull apart from Annie and look down at her. How do you leave home, knowing you can never go back again? I think about Madison, my parents' house, my freshman dorm room at UW. I think about how even if I go back after this summer, even if they've all stayed the same, I'll still be different. I've already left home. And so has she.

I guess the only way to do it, is to do it.

“You ready?” I ask her.

She wipes her fingertips under her eyes, smiles bravely, and says yes.

We turn away, clasping our hands and walking together without looking back.

• • •

Tyler's bopping down the street through the fading afternoon, and lights are winking on ahead of the coming city night. It's that moment in New York City summer dusk when it looks like the air should be getting cooler, but it's not. I pluck at the bottom of my T-shirt to peel it away from my skin.

I glance at Annie, wondering if she feels as hot as I do. I notice beads of sweat on her upper lip. So the answer must be yes. What must it feel like, to be inside her skin right now? Not just in her mind, but in her body? Is her dress heavy? If she thinks too hard about what she is, does it hurt? Is she sad?

What does she think about me?

I have to tell her about Maddie. But I don't know what I'm supposed to say. It's weird enough, having two girls notice me at all.

“This girl we're meeting . . . ,” I start to say. But then I don't know where I'm going with it.

Annie looks at me curiously.

“She's . . . ,” I try again.

Annie waits, and when I continue not to say anything, she gives me a wry smile.

“Don't worry,” she says after a time.

I'm not sure what she means by that, but I exhale all the same. Anyway, aren't we looking for some cameo that another guy gave her? Maybe she only likes me as a friend. My stomach sinks at this idea, and I edge away from her slightly on the sidewalk, doing my best to pretend like I don't much care one way or the other. If Annie notices any change in the air between us, she doesn't let on.

We get to the bar, and it's early enough that there's nobody at the door yet.

It's not as crowded as it was the other night, and when I don't find Maddie right away I push through the clusters of sweaty kids laughing and clutching beer glasses to the garden in the back. It's warm enough outside that the garden is sparsely populated, and most of the people back there don't have laurel leaves tattooed on their necks. In fact, only one of them does.

She's sitting at a wooden picnic table, looking down into her wineglass as though reading tea leaves. The garden isn't much to look at—brick patio, strung with Christmas lights, and someone's set up an industrial fan to stir around the summer heat.

Tyler spots Maddie first and stops, waiting to see how I'm going to handle showing up for what's basically a date with another girl and guy in tow. The truth is, I have no idea how I'm going to explain
the whole Annie situation. Should I make Maddie look through the video camera so she can see her? But what if that freaks her out, like it did Sheila? Should I remind her about signing the release form? Will she even believe me, or will she think we're all pranking her? I'm already on her jerk list for being late. Basically, there's no good way for this to go.

While I'm hesitating, trying to decide what to say, Maddie glances up as if sensing that she's being watched. When she sees us, she breaks into a smile.

“Oh, hey!” she says brightly to . . . Annie? “Hi, Tyler. Hey, Wes. Perfect timing. I'm about ready for a refill.”

“Hi!” Annie says. She climbs over the picnic table bench to sit down next to Maddie, pulling all her skirts and everything out of the way, flashing everyone a long bloomer leg.

“Hey, you. How're things?” Maddie asks.

“Good, I guess? Better,” Annie says. “How are you doing?”

My head swims. In my peripheral vision, though, I can see Tyler about ready to explode with laughter.

“You guys . . . you know each other?” I stammer.

“Sure,” Maddie says, smiling at Annie. “From around.”

Annie smiles at me and shrugs. “She gave me a beer, one time.”

“She . . . what?” My head is spinning.

Tyler meanwhile announces, “Yeah, so. I'm gonna get us a round,” and disappears. Helpful.

“Also we used to crash in the same squat,” Maddie says. When Annie looks surprised at this, Maddie explains, “Yeah. You remember. That place over on First? I saw you there a couple of times. But we didn't talk or anything.”

“That was you I heard?” Annie asks, eyebrows bowed upward in perfect half-moons.

Slowly, feeling like my feet are detached from my body, I float
over to the picnic table and drift down onto the bench across from them. I'm staring at them so hard that I'm worried a thread of drool is going to drip off my face.

When you put them right next to each other, it's sort of uncanny. The slope in their cheeks. An uncertain shape around the outside of their eyes. Maddie's hair is dyed inky black, but I think back to that photo I saw on her defunct high school Facebook account, and her real hair is light brown. But it was probably a pale flossy blond when she was really young.

Maddie's old Facebook picture showed up when I did an image search of Annie's film still. Google's facial recognition software has no idea how good it is.

They're talking together amiably, the way girls do when they know a guy is watching. There's a performative quality to it. They're being friendly, that much is true, but it's an exaggerated friendly, somewhat for my benefit, to show that they are funny and cool to hang out with, and I should be happy to be there with them. There's a lot of laughing and tossing of hair.

“That beer was really good,” Annie is saying. “Thank you. I was in an awfully strange place just then.”

“Beer?” I echo. “How is it even possible that you gave her a beer?”

“I saw her on the street the other day,” Maddie says. “The day I ran into you, actually. She looked really strung out.” To Annie, she says, “So where you crashing now? I've got a cooperative going, if you need somewhere to go. You'll have to share with my friend Janeanna. She's kind of crazy. But, yeah. She's basically okay.”

“Crashing?” Annie asks, her head to the side.

“Yeah, you know,” Maddie says. “Where're you staying?”

“Maddie,” I interrupt.

“Hmm?” She arches her eyebrows at me. If she's thrown by my showing up with some other girl, she's making sure I don't get to see
it. Which means she's probably really, really thrown, and she thinks I'm an asshole.

“What's your last name?” I say.

A shadow crosses her face, and she brushes her bangs back off her forehead. “My
street
name,” she says primly, “is Madcinderz.” To Annie, she continues, “Our co-op is fregan. So you've got to be cool with no meat unless it's free. Same for technology. If you're in the collective you can't use Facebook or anything, because technology is government's way of keeping us all enslaved. We're DIY. And we collectivize everything. What's mine is ours.”

“I know that's your street name,” I interject at the same moment that Annie says, “What's a face book? I don't think I have one. You'd really let me stay with you?”

Tyler picks that minute to show up with four dripping mugs of beer, which he plonks down on the picnic table between us. Maddie curls a lip—she was drinking wine—but accepts the beer anyway. Fregan, I guess.

“Sure,” says Maddie. Annie grins.

“So,” Tyler says, grinning like a cat with sparrow feathers in his mouth. “You guys really know each other?”

“Maddie,” I press, ignoring the interruption. “Your last name. Come on. What is it?”

Maddie fixes me with a vicious glare. She picks up her beer glass and slurps off the foam.

“What's the big deal?” I ask

“God, Wes. Why do you even care?” she says.

Annie's looking back and forth between us, but I can't read the expression in her black eyes. All at once a gleam of wonder and understanding passes through them, and she rests a hand on Maddie's shoulder.

“Mine's Van Sinderen,” Annie says quietly.

Maddie freezes, beer halfway down her throat. She's so surprised that she coughs beer up her nose and has to put the mug down and blow her nose into a paper napkin.

“Awesome,” Tyler says.

She hacks, gasping for breath. Annie pounds her back gently.

“Are you messing with me?” Maddie asks once she can get her breath back.

“No,” Annie says.

Maddie looks at me. “This is a put-on. What the hell do you think you're doing, huh?”

“I'm not doing anything, I swear,” I say.

“You knew that was my last name. How did you know?” Maddie seems pretty angry. Her knuckles are white where they're gripping the beer mug handle.

“Well,” I hedge. “Cinders isn't that big of a leap to Van Sinderen. Why don't you want anyone to know your last name?”

Maddie looks like she's thinking about leaving. Her lips are pressed together, and some of the color has gone out of her face.

Annie leans in closer, and runs her hand softly down Maddie's arm. “He's not teasing. I promise. That's really my name. It's yours, too, isn't it?”

Maddie looks wonderingly at Annie, studying her face. Slowly, she nods.

“And what's your real first name?” Annie asks.

Maddie swallows, and something in her face changes to make her look younger. Like she's afraid she's going to get into trouble. Tyler and I both lean forward, listening.

“It's Malou,” she whispers.

“But you tell people it's Maddie. You like that better?” Annie presses.

“Malou's Dutch,” she mutters, getting all shifty-eyed. “Embarrassing. And, anyway. My family sucks. They're basically bad people. They've always been basically bad people. Why would I want to have the same name as them?”

Annie laughs, that excellent mouth-open laugh she has. Then she throws her arms around Maddie's neck, crushes her lips to Maddie's ear, and says, “I do the exact same thing.”

“What?” Maddie gasps.

“I'm Annatje,” Annie explains. “And I hate it! It's too old fashioned. I made them all start calling me Annie, and everyone did it just to please me, except Mother. She calls me Annatje out of spite, because she knows how much I hate it.”

Maddie's eyebrows bow upward in shock, and then she, too, starts laughing. They collapse onto each other and with their old-fashioned hair and strangely sloped cheeks, they could pass for sisters.

Tyler's leaning in to me to whisper, “Maddie could
see
her? Without a camera or anything? How's that possible?”

“I guess so,” I say, mind whirring trying to keep up with what this might mean. “In the house. But on the street, too, it sounds like.”

“That's crazy,” Tyler says, staring at them from behind the shelter of his beer glass.

“Maybe it's not crazy, if they're related,” I whisper to him, watching the girls giggling over something that I can't hear. They've sunk immediately into an intense whispered conversation. When girls get like that, it's like they're speaking in code.

“Related?” Tyler repeats.

“Sure. Why not? How many other people in New York have that name?” I insist. The moment I say it out loud I'm sure I'm right. “Maybe Annie was . . . I don't know . . . haunting her? Without knowing it?”

“Come on,” Tyler says.

“Well? Why not? How should she know? She doesn't make the rules.”

They're leaning their heads together and whispering. I catch Annie point at me, and Maddie glances at me quickly before hiding her face in Annie's shoulder and laughing.

What's so funny?

“Hey!” I say too loudly, my ears purple under their stares.

“Wes,” Annie says, gulping her laughter back. “Guess what? Maddie's going to help us find it.”

“Find what?” I can't keep up. Things are happening too fast.

“Her cameo,” Maddie says. “But we've got to get out of here. You guys ready?”

Tyler and I exchange a fast glance.