The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“Try us,” I urge her, my pinkie finger brushing accidentally on purpose against her sleeve.

“Yeah,” agrees Tyler, making minute adjustments to the focus. She must be looking hazy to him through the camera, the way she did to me. “Just tell it to us like it’s a story. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make any sense. We’ll edit it down later.” He grins to show he’s just kidding, but he’s probably not.

“Well.” She leans on her elbows, gazing at the slice of pepperoni pizza between them. “For a long while I wasn’t quite sure where I was. In time.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, putting my fingertips on her arm. It feels warm and fleshy. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that she’s . . . she’s . . . a Rip van Winkle.

“I woke up standing in my mother’s bedroom. I thought it was the next day. But everything was strange. Not like my mother’s bedroom usually is. More like a dream of my mother’s bedroom. I don’t know how long I stood there, but I couldn’t move, the way you sometimes can’t, in dreams. And after a time, the room started to change. Then all at once I heard Wes say Listen. Since then I’m pretty sure I’ve been sort of . . . both places at once. Here, with you. Right now. But also . . . Then. Like in a memory.” She sounds uncertain.

“A memory?” Tyler asks, entranced. I have the passing thought that if nothing else, this experience is definitely going to turn Tyler from art film to documentary. The idea of it makes me feel pleased with myself.

“Sort of,” she says. “I think, when he touched my elbow, Wes sort of pulled me out of where I was. But I was afraid, and I screamed, and I think being afraid makes me go somewhere else, because next thing I knew I woke up in bed with my sister, like it was any other day. Except it was a day I’d already lived. And sometimes I fall—that’s not the right word, but it feels that way—back into now. My memory days are all days I’ve lived before, but they’re happening differently from how they happened the first time. I can do things I didn’t do before.” Annie stares at us, begging us to understand with her eyes. I wish I could. Right now, it’s what I want most in the world.

Tyler looks lost in thought, weighing what she’s said. “You know,” he remarks. “Memories always change.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“They’ve proved it. Like with science. Brain imaging, or whatever. I’m serious, I read about it. We think we record a memory in our brains, like me recording this conversation on video, right now. But that’s not actually how it works.”

“It isn’t?” I ask. How does Tyler know all this stuff? I’m starting to think I should subscribe to Discovery or something, just so I can make inane small talk as well as he does.

“Yeah. Didn’t you read that? It was in the Times. I remember because it made me think about filmmaking. Every memory we have changes slightly each time we think about it. We add stuff we learn in other places, or we forget stuff that doesn’t seem important anymore. Or you think you remember something, like from your childhood, but actually you’ve just seen so many pictures of it, and your parents have told you about it, so you think you remember it, but you don’t. A memory is a process. Instead of a thing. Like a story we tell ourselves that changes from the standpoint we’re looking at it.”

Annie considers this long and hard. And so do I. The idea frightens me. Do I actually remember my life? Is this moment, happening right now, with Annie and Tyler in the pizzeria, and that same guy I filmed for Most working behind the counter and pretending like he doesn’t remember me, is this all that’s ever happened? The pizza of forever?

I grip Annie’s hand tight under the table, and she squeezes back.