The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

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.