The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“I already paid.” Tyler shrugs.

“All right,” Maddie says, getting to her feet. “But I’d better call and let them know.”

Them? I mouth to Tyler.

He just grins and shoulders my camera bag. Annie flashes me a delighted smile, links arms with Maddie, and they stroll out of the garden together.

“Come on,” Tyler says, gesturing with his head for us to follow them. “Listen. You don’t have another thumb drive, do you? This one’s running out of memory.”

? ? ?

It’s hard to believe, but in the six weeks I’ve been in summer school I haven’t set foot on Park Avenue even once. I never had any reason to go. I mean, I’d heard it was the super fancy part of town, so maybe I would have gone before summer school was over, just to check it out. Now that I’m here, I’m not that impressed. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the entire street was abandoned. Lights in the buildings are off. Doormen linger just inside the doors, in the air-conditioning. There’s not even a cab. It’s so empty our footfalls seem to echo on the sidewalk.

“Maddie,” I whisper, trotting along on her heels. “Where is everyone?”

She sniffs at my ignorance and doesn’t answer.

“They’re probably all in the Hamptons,” Tyler mutters to me. He’s trying to hide the fact that he’s impressed, but it’s not working. He keeps craning his neck back, looking up at the sedate brick faces of the plush apartment buildings. Marble entryways. Polished brass. Carved nameplates for plastic surgeons and psychiatrists. Annie’s gawking, too, her head tipped back on her shoulders like she’s never seen buildings so tall before. She sticks close to Maddie’s side, their arms looped together. It was a long ride from the Village, past Gramercy Park, and Annie’s eyes only got wider the farther uptown we went, murmuring once about how fast we could go without a horse to pull us. She cuddles closer to Maddie, matching her footfalls to Maddie’s boot stomps, and more than once I catch myself looking at them with a pained expression on my face. I wanted to be the one to show Annie everything.

We finally arrive at a building that initially looks modest, with a forest-green awning and polite casement windows.

“I don’t know what the Hamptons are,” I say to Tyler as we all stop and stare up at the face of the building.

“Now, listen,” Maddie says. “They’ll probably try to talk to you guys. But don’t say anything, okay? Just ignore them.”

Tyler and I exchange a glance. Who is she talking about?

“Okay?” Maddie presses us.

“Sure,” I say uncertainly. “Okay.”

Annie and Tyler both nod.

We walk up to the door, and on our approach it is silently opened by a short, barrely guy dressed in a navy uniform coat and peaked hat.

“Good evening, Miss Van Sinderen,” the doorman says in Russian-accented English.

“Good evening,” Maddie and Annie say in unison, then look at each other and burst out giggling.

The doorman, who I can only assume doesn’t see or hear Annie, and so is watching a punked-out teenage girl laughing by herself with two sketchy-looking guys walking two steps behind her, stays stone-faced. Like he sees everything and nothing all at once.

Tyler and I walk past him stiffly, both of us pretending like we’re totally comfortable in this situation. I see the flicker of a smirk on the doorman’s mouth as we pass.

“Dude,” Tyler whispers to me out of the side of his mouth. “What is it with you and the fancy girls?”