The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“Shut up,” I hiss back. The truth is, I’m worried I’m having a panic attack. My heart is racing, and I can feel sweat dribbling down my rib cage. My parents’ house has wall-to-wall carpeting and a huge TV over the fireplace. Every year my mom puts an original of our holiday card photo in a silver frame that she buys at TJ Maxx, and she yells at me and my sister if we get fingerprints on them. I grew up thinking that our house was pretty nice. I had no idea what I was talking about.

This must be where Maddie had to go, when she left my room the other night. For her curfew. God, this place is plush. Why would she want to stay in abandoned buildings, if this is what she’s accustomed to? How does it even feel to be accustomed to a marble-hallway kind of life?

We stop in front of an old-fashioned cage-style elevator, and Maddie presses the button. With a creak and groan the mechanism starts up, and an old analog floor indicator, the kind that’s shaped like a fan with the floor numbers on the edge, with an arrow pointer, grinds to life. Lights indicate that the elevator was on the top floor, the ninth. After a long pause while the elevator tries to remember what it’s supposed to do, it slowly oofs down to the first floor and the door opens to reveal an impossibly old guy dressed in livery that matches the doorman’s.

“Good evening, Clarence,” Maddie says.

When she speaks in here, her voice sounds different. Smoother. More polished.

Rich.

“Good evening, miss,” the old guy says.

We all pile into the elevator, which is so small and made of such delicate metal scrollwork that I’m frankly shocked it can handle all our weight. Maddie doesn’t even tell him what floor she’s on. Tyler and I both notice this absent detail at the same time, and Tyler’s lined eyes are popping so hard they might fall out. Annie, meanwhile, is so busy marveling at the elevator that she’s not paying any attention to us.

“Amazing,” I hear her whisper to herself. “It’s like a climbing machine.”

The elevator rings to a stop on the eighth floor, and the operator cranks the doors open.

“Eighth floor,” he announces, as if we didn’t know it, and we all load off.

“Maloulou? Is that you?” a woman’s voice trills from very far away.

The elevator has opened directly into a softly lit foyer, painted dove gray with white egg-and-dart trim (Gran would be so proud of me, remembering that’s what it’s called). There’s a worn Oriental carpet in the middle of the room, over a polished black-wood floor, with no furniture at all except a huge circular white marble table with a crystal bowl spilling white peonies over its lip. The flowers are fresh, and they fill the air with a fragrance that’s just a shade too sweet to be pleasant.

“Yes,” Maddie shouts too loudly. To us, she barks, “Come on.”

She strides straight across the room, leaving a trail of city grime behind from her combat boots. Tyler and I edge closer together, in the instinctive resistance of middle-class guys to environments in which they might break something expensive. I’m worried about even breathing in here.

“Maloulou? Darling?” the woman’s voice calls, having drawn a room or two nearer.

“Dammit,” Maddie mutters.

We’ve only made it halfway down a hall that seems infinitely long, lined at sedate intervals by small gilt-framed landscape paintings, each lit with its own special spotlight. They’re mostly images of the Hudson River or pastoral scenes of sad-looking Indians posed against the sky atop a dizzying waterfall.

A woman appears from some secret room and gives us all a look that she probably intends to be welcoming. She’s dressed in cream slacks, a cashmere cardigan, and ballet flats that probably cost six hundred dollars, and her hair is the same shade of blond I saw on those women in Eastlin’s shop. Like, the exact same shade.

“Well! Are these your friends?” the woman says. A tiny hand hovers under her chin like a hummingbird.

“Uh-huh,” Maddie says without breaking stride.

“Hi,” Tyler says, not making eye contact, and ducking under the woman’s gaze like he’s cheating at limbo.

“Hello, ma’am,” I say, sticking my hand out. “I’m Wes Auckerman.”

She stares at my hand with faint shock and distaste. She doesn’t say anything.

“Um . . . ,” I say, not sure what I’m supposed to be doing differently. Something, obviously.