The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

What did Herschel tell you? the Senegalese Luddite boy shouted at me in the street. What do you know?

Of course. Of course! Herschel was Luddite! And his uncle, too, probably, the one who told me I had no idea what was coming.

“Wes,” I gasp, reaching for his sleeve.

“What is it?” He stops when he feels my hand, close enough that I can smell his boyish skin. It’s hard to make out his features, now that we’re away from the streetlights.

“The Grand Aquatic Display,” I say, my grip tightening. “I know what happens.”

I expect him to be excited, but he’s not. Even in the shadows I can see his face contort in misery.

“Annie,” he says. His voice catches in what almost sounds like a sob. “I know what happens, too, okay? I already know. And I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to go back.”

I slide my hand down his arm, and take his hand in mine. They’re trembling, our hands. But I’m not sure if the trembling is his or mine.

“You don’t?” I whisper.

“Sometimes?” He blinks quickly, clearing the tears from his eyes. “I wish I’d never met you. Then I’d just be able to do my film, and take the time to make it really good, and I’d transfer and get everything I wanted. It would’ve been so much easier!”

The bottom falls out of my heart, and all that’s left inside me is a whistling emptiness.

“I’m sorry,” I force the words out.

“Why me, anyway?” he says. “Why’d you have to come here and . . .” He trails off. “Why’d you have to come to me?”

I step closer, close enough to press my lips to his cheek. It’s damp, and I taste tears. I move my lips up to the corner of his eye, kissing the tear away, my lips touching his skin with the softness of butterfly feet. His arms go around my waist, crushing me to his chest, and I grasp his shirt in my fists, pressing my face into his neck.

“I’m here, right now,” I say, my voice muffled by his skin. “I’m here. With you.”

He shudders against me, his own face buried in the curls over my ear.

“I have to tell you something,” Wes whispers fiercely.

“Wait,” I whisper back. “Wait.”

A little ways away, through a screen of trees, we discover a filigreed summerhouse, an open patio with a roof for shade, and benches down close to the water. A warm breeze trips along the lake surface, ruffling the reflected city. I lead Wes by the hand down the path to the summerhouse. He knits his fingers around my palm.

“Do you think . . . ,” Wes says, and I can feel his pulse thrumming fast under his skin. “Annie. Do you think it’s possible to love more than one person?”

I stare long and hard at him. That word hangs in the air between us.

Did he say it?

Did I hear it?

Or is it what I wanted him to say?

It’s impossible to see his expression in the dark. I can only see the outline of his hair, his jaw, and his shoulders as he turns to me. A knot unties itself inside my chest.

I whisper, “Yes.”

Then Wes’s fingers are in my hair, and he’s pulling me to him. His mouth meets mine, soft and warm at first. Hesitant. Herschel is the only other boy I’ve kissed, and his mouth was more insistent, rougher, thinner lipped, and salty. Wes tastes of mint, and his lips are smoother, softer. Richer. I close my eyes, feeling an electric spark where our lips connect, like the rays of the sun in a corona over our heads when we stare into the waters of the Hudson on a sunny afternoon.

We kiss for a long time, hungry for each other, Wes’s hand on my thigh, firm and sure of itself, his other arm around my waist, and at times I gasp for breath, throwing my head back so that his lips can find my throat, my neck, the hollow of my collarbone. The moon rises higher, and the sound of the city recedes behind the sheltering branches that hide the summerhouse where we coil ourselves together.

I am here. I am here, right now.





CHAPTER 13