The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“Eighth floor,” he informs us once approval is granted.

He has an accent I’ve never heard before—not French, German, or Portuguese, not Carolina, Chinese, or Dutch. A stranger among strangers. I smile at him, but he doesn’t see me.

When the lifting machine deposits us back in Maddie’s foyer, we are met with boisterous noise from deep within the apartment. A pair of large men’s shoes sits under the table in the center of the foyer, together with a satchel.

“There is no WAY I’m wearing this!” Maddie hollers.

Wes and I exchange a look. We’re late. Maddie’s already getting dressed.

“Hello?” Wes calls.

“In here!” a young male voice answers, and Wes and I grope our way down an infinite hallway, looking in at doors—a linen closet first, then a room seemingly designated only for bathing, then a room with nothing but books and a large wooden desk, like Papa’s study—before we finally choose the right one. We open it to an explosion of finery, and Maddie standing poised with a boot held high over her head, a boy cowering at her feet. The room is all done up in florals and pastels, and looks nothing like Maddie at all. With some surprise I see that the bed is the exact same one that I used to share with Beatrice. But it’s been painted white and is piled high with so many pillows it’s hard to imagine there’s any room for sleep.

“Eastlin?” Wes says, and the boy kneeling on the floor glances over at us with a smile.

“Will you tell her how gorgeous she looks?” cries the cowering boy. “She won’t listen to me.”

He’s the same boy who was asleep in Wes’s room, the one I scared by accident. He’s beautiful, which isn’t a word I often use to describe boys, but it’s the only word for him. His skin is peach smooth and perfect, and though I find his manner of dress alien, the worthiness of his form is undeniable. Wes dresses like a boy, to hide his male shape. But this one—Eastlin?—has no such compunction. He’s like the Bowery bloods, lounging on street corners with nipped-in trousers and perfectly cut coats.

“You look—” Wes starts to say to Maddie, but he stops himself when he catches me looking at him.

Maddie whirls on us and chucks the boot in our direction, but we both duck and it whomps ineffectually against the doorjamb.

“I look ridiculous!” she shouts.

She’s wearing a dress that at first glance looks something like mine. It’s a rich brick-red, of a color to make her skin look dipped in buttermilk. It falls in sumptuous layers to just below her knees.

“Not at all!” I say, rushing up to mollify her.

Maddie turns away, wrinkling her nose. But I see her looking at me from underneath her eyelashes in the same hopeful, expectant way Beattie and I use on each other when we feel anxious and want to be complimented.

“You look lovely,” I say, resting a hand on her arm. In a whisper, I add, “Truly.”

The tiniest of smiles pulls at Maddie’s cheek, and she whispers back, “Really?”

“You do,” Wes manages to say.

I don’t look at him when he says it.

“What I’ve been saying,” Eastlin grumbles. “Now sit down over there.”

He steers Maddie over to a cushioned stool at a dressing table, and brushes a finger along the side of her neck, over the lattice of her tattoos.

“How long have you been here?” Wes asks Eastlin. He goes over to Maddie’s—my—Maddie’s bed and flops onto it.

“Not long. Maybe half an hour,” Eastlin says, casting an appraising look at the laurel leaves staining Maddie’s neck. “Why in God’s name would you get a neck tattoo, huh? What are you, a Hell’s Angel?”

“I’m an anarchist,” Maddie says, lifting her nose in an imperious way. “My body is mine, and I’ll do what I want. I don’t have to bow to your capitalist definitions of beauty.”