The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

I reach the corner of Bowery and Bleecker, and hesitate. Nothing looks familiar. The night I went along with Tyler I just got in the cab with him and our film equipment. I was so worried about forgetting something that I didn’t pay any attention to where we were going.

A leggy girl prances by, still dressed up from the night before, probably on a walk of shame, not that she looks ashamed. Her makeup is all sex-smudged. She eyes me but doesn’t say anything as she passes.

“Hey, excuse me?” I call out to her.

She pauses, far enough away that I have to raise my voice. City girls are wary. I guess I don’t blame them. She doesn’t know I’m not a skeeze.

“Um. Do you know where there’s a pizzeria around here?” I shout.

“Are you serious?” she says. Probably because there’s a pizzeria across the street from us. Just not the right one.

“Yeah, sorry. Not that one. The one I’m looking for has a palm reader upstairs from it?”

She doesn’t even dignify that one with an answer, just shakes her head in disgust and walks away.

“’Kay. Thanks,” I call to her retreating back.

I wander south, watching as the city around me begins to shake off sleep. A guy comes out of a bodega on the corner and starts hosing down the sidewalk. From the steam rising up where the water runs into the gutter I can tell it’s going to be hot today. Sticky hot.

When I get to First Street, I pause.

There it is. It’s not actually on Bowery, turns out, it’s just off it, around the corner. I don’t know why I didn’t remember that.

The no-name pizzeria is still shuttered for the night, metal security gate down and padlocked, zigzagged with faded graffiti tags that read LUDDITZ 4 EVA. The z looks like a lightning bolt. Upstairs in the picture window the neon sign that says PALMISTRY CLAIRVOYANT PSYCHIC TAROT $15 is lit, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I guess I should have called or something to see if they were open. That didn’t even occur to me.

I’m so busy worrying about whether or not the place is open that I’m basically standing right in front of it before I notice that there’s someone sitting on the stoop.

It’s a small person, a girl, curled in a ball, arms and face tucked behind updrawn knees. All I can see is the stark-white part of her hair, her knees draped in what looks like a nightgown, two slippered feet sticking out from under a frayed hem, and her rounded back. The figure is rocking back and forth softly, sleepily, and she doesn’t seem to notice that I’m there.

“Hey,” I say as I approach.

I’m on the point of asking what time the place upstairs opens when the figure raises her face and stares at me.

The eyes are formless puddles of black.

It’s her.

“Oh!” I exclaim. I take a step backward in shock, my scalp tightening, and the hair on my arms stirs with electricity.

She looks exactly as I remember her, the curls over her ears, the pale cream skin. The mole, God, that mole! But in the morning light she looks even more . . . It’s like she captures the light. Like it moves through her, and gathers within her, and makes her exude a fragile glow. I swallow and realize that I’m staring, and I haven’t said anything, and that’s totally weird, and I’m probably freaking her out. When I open my mouth to speak I discover I’ve been holding my breath.

She looks at me. Confused, like she’s been asleep. Or maybe she came out to get the paper, and forgot her keys, and she’s locked out. She obviously wasn’t planning on talking to some guy on the stoop before she’s even had any coffee. She blinks, and the tiny movement over her eyes shakes me loose from myself and I get it together to actually say something.

“Hey! Hi!” I say. Smooth, Wes. You are so, so smooth. You are so smooth, you could give glass lessons.

What? What does that even mean? I think in a panic.

At first she looks taken aback. Like I surprised her. When I speak, though, her face brightens. She even smiles. When she smiles, it unlocks a beam of light in my chest, like I’ve leveled up in a video game I didn’t know I was playing.