The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

Her lips are the color of dried rose petals, and the minute the thought crosses my mind I marvel crazily that I would even come up with a metaphor like that.

“Herschel?” she says.

“Huh?” I ask.

I look around behind me, thinking maybe she’s talking to someone else. But the street is empty, save for the guy hosing down the bodega corner and an elderly woman in orthopedic shoes pushing her grocery cart down the sidewalk across the street.

“Oh!” Her eyes grow confused. She shrinks behind her knees.

“Hey, no. I’m sorry. I’m Wes. From the other night. Remember?”

“Wes,” she says slowly. She gives me a long, steady look. Studying me. Those dark eyebrows knit over her eyes. A little wrinkle forms between them, and it might be the most enticing wrinkle I have ever seen. My mouth goes dry.

“Yeah. Um. I was here with that other guy? Filming the séance. Last week?” My eyes search into hers. She has to remember.

“The séance,” she repeats, thinking. It’s like she doesn’t know what to do with the word I’ve given her. Then her black eyes glimmer with recognition, and I feel my pulse thud in my throat. “Oh yes! I remember. Of course.”

She sounds uncertain, though. There’s definitely something off about her. Like she’s saying the right things because she’s practiced, not because it’s what she really means. It crosses my mind that maybe this girl is hiding something. Maybe she’s like Maddie. Maybe she goes there to sleep, too.

Or maybe she’s, like, on something.

I peer at her more closely, and she smiles prettily up at me. The eyes are definitely bottomless, but not in a druggy way. When she smiles, her mouth looks like a bow on top of an expensive present.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Okay. I was just waiting,” she says, tipping her head to the side as she looks up at me.

“I was actually hoping I’d see you again,” I say without thinking it through first.

“You were?” Her smile widens. She’s blushing, and it makes me dizzy, that I’ve made her blush.

“Definitely,” I say. “In fact, it was absolutely imperative that I find you. Did you know that?” I wonder who this guy is, who’s flirting so effortlessly with a hipster New York City girl. Because it’s definitely not Wesley Auckerman from Madison, Wisconsin.

“Aw,” she says, eyelashes lowering over those black eyes. “You’re teasing me. You’re not really here.”

“Sure I am,” I insist. I plop myself down onto the stoop next to her, my knees drawn up, too, my sneakers alongside her slippers. I nudge her with my elbow. She feels firm, fleshy. In that fleeting pressure my elbow finds room between her ribs, and I dig it in gently, to tickle her. She giggles.

“See?” I whisper.

Her tentative smile breaks into a huge grin. She laughs and nudges me back. Her elbow is sharp in my side, but I like it.

“So how did you find me?” she asks. “Wes.” She rolls my name around in her mouth, like an unfamiliar flavor.

“It wasn’t easy,” I confess. “Given that I don’t know your name.”

She doesn’t pick up my gambit. One of her eyebrows draws up into an inquisitive arc.

“Wes,” she says again. “Is that a nickname?”

“Maybe,” I say, arching my eyebrow back at her.

She bites the inside of her cheek, waiting, but two can play at this game, and I don’t pick up her gambit, either. We wait a long beat, daring each other with our eyes. She nudges me in the ribs again, and then we both laugh. When she laughs, her whole face squinches up until the bridge of her nose wrinkles, and I can feel her shoulders shaking where she’s pressed against my side. The curls over her ears vibrate from the energy of her laughing, and it’s all I can do not to put my arm around her shoulders and pull her to my chest and bury my nose in those curls. But that would be completely crazy, and so I don’t.

“So, listen,” I say after our laughter subsides to eruptive snorts. “This may sound really weird, but I did have to find you.”

“Weird?” she echoes.