The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“Yeah. Um. Not too much. Just working. You know.” He eyes Maddie, and then sends me an inquiring look. I know he’s asking if this is the girl I was talking about. I glance at her sidelong and then give him a proprietary smile, just so I can enjoy letting him think that maybe it is. Maybe I’ll rise in his estimation from “pathetic” all the way up to “lame.”


“Yeah. I thought you were gonna be in today. Listen. Is it okay if we film here?” I ask him, resting a hand on Maddie’s shoulder. She smiles and shrugs at Eastlin.

“Film? You mean, for your workshop thing?” Eastlin looks kind of nervous. They probably have rules against that. You probably have to get permission from some central office, and fill out a bunch of forms, and pay them a thousand dollars an hour and promise Gwyneth Paltrow will be there.

“Yeah. I want to interview Maddie for Most. It’ll take two seconds.”

“I’m Maddie,” Maddie says, helpfully, pointing a finger at her chest.

“Eastlin’s my roommate,” I explain to her. “He does fashion design.”

“Coooool,” Maddie approves, drawing the syllable out and nodding.

“Ummm . . . ,” Eastlin stalls. He obviously wants us to go away. He scans the store, sliding his hands into his pockets and trying to come up with a reason to get rid of us. The Upper East Side blondes have moved deeper into the back, where they hang all the shirts made of little scraps of oyster-colored chiffon.

“I don’t know, Wes,” he says finally.

“Come on. Please? It’ll be awesome,” I plead, rocking on the balls of my feet and jostling my backpack over my shoulder so he can see how excited I am.

“Please?” Maddie echoes, folding her hands under her chin and giving him big, wet eyes like a Dickensian orphan. “What’s Most?” she asks me out of the side of her mouth.

“Eastlin?” asks a huge, totally ripped guy with an earpiece and a plain black T-shirt that hugs his biceps who has just come looming up behind my roommate. He folds his arms and his chest seems to get twice as big. I have to stifle more laughter. “Everything okay over here?”

“Yeah, Duane. We’re cool.” Eastlin rolls his eyes ever so slightly, and then seems to make up his mind. To me, he says, “Right this way, sir. Let’s see how I can help you today.”

He leads us to the middle of the store, past racks of weird dresses that look to me like frayed flour sacks dyed deep eggplant and mauve. I spot Maddie peek at a price tag in the palm of her hand before dropping it like it’s on fire.

Eastlin parks us in a dressing room, then closes the velvet curtain behind us and whispers to me “Okay, asshat. That better be her. Also? You owe me.” Aloud he says, “Thirty minutes, then, sir? Can we bring you anything? Ice water? Champagne?”

“Thanks, man,” I say at the same time that Maddie calls, “Champagne would be great, thank you!”

There’s a leaden pause from outside the curtain. Then Eastlin says, “Right away, miss,” and his shoes disappear.

“This place is crazy!” Maddie whispers to me, smiling.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Don’t worry, though. He’s cool.”

I’m nestling her on the stool in the corner, against heaps of fine netting and chiffon from the clothes they haven’t put away yet. The light is perfect. I knew the light in here would be perfect. Some places have light that seems to make every woman more beautiful. I grab one of the flour sack dresses from the hook in the dressing room, and hold it under her chin.

“Know what? You should put this on,” I say. It’s not really appropriate for a documentarian to costume one of his subjects. But the color is so rich I can’t help it.

The burgundy brings out the blue tones in her skin, making her lips look redder. And the texture is so matte and soft that it makes her hair look shinier. I’m so certain of the rightness of it that it’s almost creepy. I look down at myself, and note with dismay that no amount of expert lighting can save my cargo shorts from sucking. Eastlin’s influence must be rubbing off on me.

“Are you kidding?” She blanches. “Have you seen how much these things cost?”

“So what? We’re not buying it.” I grin at her. “Please? Pretend like it’s a costume. For a play.”