The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

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Somehow my feet are moving, and I’m not sure where they’re moving to, because all I can see is the blue screen on my phone. My thumbs aren’t working quite right, but I’m pretty sure I’m texting Maddie, and I’m reasonably certain I’m telling her to meet me and Tyler at another bar. Tyler’s got one of the girls who bought us tequila shots wrapped around his neck like a scarf, and they’re stumbling along in front of me, singing a Taylor Swift song. Tyler started by trying some Velvet Underground, but the girl didn’t know what he was talking about.

The phone vibrates in my hand.

Where R U right now? Maddie wants to know.

I stop, swaying on my feet, and look around. Everything is lights and taxi horns and the smell of hot summer rain, and I squint, trying to make out a street sign, but my eyes will. Not. Focus. I close them, inhale a long, ragged breath, and open them again, but it doesn’t help.

“TYLER,” I holler.

Ahead of me two figures pause in the blur of people, and then come swaying back to me.

“WHAZZIT?” he hollers back to me. The girl he’s with keeps giggling and giggling.

“What street izzis?” I slur.

“Uuuummmmmm . . .” He squints also, looking around in a circle that makes me dizzy to watch.

“Second,” the girl chirps. “We’re on Second and Bowery. Who’re you texting with?”

“My friend,” I manage to say. “She’s meeting us. Where’re we going? I’m sposta giver the address where we’re going.”

“Give it here,” the girl says, yanking the phone out of my hands. With lightning speed her thumbs fly over my smartphone. At first I’m okay with this, and then just as quickly I’m not. What’s she telling her? This could be bad. I should get it back from her. I should—

But then she’s handing the phone back and she says, “Come on! She’ll meet us there. She your girlfriend or something?”

“No, she’s just this . . . she’s, like,” I say, but nobody’s listening, so instead of talking I shamble along behind them as we go another block and turn down a side street.

“Dude!” Tyler cries, stopping short. I trip over my feet trying not to run into him.

My heart collapses when I see where we are.

Her, my mind breathes. My hand reaches out for something to steady itself against, and finds the bark of the long-suffering pear tree near the curb.

We’re standing in front of Annie’s house.

The pizzeria is doing a brisk business, kids hanging out along the counter open to the street, its windows folded back to let in the night air. There’s music and the smell of garlic knots, and the kids inside are all laughing together, and Tyler and the girl are laughing together, and maybe it’s the tequila pickling my brain, and maybe it’s a mistake or I’m confused or overtired, but I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying, and I’m so glad it’s dark and nobody’s looking at me.

Not even the town house is looking at me. All the windows above the pizzeria are empty.

Tyler wraps his arm around the girl’s waist and gestures up to Fatima Blavatsky’s.

“This is where it all happened,” he explains to her. “Did I tell you I shot it in sixteen millimeter and digital? I had to transfer the film to video and then edit it all together. This guy”—he gestures to me, where I’m sagging against the tree with my arms clutching my waist, as if I could hold the despair inside by force—“this guy is a sound genius, did you know that?”

“No,” the girl says and giggles.

But I can’t laugh along with them. The neon sign PALMISTRY CLAIRVOYANT PSYCHIC TAROT $15 is shut off, and the curtains are closed. I stare up at the indifferent face of the town house, a void of misery yawning open in my gut.

I was waiting for her. Where did she go? Couldn’t she feel it? If she felt it, why didn’t she come back?