The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

I glance sidelong at the ponytail girl, quick so she won’t notice. That girl has got to be like three years younger than me. That must really suck, having a baby in high school. She’s petite, and the baby is just a little guy, who’ll probably be small like she is. I let my eye roam down her body, which is tight and young. She’s in those uptown jeans, the ones that make a girl’s ass look really high, and she’s wearing huge gold hoop earrings. The baby has his fist around one of the earrings, gumming it. I guess I can see how it would happen. But even so. God. A baby.

“The hell you lookin’ at, huh?” the girl snaps, glaring at me. She shuffles the baby onto her other hip, freeing the earring as she does so.

Dammit.

“Nothing,” I mutter, looking down fixedly at the audio equipment box. “Sorry.”

“That’s right,” she says, turning her back to me.

Well, that’s just great. Caught checking out the unwed underage teen mother. I am an asshole.

My hands rush around to finish packing the audio equipment. I figure it’ll take Tyler and me about two hours to edit the digital footage into a rough cut tonight, and then over the weekend I can slap on some transitional music and headings or whatever, and he’ll get the 16 millimeter film back from the developer early next week and we can edit it in with the digital and then get this over with. Then I never have to see any of these people again.

“Busted,” whispers a young woman’s voice not far from my ear.

“Huh?” I glance up and find the girl with tattoos and Bettie Page bangs standing directly in front of me, her arms folded.

I struggle up to my feet, trying not to look at anyone. I definitely don’t want to catch myself looking at my accuser’s tattoos. She has starkly inked black laurel leaves coiling over her chest and up her neck, and the fold of her arms makes her breasts swell a little under her tank top. I swallow, looking fleetingly at her face, and then hard at a spot six inches above her left shoulder.

“Don’t feel bad,” says the tattooed girl. “I was staring, too.”

Someone pulls open a cheap velvet curtain, exposing the picture window overlooking the Bowery. The window lights up with the orange chemical glare of the streetlights below, tinted red by the neon sign advertising the medium’s services: PALMISTRY CLAIRVOYANT PSYCHIC TAROT $15. Outside, taxi horns, and the wet roll of tires through streets hot with tar.

“Bye, Madame Blavatsky,” someone calls on her way out the door. The bell overhead jingles.

I look more curiously at this girl’s face. Under all the eyeliner and black lipstick and tattoos she’s actually pretty. Younger than I thought at first. My age, basically, so, like, nineteen. She has a snub nose and pale eyebrows, which suggest that the black dye in her hair hides an agreeable dirty blond. The red light from the neon sign makes her skin look creamy and pale.

“Yeah,” I say, because I’m really smooth like that.

More of the people are filing out around us. The guy in the Rangers jersey left like ten minutes ago, never looking up from his phone. I glance over the tattooed girl’s shoulder, searching for the girl with the deconstructed dress. I haven’t seen her since the lights came back on. I don’t know where she could have gone, since Tyler’s tripod was blocking the only other door.

“So what did you and your friend think?” she asks.

“Um . . .” I hesitate.

The truth is, I thought it was a waste of time, and I’m pretty sure Tyler thought so, too. Everybody held hands and chanted, and the medium said some stuff and then all the candles blew out. But then there was a long wait and as far as I can tell nothing happened. One of the moms started crying. Then the medium busted out some matches and lit all the tea lights again and then there was a little more chanting and then it was over. I didn’t see anyone in what Tyler might call a transcendent state. The atmosphere was spooky. I was ready to be freaked out. But then, nothing.