The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

Eastlin rolls over, groaning. He’s probably even more hungover than I am.

Annie and I freeze, watching to see if he’s going to wake up.

He pulls a pillow over his head and sighs. Then he lies still.

“Annie,” I venture, figuring I can ask now that she’s calmed down a little. “No offense or anything, but how did you get in here?”

“What do you mean?” She looks at me curiously.

“I mean,” I say, ticking a list off on my fingers. “One, you don’t know where I live. Two, even if you did know which dorm was mine, you don’t know which room, and three, you have to swipe downstairs to get in. Also, four, the door was locked. Like with a dead bolt. How the hell did you get in?”

Her lower lip is trembling again, and her eyes start welling with tears.

“I . . . I don’t know!” she snivels. “Wes, I don’t know anything! I don’t understand anything! I just need your help!”

“Okay, okay. Look. You probably know more than you think you do. Right? Let’s start from the beginning. So you’ve lost your cameo.”

She nods, wiping her face with the corner of one of my sheets.

“All right,” I say, edging nearer to her on the bed. “So. Question one. What’s a cameo?”

She peeks at me from behind the sheet with disbelief.

“Come on,” she says. “You’re kidding.”

“As far as I know, a cameo is a guest appearance by a movie star on a TV show,” I point out.

She sits up, pushing her curls out of her way, and stretches her hands out in front of my face.

“Guest appearance,” she mutters. “That’s funny.”

“Sorry,” I say.

“A cameo”—she points to her bare finger—“is like a little carving, made out of shell. Usually they’re someone’s face. You wear them. Like jewelry. Mine was of Persephone. On a ring, set in gold. Herschel gave it to me.”

Eastlin rustles under his sheet, pressing a forearm to the pillow over his head, his hand in a fist. I glance at him, and lower my voice further.

“Herschel. What is he, like, your boyfriend?” I say more sourly than I mean. She called me that name, the other day. A flush of jealousy burns my cheeks.

“He’s—” she starts to say, but is interrupted by Eastlin shouting, “God, will you SHUT UP already?”

Annie shrinks to the back of my bed, her eyes full of fear. Eastlin throws the pillow off his head and gets up. Without looking at us he stalks to the door.

“Wes, for serious, I am really freaking tired. Okay? Do you think you could stop talking for two seconds? It’s practically tomorrow.”

I open my mouth to protest, but Eastlin has already slammed the door behind him.

Slowly I turn to look at Annie. She shrugs.

“I guess we were too loud,” I say.

She gives me a tiny smile.

I grin back at her.

“So. Where do you last remember having it?” I ask her.

She furrows her dark brows, thinking. The light in the room is growing more pale, and I can see her clearly now. Her fingers are knitted over her belly, slippered feet swinging. Her head is propped against my dorm room wall where she lies on her back on my bed. She chews the inside of her lip, and it twists her mouth in a funny way, making her mole move.

“I was wearing it at the Grand Aquatic Display,” she says. “That’s the last thing I remember. I definitely had it on then.”

“Um. Okay,” I say, not really clear on what a Grand Aquatic Display is, unless maybe it’s some kind of hipster summer sprinkler party in Red Hook that I wasn’t invited to. Which is probably what it is. “And when was that?”