The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen

“Right. Annie.” Eastlin nods. He gives me a long look as he heads to the door, but I don’t catch what it means.

After he’s gone, Annie and I stare at the door. The sun is fully up now, and we can hear morning sounds drifting up from the street. My temples are throbbing, my mouth feels like something crawled inside and died, and all I can think about is pancakes and bacon and coffee.

“Come on,” I say, plucking at her skirt. “Let’s go eat. Everything looks better after you eat.”

“All right,” Annie says. She slowly climbs off my bed, testing her weight when she puts her feet to the floor.

My hands twitch for my camera bag, and I pick it up and swing the strap over my head with a practiced motion, feeling fully dressed once I have it on. I gesture to Annie to go out the door first. I’m a gentleman, anyway. Most of the time.

“Annie?” I ask.

“Yes?” She looks up at me with her bottomless black eyes.

“Would you say that your cameo is what you want most in the world?” I smile at her.

? ? ?

It’s early enough that we beat the competitive weekend brunch crowd, and get a table almost immediately at this diner I like down the street. Brunch is like a contact sport in New York, I swear. Everywhere you go you have to wait, like, three hours on a Sunday. A waitress plops us in a booth and throws menus at us like she wants us both dead. Annie sits uncertainly across from me, looking at the menu, flummoxed.

“What?” I ask, glancing at her.

“It’s just . . .” Her eyes are wide. “There’s so much! I don’t even know what a lot of it is.”

“Like what don’t you know?” I peer at her. Fancy girls don’t go to diners, I guess.

“Grits?” she asks me over the top of her menu.

“Um,” I demur. Then I grin at her. “You know what? I actually don’t know what grits are, either.”

She laughs at me, paging through the infinite choices, sounding out some of the words to herself.

The waitress comes back and I ask her for eggs and coffee.

“Beans?” Annie asks hopefully. “And bacon?”

I make a barfed-in-my-mouth face, and echo, “Beans? And bacon?”

Annie nods, looking happy.

“Beans,” the waitress says. She gives me a weird look, shoves her pen behind her ear, and leaves us alone.

“All right,” I say, leaning forward on my elbows. “So all we have to do is retrace your steps.”

Annie’s not listening, though. She’s gawking. She stares at each person in the diner like they’re all from outer space. She’s as fascinated by the toddler on a teddy-bear leash as she is by the elderly woman in the tinfoil hat. She stares at the lights. She stares at the linoleum floor. When the food comes, she stares at the food. Maybe she’s on something after all. I don’t have a lot of drug experience, so it’s hard to tell. The one time I smoked a joint at a frat party at UW I got so paranoid that I hid in my closet until morning, petting the sleeves of my shirts. But I feel like people on MDMA act kind of like Annie’s acting. Like they want to touch and taste and see everything.

“Hey,” I say, reaching across and putting my hand gently on her arm.

“Huh?” She jumps, focusing on me.

“Are you okay? Really?” I ask her, using my serious-dad voice. It’s the same one my dad uses on me. I’m starting to get pretty good at it.

“I’m not sure,” she says, looking with wonder at the bowl of chili that’s been plunked on the table between us. She sniffs the bowl and flares her nostrils with distaste. “No, actually,” she reconsiders, leaning her elbows on the table and her forehead in her hands. “No. I’m not. Oh. Kay. I’m Rip van Winkle.” She smiles crazily as she says this last part, and that weird crawling chill passes over my neck.

“Listen, do you mind if I record this?” I ask her, because filming it will make me feel less creeped out.