The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen Read Free Page A

zippers and ribbons. I couldn’t really understand what the appeal was. To me it looked like something I’d find in a trunk in my grandmother’s attic. When he told me how much it cost I dropped the sleeve I was holding because I was afraid I’d snag a thread and have to take out another student loan.
    I’m definitely afraid to touch this girl’s dress. Seeing how shewears it, though, I begin to understand what Eastlin’s talking about. Her neckline reveals a distracting bareness of collarbones. Her hair is brushed forward in curls over her ears in some bizarre arrangement that I think I saw on a few hipster girls in Williamsburg when Tyler took me out drinking there. She must sense me staring at her. Why won’t she look at me? But she’s finished her examination of the curtains, and if she’s noticed me approaching her, she’s not letting on. As I move nearer, near enough that I can practically sense the electrical impulses under her skin, she steps back, retreating from the edge of the table into the red curtain folds along the wall. I glance at Tyler, and he waves to indicate that she’s still in the shot, and I should get her to sit down already.
    My heart thuds loudly once, twice. Up close, her skin looks as smooth as buttermilk. Milk soft. Cool to the touch.
    I want to touch the skin at the base of her throat.
    This thought floats up in my mind so naturally that I don’t even notice how creepy I sound.
    â€œHey,” I manage to whisper, drawing up next to her. It comes out husky, and I cough to cover it up.
    She doesn’t hear me. At least, she doesn’t respond. My cheeks grow warm. I hate talking to people I don’t know. I hate it more than going to the dentist, I hate it more than taking SATs or doing French homework or stalling a stick-shift car with my dad in the passenger seat.
    â€œWhen everyone is
seated
, we’ll finally begin,” the woman in the middle of the room says pointedly. A few eyes swivel over to stare at me trying to talk to the girl, and my flush deepens.
    â€œListen,” I whisper in desperation, reaching a hand forward to brush the girl’s elbow.
    The instant my fingers make contact, the girl’s head turns and shestares at me. Not at me—
into me
. I feel her staring, and as the lashes over her eyes flutter with something close to recognition it’s like no one has ever really seen me before her.
    Her face is pale, bluish and flawless except for one dark mole on her upper lip, and twin dark eyebrows drawn down over her eyes. As we gaze at each other I can somehow make out every detail of her face, and none of them. When I concentrate I can only see the haze of incense smoke, but when I don’t try too hard I can trace the curve of her nose, the slope of her cheeks, the line where lip meets skin. Her eyes are obsidian black, and when she sees me, her lips part with a smile, as if she’s about to say something.
    I recoil, taking a step backward without thinking, landing my heel hard against the boom. The microphone starts to fall, and I fumble to catch it before it hits the girl with the gelled ponytail and the baby, and I nearly go down in a tangle of wires and headphones and equipment.
    â€œDude!” Tyler chastises me from behind the camera.
    He’s laughing, and some of the people around the table are joining in. The guy in the Rangers jersey pulls out his phone and snaps a picture of me glaring at Tyler. The girl with the neck tattoo smiles at me out of the corner of her mouth and starts a slow clap, but fortunately nobody joins in and after a few slow claps alone she stops and looks away.
    â€œIt’s fine,” I mutter. “I’ve got it under control.”
    â€œWhatever,” Tyler says, pressing his eye to the viewfinder and panning across the people’s faces. They’ve started to join hands.
    Once I’ve gotten the headphones back on and the boom mike hoisted