The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen Read Free Page B

over my head, balanced unobtrusively over the table so I can pick up the soft breathing of all the New Yorkers in this second-floor room on the Bowery, I check to see if the girl in the deconstructed dress is still hiding against the velvet curtain.
    I don’t see her.
    The woman in the turban has blown out all but the candles in the sconces on the wall, plunging the table into an intimate darkness with everyone’s face in shadow. In my headphones I hear Tyler whistle softly under his breath, and I imagine that the scene looks pretty intense through the softening filter.
    â€œNow,” the woman breathes. “We shall invite the spirits to join our circle, if everyone is ready.”
    I get a better grip on the boom, balancing my weight between my feet and settling in. The woman in the turban told us it would only take about forty-five minutes. But forty-five minutes can feel like an eternity, sometimes.

CHAPTER 2
    W ell, that sucked,” Tyler says. He pulls on the gelled tips of his faux hawk with irritation.
    â€œNo kidding,” I agree, fastening closed the audio equipment case with a final click. People are filing out all around us. Some of them look embarrassed. The banker guy was the first one out the door.
    â€œI don’t know how they expect us to make an art film when nothing interesting ever actually happens here,” he continues.
    â€œTyler,” I mutter to him.
    â€œWhat?” he says.
    I glance pointedly at the woman in the head scarf, who can absolutely still hear us. She’s tidying up all the objects on her séance table, pretending like she can’t. The crystals clink together in her hands.
    â€œWhatever,” Tyler dismisses me. “We should’ve done it on skateboarding. Those guys are always easy to find. And they love being on film. It would’ve basically directed itself.”
    â€œUh-huh,” I say. Because what the world needs is another student film about skateboarding as a transcendent state. That’s definitely the most interesting thing happening in New York City right now. As if.
    â€œI’ll wait for you outside,” he says, shouldering a bag of equipment and pulling out his phone.
    I nod, not looking at him while he leaves. I’m waiting for him to go. I want to try to talk to her. If I can work myself up to actually doing it, that is.
    Some of the other people are loitering, too, like they want to talk to the woman in the turban. I know I should be going. We’ve signed up for the editing room tonight to work with Tyler’s digital footage, but it closes at eleven, and the sooner I can get this project finished, the happier I’ll be. I pretend to reach into the box to adjust the coils of wire inside. Really, I’m listening, and looking under my eyelashes to see where the girl with the hipster-curled hair is. One of the khaki mom types is talking to the woman in the head scarf in a low voice. The girl in the gelled ponytail eyes me, jostling the baby over her shoulder. I was pretty impressed that the baby didn’t cry, what with the dark and the chanting and everything. Especially when all the candles went out. That was a pretty cool trick. I wonder how the woman in the head scarf did it.
    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.
    â€œThe hell you lookin’ at, huh?” the girl snaps, glaring at me. She shuffles the baby onto her other hip, freeing