The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen Read Online Free PDF Page B

wearing?”
    â€œActually,” I say, looking at him with new interest. “She was in some crazy deconstructed dress thing. It looked like something you’d have at the store.”
    Eastlin’s eyes light up. “She was wearing Abraham Mas? Which one?”
    â€œWhat do you mean, which one? I don’t know. A dress. With a bow at the neck. Sleeves.”
    â€œWhich
piece
. They all have names. Each design is unique.”
    My roommate is clearly trying to be patient with me, but it’s hard for him, living with such a rube. They apparently don’t have rubes in Connecticut, where he’s from.
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding,” I say.
    â€œWould I kid you? With this face? Come on.” Eastlin smiles.
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t from there. Looked like it, though. That lace trim, kind of torn, but, like, on purpose? Heavy. Expensive. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
    â€œLace trim?” He brings a fingernail to his mouth and gives it a meditative chew. “We did lace two seasons ago. Stained in tea.”
    â€œShe was . . .” The right words won’t come. The right words usually don’t, for me. I mostly experience the world in images. I wish I could show Eastlin the film I took of this girl, in my mind. It unspools before my eyes, rolling forward like a silk ribbon falling out of someone’s hand, and I see the girl in the deconstructed dress smile.
    â€œIf she shops at Abraham Mas, I probably know her,” he offers.
    A funny fluttering thing happens inside my chest, and I have to clear my throat to get rid of it. “She was young,” I say helpfully.
    â€œYoung.” He tears off the offending nail, examines the bare fingertip, and spits the nail out on the floor. “Most Mas girls are Madison Avenue types. You know. Lunch. Their hair, my God. Three hundred dollars a week, for the color. At least.”
    â€œI think you’d recognize her,” I say, surprised at the urgency in my voice. I want him to know her. I want him to tell me who she is. “Definitely.”
    Just then the pocket of my cargo shorts vibrates twice. I fish inside and pull out my phone. It’s got a huge crack in the glass fromwhere I dropped it in the subway last week, but it still basically works. A bird icon informs me that someone’s mentioned me on Twitter.
    â€œHuh.” Eastlin starts in on the next nail. “Well, at the very least, she’d be in the store system. We can stalk her.”
    â€œCome on,” I say, peering at my phone.
    The tweet is from a profile I don’t follow.
    It says, I see you, @wesauckerman.
    And it links to a picture of me on Instagram. In the picture my mouth is half open, like I’m in the middle of saying something. My hair is sticking up, and there’s pizza grease on my mouth. The glare of the fluorescent lights has been softened with a filter. I’m smiling.
    I laugh, tugging on the forelock of my hair. The profile belongs to someone named Maddie, with no identifying details other than “NYC.” The profile picture is a cartoon unicorn galloping on an ocean of stars. The girl with 1950s bangs is webstalking me. Maybe it wasn’t the pizza that helped push away my disappointment.
    â€œLook at you,” my roommate says, getting to his feet and tossing a towel over his shoulder. “She text you just now?”
    â€œWhat?” I say, weighing whether or not I should respond.
    She must have found me from an image search. I guess I know people can do that, but it’s not like it ever occurred to me to try. What should I say back to her? I should say something funny. But I’m not sure what Maddie will think is funny. I hesitate.
    Maddie. Maddie who has Bettie Page pinup bangs. And a
neck tattoo
. My high school girlfriend thought all girls with tattoos were sluts. She could be kind of a bitch, though. What do
I
think of girls