Free The Appearance of Annie van Sinderen by Katherine Howe

Maybe I can hang out in the pizzeria, find a couple more people for
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. That would be pretty cool. Maybe she’d want to be in it. Maybe she’d let me film that bowlike mouth with its perfect mole talking, and talking, telling me what she wants most in the world.
    â€œPlease?” I say, more softly this time, my eyes pleading.
    She chews her lip, hand still on the banister, considering. All at once, she relents. I can see it in her face. I have to suppress the urge to fist-pump in the air.
    â€œAll right,” she whispers. “Wait down there. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    â€œOkay,” I say. I’m grinning like I’ve just won Powerball. “Okay. I’ll be right here.”
    She smiles at me and turns to hurry up the stairs.
    â€œWait!” I call out, and she stops, looking over her shoulder.
    â€œI don’t know your name. What’s your name?” I don’t even care if I sound desperate. I can’t let her get away again.
    She hesitates, but only for a second, and then she smiles.
    â€œAnnie,” she says. “I’m Annie.”
    Then she’s gone.

CHAPTER 7
    I think what I’d really like is my own place,” the pixelated kid says. “I been living with my moms since I got out of school, right? And she’s just . . . You know, she’s on my case all the time.”
    The frame is tight on his face, his nose the same aquiline one I’ve seen on ancient Roman sculpture busts at the museum uptown. Heavy eyelashes, wavy dark hair. I zoom out about 20 percent so I can show the pizza ovens behind him and get the deadening quality of the fluorescent light. His white T-shirt is soft from washing.
    â€œWhere would you live?” I ask. “When you move out from your mom’s.”
    He shrugs and his eyes slide to the right, over my shoulder. “I mean, the city, right? I’d like to get out of Jersey. You know. Get some sweet place downtown, like a loft? With a doorman, yo. Then when I roll up in my Lambo, with some tight little model, you know? I just throw him the keys. Forget about it.”
    The kid smiles, gazing into his daydream. The digital video camera whirs softly, and I zoom back in, very slowly.
    â€œHey!” the older guy at the register hollers. “You got people waiting. What’s the matter with you?”
    Shaken out of his reverie, the kid’s face darkens. He looks down, then back up at me.
    â€œWe done?” he asks, with a new challenge in his eyes.
    â€œYeah,” I say, shutting the camera off. “We’re done. Thanks. That was awesome.”
    â€œYou gonna put that on TV or something? Am I gonna be famous?” The kid grins. He’s kidding. Mostly.
    â€œAs if anyone wants to see you, on the television. This guy,” the older man behind the register says to a woman he’s ringing up for a soda and two slices. She rolls her eyes.
    â€œNah,” I say. “Sorry. It’s a project. For school.”
    â€œOh.” He’s hiding his disappointment, and now I feel guilty for filming him for
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. Like I shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up.
    â€œI mean,” I stammer. “It’s hard to say, you know?”
    â€œOh yeah.” The kid shrugs me off. “Sure.”
    He turns his back to me, ladling out tomato sauce in an expert circle of red on raw dough, showering it with cheese, placing pepperoni like punctuation marks to show that our conversation is over.
    I check my phone.
    12:32.
    I blow an irritated sigh through my nose and lean my cheek against the pizzeria window for probably the thirtieth time, looking at the door to the apartments upstairs. I don’t know how much longer I can wait here. I mean, I sat on the stoop for an hour ’til they opened, and I’ve been parked in here ever since. I’ve bought about a slice an hour, and now my belly is sticking out a little over the waistband of my cargo shorts. I