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By Root 518 0

on the shoulder. “You wanted to come to this?” Annie asked, still processing Lucy’s appearance in the gallery. “This is my kind of thing,” Lucy said, gesturing toward the paintings. “Weird shit,” Lucy said, still smiling, her dark eyes, almost black, gleaming with interest, “is what I live for.” When Annie seemed unable to respond, Buster said, “Well, you came to the right place. You’ll meet your yearly quota for weird shit with just one wall of this stuff.” Lucy retrieved her eyeglasses, settled them on her face, and began to walk over to one of the paintings. “Oh,” she said, holding the syllable for so long that it seemed as though she was humming, “this is good.” Annie still did not look at her mother’s paintings, could only imagine which bizarre image had sparked Lucy’s interest. She finished her wine, and, as soon as she felt the awkwardness of holding an empty glass, a young man in formal wear, holding a tray, plucked it out of her hand and continued on his way. Having spent years in Hollywood, Annie was accustomed to this situation, surrounded by weirdness, being taken care of by people she did not know.

Two hours into the opening, the gallery still filled with an abnormal amount of people for an exhibit of paintings by an experimental performance artist, there was still no sign of their parents. This did not worry Annie. She said to herself, “No worries,” and then realized she was saying it out loud.

So far, more than a dozen people, all of them right on the edge of being elderly, had come up to Annie to say how much her parents’ art had moved them, had done something indefinable to the way they saw the world. Annie always smiled, always nodded, but she was amazed by these people, what kind of wiring they possessed that would cause a Fang event to occupy a pleasant place in their memories. And then she realized these people were probably talking about seeing a representation of the original Fang event in a museum, which was even more astonishing to Annie. Was this how trauma worked? she wondered. Those closest to it remained dumbfounded by the fact that those who weren’t present could derive meaning from it? She felt the walls closing in on her, and she took a deep breath and refocused on keeping the world at bay. If her parents appeared—when her parents appeared—she would be ready for them. She had to resist that which others could not.

She had lost count of how many glasses of wine she had consumed. It could have been two or it could have just as easily been a dozen. The man who kept collecting her wineglasses prevented her from having a physical chart of her level of inebriation. She needed to pee, but she could not imagine abandoning her post. The thought that she would miss the moment when her parents returned was something she would not allow herself to contemplate. If she was not there to witness her parents’ reappearance, would it have really happened?

She could see Lucy, standing with Buster, examining her mother’s paintings, and Annie knew that she should be over there, talking to the woman who would be directing her in another movie, if all went according to plan. She and Lucy had been in touch by e-mail for the past few weeks, but she was unnerved to see her in person. Annie had purposely not mentioned the exhibit to Lucy, though she imagined that Lucy had read about it, having been a fan of the Fangs long before she ever met Annie, because she did not want Lucy to frame her within the context of the Fang family. But now, Lucy standing less than ten feet away from her, Annie found that she did not care, was happy that Lucy had come. Then, as if she could read Annie’s mind, Lucy walked over to her and said, “You haven’t moved since I got here. I keep thinking you’re doing some kind of performance piece here. You’re a living statue or something.” Annie shook her head. “I’m just being still,” Annie said. “I’m just thinking.”

“Can I ask you something?” Lucy asked her, and Annie nodded. “Buster said that the two of you are waiting for your parents, that you think they’ll show up tonight,” Lucy continued.