The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [110]
“But you don’t know?” Lucy asked. “I mean, they didn’t tell you this?”
Annie shook her head. Lucy’s eyes widened, her lip twitched in a manner that suggested either a smile or a frown that had been quickly abandoned. It seemed like Lucy wanted to say something more, but was keeping herself from saying. So Annie said what she thought Lucy wanted to say. “I know that sounds crazy,” she admitted.
“Honestly, for Caleb and Camille Fang, it does not sound crazy,” Lucy replied. She then looked around the room, as if checking to ensure that the Fang parents were indeed not in the gallery, and then she said, “It seems like some heavy stuff is going on. Should I go? I think maybe you and Buster need to be alone.”
“You can stay,” Annie said. She looked down and noticed that she was holding another glass of wine. It was as if her hands were performing magic without her knowledge or consent. “Please stay,” she said, not flinching even though she heard the desperation in her voice, her hope that Lucy might stay overriding her own embarrassment. When Lucy nodded her assent, Annie felt the strength necessary to move, and handed her glass to Lucy. “I have to use the bathroom, but I’ll be right back.”
As she walked toward the restrooms, she noticed that the crowd was beginning to thin out, that the opening had reached the point where there would be no more people to replace those who would depart. It was a critical point, knowing that someone in the gallery was the last person to arrive. Besides her parents, she reminded herself. Just before she made it to the restroom door, Chip Pringle grabbed her arm, offering the slightest bit of resistance, as if reversing her orbit, and he said, “Still no sign of them. I don’t want to ruin the element of surprise, but do you have an idea of when they might be here? Is that something you can tell me?”
“Soon,” Annie said, instantly regretting having said it. She began to correct herself and then decided to let it stand. It seemed like the truest statement she could make, truer even than “I don’t know,” or “they probably aren’t coming,” or “they’re already here.” She freed herself from his grip, not even looking to see how he processed her comment, and pushed her way into the restroom, forgetting, for a few moments, what she was doing in there, what in the world she was doing.
When she returned to the gallery, Lucy was still standing in her spot, Annie’s glass of wine now empty. Buster intercepted Annie before she made it back to her post.
“I’m worried,” he told her.
“Don’t be,” Annie said.
“Worried isn’t the right word, maybe,” Buster continued. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be,” she said again. “Either one of those things, don’t be.”
“I don’t think they’re coming,” Buster admitted. He seemed to be shrinking inside the suit.
“They operate on the element of surprise,” Annie said. “They won’t show up until we think they won’t show up.”
Buster nodded, convinced of the logic, and it made Annie want to scream, the understanding that their parents had done so much weird shit to them that it seemed plausible that Caleb and Camille could read their minds. She could feel her anger, which lived so easily inside of her, become ragged and unstable, working its way into her blood and her muscles. She knew there was little remedy except to hold on to the anger, keep it from spilling over, until it could be properly unleashed, directed toward those who deserved it, those who were, goddamn, still not fucking here.
Annie walked over to Lucy, who moved just a few inches to allow Annie to reclaim her spot. “What’s your favorite one?” Lucy asked, her neck craning to stare at one of the paintings over her right shoulder.
“None of them,” Annie responded. She wished she had a glass of wine and when she found that there was not one in her hand, she felt an intense