The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [36]
Annie, no stranger to disappointment, felt the hope break down inside her body and disperse without any lingering effects. “I know,” she said and then hung up the phone.
“What did they want?” Mr. Fang asked when Annie returned to the dinner table. Annie speared a piece of broccoli and chewed it slowly, then took a long sip of water.
“Movie stuff,” Annie said. “No big deal.”
Mrs. Fang said, “Well, it sounded like a big deal when you yelled at me.”
“It’s nothing,” Annie said.
“Annie Fang, Oscar-winning actress,” Mr. Fang said.
“Don’t say that,” Annie said.
Buster, his plate empty, pushed away from the table and said, “Sometimes I think my heart is in my tummy.”
Annie threw her glass at him. It missed his head by inches and shattered against the wall, and Annie ran out of the kitchen, locking herself in her bedroom. That night, she watched a video of Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage. In the scene where Davis berates the clubfooted medical student who loves her, Annie paused the movie and then stared into the mirror and screamed, “You cad! You dirty swine! I never cared for you—not once.” She continued the monologue, slowly backing away from the mirror, getting smaller, retreating from view, and then she suddenly rushed toward her own reflection, screaming, “And after you kissed me, I always used to wipe my mouth. WIPE MY MOUTH!”
The other Fangs, listening to punk rock in the living room, simply turned up the volume and pretended not to notice.
Six months later, Knives Out received a limited, almost nonexistent release. The few reviews it garnered offered mild praise; there were no mentions of Annie’s performance. Nevertheless, when the Fangs found a theater in Atlanta that was showing the movie, Annie could not contain her excitement. “You’re going to be so proud of me,” Annie told her parents.
She had not allowed Mr. or Mrs. Fang to accompany her during the filming of her scenes. They had stayed behind in the motel and, once the few scenes had been shot, each only a single take to save film for more important scenes, she answered their questions with shrugs and one-word answers. The Fangs had assumed she had lost interest in acting and did not press her. However, her vibrating happiness in the car, on their way to the only theater showing the film within a three-hundred-mile radius, the Fangs wondered how much they were going to have to lie to make their daughter believe the movie was any good.
They bought popcorn and candy and sodas and settled into their seats in the sparsely populated theater. Once the lights died down and the film began to snap into coherence, the theme song for the movie played over the speakers. A twangy voice sang,
What I’m selling, you ain’t buying.
My debts are multiplying.
Got my knives out, stainless steel.
I’ll find a way to make a deal.
“Oh, dear Lord,” Mr. Fang said and Mrs. Fang pinched the hell out of his arm.
The movie proceeded with little to recommend it, a man with a trunk full of steak knives, his gambling debts weighing on him, driving down long, unwinding highways.
An hour into the movie, Buster had successfully fit thirty-nine Raisinettes in his mouth. He pointed to his distended cheeks but Annie would not look over at him. She continued to stare at the screen, smiling, her knees bouncing. Buster shrugged and, one by one, spit the raisins back into the box. Donald Ray sliced his hand open with a knife during a demonstration in a drunk woman’s house and the splash of blood kept the Fangs from nodding off. The movie was so low-budget, Mr. Fang wondered if the actor who played Donald Ray had actually cut open his hand for the scene. He felt his estimation of the actor rise considerably.
“Here it comes,” Annie whispered, turning to her parents. “This is me.” Donald Ray, his hand wrapped in a makeshift bandage, picked up the hotel phone and made a collect call to his family back in Little Rock. As the phone rang, tinny and soft in the receiver, the film jumped