The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [63]
She was, for the foreseeable future, unemployed. She had lost her role in one of the biggest blockbuster series in movie history. Her tits were on the Internet. She had slept with a reporter. Her ex-boyfriend, who was fast becoming one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, probably did not care for her right now. Buster whistled when she finally finished reciting the particulars of her unpleasant situation. “Not bad,” he said. “Thank you,” she replied.
She thought about it for a second, staring at the table. Okay, she would get some supporting roles in smaller movies, focus on the quality of the script. Or better, yes even better, she would go back to theater. She would do a Tennessee Williams play Off-Broadway for a month or two, get back into fighting shape, and see what came next. Her tits, oh well, nothing to be done about that. She’d just be a little more careful in the future. A lesson learned. “Don’t worry about the magazine writer,” Buster offered. “Nobody cares about freelance writers, trust me.” Annie nodded. As far as questionable people to fuck, she’d done okay, nothing she couldn’t recover from. Same with Daniel, just a bad decision that she’d outlive. The point, she realized, was that, yes, she had made some substantial mistakes, as evidenced by the fact that she was living with her parents, but she could handle it. She could take the things that were broken and, if not put them back together, get rid of them with a minimum of unpleasantness.
Then there was the small matter of their drug and alcohol dependencies. “How about this,” Buster offered. “No pain pills unless I absolutely need them, and no alcohol for you until after five P.M.” Annie thought about this for a few seconds. Yes, she decided. That was sound reasoning. “What next?” Annie thought. Though it was only talk, nothing yet having been accomplished, she felt better, stronger, faster. And she was not drunk. “This,” she thought, “could work.”
If an agenda had been prepared for this morning’s meeting, they would be checking off the bulleted points headlined Buster’s problems and Annie’s problems. Annie began to rise from the table, ready to turn her words into actions, when Buster gestured for her to sit back down.
“I was thinking about Mom and Dad,” Buster continued. Annie had not been thinking about them, not even a little bit, but she let Buster go on talking. “I know they, whatever, fucked us up beyond belief, but they are letting us stay here. They’re taking care of us, as well as they can.” Annie could not disagree. Her parents had indeed fucked them up. They were indeed letting them live in their house. “So,” Buster said, “whatever project they have planned next, I think we should take part.” Annie shook her head. “We’re trying to get better, Buster,” she said. Buster, always so sweet, always trying to be good, frowned. “Our participation in what Caleb and Camille do is bad for us,” she continued, the muscles in her hands tightening like a spasm. She felt herself growing angry and then made a conscious effort to control it before she went on. “It’s toxic. It turns us into children again, the way they just use us for what they want, and we’ve spent this whole morning trying to figure out a way past that.”
“You saw that Chicken Queen fiasco,” he said. “We could have helped them. We could make sure whatever they do next actually works. We’d only do it once, to get them back on their feet, and then we’d never do it again.” Annie was not ready to commit to this, inserting herself into the craziness of her parents’ desires, but she could not forget how feeble Caleb and Camille seemed at the mall, how ridiculous their efforts