The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [72]
Statue in hand, he walked to the register and placed the item on the counter. “Oh, wonderful choice,” the woman said. “Actually,” Caleb interjected, “I’m returning this. My wife bought it earlier, along with several other items, and we realized that this particular piece didn’t fit with the décor of the intended recipient. We’d like a refund.” He produced the receipt and pointed to the price of the statue. “It is a lovely piece, though,” he added, his open palm waiting for the money.
The elf paid, Caleb carefully opened the commemorative photo frame and stared at his daughter’s bottomless well of a mouth, her eyes pinched shut, the sound of her screams seeming to blur the space around her body. It was beautiful. It was chaotic and shocking and reverberated long after the Fangs had left Santa Land. It was, Caleb realized, talking so quickly that Camille almost couldn’t understand him, art.
“It’s perfect,” Caleb explained, Camille growing more and more interested as she allowed herself to consider the proposal. They sat in the food court and scribbled on napkins, Annie bouncing happily on Camille’s knee, the incident seemingly forgotten.
“The wedding project failed because we were dealing with people accustomed to marriage and then we went right ahead and got married.”
“We should have decided not to get married at the last second,” Camille offered.
“Right, something that would surprise them, create a disorienting effect that we could harness. There was so much wasted potential.”
“And there weren’t enough people to create the kind of event that we’re talking about in a little wedding chapel.”
“Malls are perfect. Aside from college campuses and sporting events, where do you find this many people? And a mall has the most diverse makeup. You have a bunch of people, hypnotized by all this material consumption, stuck inside a big maze of a building that throws off their equilibrium.”
“This could be good,” Camille said.
“We need the Super 8 camera though,” Caleb said. He then pointed to the photo on the table. “We have to capture not just the initial moment but the resulting fallout and the three-hundred-and-sixty-degree effect of the event.”
“But who’s to say that she’ll do it again?” Camille posited. She paused for a few moments, considering the ramifications of what they were discussing, and then said, “And who’s to say that we should make her do it again?”
“What?”
“Caleb, we placed our child in a situation that turned her into an earthquake.”
Caleb stared at Camille as if waiting for her to finish her argument. Stunned that she had to continue, she said, as patiently as she possibly could, “She was terrified of Santa Claus. And we were the ones who put her in the fat man’s lap. That seems like the makings of a long-term psychological problem.”
“Do you know how resilient kids are? When my cousin Jeffrey was three, he was chased by a pack of wild dogs and ended up falling into a well and was stuck there for three days. Now he sells vinyl siding. He’s got a wife and kids. I doubt he even remembers it happened.”
“She’s just a baby,” Camille said.
“She’s an artist, just like us; she just doesn’t know it yet.”
“She’s a baby, Caleb.”
“She’s a Fang,” he replied. “That supersedes everything else.”
They both looked at Annie, who was watching them, smiling, a beautiful, glowing, movie star of a baby. Though the Fangs could not be sure, Annie seemed to be saying, “Count me in.”
“There’s another mall fifteen miles away,” Caleb said. He produced the nine dollars and change and put it on the table. “And another mall about an hour from there.”
Camille paused. She loved art, even if she wasn’t always sure what it was. She loved her husband. She loved her baby. Was it so strange to put all of these things together and see what would