The Family Fang - Kevin Wilson [82]
She started to walk down the hallway, which led to more rooms, when she heard her brother say, “Um, Annie?” She turned toward the kitchen, the sliding glass door open, and saw Buster, his posture very erect, his eyes wide open, and then she heard a voice from behind her brother. “Don’t move, honey, or I put a hole in your boyfriend here.” She then noticed Hobart Waxman, bent by age, standing behind Buster, one hand gripping the back of her brother’s neck. “So, Annie, he has a gun,” Buster said. This, Annie decided, was most certainly like a movie. She felt a panic begin to take over because she had seen this kind of movie before and it usually ended with unpleasantness, a struggle for a gun, an accidental discharge, police sirens in the background. “Hobart?” Annie said, and the old man peeked around Buster and squinted at Annie. “Wait,” Hobart said, relaxing his grip on Buster’s neck, “is that Annie Fang?”
“It is, Hobart,” Annie said.
“So is this Buster?” Hobart asked. Buster and Annie both nodded.
“Oh, hell,” Hobart said.
“Could you put away the gun?” Annie asked.
“I don’t have a gun,” Hobart said. “It’s just my hand jammed up against his back.” He held up his hand, wriggling his fingers.
“It felt like a gun,” Buster said. “You roughed me up a little.”
“I did no such thing,” Hobart said.
“I’m sorry, Hobart,” said Annie, as the two men walked into the living room. Hobart dismissed her embarrassment with a wave of his hand, embraced her, and then gave her a kiss. “I haven’t seen you since you were a baby,” he said. He turned to Buster and then said, “She was the most beautiful child I’d ever seen.” Buster nodded, smiling, at Hobart, and then began to back away into the hallway. “Well,” he said to Hobart, “while you and Annie talk, I’m going to use the restroom.” Buster then, as he turned away from Hobart’s gaze, winked at Annie and brought a finger to his lips as if to quiet her. Annie grabbed him as he passed her, pulling him back into the kitchen, her grip tight on his arm. “Okay,” Buster said, still broadly smiling, “I’ll go later.”
“I saw you in that movie,” Hobart said, pointing at Annie. “The one where you play a librarian who gets mixed up with skinheads.”
“Date Due,” Annie replied.
“That’s it,” Hobart said, clapping his hands together.
“She got nominated for an Oscar for that,” Buster said.
“She should have won,” Hobart added.
“Thank you,” Annie answered, blushing.
“And this one,” Hobart said, gesturing toward Buster. “I read your wonderful book about the couple who adopts those feral children. I’m terrible with titles.”
“A House of Swans,” Buster said.
“He won the Golden Quill for that,” Annie said.
“I saw you wrote another book but the reviews were not very good and so I didn’t get around to reading it.”
The color went out of Buster’s face, but he recovered, smiling, and shrugged. “You didn’t miss much,” he replied.
“It’s even better than the first book,” Annie offered.
“Well, now that I’ve finally met you, I’ll read it,” Hobart said.
“You’re probably wondering why we’re here,” Annie said, getting things back on track.
“I heard about your parents, of course, so I imagine you want to talk to me about them,” Hobart said.
Buster and Annie nodded.
“What would you like to know?” he asked them.
“Where are they?” Annie said.
“What?” Hobart asked, confused, the smile fading from his face.
“Where are our parents?” the Fang children asked in unison, inching closer to Hobart.
Hobart sighed deeply and then pointed toward the living room and said, “Let’s sit down and talk.”
Hobart took nearly five minutes to find a comfortable sitting position on his George