The Family Fang: A Novel (32 page)

“Can I ask you something?” she said. Buster was open to any question from her. “Do you think you made the right decision with Suzanne?”

“That seems like a strange question to be asking me,” Buster answered.

“I just mean, at first, didn’t it seem like a crazy thing to do? Because you hardly knew her? Because you are who you are? Because of just about everything that came before this?”

“Actually, it seemed like a good idea, but I was terrified of it. I feel like I’ve always done things that were profoundly bad ideas, and it’s always ended exactly how you’d expect. That comes from Mom and Dad, I think. With the art, they pushed us into circumstances that we already knew were bad ideas. That was the whole point. So they taught us to walk straight into that bad idea, whether or not you really wanted to do it.”

“You make it seem like, regardless of whether it’s a good or bad idea, you’ll be terrified when it happens,” Annie said. “The only difference is what comes after.”

“I guess so,” Buster admitted. “I don’t know what I’m talking about, though. I’ve written a novel about kids beating each other into comas with the broken-off end of a rake. I have poor instincts.”

“I think Lucy is in love with me,” Annie said.

“I see,” Buster responded and then remained quiet for a few seconds. “So this is why you asked me about Suzanne? You’re interested in a possibly successful case study involving Fang romance?”

“I guess.”

“Are you a lesbian?” Buster asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know.” She thought about how she had categorized her experience with Minda Laughton as an unqualified disaster, including the decision to be with another woman. But Minda did not seem like a worthy representative of the lesbian experience. Her psychosis excluded her from the sample study.

“It seems like maybe you should figure that out before you have sex with your director.”

“I guess. I don’t know.”

“She is pretty cool though,” Buster admitted. “And she’s pretty.”

“What do you think I’m going to do?” she asked him.

“Whatever it is,” he answered, “I think you’ll be terrified when it happens. Don’t let that stop you.”

I
t was freezing cold, snow swirling in the air, and Annie and the four children stood in front of a space heater in their trailer, holding on to each other for warmth, to prepare themselves for their final, reckless act. “I really like you, Annie,” Jake said. “I wish this movie wasn’t almost over. I’ll have to go back to school and the teachers won’t be as much fun as you are.” Isabel was starting to cry, and Annie stroked her hair. “We’re not done yet,” Annie told them. “We still get to do this scene, and it’s going to be amazing.” Isabel rubbed her eyes and considered Annie’s statement. “It is going to be pretty cool,” she admitted.

Because they couldn’t actually set the house on fire, not with their meager budget, Lucy and the DP and the set designer and some of the special effects guys had decided that they would simply build a gigantic bonfire, obscure the action behind a dense, wooded area, and allow for the final shot, of Annie striding along the highway with the children in tow, to still maintain that sense of a massive conflagration, everything that these characters were leaving behind.

One of the crew knocked on the door of the trailer and Annie and the children walked outside, the cold instantly sinking under their skin. The children were juggling dozens of heating packets, their bare feet stuffed inside shoes with so much fur lining it seemed like an animal had been turned inside out. Lucy knelt in front of the children and explained how the shot would work, how they would arrange themselves around Annie. “Remember to stay as close to Annie as you can get,” she told the children. “She is the only person who really loves you and if she slips away from you, there’s nothing else that will save you.” She then leaned against Annie and said, “You just walk away from that fire and don’t look back.”

They could just barely see the pyre from where they were located on the edge of the woods, but Annie and the children strained to watch as the wood, doused in accelerants, was sparked to life, a fireball erupting into the air. They could feel the warmth rush through the trees and blow past them. “Ahhh,” said Caitlin, “that’s nice.” Someone signaled for Annie and she helped the children shuck off their coats, kick away their boots, and when Lucy shouted “Action,” Annie, carrying Caitlin in her arms, the other children grabbing onto Annie’s clothes, emerged from the dense woods and stepped onto the highway. Annie knew there was a fire behind her; she could hear that popping and sizzling of the wood giving up its shape, burning white-hot, turning to ash. She planted her feet, one in front of the other, Caitlin’s arms heavy around her neck, and she guided the children down a road that seemed as though it would go on forever. They walked, staring straight ahead, the wind blowing the snow into their faces, but they did not alter their pace, step by step, away from the fire that threatened to swallow up everything around them.

Over the megaphone, Lucy shouted, “Cut,” and the children immediately broke from Annie and ran toward the warmth of the trailer. Annie stood in the road and watched as Lucy walked quickly toward her, the light of the fire reflected on her face. She stood absolutely still as Lucy, arms outstretched, came closer and closer. Lucy wrapped Annie in a hug and then turned her around to face the fire burning against the tree line. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Lucy asked, her head resting on Annie’s shoulder, and Annie stared at the steady flickering of the flames. She marveled at the chaos that surrounded her, and she did not for even a second fear the conflagration that threatened to overtake her. It was quite beautiful, she admitted, allowing herself to fully take in the sight, perhaps understanding her parents for the first time. She looked into the distance and smiled, held on to Lucy, and watched the fire, which seemed as though it would last forever, that no amount of effort would ever snuff it out.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the following:

Leigh Anne Couch and Griff Fodder-wing Wilson, for being my family.

Julie Barer and Lee Boudreaux, for all of their work in helping me make this book. I cannot imagine the novel without their input and support.

Ann Patchett, for her limitless friendship and for reading early drafts of the book and shifting it toward the places it needed to go.

Mom, Dad, Kristen, and Wes, and the Wilson, Couch, Fuselier, Baltz, Huffman, and James families for their love and kindness.

The Kimmel-Harding Nelson Center and Yaddo, where I wrote portions of this book.

The University of the South and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, for their financial support during the writing of this book and the vibrant community this school provides.

Ecco, especially Abby Holstein, for all their work in getting this book out to the world.

All of my friends, especially Padgett Powell, Leah Stewart, Cecily Parks, Sam Esquith, Bryan Smith, and Caki Wilkinson.

About the Author

K
EVIN
W
ILSON
is the author of the story collection
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
(Ecco/HarperPerennial, 2009), which received an Alex Award from the American Library Association and the Shirley Jackson Award. His fiction has appeared in
Ploughshares, Tin House, One Story, The Cincinnati Review,
and elsewhere, and has appeared in four volumes of the
New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best
anthology. He has received fellowships from the Mac-Dowell Colony, Yaddo, and the KHN Center for the Arts. He lives in Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife, the poet Leigh Anne Couch, and his son, Griff, where he teaches fiction at the University of the South and helps run the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

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Also by Kevin Wilson

Tunneling to the Center of the Earth

Credits

Cover design by Allison Saltzman

Cover illustration by Julie Morstad

Cover photograph of frame and wall © by Getty Images

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE FAMILY FANG
. Copyright © 2011 by Kevin Wilson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ISBN 978-0-06-157903-5

EPub Edition © AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 9780062092519

FIRST EDITION

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