The Family Fang: A Novel by Kevin Wilson Page A

before she remembered Sally’s warning, almost told him to go fuck himself, showing up late, watching her in an unguarded moment. Then she composed herself, let her breathing regulate, and became not herself.
    “Impressive, right?” she asked, smiling, wagging the mallet like some obscene instrument.
    “Very much so. I’ve already got the opening paragraph of the article,” he replied. “Want to hear it?”
    Annie could not think of a thing she would want less. “I’ll wait for the issue like everyone else,” she said.
    “Fair enough,” he said, “but it’s really good.”
    “Let’s get some more quarters,” Annie said, and began to walk away. Eric knelt down and tore the strip of tickets that had emanated from the game, an afterthought.
    “Don’t forget these,” he said.
    “Maybe I’ll win you a teddy bear,” Annie said, sliding the tickets into her purse.
    “That would be the best article ever.”
    O n one of her first interviews for The Powers That Be, the blockbuster comic book adaptation where she played Lady Lightning, a reporter asked her if she had been a fan of comic books growing up. “I’ve never read a comic book in my life,” she responded. The reporter screwed up his face and then shook his head. “I’m going to write down that you loved comics as a girl. You were kind of a geek growing up. Is that okay?” he asked. Annie, stunned, simply nodded her assent, and the rest of the interview proceeded in that manner. He would ask questions that she would answer, and then she would listen to the reporter tell her what her response would actually be. It had been the worst interview of her entire career, but, fifty, sixty, seventy more interviews for the movie, the same questions, no one seeming to have actually seen the movie or ever heard of her, she longed for the simplicity and ease of that earlier interview.
    F or the next twenty minutes, Annie proceeded to kick the shit out of this Esquire guy on a game called Fatal Flying Guillotine III . Having never played the first two installments, Annie merely punched the buttons in whatever random patterns came to her and watched the almost miraculous way her character, a giant half-bear, half-man wearing a kilt, responded to the instructions with such ferocity that there was nothing for Eric to do but watch his character, a tiny Japanese woman dressed as a Las Vegas showgirl, get mauled to death. “You’re pretty awesome at this game,” he said. She continued to pound his character into the ground. “I think, actually, that you just really suck,” she answered, never once looking away from the screen, finding pleasure in the way her unfocused desires became crystalline and perfect in front of her eyes. “No,” he replied, jamming the buttons, gripping the joystick so tightly it disappeared in his hand, “I’m actually really good at this.” The Scottish bear lifted the showgirl into the air, spun around three times, and slammed her headfirst into the ground, creating a small hole in the earth. “Could have fooled me,” she said.
    They plunked more quarters into the machine, and Eric chose a badass Bruce Lee–like character who was, at all times, on fire. Annie stuck with her bear-man. Just before the first round began, Eric asked, “Do you want to talk about Sisters, Lovers ?” Annie froze, just long enough for Eric’s character to land three quick roundhouse kicks, singeing her bear’s fur. “I suppose we have to, don’t we?” she said. By the end of the first round, her character was laid out on the ground, smoldering.
    “How about this,” he said. “If I win this match, you tell me about the nudity incident on the set.”
    Annie watched the two combatants, bouncing on the balls of their feet, eager for contact, as the game counted down for the next round to begin. She considered the offer. Sally would prefer that she let it die, pretend it didn’t really happen, but Annie felt a slight satisfaction at the opportunity