Little Known Facts: A Novel (24 page)

We let the food congeal on her kitchen table and had to reheat it when we finally ate at midnight, the witching hour, and I should have been home alone in my bed, sleeping the sleep of the innocent, but this wasn’t who I was and hadn’t been for many years.

I didn’t leave her place until almost three a.m. She wanted me to stay, but I knew that in the morning we would feel uncomfortable and have a hard time looking at each other, the realization that we had done something dishonorable, or rather, that
I
had done something dishonorable, rushing toward us with the usual destructive speed of regret.

Before I left, I asked her about the German movie, not sure why we hadn’t talked much about it earlier—mutual nervous preoccupation, I suppose. “What did you think of
The Black Forest?”

“It made me cry,” she said softly. “I loved it.”

“I’m glad you felt that way. I did too.”

At the door of her apartment, after kissing her good-bye for a long time, I said, “I’ll call you, Danielle.”

I meant it, but I wasn’t sure how or if it would be possible. “Good,” she said. “Because I really want you to.”

Something I’m sure of: you do not know yourself as well as you think you do. Along with the J2 entry about the slipup with Danielle, one of the other entries I’d recently made had to do with the resurfacing of a fixation that I’d hoped had been eradicated with the help of my shrink.

When Billy was still in college and flew over to India to help me work on a shoot, I had a dream that he wasn’t my son, and it was so vivid, I felt that it might be true. I also thought that maybe our often-rocky relationship was due to the fact he wasn’t actually my flesh and blood. Even though we do look a bit alike, I was almost convinced that he had been switched in the hospital nursery by some absent-minded nurse, or maybe Lucy had screwed around on me and had had some other guy’s child, but the former seemed more likely than the latter because Lucy was not the type. When I asked Isis what the truth was, she claimed that the messages were mixed—some of her spirit consultants said that Billy was my son, others said that he wasn’t.

When I got home from India, I got hold of Billy’s baby book and removed the piece of his umbilical cord and put it in an envelope that I planned to take to a lab where my own DNA sample would be taken and Billy’s paternity would be determined once and for all. It wasn’t too hard to find a discreet lab to work with (in fact, I was surprised by how many labs offered paternity tests—not exactly reassuring), but when I was on my way there, a UPS driver rear-ended me while I was waiting at a stoplight, and it seemed that this was God’s or some other big spirit’s way of telling me that I was being a huge asshole.

Yet ever since all of the bullshit with Billy in New Orleans last fall, I have been thinking that maybe I
should
take his umbilical cord to the lab and determine once and for all if I really am his father. If I’m not, I might sever ties with him (Lucy would never speak to me again though, I’m sure). I’d be able to stop pretending that everything between Billy and me is fine. He could keep his trust fund, and I would do my best to step out of his life. It might even be a relief to him. It’s quite probable that it would be.

I went on with these thoughts in J2 for a number of pages, but the conclusion I finally came to was that it doesn’t matter in the end if he’s my biological son or not because I have raised him as if he were. Based on this alone, he is my son.

This young guy I know from Sony who was in a class or two with Billy at UCLA—a nice enough kid, I thought, before I caught him in my dressing room several months ago, about to lift my sunglasses—somehow found the balls to ask if I’d let him interview me for a documentary he hopes to make about me and a couple of other actors who have worked with foreign directors. He said he wants to look at some of the differences between our American and foreign roles and make the argument that Europeans are less afraid of progressive tactics like continuous takes and extreme close-ups and allowing actors to write their own lines like Mike Leigh does (but only after a lot of discussion with his cast about each scene’s goals), and Europeans also focus a lot more on character than plot. Hardly a revolutionary argument, but I was curious about what this kid would come up with and I told him that I’d give him the interview if he let me approve how he used my footage.

We taped the interview up at the Griffith Observatory, early in the morning before it got too hot and too many people showed up to walk the trails. I go there to run or hike sometimes, with George, my driver, joining me if I browbeat him enough because he spends too much time sitting when he’s on the clock. I planned to get in a run after the interview if it wasn’t too warm of a day. The kid, Jim Marion, was so nervous and grateful that I actually showed up that I almost had to laugh. I didn’t mention the day I caught him in my dressing room because we didn’t need to revisit that scene, and when he started to bring it up, I held up my hand and said, “Stop. Ancient history.”

“I just wanted to say that I know how it must have looked. I really was—”

“Jim, like I said, ancient history. Ask me your first question.”

“Okay,” he said, pressing a button on his little handheld camera. “How was it, working with Jean-Pierre Jeunet? I heard that you were just over in France acting in his new film.”

“It was a lot of fun,” I said. It really was. As with
Amélie,
Jeunet filmed more than half of
The Hypnotist
in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris where he lives with his American wife, who is a film editor. Every morning while I was there, all the mornings I’ve ever been there, probably, I had a delicious café au lait and a chocolate croissant that the hotel brought in from the bakery next door. So many things are made or designed with such patience and care over there. I love all of the sounds in the streets too—the motorbikes that whine like wasps; the people calling to each other in mellifluous French, laughter often following; the way high heels clack against the old cobblestones. French women take good care of themselves and dress very stylishly; they also have an attractive briskness about them that most American women do not. There was always something or someone beautiful to look at. I just wish that I could speak more and better French.

“Can you tell me a little bit about his process?”

There were a few yellow jackets buzzing around us, but I tried to ignore them, sure they would follow us if we moved. “Jeunet is a perfectionist, but he was polite when I wasn’t doing exactly what he wanted me to. We had to do a lot of takes for several of my scenes, but he was so precise about what he wanted from everyone that I didn’t really mind. I’m sure I learned some things that I’ll use again.”

“Which foreign director have you liked working with the most?”

“They’ve all been great in their own ways. I don’t play favorites, so please don’t ask me to name any.”

Jim waved away a yellow jacket, which made me nervous. I had a feeling that one of us was going to get stung. “What about Polanski?” he asked. “What was it like working with him?”

“He’s very professional, very smart and funny too.”

“What did you think about what happened with that girl he allegedly raped and drugged back in the seventies?”

This wasn’t the first time I’d been asked that question. I had my answer ready. “It was unfortunate for him and everyone else involved. He was still recovering from Sharon Tate’s murder and the loss of their unborn child. I’m not saying he should be excused, but he wasn’t behaving in a rational way, and I bet he’d say the same thing if you asked him.”

Jim looked down at a small piece of paper he had in the hand that wasn’t holding the camera. “What do you think are the main differences between foreign and American directors?”

I laughed a little. “That’s a pretty broad question. There are plenty of differences just among American directors, don’t you think? But I suppose one thing is that foreign directors don’t usually have enormous budgets like some American directors do, so I think there’s often a little less pressure from their studio and producers to do everything exactly the way the studio bosses say.”

“They have more autonomy?”

“I think some of them do. So if the picture does well, they get most of the credit. If it doesn’t, they also get most of the blame. But that part’s the same as here. When something tanks in the U.S., the director gets the lion’s share of the blame, but it might actually be his producers’ faults more than his own.”

Jim swatted at another yellow jacket. “Can you give me an example?”

I shook my head. “I’d rather not. But I’m sure you can find one if you do a little research.” I paused. “You’d better not get too pushy with that wasp. One of us is going to get stung.”

“I have that disease where you don’t feel any pain.”

I stared at him. “No, you don’t.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” He laughed.

What is this guy’s problem? I wondered, blinking with irritation. I was starting to feel a little warm too. The morning run probably wasn’t going to happen.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sometimes I say things that are supposed to be funny, but no one can tell that I’m joking.”

“Keep trying,” I said. “But only with the people who know you well.”

We talked for a few more minutes, until he’d used up the forty minutes I’d allotted for the interview. To my surprise, neither of us got stung.

When we shook hands in the parking lot, Jim looked at me for a long second and said, “Do you remember when you said to me in your dressing room, ’There’s a reason you’re the person you are and I’m the person I am’?”

Had I really said this? It sounded a little stupid, not to mention self-aggrandizing. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“You did, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wouldn’t be making this documentary if you hadn’t said it to me. I was working at Sony during the day and writing screenplays at night, and feeling this rage over why nothing was happening for me.”

“And because I said those words to you, you changed your life?”

“Yes, I did.”

I regarded him, not sure if he was making fun of me in some backhanded way. “Well, that’s good, I guess. I hope it works out for you the way you hope.”

“You’re a good person, Mr. Ivins,” he said, very solemn.

I shook my head. What was he going to try to sell me? “I doubt it,” I said.

“Everyone I know who works with you thinks so.”

I studied his face, his earnestness making me pause. “I’m sure that’s not the case.”

“You are a good person, Mr. Ivins. You wouldn’t have done this interview if you weren’t.”

You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t a good person.
That “here” can be both literal and figurative. Have I made my career solely by showing up when and where I said that I would? Because that’s definitely a big part of what determines a person’s success. If you make a promise, you keep it. The trick is not to make the promises you can see yourself breaking. At least professionally, if not personally.

In France I kept thinking about the night I’d spent with Danielle, and when I finally called her about a week after I got to Paris, she sounded so happy that she almost started crying, or maybe she was crying but trying to hide it. I felt uncomfortable, hearing her small, girlish voice, the hope in it almost unbearable. “When are you coming back?” she asked.

“Probably in about two weeks.”

“Can you come see me?”

There was static on the line, the normally clear transatlantic connection failing us. “I’d like to,” I said, “but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to.”

“I could come to you.”

“No, it’d be better if I went to your place, if we do see each other. I’ll call you when I get back to L.A.”

“I haven’t told anyone what happened.”

“I don’t think it would be a good idea if you did.”

“I’ve had a crush on you since I was twelve.”

“Well,” I said, looking up at the stucco ceiling of my hotel room. “You’re sweet to say that.”

“The whole time I was with Will, I wanted to be with you instead.”

I think I winced when she said this. But something in me also unfurled. It might have been relief or maybe even exultation. “I’ll try to call you when I get back.”

I told her then that I had to go, and she was quiet for a second before she said, “Are you still with Elise Connor?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated. “It would be okay if you saw us both. I think I could live with that.”

“Danielle, I’m sorry, but I have to go now.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Good-bye,” I said.

I waited a few seconds, but she didn’t say anything. Finally, I hung up.

Isis has mimicked Jim Marion’s phrase but has applied it to Danielle: she is, apparently, a good person too. She is not someone I should mess with unless I have serious intentions. I know this, but I do not know what I am going to do. About Elise, Isis has said that there is great potential for us, but it might not be in this life. I have tried to ignore this prognostication, and after she made it, I didn’t talk to her for several weeks. But it won’t go away; like the thought of my death, it burns in my private heart with a tiny, brutalizing flame.

All summer and part of the fall now too, my daughter has been having an affair with a married man. He is one of the attending physicians at the UCLA Medical Center where she’s doing her internship. I know this because she invited me to join them for dinner at her house, and I brought Elise along, not knowing at first what I was getting us into. Anna tried to pass off the doctor as a friend, but there was such a strange and powerful undercurrent between them all night that I knew there had to be more to the story, and of course there was. She seems to be taking this affair very seriously too, probably, in part, because it is her first, and because it is in her nature to take such things seriously.

All during dinner, I could see her affection for this guy on her glowing face—new and carnal love, the kind that makes it difficult to sleep, but that doesn’t really matter because your body is releasing so many endorphins and so much adrenaline that you don’t need a lot of rest. But maybe what troubled me more than her modified state was that the doctor, Tom Glass, didn’t look much better off, even though he was wearing his wedding ring, brazen as the one rooster in the henhouse. My stomach dropped to my feet when I noticed it because at first I thought maybe he and Anna had eloped, but when I saw that she wasn’t also wearing a ring, I figured out pretty quickly why this was the case.