Little Known Facts: A Novel (34 page)

Michael, I learned during our first date, had been living in Boulder for the past twenty-five years but had moved back to southern California, to Pasadena, in fact, where I live, a couple of years earlier, and he told me over lemon linguine and an avocado and shrimp salad that he never wanted to leave California again. That’s good, I thought, smiling at him. “Is your ex-wife still in Colorado?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “She’s from there.”

“What about your kids?”

“They’re both still in college. One’s at Rice, the other’s at Colorado State.”

“Then grad school?”

“I’m not sure. If so, they’d better get scholarships. I’m cutting them off after undergrad.” He laughed. “Maybe not, but that’s what I tell them. They’re good kids. I’m lucky.”

“I’m sure they are. Mine are too. Usually.” I smiled. I could not stop smiling.

“Yes, usually,” he murmured, reaching across the table to take my hand. He held it until our waiter came by to ask if we wanted dessert and Michael looked at me and I nodded, smiling again, a little overwarm from the white wine we’d ordered with dinner. He ordered chocolate cake and I asked for raspberry sorbet, which arrived with a small chocolate shortbread cookie; I could have eaten about twenty of them, they were so delicious. When we were done, there was no awkwardness over the check, and watching him remove a credit card from his wallet, I thought, Thank you for coming back into my life. Please let this be easy.

On our way back to his car, he asked if I felt like driving over to the Santa Monica pier, and I said yes, surprised by his suggestion. I hadn’t been there since Anna and Billy were kids, and when Michael and I made our way from his car to the entrance, I realized that I was glad to be there again, among the shy teenagers on first dates, the adults milling around with their small children, and the workers, some cheerful, some weary, who manned the carnival games and called out to passersby. Michael steered me out to the end of the pier, and after a couple of minutes of staring at the waves, he put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close because I was shivering through my thin coat. I felt him hesitating, but after a few seconds, he kissed me. We kept kissing for what must have been a long time, as if we too were teenagers, and in a way we were, this being our first date, and the giddy, nervous feelings no different for us than they would have been if we were still sixteen. When he pulled his face away from mine, it looked flushed, and I thought, I can take him home with me. I can take this man into my bed and he can spend the night and we don’t have to worry about our parents or anyone else finding out.

He drove me home after we kissed at the end of the pier for a little while longer, a chilly breeze off the Pacific eventually forcing us back to his car, where he kissed me again before taking us to my house. I had put clean sheets on the bed before he picked me up that evening, thinking that it was unlikely anything would happen, not so soon, but I knew now that I must have been thinking all along about inviting him inside, and I was almost faint with the suspense of it all. I wondered if I should say something about my expectations, but I wasn’t sure what they were. All I knew at that moment was that I wanted him, and he seemed to want me too. He gave me a shy, expectant look when he pulled into my driveway and I put my hand on his arm and said, “Turn off the car and come inside.”

I could almost feel him breathing behind me as we walked into the house, and I felt then that he was going to be good, and let me say this: he was. He really was.

We didn’t bother with the lights; I turned around to look at his face and he put his arms around me and right away I could feel him pressing against my stomach. I already thought that I might love him. This probably sounds a little ridiculous, but it is nonetheless true. The truth is, when we were in college I had had a crush on him too, but I loved Renn by that time and didn’t want to run around on him because this has never been my nature and I also felt that I might be imagining Michael’s interest. Or that he would stop liking me once I made myself available to him because he would think I was a floozy for cheating on Renn.

That first night Michael stayed with me, it had been almost two years since I’d had sex with anyone, not the longest I’ve gone without companionship since the divorce, but close. He told me that it had been a while for him too, but he didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask. He stayed until the morning, when I had to go to the clinic and see patients until one o’clock, and before I had finished my appointments for the day, he had already called to thank me for a “wonderful night.” He wondered if I’d be free again that evening, “if you’re not too sick of me,” he said, laughing self-consciously, and I called him back as soon as I got out to the parking lot and told him yes, he could come over around six and I would make dinner for him.

The fears that assailed me before we went out on that first Friday night: that our date would not turn out well, that too many years had passed since we had last known each other and we were now too different from who we had been in college, that we were nothing more than two lonely, aging people desperately trying to relive the happier days of early adulthood, when all possibilities were still open to us, seemed to be, to my profound relief and joy, unfounded. We might have looked older and weighed a little more and also been veterans of one failed marriage each, but his essential kindness, his sense of humor, his generosity and willingness to laugh, were still intact. I felt like he had been dropped out of the sky by some benevolent djinn.

But it worried me to feel so happy. If you’re used to nothing much happening, except for minor crises and disappointments, it’s hard not to be suspicious of your sudden good fortune.

When I eventually told Michael that I was going to Paris in a few weeks to see my son, he asked haltingly if I might let him . . . well, if he might be able to join me? He didn’t have to tag along with me the whole time if I didn’t want him to, but he hadn’t taken a vacation in a year and a half and he hadn’t been to Paris in many years, and what a romantic city it was. What did I think?

“Yes,” I said without a second’s hesitation. I had been hoping that he would ask because I hadn’t yet worked up the nerve to invite him myself. We had only been seeing each other for two weeks when I brought it up, and though we had spent about ten nights together during those two weeks, I worried that I might be rushing things by asking him to join me on a vacation all the way across the continent, on the other side of the Atlantic. When I confessed this to him, he said, “Don’t be silly, Lucy. You’re a grown woman and I’m a grown man. We can do whatever we want. I want to go, if you really don’t mind.”

“Of course I want you to come. I just wasn’t sure if I should ask.”

“You should always ask for what you want,” he said. “No one can read your mind.”

“No, I suppose not.”

I called Billy the next day to tell him that I was bringing a friend with me to France, and he seemed genuinely curious. “A boyfriend?” he asked.

“A man friend,” I said.

“Really? That’s nice.” He paused. “You’re not planning on staying with me, are you?”

I laughed a little, grateful, I suppose, for his directness. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“If you want to, you could, but the second bedroom is about the size of a large coat closet, so you’d definitely be better off staying at a hotel.”

“Billy, we’ve already made reservations at George V.”

“Damn. Who’s paying?”

“I think we’ll probably split it.”

“Is this guy after you for your money, like that loser from a couple of years ago?”

“Michael has his own money.” He seemed to, but I wasn’t sure if it came from his law practice because half of his cases were pro bono and I don’t think the paying cases were likely to make too many people rich. He had alluded to some property he owned in Colorado, and I suspected that this was where his money came from. He kept picking up the checks when we went out, and I did not sense any nervousness on his end when the servers delivered these checks, some of them easily more than I spent on a week’s worth of groceries, to our table, like I had with other men who did not want to pay or were worried that they couldn’t afford to pay. His house was near the Rose Bowl and beautiful; he had traveled all over the world and dressed attractively but was not flashy with his wardrobe. If he didn’t have much money, he was doing a stunning job of obscuring this fact.

I did wonder what was wrong with him, though; when it came to love, my cynicism was deeply ingrained. There had to be something. But maybe it would be something I could live with. I hoped that my flaws were ones he could live with too.

“I want to ask you something,” said Billy. “Do you have any idea what’s going on with Dad? He’s not returning my calls. Since he and Elise broke up, we’ve talked only once, and that was before I knew she’d left him. I don’t think Anna has talked to him that much either. Less than she usually does, anyway.”

“I haven’t talked to him in a long time. I called him after the Oscars, but he didn’t call me back. I haven’t tried him again, but I will if you’d like me to.”

“Yeah, if you don’t mind. Maybe he’ll talk to you.”

“I don’t like that he’s not calling you and Anna back.” I tried to keep my voice even, but it rose a little. Renn was such a jerk sometimes.

“Me, I get, but I don’t know why he won’t call Anna,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t your father call you? Because of Elise Connor? Is he thinking that you’re still pining for her?” I knew about this because Anna told me, not Billy. Never Billy. He does not like to talk to me about his love life, especially when something is wrong with it, which seems to be a lot of the time.

He was silent.

“You aren’t, are you?” I said. “God, Billy, I hope not. She’s not—”

“No,” he said, cutting me off. “I’m not pining for her. She’s dating Marek Gilson now, anyway.”

“She is? How do you know?”

“Because she told me. She e-mailed me.”

“Aren’t you happy with your new girlfriend? I thought you were.”

“I am happy. Jorie’s great. You’ll see when you meet her. Everything here’s fine. My screenplay is half done, and I think it’s good. It might even be something I’ll be able to sell, or else I’ll make it myself.”

“You shouldn’t use your own money if you—”

He exhaled. “Mom, don’t worry. That’s still a ways off.”

“What’s its title? Do you have one yet?”

“Yes, but I don’t know if I’ll keep it. Right now it’s called
Little Known Facts.”

“I like that.”

“Thanks. I’m still considering it though.”

“What’s it about? You know I have to ask.”

“To be honest, it’s about me. You, Dad, and Anna too, but I’m disguising everyone and a lot of the things that have happened to us.”

“Oh, I hope so,” I said, taken aback. I shouldn’t have been surprised by this revelation, but I was. I can’t say that I was pleased about it either because, well, my conscience was hardly clear. To state the obvious, Billy and Anna’s formative years were not the most idyllic on record.

“Don’t worry, Mom. You won’t look bad, if people even figure out that it’s about us.”

“I’m sure some of them will,” I said, knowing this was true.

We said good-bye a minute or two later, our conversation almost as worrying as many of the calls we’d had before he left. I did not know what sort of tone he would take in his portrayal of his father and me in
Little Known Facts,
and I could also imagine him frittering away all of his money on a project that would bomb, if he even managed to film the whole thing and find a distributor for it. I wanted to be glad that he was working on something that seemed to fill him with a sense of urgency and purpose, but he knew as well as anyone that the film industry is as mercurial as they come, and even if he did have talent, it wasn’t very likely that he would become a successful filmmaker. Even if his father helped him during every step of the process, there was still no guarantee that Billy would succeed at this new undertaking. And quite a few people would also dismiss him out of hand, saying that he was simply another example of a child riding a famous parent’s coattails.

I have never been very graceful about stepping back and letting my children make their own mistakes. Why watch them fail, I’ve always thought, when I can do something to help them succeed instead?

The answers the pop psychologists give us: because failure builds character. Because it teaches humility and discipline and gratitude for whatever successes a person might eventually achieve. Because it is the right thing to do.

Yes, I suppose so. Most of the time I have forced myself to let my children make their own mistakes. Or else they have insisted on making them, ignoring my advice. Billy more than Anna. Billy about ninety percent more than Anna, if truth be told.

Along with my unease over his screenplay, there was also his father’s silence. Renn had to be up to something. I called him a little while after Billy and I got off the phone. He didn’t answer. It feels sometimes like I am always on the phone or thinking about being on the phone or trying to ignore the ringing phone. It is much worse for my ex-husband, who has two or three cell phones and a landline, and his agent, personal assistant, and publicist also taking calls for him. I kept trying him until he picked up, about four more calls and five hours later, nearly midnight, when I should already have been asleep for an hour or more, especially because it was one of the few nights when Michael and I hadn’t gotten together.

When he finally picked up, I offered a halfhearted apology for calling so many times, but then without preamble, I said, “Why aren’t you talking to your children?”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I have been talking to them, but Life After the Storm is taking up a lot of my time. I’m in New Orleans right now, actually.”

“Renn,” I said. “If Billy’s telling me that you’re not returning his or Anna’s calls, I know something’s going on. Our son doesn’t usually complain about a lack of phone calls from you or me.”

I could hear him sigh. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I’m swamped, that’s all. More so than usual. The foundation is taking up every free moment; I’m working on a new screenplay with Scott Jost, and I just signed on to act in two new pictures later this year.”