Little Known Facts A Novel - By Christine Sneed Page 0,11
He has lost weight since he left to work on his father’s production, and seems likely to lose more if he keeps going on the long runs he has added to his mornings without eating breakfast before or after these runs.
When she doesn’t reply, he turns and looks at her. “So what do you think?”
Her mouth is full of half-chewed strawberries. She has to swallow one almost whole to keep from choking on it. “I like the idea, but I need a little time to think about it, Will,” she finally says. “I thought you weren’t interested in living together.”
“I was always interested, but I wasn’t sure.”
“You are now?”
He nods. She sees that his hairline really is receding, something that bothers him so much that he has already looked into hair transplant surgery. “Yes,” he says. “What do you think? You could have one of the bedrooms for your office, or we could put up a wall in the living room and make you a new office. I’m sure that I could get the condo board to approve it.”
She shakes her head. “If we put up a wall, it would darken the rest of the space quite a bit.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” he says.
“I think you probably would.”
“All right. No wall. Whatever you want,” he says with forced lightness, turning back to the sink.
“Let me think about it for a couple of days,” she says.
“I thought you were gung-ho about living together.”
“I don’t know if I was gung-ho exactly, but I thought that at some point it might be nice.”
He shuts off the water and turns to look at her again. “If you don’t want to live with me, that’s fine. I just thought you wanted to.”
“Why are you so ready all of a sudden?”
“I’m not sure. I just am.”
She gazes at the remaining strawberries in her bowl but doesn’t feel like finishing them now. Will’s phone rings, his ringtone the sound of crickets chirping. When he looks at his phone’s display, he makes a sound of dismay.
“Who is it?” she says.
“My dad.”
“You don’t want to talk to him?” she says, realizing as soon as the words are out that it’s a stupid question, the answer as obvious as a scream.
“He can wait. I’ll call him back when we’re done with dinner.” They are done with dinner, but she says nothing while he fills his rinsed glass with orange juice and drinks all of it in one swallow. “Is he still in New Orleans?” she says.
“I think so.”
“When’s his movie supposed to wrap?”
“This week, as far as I know. Unless something gets screwed up. Don’t let him hear you call it a movie. It’s high art. A film. That’s what he’d say, anyway.”
“You don’t think it’ll be good?”
“No, it probably will be. It’s going to be great if he doesn’t get too carried away. He’s due for another Oscar, this time for best director or screenplay. Maybe both.” His tone is ironic, even a little sneering.
“Why are you so mad at him?” she says. “Are you still waiting to get paid for New Orleans?”
Will snorts. “He paid me. He always pays me.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
He pours himself more juice. “He thinks I’ll never make any money on my own. It drives me crazy.”
Do you really plan to? she could say, but doesn’t. She looks down at the table, afraid he will read her mind, but he has turned away again.
His phone rings a few minutes later, and this time he picks it up without hesitating. Even before he says her name, Danielle can tell from the way his voice softens that it’s his sister. She sets her dishes in the sink and goes into the living room. His offer that she move in with him has startled her. She hadn’t expected it to come so soon, if at all. The last time they talked about it, a couple of months earlier, he was so evasive that she assumed it wouldn’t ever happen. She loves his place, which is more spacious than her own, and closer to the neighborhoods where most of her client base is, but since returning from New Orleans, he has sometimes been so closed off that it makes her nervous to think about having to live with these unpredictable, almost hostile silences. All he would tell her about his premature return from Louisiana is that he and his father did not get along as well as they should have because Renn refused to accept any criticism, no