Little Known Facts A Novel - By Christine Sneed Page 0,117

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