Little Known Facts A Novel - By Christine Sneed Page 0,51

in French made her wonder if he was nervous seeing her too. Without directly meeting her eyes, he had asked her to share the cheese with him, and they dated until early August, when he went home to Paris for three weeks. After his return, he told Elise that he had gotten back together with an old girlfriend and that he could not keeping seeing her. Now, from time to time, she wondered if he had seen any of her movies, if he regretted breaking up with her so unceremoniously. It had taken her all of the fall term to get over him, even after she had been flown to Hollywood and had auditioned for a role in a Vince Vaughn comedy that subsequently she was chosen for, and from then on, her life was very different.

Will’s note was half poem, half love letter; it made her smile until her cheeks hurt, her eyes tearing up, in part because she had a feeling that she would have gone down the hall to thank him, and maybe also to kiss him, if she hadn’t already been involved with his father, who was asleep on the other side of the locked bathroom door.

Dear Elise,

I’m not sure if I’ll give you this. It seems

too much of a risk, for so many reasons.

I think of you

as a woman

who must receive notes like this one

almost every day.

Still,

I cannot keep

these thoughts to myself anymore.

When I close my eyes

I see you

as spun from gold and silk

and a dove’s soft wings.

I can only guess what it is like

to touch you—

you would be softer than warm rain

falling

from a midnight sky.

Yours would be the one

breath to bring me back to life

if I were trapped

in a room with no windows,

the light fading outside,

the walls too close. It is impossible

for me to stop thinking about you.

—New Orleans, October 26

At first, she did not want to recover from the feeling the poem gave her. It was as if she were lying on her back, floating in the Pacific, nothing at all on her calendar for the next few weeks. This never happened anymore, both the blissful beach-going and the open schedule.

When she climbed into Renn’s bed after reading the poem several times, she could feel Will’s presence down the hall. She imagined him lying in his bed too, wondering if she had liked his note, if she might also have a crush on him. She didn’t know if she did, but his poem affected her more than any other gift had in a while, even the elegant platinum bracelet Renn had given her two days earlier. He had had it sent overnight from Tiffany’s, a detail he had only shared with her after she had pried it out of him. As far as she could tell, it was not his habit to brag about how much money he spent. The fact that he had ordered her such a beautiful and tasteful gift while under the many pressures of Bourbon’s production had impressed her. Or had he made Will order it? She really hoped not, especially now. Yet whoever had ordered it, the bracelet seemed proof that Renn was wooing her, that their involvement was probably more than a fling to him.

At one thirty in the morning, sleep still not close enough, she wished that Will had never come to New Orleans. She had been perfectly happy before his arrival, when all she had wanted was to concentrate on her new relationship with Renn and on acting as capably as she could in her role as Lily, the film’s heroine. What could Will possibly be expecting her to say to him? “You’re irresistible”? “I’m dumping your dad, and as soon as this movie wraps, let’s elope”? Maybe he only wanted her because he couldn’t have her, and certainly not without a big scene where someone was likely to get hurt badly.

Finally, at 2:00 a.m., she got up and took one of Renn’s sleeping pills, and all the next day she felt alternately sluggish and anxious, wondering when she would see Will, and why he affected her as he did. He was very sweet and good-looking, but his poem and its schoolboy earnestness affected her more than his looks. And the fact that he had bluntly told her he desired her, knowing as he did that she was seeing his father—it was this impulse, its rebelliousness, and above all, its murky, masculine competitiveness—that attracted her most.

Will didn’t appear where she was until five that afternoon.