Little Known Facts A Novel - By Christine Sneed Page 0,66

hatred,” he snapped. “The point is, he feels something after a long time of feeling nothing. He’s lucky. It’s a story of redemption, ultimately.”

I didn’t think so, and still don’t. Needless to say, I don’t have to discuss it with him any longer.

4. Romeo and Juliet. One of his dreams when we were together was to make a modern-day version of this beloved (but tiresomely everywhere) play in Paris with Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with Juliet as a lonely cashier at a Parisian movie house and Romeo as an usher who for years paints Juliet’s portrait from photos he takes of her unobserved. I thought this made Romeo seem pretty creepy, but Renn didn’t at all. “He’s a frustrated romantic, like so many of us,” he said.

“Not you,” I said, trying not to sound as unhappy as I felt. “You can have whoever you want.”

He opened his mouth to argue but then thought better of it.

5. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H. His children’s favorite book when they were little. It was one of my favorites too. He told me that he read it to Anna and Billy at least ten times while they were growing up. I asked him to read it to me too, and he did not long after we were married. He used different voices for the major characters, and the fact that he bothered with this, that he took his time reading it, performing it, really, using all of his considerable actor’s skills, was probably the single sweetest thing he ever did for me.

Causes he is interested in and/or donates to, in no particular order:**

1. PETA (because of Anna, not because he is against people wearing fur or eating animals, but I do think he genuinely feels bad about the animals that live their short lives on factory farms)

2. VoL (Victims of Landmines—losing a limb is one of his phobias)

3. GiRLS (Girls in Real-Life Situations—an organization devoted to finding and freeing girls from child prostitution. A worthy cause, obviously, but the director, Tamara Snow, is someone Renn fucked while he was still married to me, I’m about 98 percent sure)

4. HHOP (HIV Hospice of Pasadena—he had a close friend who died there, a guy he met in college who tried to convince Renn that he was bi when they were still in school together, but I don’t think Renn ever fell for it)

5. Cows for Life (because Renn has a soft spot for Wisconsin—both of his parents are from there. CFL is based in Madison, and their mission is to convince all dairy farmers to stop using bovine growth hormones on their herds)

6. SOCC (Save Our California Coast—I think the name probably speaks for itself. I’m not sure if Renn had an affair with anyone who works for them, but I wouldn’t be surprised)

7. WWF (World Wildlife Fund, not the World Wrestling Federation. He loves the earth. He really does. Especially when he can ride around on it in a Land Rover on an African savannah)

8. Himself (for the promotion and upkeep of his Movie Star Lifestyle)

**Some of the above was also excised from the published version.

Not all of it was bad:

He wasn’t selfish or condescending the whole time we were together; otherwise I would probably have left him before he left me. He had many soft spots, gentle habits, and generous moments. He loved his parents and brother, and both of his children, and treated them all well. He was also curious about the world and felt compassion and interest in people whose lives were very different from his. I don’t think he would ever have been interested in me if he weren’t willing to give everyone a fair chance at earning his attention. But this democratic spirit often made me jealous because I never felt like he was fully there, even when we were alone together. He was always preoccupied by some project or half-baked hope or why someone important was taking so long to call him back. His life seemed to me, the outsider housewife, to be full of suspense, of secret dealings and intrigue—it wasn’t just his movies that were filled with these things. He seemed to have so many ideas and sometimes woke in the middle of the night to make a phone call or scribble in a notebook that he kept on his nightstand, a habit that woke me up because he would always click on the bedside lamp.

Regarding Monet, he also loved Modigliani, Ed Paschke, Georgia O’Keeffe, Gerhard Richter,