Little Known Facts A Novel - By Christine Sneed Page 0,70

film. It made me sick to my stomach to think about this, especially because I would tell her not to do it and she would probably get angry. In my experience, no one I know in Hollywood has ever spoken frankly about jealousy, an emotion as natural and certainly as painful as any others that we feel. Because of this tacit code of silence, it is very hard to truly be friends with many of the people who work in film. We are a jealous, neurotic group, both disdainful of and avid to be in the public eye; always comparing ourselves to other people, and so worried about losing what we have that half of us have been hollowed out by ulcers and fear, not to mention unchecked ego, by the time we turn forty.

Later that night, Elise went on to win the award for best leading actress, and when they called her name, I felt this unsettling mix of paternal pride and amorous longing. She had never looked better than she did at that ceremony, and she is a woman who looks good every single minute of the day. Her skin, which is a honey color that I would guess a lot of people, both men and women, would run down a pedestrian for, was glowing in a way that I had never seen before, such was her extreme pleasure in being the object of so much admiration and respect. She had chosen a Dior dress for the occasion—a pure, poetic statement in mauve silk, one that hugged her tall, slender body. All night, even after we didn’t win the Palme d’Or, I kept thinking about unzipping that dress, pressing my lips to her warm and fragrant neck, saying and doing the things that make her blush, things that she loves but would never admit to unless the lights were off.

She is not, however, a woman simply coasting by on her beauty until it runs out. She is sharp and very talented, her presence in front of the camera so natural that none of the seams show, which they do with lesser actors. The first time I saw her, which was in this asinine picture a friend of mine directed about two nitwits driving their dead uncle cross-country, I almost fell out of my chair. At the time, Scott and I were arguing daily over the fourth draft of Bourbon at Dusk, Isis was taking two or three days to return my calls, and a number of things were in flux with both the story line and the project’s funding, but even without Isis’s input, I knew that Elise would be the perfect woman to play Lily, the female lead. When I called her agent and had the script sent over after Scott and I had finally finished it, the agent called back the very next afternoon to say that Elise wanted the role more than anything she had wanted in her entire life. This was probably only agent-speak, but regardless of how much he was exaggerating about her response, it was clear that she was interested. The producers liked her too, which I was almost certain they would. After a quick screen test, we agreed on a salary, figured out the shoot schedule, and signed a contract. Then she was mine. For about nine weeks, anyway.

I realize that the age difference makes some people pause. But it’s not my tendency to imagine failure. At the same time, I’m not a simpleton; I know that it’s possible that Elise and I will not stay together until death do us part, but there seems no point in assuming that our relationship is only a temporary diversion, something to amuse ourselves with until we each find someone better. She is generous, kind, easygoing. I have never met anyone like her, and to state the obvious, I have met a lot of people. Her appetite for the world is one of the things that I like most about her. Before we went to Cannes, she hired a tutor to help tune up her college French, and once there, her sudden facility with the language surprised me and a number of other people. I’ve never known anyone who could speak a foreign language so well without having studied for at least a few months in the country of origin. “You must have had a good teacher when you were in college,” I told her, and she gave me sort of a strange look