Free Little Known Facts: A Novel by Christine Sneed Page A

all give me strange looks. I lower my eyes and walk past them quickly, my face a garish red by now, I’m sure. In the lobby, Carlo is listening to a radio that he abruptly turns down when I push open the glass door, but I hear enough to know that the song is an old one by the Rolling Stones, Jagger’s lascivious wail recognizable in the few notes that reach me before Carlo lowers the volume.
    “You don’t have to turn it down,” I say, though I can’t bear to meet his eyes, knowing he will see how upset I am. When he starts talking, I keep moving toward the front doors. “I have to go,” I say softly, embarrassed. “Sorry to be in such a rush, Carlo. Have a good night.”
    “Don’t apologize. You’re a doctor,” he calls after me, as if delighted by this fact. “I know you’re busy!”
    When I think about it later, after I eat a peanut butter sandwich at home for dinner and drink two glasses of white wine so fast I get the hiccups, I realize that I don’t remember the drive back from Billy’s very well. Did I listen to the radio? I don’t think I did. Was there a lot of traffic between his place and mine? There must have been, but this I don’t really remember either. I do know that my phone didn’t ring, but I kept hoping that it would. I wanted my son to call and apologize. I wanted him to tell me what happened with Danielle, and if it’s true that he has a crush on Elise Connor, and whether or not his father really is serious about this girl. I could call Renn myself and ask him, but I don’t. Even if he is likely to pick up my call and would tell me whatever I want to know. I don’t think he’s ever considered me an enemy, though he must have known that I once considered him to be the worst of my life.
    One thing that helped me get past most of my jealousy and rage over our divorce is that his marriage to Melinda (whom he met on the set—but she was a caterer, not a costar) also failed. This does not make me look particularly noble, I know, but being left for another woman isn’t something most wives can forget. Our marriage began to exhaust me once people started to recognize him everywhere we went, after he became famous enough that paparazzi sometimes lurked outside the gate at the end of our driveway, but I was not ready to give up. Still, it was clear that a marriage that lasts does not have the rest of the world pressing in on it; it does not have fanatics or floozies feverishly hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the principals, to touch his hand or whatever other part of him they can reach. A marriage that lasts does not feature one of the principals being paid to simulate sex on camera with someone young and very attractive, which is impossible for the other principal to get used to because this movie sex looks real and therefore it must feel real to the couple being filmed. A marriage that lasts does not have the aura of a siege, of a boat being rocked so hard I felt almost permanently ill. I knew I would lose him; I think I knew this very early on, but it wasn’t something I let myself say to anyone, and I tried never to say it to myself either.
    After my sandwich, after the news and an unsuccessful attempt to read a book by a surgeon who is also a skillful writer, I call my son. He doesn’t answer. I call him ten minutes later and still no response. After another twenty minutes, I call again and this time he picks up.
    “What now,” he says.
    For a half second, I think about hanging up, but it is such a desperately childish move that I manage to quell the impulse. In any case, I don’t hang up on people anymore. I don’t want him to be mad at me for the rest of the night either. He was angry enough with me while growing up, even though his father was the one who left. “I’m sorry that I stopped by unexpectedly today,” I say.
    I can hear him exhale. “You don’t have to apologize, Mom.”
    “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot about Danielle.”
    “It’s