flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 11
Текст из файла (страница 11)
Your father wandered out are exit early this morning. He’s got a few scratches and scrapes, as you can see, but nodamage. We picked him up a few hours ago, walking down River Road, disoriented.We’ve been trying to reach you.”“I’ve been right here,” I said. “Right goddamn next door, how did no one put thistogether?”Bitch bitch bitch, said my dad.“Sir, please don’t take that tone with me.”Bitch bitch bitch.Boney ordered an o cer—male—to drive my dad back to the home so I could nishup with them. We stood on the stairs outside the police station, watched him get settledinto the car, still muttering.
The entire time he never registered my presence. When theydrove off, he didn’t even look back.“You guys not close?” she asked.“We are the definition of not close.”The police nished with their questions and hustled me into a squad car at about twoA.M. with advice to get a good night’s sleep and return at eleven for a 12-noon pressconference.I didn’t ask if I could go home. I had them take me to Go’s, because I knew she’d stayup and have a drink with me, x me a sandwich. It was, pathetically, all I wanted rightthen: a woman to fix me a sandwich and not ask me any questions.“You don’t want to go look for her?” Go offered as I ate. “We can drive around.”“That seems pointless,” I said dully. “Where do I look?”“Nick, this is really fucking serious.”“I know, Go.”“Act like it, okay, Lance? Don’t fucking myuhmyuhmyuh.” It was a thick-tonguednoise, the noise she always made to convey my indecisiveness, accompanied by a dazedrolling of the eyes and the dusting o of my legal rst name.
No one who has my faceneeds to be called Lance. She handed me a tumbler of Scotch. “And drink this, but onlythis. You don’t want to be hungover tomorrow. Where the fuck could she be? God, I feelsick to my stomach.” She poured herself a glass, gulped, then tried to sip, pacing aroundthe kitchen. “Aren’t you worried, Nick? That some guy, like, saw her on the street andjust, just decided to take her? Hit her on the head and—”I started. “Why did you say hit her on the head, what the fuck is that?”“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to paint a picture, I just … I don’t know, I just keepthinking. About some crazy person.” She splashed some more Scotch into her tumbler.“Speaking of crazy people,” I said, “Dad got out again today, they found himwandering down River Road.
He’s back at Comfort now.”She shrugged: okay. It was the third time in six months that our dad had slipped out.Go was lighting a cigarette, her thoughts still on Amy. “I mean, isn’t there someone wecan go talk to?” she asked. “Something we can do?”“Jesus, Go! You really need me to feel more fucking impotent than I do right now?” Isnapped. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing.
There’s no ‘When Your WifeGoes Missing 101.’ The police told me I could leave. I left. I’m just doing what they tellme.”“Of course you are,” murmured Go, who had a long-stymied mission to turn me into arebel. It wouldn’t take. I was the kid in high school who made curfew; I was the writerwho hit my deadlines, even the fake ones. I respect rules, because if you follow rules,things go smoothly, usually.“Fuck, Go, I’m back at the station in a few hours, okay? Can you please just be niceto me for a second? I’m scared shitless.”We had a ve-second staring contest, then Go lled up my glass one more time, anapology. She sat down next to me, put a hand on my shoulder.“Poor Amy,” she said.AMY ELLIOTT DUNNEAPRIL 21, 2009DIARY ENTRYPoor me. Let me set the scene: Campbell and Insley and I are all down in Soho,having dinner at Tableau.
Lots of goat-cheese tarts, lamb meatballs, and rocket greens,I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. But we are working backward: dinner rst, thendrinks in one of the little nooks Campbell has reserved, a mini-closet where you canlounge expensively in a place that’s not too di erent from, say, your living room. Butne, it’s fun to do the silly, trendy things sometimes. We are all overdressed in our littleashy frocks, our slasher heels, and we all eat small plates of food bites that are asdecorative and unsubstantial as we are.We’ve discussed having our husbands drop by to join us for the drinks portion.
Sothere we are, post-dinner, tucked into our nook, mojitos and martinis and my bourbondelivered to us by a waitress who could be auditioning for the small role of Fresh-facedGirl Just Off the Bus.We are running out of things to say; it is a Tuesday, and no one is feeling like it isanything but. The drinks are being carefully drunk: Insley and Campbell both havevague appointments the next morning, and I have work, so we aren’t gearing up for abig night, we are winding down, and we are getting dull-witted, bored. We would leaveif we weren’t waiting for the possible appearance of the men. Campbell keeps peekingat her BlackBerry, Insley studies her exed calves from di erent angles.
John arrivesrst—huge apologies to Campbell, big smiles and kisses for us all, a man just thrilled tobe here, just delighted to arrive at the tail-end of a cocktail hour across town so he canguzzle a drink and head home with his wife. George shows up about twenty minuteslater—sheepish, tense, a terse excuse about work, Insley snapping at him, “You’re fortyminutes late,” him nipping back, “Yeah, sorry about making us money.” The two barelytalking to each other as they make conversation with everyone else.Nick never shows; no call.
We wait another forty- ve minutes, Campbell solicitous(“Probably got hit with some last-minute deadline,” she says, and smiles toward goodold John, who never lets last-minute deadlines interfere with his wife’s plans); Insley’sanger thawing toward her husband as she realizes he is only the second-biggest jackassof the group (“You sure he hasn’t even texted, sweetie?”).Me, I just smile: “Who knows where he is—I’ll catch him at home.” And then it is themen of the group who look stricken: You mean that was an option? Take a pass on thenight with no nasty consequences? No guilt or anger or sulking?Well, maybe not for you guys.Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the horrible things women maketheir husbands do to prove their love.
The pointless tasks, the myriad sacri ces, theendless small surrenders. We call these men the dancing monkeys.Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose from a day at the ballpark,and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him about the game, ask him if his friend Jack had a goodtime, and he’ll say, “Oh, he came down with a case of the dancing monkeys—poorJennifer was having a ‘real stressful week’ and really needed him at home.”Or his buddy at work, who can’t go out for drinks because his girlfriend really needshim to stop by some bistro where she is having dinner with a friend from out of town.So they can nally meet.
And so she can show how obedient her monkey is: He comeswhen I call, and look how well groomed!Wear this, don’t wear that. Do this chore now and do this chore when you get a chance andby that I mean now. And de nitely, de nitely, give up the things you love for me, so I willhave proof that you love me best. It’s the female pissing contest—as we swan around ourbook clubs and our cocktail hours, there are few things women love more than beingable to detail the sacri ces our men make for us. A call-and-response, the responsebeing: “Ohhh, that’s so sweet.”I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t get o on emotionalcoercion, on forcing Nick to play some happy-hubby role—the shrugging, cheerful,dutiful taking out the trash, honey! role.
Every wife’s dream man, the counterpoint toevery man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink.I like to think I am con dent and secure and mature enough to know Nick loves mewithout him constantly proving it. I don’t need pathetic dancing-monkey scenarios torepeat to my friends; I am content with letting him be himself.I don’t know why women find that so hard.When I get home from dinner, my cab pulls up just as Nick is getting out of his owntaxi, and he stands in the street with his arms out to me and a huge grin on his face—“Baby!”—and I run and I jump up into his arms and he presses a stubbly cheek againstmine.“What did you do tonight?” I ask.“Some guys were playing poker after work, so I hung around for a bit.
Hope thatwas okay.”“Of course,” I say. “More fun than my night.”“Who all showed up?”“Oh, Campbell and Insley and their dancing monkeys. Boring. You dodged a bullet. Areally lame bullet.”He squeezes me into him—those strong arms—and hauls me up the stairs. “God, Ilove you,” he says.Then comes sex and a sti drink and a night of sleep in a sweet, exhausted rats’tangle in our big, soft bed. Poor me.NICK DUNNEONE DAY GONEI didn’t listen to Go about the booze. I nished half the bottle sitting on her sofa bymyself, my eighteenth burst of adrenaline kicking in just when I thought I’d nally go tosleep: My eyes were shutting, I was shifting my pillow, my eyes were closed, and then Isaw my wife, blood clotting her blond hair, weeping and blind in pain, scraping herselfalong our kitchen floor. Calling my name.
![](https://s.studizba.com/z.php?f=/templates/si/i/noavatar.png&w=100&h=100&t=1"){kind=avatar}
