flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 13
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Amy could tell you about that. She woulddefinitely tell you, if she were here.I watched Rand and Marybeth for a moment before they saw me. I wondered howfurious they’d be with me. I had committed an unforgivable act, not phoning them for solong. Because of my cowardice, my in-laws would always have that night of tennislodged in their imagination: the warm evening, the lazy yellow balls bumping along thecourt, the squeak of tennis shoes, the average Thursday night they’d spent while theirdaughter was disappeared.“Nick,” Rand Elliott said, spotting me. He took three big strides toward me, and as Ibraced myself for a punch, he hugged me desperately hard.“How are you holding up?” he whispered into my neck, and began rocking. Finally,he gave a high-pitched gulp, a swallowed sob, and gripped me by the arms.
“We’regoing to nd Amy, Nick. It can’t go any other way. Believe that, okay?” Rand Elliottheld me in his blue stare for a few more seconds, then broke up again—three girlishgasps burst from him like hiccups—and Marybeth moved into the huddle, buried her facein her husband’s armpit.When we parted, she looked up at me with giant stunned eyes. “It’s just a—just agoddamn nightmare,” she said. “How are you, Nick?”When Marybeth asked How are you, it wasn’t a courtesy, it was an existentialquestion. She studied my face, and I was sure she was studying me, and would continueto note my every thought and action. The Elliotts believed that every trait should beconsidered, judged, categorized.
It all means something, it can all be used. Mom, Dad,Baby, they were three advanced people with three advanced degrees in psychology—they thought more before nine A.M. than most people thought all month. I rememberonce declining cherry pie at dinner, and Rand cocked his head and said, “Ahh!Iconoclast. Disdains the easy, symbolic patriotism.” And when I tried to laugh it o andsaid, well, I didn’t like cherry cobbler either, Marybeth touched Rand’s arm: “Because ofthe divorce. All those comfort foods, the desserts a family eats together, those are justbad memories for Nick.”It was silly but incredibly sweet, these people spending so much energy trying tofigure me out. The answer: I don’t like cherries.By eleven-thirty, the station was a rolling boil of noise.
Phones were ringing, peoplewere yelling across the room. A woman whose name I never caught, whom I registeredonly as a chattering bobblehead of hair, suddenly made her presence known at my side.I had no idea how long she’d been there: “… and the main point of this, Nick, is just toget people looking for Amy and knowing she has a family who loves her and wants herback. This will be very controlled. Nick, you will need to— Nick?”“Yep.”“People will want to hear a quick statement from her husband.”From across the room, Go was darting toward me. She’d dropped me at the station,then run by The Bar to take care of bar things for thirty minutes, and now she was back,acting like she’d abandoned me for a week, zigzagging between desks, ignoring theyoung o cer who’d clearly been assigned to usher her in, neatly, in a hushed, digni edmanner.“Okay so far?” Go said, squeezing me with one arm, the dude hug.
The Dunne kidsdon’t perform hugs well. Go’s thumb landed on my right nipple. “I wish Mom was here,”she whispered, which was what I’d been thinking. “No news?” she asked when she pulledaway.“Nothing, fucking nothing—”“You look like you feel awful.”“I feel like fucking shit.” I was about to say what an idiot I was, not listening to herabout the booze.“I would have finished the bottle too.” She patted my back.“It’s almost time,” the PR woman said, again appearing magically. “It’s not a badturnout for a July Fourth weekend.” She started herding us all toward a dismalconference room—aluminum blinds and folding chairs and a clutch of bored reporters—and up onto the platform.
I felt like a third-tier speaker at a mediocre convention, me inmy business-casual blues, addressing a captive audience of jet-lagged peopledaydreaming about what they’d eat for lunch. But I could see the journalists perk upwhen they caught sight of me—let’s say it: a young, decent-looking guy—and then thePR woman placed a cardboard poster on a nearby easel, and it was a blown-up photo ofAmy at her most stunning, that face that made you keep double-checking: She can’t bethat good-looking, can she? She could, she was, and I stared at the photo of my wife as thecameras snapped photos of me staring at the photo. I thought of that day in New Yorkwhen I found her again: the blond hair, the back of her head, was all I could see, but Iknew it was her, and I saw it as a sign. How many millions of heads had I seen in mylife, but I knew this was Amy’s pretty skull oating down Seventh Avenue in front ofme.
I knew it was her, and that we would be together.Cameras ashed. I turned away and saw spots. It was surreal. That’s what peoplealways say to describe moments that are merely unusual. I thought: You have no fuckingidea what surreal is. My hangover was really warming up now, my left eye throbbing likea heart.The cameras were clicking, and the two families stood together, all of us with mouthsin thin slits, Go the only one looking even close to a real person. The rest of us lookedlike placeholder humans, bodies that had been dollied in and propped up. Amy, over onher easel, looked more present.
We’d all seen these news conferences before—whenother women went missing. We were being forced to perform the scene that TV viewersexpected: the worried but hopeful family. Caffeine-dazed eyes and ragdoll arms.My name was being said; the room gave a collective gulp of expectation. Showtime.When I saw the broadcast later, I didn’t recognize my voice.
I barely recognized myface. The booze oating, sludgelike, just beneath the surface of my skin made me looklike a eshy wastrel, just sensuous enough to be disreputable. I had worried about myvoice wavering, so I overcorrected and the words came out clipped, like I was reading astock report. “We just want Amy to get home safe …” Utterly unconvincing,disconnected. I might as well have been reading numbers at random.Rand Elliott stepped up and tried to save me: “Our daughter, Amy, is a sweetheart ofa girl, full of life.
She’s our only child, and she’s smart and beautiful and kind. She reallyis Amazing Amy. And we want her back. Nick wants her back.” He put a hand on myshoulder, wiped his eyes, and I involuntarily turned to steel. My father again: Men don’tcry.Rand kept talking: “We all want her back where she belongs, with her family. We’veset up a command center over at the Days Inn …”The news reports would show Nick Dunne, husband of the missing woman, standingmetallically next to his father-in-law, arms crossed, eyes glazed, looking almost bored asAmy’s parents wept. And then worse.
My longtime response, the need to remind peopleI wasn’t a dick, I was a nice guy despite the a ectless stare, the haughty, douchebagface.So there it came, out of nowhere, as Rand begged for his daughter’s return: a killersmile.AMY ELLIOTT DUNNEJULY 5, 2010DIARY ENTRYI won’t blame Nick. I don’t blame Nick. I refuse—refuse!—to turn into some pertmouthed, strident angry-girl. I made two promises to myself when I married Nick. One:no dancing-monkey demands. Two: I would never, ever say, Sure, that’s ne by me (ifyou want to stay out later, if you want to do a boys’ weekend, if you want to do something youwant to do) and then punish him for doing what I said was ne by me. I worry I amcoming perilously close to violating both of those promises.But still.
It is our third wedding anniversary and I am alone in our apartment, myface all mask-tight from tears because, well, because: Just this afternoon, I get a voicemail from Nick, and I already know it’s going to be bad, I know the second the voicemail begins because I can tell he’s calling from his cell and I can hear men’s voices in thebackground and a big, roomy gap, like he’s trying to decide what to say, and then I hearhis taxi-blurred voice, a voice that is already wet and lazy with booze, and I know I amgoing to be angry—that quick inhale, the lips going tight, the shoulders up, the I so don’twant to be mad but I’m going to be feeling. Do men not know that feeling? You don’t wantto be mad, but you’re obligated to be, almost. Because a rule, a good rule, a nice rule isbeing broken.
Or maybe rule is the wrong word. Protocol? Nicety? But therule/protocol/nicety—our anniversary—is being broken for a good reason, I understand,I do. The rumors were true: Sixteen writers have been laid o at Nick’s magazine. Athird of the sta . Nick has been spared, for now, but of course he feels obliged to takethe others out to get drunk. They are men, piled in a cab, heading down Second Avenue,pretending to be brave.
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