flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 14
Текст из файла (страница 14)
A few have gone home to their wives, but a surprising numberhave stayed out. Nick will spend the night of our anniversary buying these men drinks,going to strip clubs and cheesy bars, irting with twenty-two-year-olds (My friend herejust got laid o , he could use a hug). These jobless men will proclaim Nick a great guy ashe buys their drinks on a credit card linked to my bank account. Nick will have a grandold time on our anniversary, which he didn’t even mention in the message. Instead, hesaid, I know we had plans but …I am being a girl. I just thought it’d be a tradition: All across town, I have strewnlittle love messages, reminders of our past year together, my treasure hunt.
I can picturethe third clue, uttering from a piece of Scotch tape in the crook of the V of the RobertIndiana Love sculpture up near Central Park. Tomorrow, some bored twelve-year-oldtourist stumbling along behind his parents is going to pick it off, read it, shrug, and let itfloat away like a gum wrapper.My treasure-hunt nale was perfect, but isn’t now. It’s an absolutely gorgeousvintage briefcase.
Leather. Third anniversary is leather. A work-related gift may be abad idea, given that work isn’t exactly happy right now. In our kitchen, I have two livelobsters, like always. Or like what was supposed to be like always. I need to phone mymom and see if they can keep for a day, scrambling dazedly around their crate, or if Ineed to stumble in, and with my wine-lame eyes, battle them and boil them in my potfor no good reason.
I’m killing two lobsters I won’t even eat.Dad phoned to wish us happy anniversary, and I picked up the phone and I wasgoing to play it cool, but then I started crying when I started talking—I was doing theawful chick talk-cry: mwaha-waah-gwwahh-and-waaa-wa—so I had to tell him whathappened, and he told me I should open a bottle of wine and wallow in it for a bit.
Dadis always a proponent of a good indulgent sulk. Still, Nick will be angry that I toldRand, and of course Rand will do his fatherly thing, pat Nick on the shoulder and say,“Heard you had some emergency drinking to do on your anniversary, Nicky.” Andchuckle. So Nick will know, and he will be angry with me because he wants my parentsto believe he’s perfect—he beams when I tell them stories about what a awless son-inlaw he is.Except for tonight.
I know, I know, I’m being a girl.It’s ve A.M. The sun is coming up, almost as bright as the streetlights outside thathave just blinked o . I always like that switch, when I’m awake for it. Sometimes, whenI can’t sleep, I’ll pull myself out of bed and walk through the streets at dawn, and whenthe lights click o , all together, I always feel like I’ve seen something special. Oh, therego the streetlights! I want to announce. In New York it’s not three or four A.M. that’s thequiet time—there are too many bar stragglers, calling out to each other as they collapseinto taxis, yelping into their cell phones as they frantically smoke that one last cigarettebefore bed.
Five A.M., that’s the best time, when the clicking of your heels on thesidewalk sounds illicit. All the people have been put away in their boxes, and you havethe whole place to yourself.Here’s what happened: Nick got home just after four, a bulb of beer and cigarettesand fried-egg odor attached to him, a placenta of stink. I was still awake, waiting forhim, my brain ca-thunking after a marathon of Law and Order. He sat down on ourottoman and glanced at the present on the table and said nothing. I stared at him back.He clearly wasn’t going to even graze against an apology—hey, sorry things got screwytoday. That’s all I wanted, just a quick acknowledgment.“Happy day after anniversary,” I start.He sighs, a deep aggrieved moan.
“Amy, I’ve had the crappiest day ever. Please don’tlay a guilt trip on me on top of it.”Nick grew up with a father who never, ever apologized, so when Nick feels he hasscrewed up, he goes on offense. I know this, and I can usually wait it out, usually.“I was just saying happy anniversary.”“Happy anniversary, my asshole husband who neglected me on my big day.”We sit silent for a minute, my stomach knotting. I don’t want to be the bad guy here.I don’t deserve that. Nick stands up.“Well, how was it?” I ask dully.“How was it? It was fucking awful. Sixteen of my friends now have no jobs. It wasmiserable. I’ll probably be gone too, another few months.”Friends. He doesn’t even like half the guys he was out with, but I say nothing.“I know it feels dire right now, Nick.
But—”“It’s not dire for you, Amy. Not for you, it never will be dire. But for the rest of us?It’s very different.”The same old. Nick resents that I’ve never had to worry about money and I neverwill. He thinks that makes me softer than everyone else, and I wouldn’t disagree withhim. But I do work. I clock in and clock back out. Some of my girlfriends have literallynever had a job; they discuss people with jobs in the pitying tones you talk about a fatgirl with “such a nice face.” They will lean forward and say, “But of course, Ellen has towork,” like something out of a Noël Coward play.
They don’t count me, because I canalways quit my job if I want to. I could build my days around charity committees andhome decoration and gardening and volunteering, and I don’t think there’s anythingwrong with building a life around those things. Most beautiful, good things are done bywomen people scorn. But I work.“Nick, I’m on your side here. We’ll be okay no matter what. My money is yourmoney.”“Not according to the prenup.”He is drunk. He only mentions the prenup when he’s drunk. Then all the resentmentcomes back. I’ve told him hundreds, literally hundreds of times, I’ve said the words: Theprenup is pure business.
It’s not for me, it’s not even for my parents, it’s for my parents’lawyers. It says nothing about us, not you and me.He walks over toward the kitchen, tosses his wallet and wilted dollars on the co eetable, crumples a piece of notepaper and tosses it in the trash with a series of credit-cardreceipts.“That’s a shitty thing to say, Nick.”“It’s a shitty way to feel, Amy.”He walks to our bar—in the careful, swamp-wading gait of a drunk—and actuallypours himself another drink.“You’re going to make yourself sick,” I say.He raises his glass in an up-yours cheers to me. “You just don’t get it, Amy.
You justcan’t. I’ve worked since I was fourteen years old. I didn’t get to go to fucking tenniscamp and creative-writing camp and SAT prep and all that shit that apparentlyeveryone else in New York City did, because I was wiping down tables at the mall and Iwas mowing lawns and I was driving to Hannibal and fucking dressing like Huck Finnfor the tourists and I was cleaning the funnel-cake skillets at midnight.”I feel an urge to laugh, actually to gu aw. A big belly laugh that would sweep upNick, and soon we’d both be laughing and this would be over.
This litany of crummyjobs. Being married to Nick always reminds me: People have to do awful things formoney. Ever since I’ve been married to Nick, I always wave to people dressed as food.“I’ve had to work so much harder than anyone else at the magazine to even get to themagazine. Twenty years, basically, I’ve been working to get where I am, and now it’s allgoing to be gone, and there’s not a fucking thing I know how to do instead, unless Iwant to go back home, be a river rat again.”“You’re probably too old to play Huck Finn,” I say.“Fuck you, Amy.”And then he goes to the bedroom. He’s never said that to me before, but it came outof his mouth so smoothly that I assume—and this never crossed my mind—I assume he’sthought it.
Many times. I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who’d be told to fuckherself by her husband. And we’ve sworn never to go to bed angry. Compromise,communicate, and never go to bed angry—the three pieces of advice gifted and regiftedto all newlyweds. But lately it seems I am the only one who compromises; ourcommunications don’t solve anything; and Nick is very good at going to bed angry. Hecan turn off his emotions like a spout. He is already snoring.And then I can’t help myself, even though it’s none of my business, even though Nickwould be furious if he knew: I cross over to the trash can and pull out the receipts, so Ican picture where he’s been all night.
![](https://s.studizba.com/z.php?f=/templates/si/i/noavatar.png&w=100&h=100&t=1"){kind=avatar}
