flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 15
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Two bars, two strip clubs. And I can see him ineach one, talking about me with his friends, because he must have already talked aboutme for all that petty, smeared meanness to come out so easily. I picture them at one ofthe pricier strip clubs, the posh ones that make men believe they are still designed torule, that women are meant to serve them, the deliberately bad acoustics andthwumping music so no one has to talk, a stretch-titted woman straddling my husband(who swears it’s all in fun), her hair trailing down her back, her lips wet with gloss, butI’m not supposed to be threatened, no it’s just boyish hijinks, I am supposed to laughabout it, I am supposed to be a good sport.Then I unroll the crumpled piece of notebook paper and see a girl’s handwriting—Hannah—and a phone number. I wish it were like the movies, the name something silly,CanDee or Bambie, something you could roll your eyes at.
Misti with two hearts over theI’s. But it’s Hannah, which is a real woman, presumably like me. Nick has never cheatedon me, he has sworn it, but I also know he has ample opportunity. I could ask him aboutHannah, and he’d say, I have no idea why she gave me her number, but I didn’t want to berude, so I took it. Which may be true. Or not. He could cheat on me and he would nevertell me, and he would think less and less of me for not guring it out. He would see meacross the breakfast table, innocently slurping cereal, and know that I am a fool, andhow can anyone respect a fool?Now I am crying again, with Hannah in my hand.It’s a very female thing, isn’t it, to take one boys’ night and snowball it into a maritalinfidelity that will destroy our marriage?I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I’m feeling like a shrill shwife, or a foolishdoormat—I don’t know which.
I don’t want to be angry, I can’t even gure out if Ishould be angry. I consider checking in to a hotel, let him wonder about me for achange.I stay where I am for a few minutes, and then I take a breath and wade into ourbooze-humid bedroom, and when I get in bed, he turns to me and wraps his arms aroundme and buries his face in my neck, and at the same time we both say, “I’m sorry.”NICK DUNNEONE DAY GONEFlashbulbs exploded, and I dropped the smile, but not soon enough.
I felt a wave ofheat roll up my neck, and beads of sweat broke out on my nose. Stupid, Nick, stupid. Andthen, just as I was pulling myself together, the press conference was over, and it was toolate to make any other impression.I walked out with the Elliotts, my head ducked low as more ashbulbs popped. I wasalmost to the exit when Gilpin trotted across the room toward me, agging me down:“Canna grab a minute, Nick?”He updated me as we headed toward a back o ce: “We checked out that house inyour neighborhood that was broken into, looks like people camped out there, so we’vegot lab there.
And we found another house on the edge of your complex, had somesquatters.”“I mean, that’s what worries me,” I said. “Guys are camped out everywhere. Thiswhole town is overrun with pissed-off, unemployed people.”Carthage was, until a year ago, a company town and that company was thesprawling Riverway Mall, a tiny city unto itself that once employed four thousand locals—one- fth the population.
It was built in 1985, a destination mall meant to attractshoppers from all over the Middle West. I still remember the opening day: me and Go,Mom and Dad, watching the festivities from the very back of the crowd in the vasttarred parking lot, because our father always wanted to be able to leave quickly, fromanywhere. Even at baseball games, we parked by the exit and left at the eighth inning,me and Go a predictable set of mustard-smeared whines, petulant and sun-fevered: Wenever get to see the end. But this time our faraway vantage was desirable, because we gotto take in the full scope of the Event: the impatient crowd, leaning collectively from onefoot to another; the mayor atop a red-white-and-blue dais; the booming words—pride,growth, prosperity, success—rolling over us, soldiers on the battle eld of consumerism,armed with vinyl-covered checkbooks and quilted handbags.
And the doors opening.And the rush into the air-conditioning, the Muzak, the smiling salespeople who were ourneighbors. My father actually let us go inside that day, actually waited in line andbought us something that day: sweaty paper cups brimming with Orange Julius.For a quarter century, the Riverway Mall was a given. Then the recession hit,washed away the Riverway store by store until the whole mall nally went bust. It isnow two million square feet of echo. No company came to claim it, no businessmanpromised a resurrection, no one knew what to do with it or what would become of allthe people who’d worked there, including my mother, who lost her job at Shoe-Be-DooBe—two decades of kneeling and kneading, of sorting boxes and collecting moist foothosiery, gone without ceremony.The downfall of the mall basically bankrupted Carthage.
People lost their jobs, theylost their houses. No one could see anything good coming anytime soon. We never get tosee the end. Except it looked like this time Go and I would. We all would.The bankruptcy matched my psyche perfectly. For several years, I had been bored.Not a whining, restless child’s boredom (although I was not above that) but a dense,blanketing malaise. It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered everagain.
Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as acriticism is itself derivative). We were the rst human beings who would never seeanything for the rst time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed,underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals onattack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can’t recall a single amazingthing I have seen rsthand that I didn’t immediately reference to a movie or TV show. Afucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blasé: Seeeen it.
I’ve literallyseen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is:The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener,the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’tanymore. I don’t know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are likemost of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed,we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If wewant to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are allworking from the same dog-eared script.It’s a very di cult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of acollection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, becausewe don’t have genuine souls.It had gotten to the point where it seemed like nothing matters, because I’m not areal person and neither is anyone else.I would have done anything to feel real again.Gilpin opened the door to the same room where they’d questioned me the nightbefore.
In the center of the table sat Amy’s silvery gift box.I stood staring at the box sitting in the middle of the table, so ominous in this newsetting. A sense of dread descended on me. Why hadn’t I found it before? I should havefound it.“Go ahead,” Gilpin said. “We wanted you to take a look at this.”I opened it as gingerly as if a head might be inside.
I found only a creamy blueenvelope marked FIRST CLUE.Gilpin smirked. “Imagine our confusion: A missing persons case, and here we nd anenvelope marked FIRST CLUE.”“It’s for a treasure hunt that my wife—”“Right. For your anniversary. Your father-in-law mentioned it.”I opened the envelope, pulled out a thick sky-blue piece of paper—Amy’s signaturestationery—folded once. Bile crept up my throat. These treasure hunts had alwaysamounted to a single question: Who is Amy? (What is my wife thinking? What wasimportant to her this past year? What moments made her happiest? Amy, Amy, Amy,let’s think about Amy.)I read the rst clue with clenched teeth.
Given our marital mood the past year, it wasgoing to make me look awful. I didn’t need anything else that made me look awful.I picture myself as your student,With a teacher so handsome and wiseMy mind opens up (not to mention my thighs!)If I were your pupil, there’d be no need for flowersMaybe just a naughty appointment during your office hoursSo hurry up, get going, please doAnd this time I’ll teach you a thing or two.It was an itinerary for an alternate life.
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