flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 31
Текст из файла (страница 31)
We watched TV silently onour two sofa cushions, as separate as if they were life rafts. In bed, she turned awayfrom me, pushed blankets and sheets between us. I once woke up in the night and,knowing she was asleep, pulled aside her halter strap a bit, and pressed my cheek and apalm against her bare shoulder.
I couldn’t get back to sleep that night, I was sodisgusted with myself. I got out of bed and masturbated in the shower, picturing Amy,the lusty way she used to look at me, those heavy-lidded moonrise eyes taking me in,making me feel seen. When I was done, I sat down in the bathtub and stared at thedrain through the spray. My penis lay pathetically along my left thigh, like some smallanimal washed ashore. I sat at the bottom of the bathtub, humiliated, trying not to cry.So it happened.
In a strange, sudden snowstorm in early April. Not April of this year,April of last year. I was working the bar alone because Go was having a Mom Night; wetook turns not working, staying home with our mother and watching bad TV. Our momwas going fast, she wouldn’t last the year, not even close.I was actually feeling okay right at that moment—my mom and Go were snuggled upat home watching an Annette Funicello beach movie, and The Bar had had a busy, livelynight, one of those nights where everyone seemed to have come o a good day. Prettygirls were nice to homely guys. People were buying rounds for strangers just because. Itwas festive.
And then it was the end of the night, time to close, everybody out. I wasabout to lock the door when Andie ung it wide and stepped in, almost on top of me,and I could smell the light-beer sweetness on her breath, the scent of woodsmoke in herhair. I paused for that jarring moment when you try to process someone you’ve seen inonly one setting, put them in a new context. Andie in The Bar. Okay. She laughed apirate-wench laugh and pushed me back inside.“I just had the most fantastically awful date, and you have to have a drink with me.”Snow akes gathered in the dark waves of her hair, her sweet scattering of frecklesglowed, her cheeks were bright pink, as if someone had double-slapped her.
She has thisgreat voice, this fuzzy-duckling voice, that starts out ridiculously cute and ends upcompletely sexy. “Please, Nick, I’ve got to get that bad-date taste out of my mouth.”I remember us laughing, and thinking what a relief it was to be with a woman andhear her laugh. She was wearing jeans and a cashmere V-neck; she is one of those girlswho look better in jeans than a dress.
Her face, her body, is casual in the best way. Iassumed my position behind the bar, and she slid onto a bar stool, her eyes assessing allthe liquor bottles behind me.“Whaddya want, lady?”“Surprise me,” she said.“Boo,” I said, the word leaving my lips kiss-puckered.“Now surprise me with a drink.” She leaned forward so her cleavage was leveragedagainst the bar, her breasts pushed upward. She wore a pendant on a thin gold chain;the pendant slid between her breasts down under her sweater.
Don’t be that guy, Ithought. The guy who pants over where the pendant ends.“What flavor you feel like?” I asked.“Whatever you give me, I’ll like.”It was that line that caught me, the simplicity of it. The idea that I could dosomething and it would make a woman happy, and it would be easy. Whatever you giveme, I’ll like.
I felt an overwhelming wave of relief. And then I knew I didn’t love Amyanymore.I don’t love my wife anymore, I thought, turning to grab two tumblers. Not even a littlebit. I am wiped clean of love, I am spotless. I made my favorite drink: Christmas Morning,hot co ee and cold peppermint schnapps. I had one with her, and when she shiveredand laughed—that big whoop of a laugh—I poured us another round. We drank togetheran hour past closing time, and I mentioned the word wife three times, because I waslooking at Andie and picturing taking her clothes o . A warning for her, the least Icould do: I have a wife.
Do with that what you will.She sat in front of me, her chin in her hands, smiling up at me.“Walk me home?” she said. She’d mentioned before how close she lived to downtown,how she needed to stop by The Bar some night and say hello, and did she mention howclose she lived to The Bar? My mind had been primed: Many times I’d mentally strolledthe few blocks toward the bland brick apartments where she lived. So when I suddenlywas out the door, walking her home, it didn’t seem unusual at all—there wasn’t thatwarning bell that told me: This is unusual, this is not what we do.I walked her home, against the wind, snow ying everywhere, helping her rewrapher red knitted scarf once, twice, and on the third time, I was tucking her in properlyand our faces were close, and her cheeks were a merry holiday-sledding pink, and it wasthe kind of thing that could never have happened in another hundred nights, but thatnight it was possible.
The conversation, the booze, the storm, the scarf.We grabbed each other at the same time, me pushing her up against a tree for betterleverage, the spindly branches dumping a pile of snow on us, a stunning, comicalmoment that only made me more insistent on touching her, touching everything at once,one hand up inside her sweater, the other between her legs. And her letting me.She pulled back from me, her teeth chattering. “Come up with me.”I paused.“Come up with me,” she said again. “I want to be with you.”The sex wasn’t that great, not the rst time.
We were two bodies used to di erentrhythms, never quite getting the hang of each other, and it had been so long since I’dbeen inside a woman, I came rst, quickly, and kept moving, thirty crucial seconds as Ibegan wilting inside her, just long enough to get her taken care of before I went entirelyslack.So it was nice but disappointing, anticlimactic, the way girls must feel when theygive up their virginity: That was what all the fuss was about? But I liked how she wrappedherself around me, and I liked that she was as soft as I’d imagined. New skin.
Young, Ithought disgracefully, picturing Amy and her constant lotioning, sitting in bed andslapping away at herself angrily.I went into Andie’s bathroom, took a piss, looked at myself in the mirror, and mademyself say it: You are a cheater. You have failed one of the most basic male tests. You arenot a good man. And when that didn’t bother me, I thought: You’re really not a good man.The horrifying thing was, if the sex had been outrageously mind-blowing, that mighthave been my sole indiscretion.
But it was only decent, and now I was a cheater, and Icouldn’t ruin my record of delity on something merely average. So I knew there wouldbe a next. I didn’t promise myself never again. And then the next was very, very good,and the next after that was great. Soon Andie became a physical counterpoint to allthings Amy. She laughed with me and made me laugh, she didn’t immediately contradictme or second-guess me. She never scowled at me.
She was easy. It was all so fuckingeasy. And I thought: Love makes you want to be a better man—right, right. But maybe love,real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.I was going to tell Amy. I knew it had to happen. I continued not to tell Amy, formonths and months. And then more months. Most of it was cowardice. I couldn’t bear tohave the conversation, to have to explain myself. I couldn’t imagine having to discuss thedivorce with Rand and Marybeth, as they certainly would insert themselves into thefray. But part of it, in truth, was my strong streak of pragmatism—it was almostgrotesque, how practical (self-serving?) I could be.
I hadn’t asked Amy for a divorce, inpart, because Amy’s money had nanced The Bar. She basically owned it, she wouldcertainly take it back. And I couldn’t bear to look at my twin trying to be brave as shelost another couple years of her life. So I let myself drift on in the miserable situation,assuming that at some point Amy would take charge, Amy would demand a divorce, andthen I would get to be the good guy.This desire—to escape the situation without blame—was despicable. The moredespicable I became, the more I craved Andie, who knew that I wasn’t as bad as Iseemed, if my story were published in the paper for strangers to read. Amy will divorceyou, I kept thinking. She can’t let it linger on much longer.
But as spring faded away andsummer came, then fall, then winter, and I became a cheating man of all seasons—acheat with a pleasantly impatient mistress—it became clear that something would haveto be done.“I mean, I love you, Nick,” Andie said, here, surreally, on my sister’s sofa. “No matterwhat happens. I don’t really know what else to say, I feel pretty …” She threw her handsup. “Stupid.”“Don’t feel stupid,” I said.
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