flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 32
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“I don’t know what to say either. There’s nothing to say.”“You can say that you love me no matter what happens.”I thought: I can’t say that out loud anymore. I’d said it once or twice, a spitty mumbleagainst her neck, homesick for something. But the words were out there, and so was alot more. I thought then of the trail we’d left, our busy, semi-hidden love a air that Ihadn’t worried enough about. If her building had a security camera, I was on it. I’dbought a disposable phone just for her calls, but those voice mails and texts went to hervery permanent cell.
I’d written her a dirty valentine that I could already see splashedacross the news, me rhyming besot with twat. And more: Andie was twenty-three. Iassumed my words, my voice, even photos of me were captured on various electronica.I’d ipped through the photos on her phone one night, jealous, possessive, curious, andseen plenty of shots of an ex or two smiling proudly in her bed, and I assumed at onepoint I’d join the club—I kind of wanted to join the club—and for some reason thathadn’t worried me, even though it could be downloaded and sent to a million people inthe space of a vengeful second.“This is an extremely weird situation, Andie.
I just need you to be patient.”She pulled back from me. “You can’t say you love me, no matter what happens?”“I love you, Andie. I do.” I held her eyes. Saying I love you was dangerous right now,but so was not saying it.“Fuck me, then,” she whispered. She began tugging at my belt.“We have to be real careful right now. I … It’s a bad, bad place for me if the policefind out about us.
It looks beyond bad.”“That’s what you’re worried about?”“I’m a man with a missing wife and a secret … girlfriend. Yeah, it looks bad. It lookscriminal.”“That makes it sound sleazy.” Her breasts were still out.“People don’t know us, Andie. They will think it’s sleazy.”“God, it’s like some bad noir movie.”I smiled. I’d introduced Andie to noir—to Bogart and The Big Sleep, Double Indemnity,all the classics. It was one of the things I liked best about us, that I could show herthings.“Why don’t we just tell the police?” she said. “Wouldn’t that be better—”“No.
Andie, don’t even think about it. No.”“They’re going to find out—”“Why? Why would they? Have you told anyone about us, sweetheart?”She gave me a twitchy look. I felt bad: This was not how she thought the night wouldgo. She had been excited to see me, she had been imagining a lusty reunion, physicalreassurance, and I was busy covering my ass.“Sweetheart, I’m sorry, I just need to know,” I said.“Not by name.”“What do you mean, not by name?”“I mean,” she said, pulling up her dress nally, “my friends, my mom, they know I’mseeing someone, but not by name.”“And not by any kind of description, right?” I said it more urgently than I wanted to,feeling like I was holding up a collapsing ceiling.
“Two people know about this, Andie.You and me. If you help me, if you love me, it will just be us knowing, and then thepolice will never find out.”She traced a finger along my jawline. “And what if—if they never find Amy?”“You and I, Andie, we’ll be together no matter what happens. But only if we’recareful. If we’re not careful, it’s possible— It looks bad enough that I could go to prison.”“Maybe she ran o with someone,” she said, leaning her cheek against my shoulder.“Maybe—”I could feel her girl-brain buzzing, turning Amy’s disappearance into a frothy,scandalous romance, ignoring any reality that didn’t suit the narrative.“She didn’t run o .
It’s much more serious than that.” I put a nger under her chin soshe looked at me. “Andie? I need you to take this very seriously, okay?”“Of course I’m taking it seriously. But I need to be able to talk to you more often. Tosee you. I’m freaking out, Nick.”“We just need to sit tight for now.” I gripped both her shoulders so she had to look atme. “My wife is missing, Andie.”“But you don’t even—”I knew what she was about to say—you don’t even love her—but she was smartenough to stop.She put her arms around me. “Look, I don’t want to ght. I know you care aboutAmy, and I know you must be really worried. I am too.
I know you are under … I can’timagine the pressure. So I’m ne keeping an even lower pro le than I did before, ifthat’s possible. But remember, this a ects me too. I need to hear from you. Once a day.Just call when you can, even if it’s only for a few seconds, so I can hear your voice.Once a day, Nick. Every single day. I’ll go crazy otherwise.
I’ll go crazy.”She smiled at me, whispered, “Now kiss me.”I kissed her very softly.“I love you,” she said, and I kissed her neck and mumbled my reply. We sat insilence, the TV flickering.I let my eyes close. Now kiss me, who had said that?I lurched awake just after ve A.M. Go was up, I could hear her down the hall,running water in the bathroom. I shook Andie—It’s ve A.M., it’s ve A.M.—and withpromises of love and phone calls, I hustled her toward the door like a shameful onenighter.“Remember, call every day,” Andie whispered.I heard the bathroom door open.“Every day,” I said, and ducked behind the door as I opened it and Andie left.When I turned back around, Go was standing in the living room.
Her mouth haddropped open, stunned, but the rest of her body was in full fury: hands on hips,eyebrows V’ed.“Nick. You fucking idiot.”AMY ELLIOTT DUNNEJULY 21, 2011DIARY ENTRYI am such an idiot. Sometimes I look at myself and I think: No wonder Nick nds meridiculous, frivolous, spoiled, compared to his mom.
Maureen is dying. She hides her diseasebehind big smiles and roomy embroidered sweatshirts, answering every question abouther health with: “Oh, I’m just fine, but how are you doing, sweetie?” She is dying, but sheis not going to admit it, not yet. So yesterday she phones me in the morning, asks me ifI want to go on a eld trip with her and her friends—she is having a good day, shewants to get out of the house as much as she can—and I agree immediately, even thoughI knew they’d be doing nothing that particularly interested me: pinochle, bridge, somechurch activity that usually requires sorting things.“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she says.
“Wear short sleeves.”Cleaning. It had to be cleaning. Something requiring elbow grease. I throw on ashort-sleeve shirt, and in exactly fteen minutes, I am opening the door to Maureen,bald under a knitted cap, giggling with her two friends. They are all wearing matchingappliquéd T-shirts, all bells and ribbons, with the words The PlasMamas airbrushedacross their chests.I think they’ve started a do-wop group. But then we all climb into Rose’s oldChrysler—old-old, one of those where the front seat goes all the way across, agrandmotherly car that smells of lady cigarettes—and o we merrily go to the plasmadonation center.“We’re Mondays and Thursdays,” Rose explains, looking at me in the rearview.“Oh,” I say. How else does one reply? Oh, those are awesome plasma days!“You’re allowed to give twice a week,” says Maureen, the bells on her sweatshirtjingling. “The rst time you get twenty dollars, the second time you get thirty.
That’swhy everyone’s in such a good mood today.”“You’ll love it,” Vicky says. “Everyone just sits and chats, like a beauty salon.”Maureen squeezes my arm and says quietly, “I can’t give anymore, but I thought youcould be my proxy. It might be a nice way for you to get some pin money—it’s good fora girl to have a little cash of her own.”I swallow a quick gust of anger: I used to have more than a little cash of my own, but Igave it to your son.A scrawny man in an undersize jean jacket hangs around the parking lot like a straydog. Inside, though, the place is clean. Well lit, piney-smelling, with Christian posters onthe wall, all doves and mist. But I know I can’t do it.
Needles. Blood. I can’t do either. Idon’t really have any other phobias, but those two are solid—I am the girl who swoonsat a paper cut. Something about the opening of skin: peeling, slicing, piercing. Duringchemo with Maureen, I never looked when they put in the needle.“Hi, Cayleese!” Maureen calls out as we enter, and a heavy black woman in avaguely medical uniform calls back, “Hi there, Maureen! How you feeling?”“Oh, I’m fine, just fine—but how are you?”“How long have you been doing this?” I ask.“Awhile,” Maureen says. “Cayleese is everyone’s favorite, she gets the needle in realsmooth.
Which was always good for me, because I have rollers.” She pro ers herforearm with its ropey blue veins. When I rst met Mo, she was fat, but no more. It’sodd, she actually looks better fat. “See, try to put your finger on one.”I look around, hoping Cayleese is going to usher us in.“Go on, try.”I touch a ngertip to the vein and feel it roll out from under.
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