flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 48

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I want you to know Iknow that. All the tut-tutters out there will say: She should have just left, bundled up whatremained of her dignity. Take the high road! Two wrongs don’t make a right! All those thingsthat spineless women say, confusing their weakness with morality.I won’t divorce him because that’s exactly what he’d like.

And I won’t forgive himbecause I don’t feel like turning the other cheek. Can I make it any more clear? I won’tfind that a satisfactory ending. The bad guy wins? Fuck him.For over a year now, I’ve smelled her twat on his ngertips as he slipped into bednext to me. I’ve watched him ogle himself in the mirror, grooming himself like a hornybaboon for their dates.

I’ve listened to his lies, lies, lies—from simplistic child’s bs toelaborate Rube Goldbergian contraptions. I’ve tasted butterscotch on his dry-kiss lips, acloying avor that was never there before. I’ve felt the stubble on his cheeks that heknows I don’t like but apparently she does. I’ve su ered betrayal with all ve senses.For over a year.So I may have gone a bit mad.

I do know that framing your husband for your murderis beyond the pale of what an average woman might do.But it’s so very necessary. Nick must be taught a lesson. He’s never been taught alesson! He glides through life with that charming-Nicky grin, his beloved-childentitlement, his bs and shirkings, his shortcomings and sel shness, and no one callshim on anything.

I think this experience will make him a better person. Or at least asorrier one. Fucker.I’ve always thought I could commit the perfect murder. People who get caught getcaught because they don’t have patience; they refuse to plan. I smile again as I shift mycrappy getaway car into fth gear (Carthage now seventy-eight miles in the dust) andbrace myself for a speeding truck—the car seems ready to take ight every time a semipasses. But I do smile, because this car shows just how smart I am: purchased for twelvehundred dollars cash from a Craigslist posting.

Five months ago, so the memorywouldn’t be fresh in anyone’s mind. A 1992 Ford Festiva, the tiniest, most forgettablecar in the world. I met the sellers at night, in the parking lot of a Walmart in Jonesboro,Arkansas. I took the train down with a bundle of cash in my purse—eight hours eachway, while Nick was on a boys’ trip. (And by boys’ trip, I mean fucking the slut.) I ate inthe train’s dining car, a clump of lettuce with two cherry tomatoes that the menudescribed as a salad. I was seated with a melancholy farmer returning home aftervisiting his baby granddaughter for the first time.The couple selling the Ford seemed as interested in discretion as I.

The womanremained in the car the whole time, a paci ered toddler in her arms, watching herhusband and me trade cash for keys. (That is the correct grammar, you know: herhusband and me.) Then she got out and I got in. That quick. In the rearview mirror, Isaw the couple strolling into Walmart with their money. I’ve been parking it in long-term lots in St. Louis. I go down twice a month and park it somewhere new. Pay cash.Wear a baseball cap. Easy enough.So that’s just an example.

Of patience, planning, and ingenuity. I am pleased withmyself; I have three hours more until I reach the thick of the Missouri Ozarks and mydestination, a small archipelago of cabins in the woods that accepts cash for weeklyrentals and has cable TV, a must. I plan to hole up there the rst week or two; I don’twant to be on the road when the news hits, and it’s the last place Nick would think I’dhide once he realizes I’m hiding.This stretch of highway is particularly ugly. Middle-America blight. After anothertwenty miles, I see, up on the o -ramp, the remains of a lonesome family gas station,vacant but not boarded up, and when I pull to the side, I see the women’s restroom doorswung wide.

I enter—no electricity, but there’s a warped metal mirror and the water isstill on. In the afternoon sunlight and the sauna heat, I remove from my purse a pair ofmetal scissors and bunny-brown hair dye. I shear o large chunks of my hair. All theblond goes into a plastic bag. Air hits the back of my neck, and my head feels light, likea balloon—I roll it around a few times to enjoy. I apply the color, check my watch, andlinger in the doorway, looking out over miles of atland pocked with fast-foodrestaurants and motel chains. I can feel an Indian crying. (Nick would hate that joke.Derivative! And then he’d add, “although the word derivative as a criticism is itselfderivative.” I’ve got to get him out of my head—he still steps on my lines from ahundred miles away.) I wash my hair in the sink, the warm water making me sweat,and then back in the car with my bag of hair and trash.

I put on a pair of outdated wirerim glasses and look in the rearview mirror and smile again. Nick and I would neverhave married if I had looked like this when we met. All this could have been avoided if Iwere less pretty.Item 34: Change look. Check.I’m not sure, exactly, how to be Dead Amy. I’m trying to gure out what that meansfor me, what I become for the next few months.

Anyone, I suppose, except people I’vealready been: Amazing Amy. Preppy ’80s Girl. Ultimate-Frisbee Granola and BlushingIngenue and Witty Hepburnian Sophisticate. Brainy Ironic Girl and Boho Babe (thelatest version of Frisbee Granola). Cool Girl and Loved Wife and Unloved Wife andVengeful Scorned Wife.

Diary Amy.I hope you liked Diary Amy. She was meant to be likable. Meant for someone likeyou to like her. She’s easy to like. I’ve never understood why that’s considered acompliment—that just anyone could like you. No matter. I thought the entries turned outnicely, and it wasn’t simple. I had to maintain an a able if somewhat naive persona, awoman who loved her husband and could see some of his aws (otherwise she’d be toomuch of a sap) but was sincerely devoted to him—all the while leading the reader (inthis case, the cops, I am so eager for them to nd it) toward the conclusion that Nickwas indeed planning to kill me. So many clues to unpack, so many surprises ahead!Nick always mocked my endless lists.

(“It’s like you make sure you’re never satis ed,that there’s always something else to be perfected, instead of just enjoying themoment.”) But who wins here? I win, because my list, the master list entitled Fuck NickDunne, was exacting—it was the most complete, fastidious list that has ever beencreated. On my list was Write Diary Entries for 2005 to 2012. Seven years of diaryentries, not every day, but twice monthly, at least. Do you know how much disciplinethat takes? Would Cool Girl Amy be able to do that? To research each week’s currentevents, to cross-consult with my old daily planners to make sure I forgot nothingimportant, then to reconstruct how Diary Amy would react to each event? It was fun,mostly.

I’d wait for Nick to leave for The Bar, or to go meet his mistress, the evertexting, gum-chewing, vapid mistress with her acrylic nails and the sweatpants withlogos across the butt (she isn’t like this, exactly, but she might as well be), and I’d poursome co ee or open a bottle of wine, pick one of my thirty-two di erent pens, andrewrite my life a little.It is true that I sometimes hated Nick less while I was doing this. A giddy Cool Girlperspective will do that. Sometimes Nick would come home, stinking of beer or of thehand sanitizer he wiped on his body post-mistress-coitus (never entirely erased the stink,though—she must have one rank pussy), and smile guiltily at me, be all sweet andhangdog with me, and I’d almost think: I won’t go through with this.

And then I’d picturehim with her, in her stripper thong, letting him degrade her because she was pretendingto be Cool Girl, she was pretending to love blow jobs and football and getting wasted.And I’d think, I am married to an imbecile.

I’m married to a man who will always choose that,and when he gets bored with this dumb twat, he’ll just nd another girl who is pretending to bethat girl, and he’ll never have to do anything hard in his life.Resolve stiffened.One hundred and fty-two entries total, and I don’t think I ever lose her voice. Iwrote her very carefully, Diary Amy. She is designed to appeal to the cops, to appeal tothe public should portions be released. They have to read this diary like it’s some sort ofGothic tragedy. A wonderful, good-hearted woman—whole life ahead of her, everythinggoing for her, whatever else they say about women who die—chooses the wrong mateand pays the ultimate price. They have to like me.

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