flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 6
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Leave her in kneesocks and hair ribbons andlet me grow up, unencumbered by my literary alter ego, my paper-bound better half, theme I was supposed to be.But Amy is the Elliott bread and butter, and she’s served us well, so I suppose I can’tbegrudge her a perfect match. She’s marrying good old Able Andy, of course. They’ll bejust like my parents: happy-happy.Still, it was unsettling, the incredibly small order the publisher put in. A new AmazingAmy used to get a rst print of a hundred thousand copies back in the ’80s. Now tenthousand. The book-launch party was, accordingly, unfabulous.
O -tone. How do youthrow a party for a ctional character who started life as a precocious moppet of sixand is now a thirty-year-old bride-to-be who still speaks like a child? (“Sheesh,” thoughtAmy, “my dear ancé sure is a grouch-monster when he doesn’t get his way …” That is anactual quote. The whole book made me want to punch Amy right in her stupid, spotlessvagina.) The book is a nostalgia item, intended to be purchased by women who grew upwith Amazing Amy, but I’m not sure who will actually want to read it. I read it, ofcourse. I gave the book my blessing—multiple times.
Rand and Marybeth feared that Imight take Amy’s marriage as some jab at my perpetually single state. (“I, for one, don’tthink women should marry before thirty- ve,” said my mom, who married my dad attwenty-three.)My parents have always worried that I’d take Amy too personally—they always tellme not to read too much into her.
And yet I can’t fail to notice that whenever I screwsomething up, Amy does it right: When I nally quit violin at age twelve, Amy wasrevealed as a prodigy in the next book. (“Sheesh, violin can be hard work, but hardwork is the only way to get better!”) When I blew o the junior tennis championship atage sixteen to do a beach weekend with friends, Amy recommitted to the game.(“Sheesh, I know it’s fun to spend time with friends, but I’d be letting myself andeveryone else down if I didn’t show up for the tournament.”) This used to drive me mad,but after I went o to Harvard (and Amy correctly chose my parents’ alma mater), Idecided it was all too ridiculous to think about. That my parents, two child psychologists,chose this particular public form of passive-aggressiveness toward their child was not justfucked up but also stupid and weird and kind of hilarious.
So be it.The book party was as schizophrenic as the book—at Bluenight, o Union Square,one of those shadowy salons with wingback chairs and art deco mirrors that aresupposed to make you feel like a Bright Young Thing. Gin martinis wobbling on trayslofted by waiters with rictus smiles. Greedy journalists with knowing smirks and hollowlegs, getting the free buzz before they go somewhere better.My parents circulate the room hand in hand—their love story is always part of theAmazing Amy story: husband and wife in mutual creative labor for a quarter century.Soul mates.
They really call themselves that, which makes sense, because I guess theyare. I can vouch for it, having studied them, little lonely only child, for many years.They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny con icts, they ride through life likeconjoined jelly sh—expanding and contracting instinctively, lling each other’s spacesliquidly. Making it look easy, the soul-mate thing.
People say children from brokenhomes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particularchallenges.Naturally, I have to sit on some velvety banquette in the corner of the room, out ofthe noise, so I can give a few interviews to a sad handful of kid interns who’ve gottenstuck with the “grab a quote” assignment from their editors.How does it feel to see Amy finally married to Andy? Because you’re not married, right?Question asked by:a) a sheepish, bug-eyed kid balancing a notebook on top of his messengerbagb) an overdressed, sleek-haired young thing with fuck-me stilettosc) an eager, tattooed rockabilly girl who seemed way more interested inAmy than one would guess a tattooed rockabilly girl would bed) all of the aboveAnswer: DMe: “Oh, I’m thrilled for Amy and Andy, I wish them the best.
Ha, ha.”My answers to all the other questions, in no particular order:“Some parts of Amy are inspired by me, and some are just fiction.”“I’m happily single right now, no Able Andy in my life!”“No, I don’t think Amy oversimplifies the male-female dynamic.”“No, I wouldn’t say Amy is dated; I think the series is a classic.”“Yes, I am single. No Able Andy in my life right now.”“Why is Amy amazing and Andy’s just able? Well, don’t you know a lot of powerful,fabulous women who settle for regular guys, Average Joes and Able Andys? No, just kidding,don’t write that.”“Yes, I am single.”“Yes, my parents are definitely soul mates.”“Yes, I would like that for myself one day.”“Yep, single, motherfucker.”Same questions over and over, and me trying to pretend they’re thought-provoking.And them trying to pretend they’re thought-provoking. Thank God for the open bar.Then no one else wants to talk to me—that fast—and the PR girl pretends it’s a goodthing: Now you can get back to your party! I wriggle back into the (small) crowd, wheremy parents are in full hosting mode, their faces ushed—Rand with his toothyprehistoric-monster- sh smile, Marybeth with her chickeny, cheerful head bobs, theirhands intertwined, making each other laugh, enjoying each other, thrilled with eachother—and I think, I am so fucking lonely.I go home and cry for a while.
I am almost thirty-two. That’s not old, especially notin New York, but fact is, it’s been years since I even really liked someone. So how likelyis it I’ll meet someone I love, much less someone I love enough to marry? I’m tired of notknowing who I’ll be with, or if I’ll be with anyone.I have many friends who are married—not many who are happily married, but manymarried friends. The few happy ones are like my parents: They’re ba ed by mysingleness. A smart, pretty, nice girl like me, a girl with so many interests andenthusiasms, a cool job, a loving family.
And let’s say it: money. They knit theireyebrows and pretend to think of men they can set me up with, but we all know there’sno one left, no one good left, and I know that they secretly think there’s somethingwrong with me, something hidden away that makes me unsatisfiable, unsatisfying.The ones who are not soul-mated—the ones who have settled—are even moredismissive of my singleness: It’s not that hard to nd someone to marry, they say. Norelationship is perfect, they say—they, who make do with dutiful sex and gassy bedtimerituals, who settle for TV as conversation, who believe that husbandly capitulation—yes,honey, okay, honey—is the same as concord.
He’s doing what you tell him to do because hedoesn’t care enough to argue, I think. Your petty demands simply make him feel superior, orresentful, and someday he will fuck his pretty, young coworker who asks nothing of him, andyou will actually be shocked. Give me a man with a little ght in him, a man who calls meon my bullshit. (But who also kind of likes my bullshit.) And yet: Don’t land me in oneof those relationships where we’re always pecking at each other, disguising insults asjokes, rolling our eyes and “playfully” scrapping in front of our friends, hoping to lurethem to our side of an argument they could not care less about. Those awful if onlyrelationships: This marriage would be great if only … and you sense the if only list is a lotlonger than either of them realizes.So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn’t make me feel better as my friendspair o and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself anextravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I’m the one dating me.
As I go toendless rounds of parties and bar nights, perfumed and sprayed and hopeful, rotatingmyself around the room like some dubious dessert. I go on dates with men who are niceand good-looking and smart—perfect-on-paper men who make me feel like I’m in aforeign land, trying to explain myself, trying to make myself known. Because isn’t thatthe point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood? He getsme. She gets me. Isn’t that the simple magic phrase?So you su er through the night with the perfect-on-paper man—the stutter of jokesmisunderstood, the witty remarks lobbed and missed. Or maybe he understands thatyou’ve made a witty remark but, unsure of what to do with it, he holds it in his hand likesome bit of conversational phlegm he will wipe away later.
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