flynn_gillian_gone_girl (1) (858987), страница 85
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Once a year the man whomanaged the money, an unblinking, pink-cheeked banker named Jim Je reys, insistedon taking me to lunch, a “checkup,” he called it. We’d eat something in the twenty-dollarrange and talk about my life—he’d known me since I was this-high, after all, heheh. Asfor me, I knew almost nothing about Jim Je reys, and never asked, viewing theappointments always from the same kid’s-eye view: Be polite, but barely, and get it overwith.
Single-word answers, tired sighs. (The one thing I suspected about Jim Je reyswas that he must be Christian, churchy—he had the patience and optimism of someonewho thought Jesus was watching.) I wasn’t due for a “checkup” for another eight or ninemonths, but Jim Je reys had nagged, leaving phone messages in a serious, hushedvoice, saying he’d done all he could to extend the “life of the fund,” but it was time tothink about “next steps.”And here again came the meanness: I immediately thought about that other littletabloid girl, Jamie Something, who’d lost her family the same year—1985.
She’d hadpart of her face burned o in a re her dad set that killed everyone else in her family.Any time I hit the ATM, I think of that Jamie girl, and how if she hadn’t stolen mythunder, I’d have twice as much money. That Jamie Whatever was out at some mall withmy cash, buying fancy handbags and jewelry and buttery department-store makeup tosmooth onto her shiny, scarred face. Which was a horrible thing to think, of course. I atleast knew that.Finally, nally, nally I pulled myself out of bed with a stage-e ect groan andwandered to the front of my house.
I rent a small brick bungalow within a loop of othersmall brick bungalows, all of which squat on a massive blu overlooking the formerstockyards of Kansas City. Kansas City, Missouri, not Kansas City, Kansas. There’s adifference.My neighborhood doesn’t even have a name, it’s so forgotten. It’s called Over ThereThat Way. A weird, subprime area, full of dead ends and dog crap. The other bungalowsare packed with old people who’ve lived in them since they were built.
The old peoplesit, gray and pudding-like, behind screen windows, peering out at all hours. Sometimesthey walk to their cars on careful elderly tiptoes that make me feel guilty, like I shouldgo help. But they wouldn’t like that. They are not friendly old people—they are tightlipped, pissed-o old people who do not appreciate me being their neighbor, this newperson. The whole area hums with their disapproval. So there’s the noise of their disdainand there’s the skinny red dog two doors down who barks all day and howls all night,the constant background noise you don’t realize is driving you crazy until it stops, just afew blessed moments, and then starts up again.
The neighborhood’s only cheerful soundI usually sleep through: the morning coos of toddlers. A troop of them, round-faced andmultilayered, walk to some daycare hidden even farther in the rat’s nest of streetsbehind me, each clutching a section of a long piece of rope trailed by a grown-up. Theymarch, penguin-style, past my house every morning, but I have not once seen themreturn. For all I know, they troddle around the entire world and return in time to passmy window again in the morning. Whatever the story, I am attached to them. There arethree girls and a boy, all with a fondness for bright red jackets—and when I don’t seethem, when I oversleep, I actually feel blue. Bluer.
That’d be the word my mom woulduse, not something as dramatic as depressed. I’ve had the blues for twenty-four years.I PUT ON a skirt and blouse for the meeting, feeling dwarfy, my grown-up, big-girlclothes never quite tting. I’m barely ve foot—four foot, ten inches in truth, but Iround up. Sue me. I’m thirty-one, but people tend to talk to me in singsong, like theywant to give me fingerpaints.I headed down my weedy front slope, the neighbor’s red dog launching into itsbusybody barking.
On the pavement near my car are the smashed skeletons of two babybirds, their attened beaks and wings making them look reptilian. They’ve been therefor a year. I can’t resist looking at them each time I get in my car. We need a goodflood, wash them away.Two elderly women were talking on the front steps of a house across the street, and Icould feel them refusing to see me. I don’t know anyone’s name. If one of those womendied, I couldn’t even say, “Poor old Mrs.
Zalinsky died.” I’d have to say, “That mean oldbitch across the street bit it.”Feeling like a child ghost, I climbed into my anonymous midsized car, which seems tobe made mostly of plastic. I keep waiting for someone from the dealership to show upand tell me the obvious: “It’s a joke. You can’t actually drive this. We were kidding.” Itrance-drove my toy car ten minutes downtown to meet Jim Je reys, rolling into thesteakhouse parking lot twenty minutes late, knowing he’d smile all kindly and saynothing about my tardiness.I was supposed to call him from my cell phone when I arrived so he could trot outand escort me in.
The restaurant—a great, old-school KC steakhouse—is surrounded byhollowed-out buildings that concern him, as if a troop of rapists was permanentlycrouched in their empty husks awaiting my arrival. Jim Je reys is not going to be TheGuy Who Let Something Bad Happen to Libby Day. Nothing bad can happen to BRAVEBABY DAY, LITTLE GIRL LOST, the pathetic, red-headed seven-year-old with big blueeyes, the only one who survived the PRAIRIE MASSACRE, the KANSAS CRAZE-KILLINGS,the FARMHOUSE SATAN SACRIFICE. My mom, two older sisters, all butchered by Ben.The only one left, I’d ngered him as the murderer. I was the cutie-pie who brought myDevil-worshiping brother to justice. I was big news. The Enquirer put my tearful photoon the front page with the headline ANGEL FACE.I peered into the rearview mirror and could see my baby face even now. My freckleswere faded, and my teeth straightened, but my nose was still pug and my eyes kittenround.
I dyed my hair now, a white-blonde, but the red roots had grown in. It lookedlike my scalp was bleeding, especially in the late-day sunlight. It looked gory. I lit acigarette. I’d go for months without smoking, and then remember: I need a cigarette. I’mlike that, nothing sticks.“Let’s go, Baby Day,” I said aloud. It’s what I call myself when I’m feeling hateful.I got out of the car and smoked my way toward the restaurant, holding the cigarettein my right hand so I didn’t have to look at the left hand, the mangled one. It wasalmost evening: Migrant clouds oated in packs across the sky like bu alo, and the sunwas just low enough to spray everything pink. Toward the river, between the loopinghighway ramps, obsolete grain elevators sat vacant, dusk-black and pointless.I walked across the parking lot all by myself, atop a constellation of crushed glass.
Iwas not attacked. It was, after all, just past 5 p.m. Jim Je reys was an early-bird eater,proud of it.He was sitting at the bar when I walked in, sipping a pop, and the rst thing he did,as I knew he would, was grab his cell phone from his jacket pocket and stare at it as if ithad betrayed him.“Did you call?” he frowned.“No, I forgot,” I lied.He smiled then. “Well, anyway. Anyway, I’m glad you’re here, sweetheart.
Ready totalk turkey?”He slapped two bucks on the bartop, and maneuvered us over to a red leather boothsprouting yellow stu ng from its cracks. The broken slits scraped the backs of my legsas I slid in. A whoof of cigarette stink burped out of the cushions.Jim Je reys never drank liquor in front of me, and never asked me if I wanted adrink, but when the waiter came I ordered a glass of red wine and watched him try notto look surprised, or disappointed, or anything but Jim Je reys–like.
What kind of red?the waiter asked, and I had no idea, really—I never could remember the names of redsor whites, or which part of the name you were supposed to say out loud, so I just said,House. He ordered a steak, I ordered a double-stu ed baked potato, and then the waiterleft and Jim Je reys let out a long dentist-y sigh and said, “Well, Libby, we are enteringa very new and different stage here together.”“So how much is left?” I asked, thinking saytenthousandsayten thousand.“Do you read those reports I send you?”“I sometimes do,” I lied again. I liked getting mail but not reading it; the reportswere probably in a pile somewhere in my house.“Have you listened to my messages?”“I think your cell phone is messed up.
It cuts out a lot.” I’d listened just long enoughto know I was in trouble. I usually tuned out after Jim Je reys’ rst sentence, whichalways began: Your friend Jim Jeffreys here, Libby …Jim Je reys steepled his ngers and stuck his bottom lip out.
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