Gone Girl(144)

She froze, frowning, the male puppet in her hands. Then she turned the female upside down so the skirt flew up.

“No handle for this one.” She turned to me. “Did there used to be a handle?”

“How should I know?”

“A handle like a two-by-four, very thick and heavy, with built-in grooves to get a really good grip?” she snapped. “A handle like a goddamn club?”

She stared at me and I could tell what she was thinking: You are a gameplayer. You are a sociopath. You are a killer.





AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

ELEVEN DAYS GONE


Tonight is Nick’s much touted interview with Sharon Schieber. I was going to watch with a bottle of good wine after a hot bath, recording at the same time, so I can take notes on his lies. I want to write down every exaggeration, half truth, fib, and bald-facer he utters, so I can gird my fury against him. It slipped after the blog interview—one drunken, random interview!—and I can’t allow that to happen. I’m not going to soften. I’m not a chump. Still, I am eager to hear his thoughts on Andie now that she has broken. His spin.

I want to watch alone, but Desi hovers around me all day, floating in and out of whatever room I retreat to, like a sudden patch of bad weather, unavoidable. I can’t tell him to leave, because it’s his house. I’ve tried this already, and it doesn’t work. He’ll say he wants to check the basement plumbing or he wants to peer into the fridge to see what food items need purchasing.

This will go on, I think. This is how my life will be. He will show up when he wants and stay as long as he wants, he’ll shamble around making conversation, and then he’ll sit, and beckon me to sit, and he’ll open a bottle of wine and we’ll suddenly be sharing a meal and there’s no way to stop it.

“I really am exhausted,” I say.

“Indulge your benefactor a little bit longer,” he responds, and runs a finger down the crease of his pant legs.

He knows about Nick’s interview tonight, so he leaves and returns with all my favorite foods: Manchego cheese and chocolate truffles and a bottle of cold Sancerre and, with a wry eyebrow, he even produces the chili-cheese Fritos I got hooked on back when I was Ozark Amy. He pours the wine. We have an unspoken agreement not to get into details about the baby, we both know how miscarriages run in my family, how awful it would be for me to have to speak of it.

“I’ll be interested to hear what the swine has to say for himself,” he says. Desi rarely says jackfuck or shitbag; he says swine, which sounds more poisonous on his lips.

An hour later, we have eaten a light dinner that Desi cooked, and sipped the wine that Desi brought. He has given me one bite of cheese and split a truffle with me. He has given me exactly ten Fritos and then secreted away the bag. He doesn’t like the smell; it offends him, he says, but what he really doesn’t like is my weight. Now we are side by side on the sofa, a spun-soft blanket over us, because Desi has cranked up the air-conditioning so that it is autumn in July. I think he has done it so he can crackle a fire and force us together under the blanket; he seems to have an October vision of the two of us. He even brought me a gift—a heathery violet turtleneck sweater to wear—and I notice it complements both the blanket and Desi’s deep green sweater.

“You know, all through the centuries, pathetic men have abused strong women who threaten their masculinity,” Desi is saying. “They have such fragile psyches, they need that control …”

I am thinking of a different kind of control. I am thinking about control in the guise of caring: Here is a sweater for the cold, my sweet, now wear it and match my vision.

Nick, at least, didn’t do this. Nick let me do what I wanted.

I just want Desi to sit still and be quiet. He’s fidgety and nervous, as if his rival is in the room with us.

“Shhh,” I say as my pretty face comes on the screen, then another photo and another, like falling leaves, an Amy collage.

“She was the girl that every girl wanted to be,” said Sharon’s voiceover. “Beautiful, brilliant, inspiring, and very wealthy.”

“He was the guy that all men admired …”

“Not this man,” Desi muttered.

“… handsome, funny, bright, and charming.”

“But on July fifth, their seemingly perfect world came crashing in when Amy Elliott Dunne disappeared on their fifth wedding anniversary.”

Recap recap recap. Photos of me, Andie, Nick. Stock photos of a pregnancy test and unpaid bills. I really did do a nice job. It’s like painting a mural and stepping back and thinking: Perfect.

“Now, exclusively, Nick Dunne breaks his silence, not only on his wife’s disappearance but on his infidelity and all those rumors.”