Gone Girl

Part two: Boy Loses Girl Chapter Forty-Seven
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 jackf*ck 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 blankets; 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.'

I feel a gust of warmth toward Nick because he's wearing my favorite tie that I bought for him, that he thinks, or thought, was too girly-bright. It's a peacocky purple that turns his eyes almost violet. He's lost his satisfied-a*shole paunch over the last month: His belly is gone, the fleshiness of his face has vanished, his chin is less clefty. His hair has been trimmed but not cut  -  I have an image of Go hacking away at him just before he went on camera, slipping into Mama Mo's role, fussing over him, doing the saliva-thumb rubdown on some spot near his chin. He is wearing my tie and when he lifts his hand to make a gesture, I see he is wearing my watch, the vintage Bulova Spaceview that I got him for his thirty-third birthday, that he never wore because it wasn't him, even though it was completely him.

'He's wonderfully well groomed for a man who thinks his wife is missing,' Desi snipes. 'Glad he didn't skip a manicure.'

'Nick would never get a manicure,' I say, glancing at Desi's buffed nails.

'Let's get right to it, Nick,' Sharon says. 'Did you have anything to do with your wife's disappearance?'

'No. No. Absolutely, one hundred percent not,' Nick says, keeping well-coached eye contact. 'But let me say, Sharon, I am far, far from being innocent, or blameless, or a good husband. If I weren't so afraid for Amy, I would say this was a good thing, in a way, her disappearing - '

'Excuse me, Nick, but I think a lot of people will find it hard to believe you just said that when your wife is missing.'

'It's the most awful, horrible feeling in the world, and I want her back more than anything. All I am saying is that it has been the most brutal eye-opener for me. You hate to believe that you are such an awful man that it takes something like this to pull you out of your selfishness spiral and wake you up to the fact that you are the luckiest bastard in the world. I mean, I had this woman who was my equal, my better, in every way, and I let my insecurities  -  about losing my job, about not being able to care for my family, about getting older  -  cloud all that.'

'Oh, please - ' Desi starts, and I shush him. For Nick to admit to the world that he is not a good guy  -  it's a small death, and not of the petite mort variety.

'And Sharon, let me say it. Let me say it right now: I cheated. I disrespected my wife. I didn't want to be the man that I had become, but instead of working on myself, I took the easy way out. I cheated with a young woman who barely knew me. So I could pretend to be the big man. I could pretend to be the man I wanted to be  -  smart and confident and successful  -  because this young woman didn't know any different. This young girl, she hadn't seen me crying into a towel in the bathroom in the middle of the night because I lost my job. She didn't know all my foibles and shortcomings. I was a fool who believed if I wasn't perfect, my wife wouldn't love me. I wanted to be Amy's hero, and when I lost my job, I lost my self-respect. I couldn't be that hero anymore. Sharon, I know right from wrong. And I just  -  I just did wrong.'

'What would you say to your wife, if she is possibly out there, able to see and hear you tonight?'

'I'd say: Amy, I love you. You are the best woman I have ever known. You are more than I deserve, and if you come back, I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. We will find a way to put all this horror behind us, and I will be the best man in the world to you. Please come home to me, Amy.'

Just for a second, he places the pad of his index finger in the cleft of his chin, our old secret code, the one we did back in the day to swear we weren't bullshitting each other  -  the dress really did look nice, that article really was solid. I am absolutely, one hundred percent sincere right now  -  I have your back, and I wouldn't f*ck with you.

Desi leans in front of me to break my contact with the screen and reaches for the Sancerre. 'More wine, sweetheart?' he says.

'Shhhh.'

He pauses the show. 'Amy, you are a good-hearted woman. I know you are susceptible to ... pleas. But everything he is saying is lies.'

Nick is saying exactly what I want to hear. Finally.

Desi moves around so he is staring at me full-face, completely obstructing my vision. 'Nick is putting on a pageant. He wants to come off as a good, repentant guy. I'll admit he's doing a bang-up job. But it's not real  -  he hasn't even mentioned beating you, violating you. I don't know what kind of hold this guy has on you. It must be a Stockholm-syndrome thing.'

'I know,' I say. I know exactly what I am supposed to say to Desi. 'You're right. You're absolutely right. I haven't felt so safe in so long, Desi, but I am still ... I see him and ... I'm fighting this, but he hurt me ... for years.'

'Maybe we shouldn't watch any more,' he says, twirling my hair, leaning too close.

'No, leave it on,' I say. 'I have to face this. With you. I can do it with you.' I put my hand in his. Now shut the f*ck up.

I just want Amy to come home so I can spend the rest of my life making it up to her, treating her how she deserves.

Nick forgives me  -  I screwed you over, you screwed me over, let's make up. What if his code is true? Nick wants me back. Nick wants me back so he can treat me right. So he can spend the rest of his life treating me the way he should. It sounds rather lovely. We could go back to New York. Sales for the Amazing Amy books have skyrocketed since my disappearance  -  three generations of readers have remembered how much they love me. My greedy, stupid, irresponsible parents can finally pay back my trust fund. With interest.

Because I want to go back to my old life. Or my old life with my old money and my New Nick. Love-Honor-and-Obey Nick. Maybe he's learned his lesson. Maybe he'll be like he was before. Because I've been daydreaming  -  trapped in my Ozarks cabin, trapped in Desi's mansion compound, I have a lot of time to daydream and what I've been daydreaming of is Nick, in those early days. I thought I would daydream more about Nick getting ass-raped in prison, but I haven't so much, not so much, lately. I think about those early, early days, when we would lie in bed next to each other, naked flesh on cool cotton, and he would just stare at me, one finger tracing my jaw from my chin to my ear, making me wriggle, that light tickling on my lobe, and then through all the seashell curves of my ear and into my hairline, and then he'd take hold of one lock of hair, like he did that very first time we kissed, and pull it all the way to the end and tug twice, gently, like he was ringing a bell. And he'd say, 'You are better than any storybook, you are better than anything anyone could make up.'

Nick fastened me to the earth. Nick wasn't like Desi, who brought me things I wanted (tulips, wine) to make me do the things he wanted (love him). Nick just wanted me to be happy, that's all, very pure. Maybe I mistook that for laziness. I just want you to be happy, Amy. How many times did he say that and I took it to mean: I just want you to be happy, Amy, because that's less work for me. But maybe I was unfair. Well, not unfair but confused. No one I've loved has ever not had an agenda. So how could I know?

It really is true. It took this awful situation for us to realize it. Nick and I fit together. I am a little too much, and he is a little too little. I am a thornbush, bristling from the overattention of my parents, and he is a man of a million little fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into them.

I need to get home to him.