Gone Girl

star always deploys right before telling a killer story.
    ‘Like, none of your business.’ He smiles. ‘I just have a lot to make up to her. I wasn’t the husband I could have been. We had a few hard years, and I … I lost my shit. I stopped trying. I mean, I’ve heard that phrase a thousand times: We stopped trying . Everyone knows it means the end of a marriage – it’s textbook. But I stopped trying. It was me. I wasn’t the man I needed to be.’ Nick’s lids are heavy, his speech off-kilter enough that his twang is showing. He is past tipsy, one drink before drunk. His cheeks are pink with alcohol. My fingertips glow, remembering the heat of his skin when he had a few cocktails in him.
    ‘So how would you make it up to her?’ The camera wobbles for a second; the girl is grabbing her cocktail.
    ‘How will I make it up to her. First I’m going to find her and bring her home. You can bet on that. Then? Whatever she needs from me, I’ll give her. From now on. Because I reached the end of the treasure hunt, and I was brought to my knees. Humbled. My wife has never been more clear to me than she is now. I’ve never been so sure of what I needed to do.’
    ‘If you could talk to Amy right now, what would you tell her?’
    ‘I love you. I will find you. I will …’
    I can tell he is about to do the Daniel Day-Lewis line from The Last of the Mohicans : ‘Stay alive … I will find you.’ He can’t resist deflecting any sincerity with a quick line of movie dialogue. I can feel him teetering right on the edge of it. He stops himself.
    ‘I love you forever, Amy.’
    How heartfelt. How unlike my husband.
    Three morbidly obese hill people on motorized scooters are between me and my morning coffee. Their asses mushroom over the sides of the contraptions, but they still need another Egg McMuffin. There are literally three people, parked in front of me, in line, inside the McDonald’s.
    I actually don’t care. I’m curiously cheerful despite this twist in the plan. Online, the video is already spiral-viraling away, and the reaction is surprisingly positive. Cautiously optimistic: Maybe this guy didn’t kill his wife after all . That is, word for word, the most common refrain. Because once Nick lets his guard down and shows some emotion, it’s all there. No one could watch that video and believe he was putting up an act. It was no swallow-the-pain sortof amateur theater. My husband loves me. Or at least last night he loved me. While I was plotting his doom in my crummy little cabin that smells of moldy towel, he loved me.
    It’s not enough. I know that, of course. I can’t change my plan. But it gives me pause. My husband has finished the treasure hunt and he is in love. He is also deeply distressed: on one cheek I swear I could spot a hive.
    I pull up to my cabin to find Dorothy knocking on my door. Her hair is wet from the heat, brushed straight back like a Wall Street slickster’s. She is in the habit of swiping her upper lip, then licking the sweat off her fingers, so she has her index finger in her mouth like a buttery corncob as she turns to me.
    ‘There she is,’ she says. ‘The truant.’
    I am late on my cabin payment. Two days. It almost makes me laugh: I am late on rent.
    ‘I’m so sorry, Dorothy. I’ll come by with it in ten minutes.’
    ‘I’ll wait, if you don’t mind.’ ‘I’m not sure if I’m going to stay. I might have to head on.’
    ‘Then you’d still owe me the two days. Eighty dollars, please.’
    I duck into my cabin, undo my flimsy money belt. I counted my cash on my bed this morning, taking a good long time doling out each bill, a teasing economic striptease, and the big reveal was that I have, somehow , I have only $8,849 left. It costs a lot to live.
    When I open the door to hand Dorothy the cash ($8,769 left), I see Greta and Jeff hanging out on Greta’s porch, watching the cash exchange hands. Jeff isn’t playing his guitar, Greta isn’t smoking. They seem to be standing on her porch just to get a better look at me. They both wave at me, hey, sweetie , and I wave limply back. I close the door and start packing.
    It’s strange how little I own in this world when I used to own so much. I don’t own an eggbeater or a soup bowl. I own sheets and towels, but I don’t own a decent blanket. I own a pair of scissors so I can keep my hair butchered. It makes me smile because Nick didn’t own a pair of scissors when we moved in together. No scissors, no