Gone Girl
can hide out, all alone, until we decide what to do.’
Desi’s lake house was a mansion , and bringing groceries was becoming my lover . I could feel the need coming off him like heat. He was squirming a little under his suit, wanting to make it happen. Desi was a collector: He had four cars, three houses, suites of suits and shoes. He would like knowing I was stowed away under glass. The ultimate white-knight fantasy: He steals the abused princess from her squalid circumstances and places her under his gilded protection in a castle that no one can breach but him.
‘I can’t do that. What if the police find out somehow and they come to search?’
‘Amy, the police think you’re dead.’
‘No, I should be on my own for now. Can I just have a little cash from you?’
‘What if I say no?’
‘Then I’ll know your offer to help me isn’t genuine. That you’re like Nick and you just want control over me, however you can get it.’
Desi was silent, swallowing his drink with a tight jaw. ‘That’s a rather monstrous thing to say.’
‘It’s a rather monstrous way to act.’
‘I’m not acting that way,’ he said. ‘I’m worried about you. Try the lake house. If you feel cramped by me, if you feel uncomfortable, you leave. The worst that can happen is you get a few days’ rest and relaxation.’
The mustached guy is suddenly at our table, a flickering smile on his face. ‘Ma’am, I don’t suppose you’re any relation to the Enloe family, are you?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say, and turn away.
‘Sorry, you just look like some—’
‘We’re from Canada, now excuse us,’ Desi snaps, and the guy rolls his eyes, mutters a jeez , and strolls back to the bar. But he keeps glancing at me.
‘We should leave,’ Desi says. ‘Come to the lake house. I’ll take you there now.’ He stands.
Desi’s lake house would have a grand kitchen, it would have rooms I could traipse around in – I could ‘hills are alive’ twirl in them, the rooms would be so massive. The house would have Wi-Fi and cable – for all my command-center needs – and a gaping bathtub and plush robes and a bed that didn’t threaten to collapse.
It would have Desi too, but Desi could be managed.
At the bar, the guy is still staring at me, less benevolently.
I lean over and kiss Desi gently on the lips. It has to seem like my decision. ‘You’re such a wonderful man. I’m sorry to put you in this situation.’
‘I want to be in this situation, Amy.’
We are on our way out, walking past a particularly depressing bar, TVs buzzing in all corners, when I see the Slut.
The Slut is holding a press conference.
Andie looks tiny and harmless. She looks like a babysitter, and not a sexy porn babysitter but the girl from down the road, the one who actually plays with the kids. I know this is not the real Andie, because I have followed her in real life. In real life she wears snug tops that show off her breasts, and clingy jeans, and her hair long and wavy. In real life she looks fuckable.
Now she is wearing a ruffled shirtdress with her hair tucked behind her ears, and she looks like she’s been crying, you can tell by the small pink pads beneath her eyes. She looks exhausted and nervous but very pretty. Prettier than I’d thought before. I never saw her this close up. She has freckles.
‘Ohhhh, shit,’ says one woman to her friend, a cheap-cabernet redhead.
‘Oh noooo, I was actually starting to feel bad for the guy,’ says the friend.
‘I have crap in my fridge older than that girl. What an asshole.’
Andie stands behind the mike and looks down with dark eyelashes at a statement that leaf-shakes in her hand. Her upper lip is damp; it shines under the camera lights. She swipes an index finger to blot the sweat. ‘Um. My statement is this: I did engage in an affair with Nick Dunne from April 2011 until July of this year, when his wife, Amy Dunne, went missing. Nick was my professor at North Carthage Junior College, and we became friendly, and then the relationship became more.’
Andie stops to clear her throat. A dark-haired woman behind her, not much older than I am, hands her a glass of water, which she slurps quickly, the glass shaking.
‘I am deeply ashamed of having been involved with a married man. It goes against all my values. I truly believed I was in love’ – she begins crying; her voice shivers – ‘with Nick Dunne and that he was in love with me. He told me that his relationship with
Weitere Kostenlose Bücher