Gone Girl

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 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 almostviolet. He’s lost his satisfied-asshole 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