Gone Girl

the cachet of being pals with a missing woman – or she was crazy. A stalker determined to befriend Amy, and when Amy shirked her …
    ‘Do you have any information about Amy, Noelle?’ I asked.
    ‘Of course I do, Nick . She was my best friend .’
    We stared each other down for a few seconds.
    ‘Are you going to share it?’ I asked.
    ‘The police know where to find me. If they ever get around to it.’
    ‘That’s super-helpful, Noelle. I’ll make sure they talk to you.’
    Her cheeks blazed red, two expressionist splatters of color.
    She went away. I thought the unkind thought, one of those that burbled up beyond my control. I thought: Women are fucking crazy . No qualifier: Not some women, not many women. Women are crazy.
    Once night fell fully, I drove to my dad’s vacant house, Amy’s clue on the seat beside me.
    Maybe you feel guilty for bringing me here
    I must admit it felt a bit queer
    But it’s not like we had the choice of many a place
    We made the decision: We made this our space .
    Let’s take our love to this little brown house
    Gimme some goodwill, you hot lovin’ spouse!
    This one was more cryptic than the others, but I was sure I had it right. Amy was conceding Carthage, finally forgiving me for moving back here. Maybe you feel guilty for bringing me here … [but] We made this our space . The little brown house was my father’s house, which was actually blue, but Amy was making another inside joke. I’d always liked our inside jokes the best – they made me feel more connected to Amy than any amount of confessional truth-telling or passionate lovemaking or talk-till-sunrising. The little brown house story was about my father, and Amy is the only person I’d ever told it to: that after the divorce, I saw him so seldom that I decided to think of him as a character in a storybook. He was not my actual father – who would have loved me and spent time with me – but a benevolent and vaguely important figure named Mr Brown, who was very busy doing very important things for the United States and who (very) occasionally used me as a cover to move more easily about town. Amy got tears in her eyes when I told her this, which I hadn’t meant, I’d meant it as a kids are funny story. She told me she was my family now, that she loved me enough to make up for ten crappy fathers, and that we were now the Dunnes, the two of us. And then she whispered in my ear, ‘I do have an assignment you might be good for …’
    As for bringing back the goodwill, that was another conciliation. After my father was completely lost to the Alzheimer’s, we decidedto sell his place, so Amy and I went through his house, putting together boxes for Goodwill. Amy, of course, was a whirling dervish of doing – pack, store, toss – while I sifted through my father’s things glacially. For me, everything was a clue. A mug with deeper coffee stains than the others must be his favorite. Was it a gift? Who gave it to him? Or did he buy it himself? I pictured my father finding the very act of shopping emasculating. Still, an inspection of his closet revealed five pairs of shoes, shiny new, still in their boxes. Had he bought these himself, picturing a different, more social Bill Dunne than the one slowly unspooling alone? Did he go to Shoe-Be-Doo-Be, get my mother to help him, just another in a long line of her casual kindnesses? Of course, I didn’t share any of these musings with Amy, so I’m sure I came off as the goldbricker I so often am.
    ‘Here. A box. For Goodwill,’ she said, catching me on the floor, leaning against a wall, staring at a shoe. ‘You put the shoes in the box. Okay?’ I was embarrassed, I snarled at her, she snapped at me, and … the usual.
    I should add, in Amy’s defense, that she’d asked me twice if I wanted to talk, if I was sure I wanted to do this. I sometimes leave out details like that. It’s more convenient for me. In truth, I wanted her to read my mind so I didn’t have to stoop to the womanly art of articulation. I was sometimes as guilty of playing the figure-me-out game as Amy was. I’ve left that bit of information out, too.
    I’m a big fan of the lie of omission.
    I pulled up in front of my dad’s house just after ten p.m. It was a tidy little place, a good starter home (or ender home). Two bedrooms, two baths, dining room, dated but decent kitchen. A for-sale sign rusted in the front yard. One year and not a bite.
    I entered the stuffy house, the heat rolling