Gone Bitch (4 page)

“Okay Nick, that’s it for now,” said Gilpin. “Thanks so much, you’ve certainly given us a lot to go on.”

Boney and Gilpin said I should get a good night’s sleep because there was a noon press conference tomorrow, and told me a squad car would drive me home. But I was feeling horny, so I had the squad car drive me to Go’s.

“You don’t want to go look for her?” Go said as we lay naked in bed.

“Perhaps I’m wrong about this, but it seems to me looking for her would increase the chance of finding her.”

“Nick, this is serious,” she said. And then after a pause, added, “Seriously awesome.”

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE: April 21, 2009

Okay, let me set the scene for you: my friends and I (I can’t remember which ones because they change every few weeks) are sitting at a tapas bar in Soho. We’ve shared some tapas, or at least I think they were tapas. I have no idea what tapas actually means. But girls think it’s cool when you say you’ve been to a tapas bar, so I always pick a tapas bar when planning a night out.

We decide to invite our husbands by for drinks, so we text them. All of the other girls’ husbands text back that they’ll stop by, because they know they’ll be punished if they don’t. But not Nick. Nick doesn’t even text back.

I know Nick has a deadline tonight, and that he’ll be fired if he leaves work to come over here. But that doesn’t make me any less mad that he doesn’t come.

It’s not that I have money and therefore Nick’s having a job doesn’t matter to me. It’s that Nick’s having anything doesn’t matter to me. What matters is whether I am winning versus other girls, whether they’re jealous of me or not. And right now, I am definitely not winning. I am losing.

Nick calls typical husbands “dancing monkeys” because they’re at their wives’ beck and call. But what happens to dancing monkeys that won’t dance? They get sold to the cosmetics lab for experimentation. I hope Nick likes the feeling of his eyes being burned away by toxic mascara.

This is an unmitigated disaster. I have completely lost face tonight. Someone please kill me.

Hmmmmmm...now
there’s
an idea!

NICK DUNNE: One Day Gone

In my dream, Amy was crawling on the floor through a pool of her own blood, calling to me for help, “Nick! Nick! Nick!”

And then Go woke me up, saying, “Nick! Nick! Nick!”

“Awwwwww, why did you wake me?” I said. “I was having the best dream!”

I shouldn’t have stayed up so late hooking up with Go. I was exhausted. But I had to get going because I had a press conference at the police station in an hour.

Go drove me to my house so I could grab some decent clothes for the press conference. Several police canoes were circling around the house. My neighbors Jan and Noelle were out watching the scene, and as I passed by them they told me how sorry they were and that they were praying for Amy’s return. Then as I was getting into my canoe, Jan’s and Noelle’s husbands approached and told me how happy they were for me and that they were praying for Amy not to return.

When I entered my house, I was surprised to see the cops going through all my stuff and packing a bunch of it into boxes marked
Evidence
. I noticed that one of the cops was wearing my watch. “What the hell? Give that back,” I said, reaching for it. But he pulled his hand away.

“I can’t let you touch that, sir,” he said. “It’s evidence.”

Then I saw one of the cops in the kitchen making himself a sandwich out of some cold cuts he’d found in the fridge. I went over to take the sandwich away from him, but another cop tackled me. “We can’t let you touch this, sir,” the cop with the sandwich said. “It’s evidence.” And then he started eating it.

I went to my bedroom to grab some clothes, but all the nice stuff had been taken as “evidence,” so the only clean outfit I had left to wear to the press conference was an ‘N Sync T-shirt a friend had given me as a joke gift a couple birthdays ago, along with jean shorts and basketball sneakers.

I headed to the police station, and when I walked in I saw that Amy’s parents Rand and Marybeth had arrived after taking the red eye from New York. They were standing with their arms around each other, which was no surprise because they were always touching each other in some fashion: hands patting, chins nuzzling, shoulders rubbing. Obviously they were only doing this because they were both gay. It’s sad that they grew up in an era where you couldn’t be openly homosexual, and they felt they had to keep their gayness secret by conspicuously touching each other all the time.

Rand and Marybeth spotted me and came over. “This is a nightmare,” said Marybeth. “A true nightmare for fans of
Idiotic Amy
books everywhere.”

“Don’t give up hope, Nick,” said Rand. “We
will
find her, and she
will
return with a tale of doing something so idiotic it will make for the best
Idiotic Amy
book yet.”

Boney and Gilpin said the press conference was about to start and led us to the media room where it would take place. Next to the podium there was a big poster of Amy. She looked hot in the poster photo, which was good because that would get other hot girls interested in me. Hot girls assumed that if a hot girl was dating a guy he must be awesome. Note to self: keep directing attention to the poster!

An official-looking woman in a suit came up to me and said, “Remember Nick, the main point of this press conference is to mobilize the community and get people looking for Amy.” Then before I knew it the press conference had begun and it was time for me to speak.

“Hello. I’m Nick Dunne, and my wife Amy is missing,” I said. “If you really want to help, you can, but if you’re busy, no worries. It’ll probably be pretty boring searching anyway. Think about it: out there baking in the hot sun...walking through poison ivy and stepping in dog poo...and you’ll probably be looking in completely the wrong place anyway. On second thought, you know what? Just don’t even bother searching. Stay at home, relax. You deserve a little me-time.”

The woman in the suit rushed forward and grabbed the microphone away from me, and handed it to Rand.

“Hi, I’m Rand Elliott, Amy’s father,” he said. “And I just want to say:
we want her back
. We, her family. The family of
Idiotic Amy
readers.”

The woman in the suit tapped Rand on the shoulder and pointed to me. She was clearly telling Rand to give me a chance to redeem myself. Rand nodded.

“I’m sure Nick wants her back, too,” he said. “Right Nick?”

The entire room turned to look toward me...and they saw me snoring, because I’d fallen asleep.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE: July 5, 2010

It’s the evening of our third wedding anniversary. And I’m spending it alone.

Nick called a little while ago and said he’s really sorry but a bunch of his co-workers got laid off today, and he needs to go out with them for some drinks. But I know this means he’s actually fucking another girl. See, when a married guy gives you any reason for not being able to make it somewhere, women know the real reason is he’s fucking another girl. Working late? Fucking another girl. Car got a flat? Fucking another girl. Fell on some ice and broke his arm? Fucking another girl. Yes, even personal injuries. If your husband says he can’t make it somewhere because he injured himself, he’s either faking the injury or intentionally injured himself after fucking another girl to give himself an excuse.

I never understand why guys don’t realize women know this, and just come right out and say, “I can’t make it, because I’ve got to go fuck another girl.” It would make everybody’s life a lot easier.

I know what a lot of you are thinking. “Amy, if he’s gonna cheat on you like this, why not get divorced?” If you’re thinking this, I know you’re a guy or a non-hot girl. Because you’re failing to take into account why hot girls get married in the first place: status. And you’re also failing to see that Nick’s cheating actually isn’t hurting my status, but rather will eventually
help
my status. You see, a guy cheating on you means he’s a cooler, higher-level dude. So
if
you can eventually domesticate him and stop him from cheating, you get huge hot girl cred for that. Do you think all my friends with their dancing monkey husbands get credit for their husbands fawning all over them? No way. But when Nick is once again fawning all over me, none of my hot girl friends will be able to deny I am better than them.

So I sit here content on my anniversary, even though I am by myself cooking lobsters no one will eat. I actually bought the lobsters
after
Nick told me he wouldn’t make it home tonight, because it makes for a much better story for my friends. “Sitting home alone” isn’t nearly as dramatic as “sitting home alone cooking lobsters no one will eat.”

Later, long after I go to bed, Nick slinks in. In the morning, I wake up before him and go to get a glass of water, and I notice a rolled up piece of paper in the wastebasket. I unroll it to reveal a girl’s number.

I am overjoyed.

Every time a girl gives Nick her number, this makes him an even higher-level dude. And every time he throws away such a number, because he has other better options, that makes him an even
higher
-level dude. So every time I find a girl’s number in the wastebasket, it’s like finding a little piece of buried treasure.

NICK DUNNE: One Day Gone

Flashbulbs exploded at the press conference and woke me up. I really should’ve fallen asleep facing away from the photographers.

Stupid, Nick. Stupid
.

After the press conference ended, Gilpin came up to me.

“Nick, you got a minute? Just wanted to update you on the investigation.”

“Sure,” I said.

“We checked out your neighborhood and found some houses with black people living there, so we’re investigating them.”

“Great,” I said. “You know I was also thinking, there’s some weird people at the mall you should check out as well.”

“You mean the Riverway Mall that’s out of business?” Gilpin said. “The homeless people squatting there?”

“No, I mean the Westgate Mall that’s still in business,” I said. “The people who work at the Hot Topic there are really weird. Oh you know who else you should investigate? The people who work at the Panda Express. They completely freak out when I ask for extra rice.
It’s white rice
, it costs like three cents. Those people are out of their fucking minds. Seriously, I’d be looking at them if I were you.”

“We’ll get on it,” said Gilpin. “Hey also, I’ve got something to show you.”

He led me into a small room where Boney was sitting. On the table in front of her was a wrapped gift, with an attached card that said “Nick.”

“Awwwwww, you got me a present?” I said. “That is so sweet of you! But it really wasn’t necessary.”

“It’s not from us,” said Boney. “It’s from your wife. We found it at your house.”

The treasure hunt.
This was the first clue.

I opened the card and read it.

I know you’re scared of another treasure hunt

“The clues will be too hard because my wife’s a cunt”

Stop being so chicken! Enough of your clucking!

Check your office where you first banged that coed you’re fucking.

I shrugged at Gilpin and Boney. “No idea what this means. It’s like reading Chinese.”

“
That coed you’re fucking
? Seems to make sense to me,” said Boney. “So who’s the coed?”

“No no no,” I said. “
Coed you’re fucking
is an inside joke between me and Amy.”

“Oh? What’s the joke?”

“I don’t even remember anymore, it was like from our second date or something,” I said. “See, this is what she does! She puts these impossible references in there and there’s no way to tell what she’s talking about!”

“Well, maybe we should check your office anyway, like the clue says,” Gilpin said.

“It
doesn’t say that
. It’s an
inside joke
. Is anyone here listening to me? If it’s saying anything, it’s saying
don’t
check the office and Nick
isn’t
fucking a coed.”

“Look Nick, just as protocol, we have to check your office,” Boney said.

Apparently the police have this stupid protocol where they’re required to read things literally and assume the literal interpretation might be correct. So off to my office we went.

My office was located at the community college where I taught Intro to Greeting Card Writing. It was a neat class, actually. I divided the semester into different holidays, and in each section of the course we’d learn to write fart jokes for that particular holiday.

I opened the office and let in Gilpin, who’d accompanied me there. He looked around, then pulled out some tweezers, reached below my desk, and slowly lifted up a pair of women’s panties.

“And how do you explain this?” he asked.

“Uh...the cleaning lady accidentally left them here?”

“Uh huh. And how do you explain
this?
”

He reached down again with the tweezers, and pulled out an enormous pair of panties only a really fat woman would wear.

“There’s no explanation for that,” I said. “I wish I’d never done it. It’s just shameful. Sometimes I have an extra beer or two, and I lose all sense of judgment, you know? But that’s certainly no excuse.”