I drove back to the house. Since Bleecker still had the canoe, I had to hitch a ride with a passing fisherman to actually get there and see what was going on. The door was still wide open. Amy would never have taken off and left the door open: she got too much mileage out of criticizing me when I did it. So she had to be home. But we always kept the door closed when we were at home so sea otters wouldn’t wander in. Why hadn’t Amy realized the door was open for so long?
“Amy? Hello?” I went inside and searched the entire place.
Amy was gone.
Hooray!!!!!
AMY ELLIOTT: September 18, 2005
Well well well, guess who’s back? Nick Dunne, Master of Disappearance. After our one night together in January, I never heard from him again. I certainly had a right to be upset about this, but I wasn’t, because I’d classified him as a “player,” which is a term girls invented to make themselves feel better about a guy who fucks them and doesn’t call afterwards.
So anyway, I was walking in Central Park today and I’d stopped to look at some of those shitty paintings that “artists” in Central Park sell, and I heard from behind me:
“Back away from those paintings, ma’am. Do not take a step closer.”
I knew immediately who it was, of course. I wanted to be angry at him, but I liked that he remembered his first words to me, and I turned around to say hi. But his face showed no recognition of me, and he said:
“I can buy you a painting, but just one.”
“Um, hello?” I said. “Nick? It’s me, Amy? The girl you fucked but didn’t call again?”
“Amyyyyy!” he said. “That’s right, now I remember! How are you? You look great!”
It turns out that he’d wanted to call me but he’d lost my phone number and the contact info of everyone he knew at the party who might know my name so he could look me up on Facebook and the party invitation so he couldn’t contact the host. But now that he’d found me, he said we should grab a drink. And of course I said yes. This guy clearly must be awesome and have tons of amazing shit going on for him to ignore me—me!—for eight months. How could I say no?
And now we’re together. Together, together! I’ve finally met a guy that seems so high-value that I can make my friends jealous by telling them I’m dating him. The timing is especially interesting, because the day before I ran into Nick my parents had released their newest Idiotic Amy book, Idiotic Amy and the Guy She Had Sex With and Never Called Her Again.
Yup, Rand and Marybeth couldn’t resist. Anything I did in my life, no matter how embarrassing (actually the more embarrassing the better!) was fair game for the Elliott family cash cow, the Idiotic Amy book series. Idiotic Amy was a girl who looked suspiciously like me and did things suspiciously resembling things I did. The books had become wildly popular, selling tens of millions of copies and letting audiences worldwide know about all the idiotic things I’d done (well, that she’d done).
I’m sure you recognize the titles from your childhood bookcase: Idiotic Amy Spits Up Pureed Beets on the White Carpet, Idiotic Amy Wets The Bed, Idiotic Amy and the 72 on the Biology Quiz, Idiotic Amy’s Idiotic Phone Call #28 (they’ll release #29 the next time I say something on the phone they don’t agree with). But Idiotic Amy and the Guy She Had Sex With and Never Called Her Again is something new, because it’s the first book where Amy is an adult. You’d think that maybe once I got old enough that my life wasn’t giving them kid story fodder, they would’ve packed it in and put the kibosh on the series. But if you think that, you don’t know Rand and Marybeth.
To celebrate the release of Idiotic Amy and the Guy She Had Sex With and Never Called Her Again the publisher threw a release party. But the book business is so bad these days that publishers are throwing multiple parties at once to save money. The Idiotic Amy party was co-thrown with the party for a tell-all book written by a famous porn star. Many of the reporters covering the party didn’t know what the porn star looked like, and they would see some people interviewing me and assume I was the porn star. My party was therefore frequently interrupted with reporters asking me questions like:
“Is three dicks in your mouth really a big difference from two?”
“If you could have anal with any historical figure, who would it be?”
“How many gallons of jizz would you estimate you’ve swallowed?”
It wasn’t all bad sharing the party, though, because the other party let us have some of their mozzarella sticks shaped like cocks.
So if my parents turn everything embarrassing I do into a book, why do I keep telling them about the embarrassing things I do? Hey, my money’s got to come from somewhere, and it sure as hell beats going into an office.
I know my parents had been eagerly anticipating writing Idiotic Amy Spends Her 30th Birthday Alone Because She Can’t Find A Husband, but unfortunately for them I think they’re going to have to write a wedding novel instead. Because I’ve got a feeling Nick is THE ONE. Every guy I’ve dated besides Nick has turned me off because they liked me, wanted to hang out with me, were attentive toward me and cared about me. In Nick, I’ve finally found someone who doesn’t like me that much and in no way is attentive or cares about how I’m doing.
See, world? Being picky has paid off!
NICK DUNNE: The Day Of
I kept trying Amy’s cellphone, because I figured that every time she didn’t pick up there was an incrementally higher chance of her really being gone for good, and that made me feel better.
Aside from the burnt tea kettle I’d found left on the stove, the one part of the house that seemed amiss was the living room. It screamed signs of a struggle. Furniture knocked over, books strewn across the floor, and the grand piano turned completely upside down.
I heard police sirens, and looked out the window to see a police car pull up and two cops emerge from the car. The cops looked at my house in confusion from the shore, then had an animated conversation, and finally threw up their hands and got back into the car and left. 15 minutes later, the police car returned with a canoe tied to the top. The canoe said “Police” on it — I didn’t know such things existed.
In the meantime, another car had pulled up, an unmarked car with a police light on it. I assumed this was the detectives. The two officers and two detectives all piled in the canoe and rowed out to the house.
When the canoe got close, I could see that the two detectives were a man and a woman. The woman was not good-looking. Too bad.
The detectives stepped out of the canoe. “I’m Boney, and this is Gilpin,” the woman said. “So there’s a problem with your wife?”
“I don’t know if I’d really classify it as a ‘problem,’” I said.
“But she’s missing, right?”
Just hearing someone say it filled me with joy. “Yup!”
“How long has she been missing?” said Gilpin, pulling out his notebook.
“A few hours,” I said.
“Have you phoned any friends or family?” said Gilpin.
“Only the friends who’d appreciate how awesome it is that she’s gone,” I said.
Gilpin gave Boney a look, the first of hundreds of such looks I would see them give each other in my presence.
“You and your wife from around here?” said Boney.
“I am originally, Amy’s from New York. We were living in New York until a couple years ago.”
“Fancy,” said Boney. “What kind of work do you do?”
When people asked me this, I always dropped the W-bomb on them before mentioning the cat cafe. “I was a writer there,” I said.
“Impressive. What’d you write?”
“Greeting cards.”
“Oh like those e-cards with the cute singing flowers?” said Boney. “Cool!”
“No, the paper greeting cards,” I said. “Real greeting cards, with real writing and jokes.”
“I don’t buy those anymore, because they don’t have singing,” said Boney.
“And they’re too expensive,�
� said Gilpin. “$2.45 when you include the stamp!”
“So what do you do now?” asked Boney.
“I co-own a cat cafe.”
“Doggie McDoggerton’s?” said Gilpin. “I’ve been meaning to stop by there. Except I’m allergic to cats. And to coffee.”
“You should still stop by, because allergic people get 50% off,” I said.
“Mind if we go inside the house?” said Boney.
“Sure,” I said, leading them in.
“Whoa,” Boney said when she saw the mess in the living room.
“I know, pretty cool, right?” I said.
Gilpin approached a photo on the mantle of Amy and me in Cape Cod on her parents’ private beach. “This her?” he said, pointing at Amy in a bikini. I nodded. He gave me a fist bump.
The Cape Cod house was one of several homes Amy’s family owned. I’d discovered a few dates in that Amy was quite wealthy. You might think that’s a good thing, but it’s annoying enough to spend money on a girl as it is, and it’s even more annoying if you know she’s wealthy.
Gilpin pointed at our wedding photo, which had the date written on it. “Hey, today’s your anniversary.”
“Yep, our fifth,” I said.
“Lemme guess: reservations at Houston’s tonight to celebrate?” said Boney.
“Yep,” I said, even though I hadn’t made a reservation. “We also have reservations at Capital Grille and Benihana.” I know you’re not supposed to lie to the police, but it was so fun. Everything I said, they just nodded and wrote it down as if it were true. “Did I mention I work part-time as a lion tamer?” Wrote it down. “Also I’m one-eighth Vietnamese.” Wrote it down.
Lying to the police was a blast!
AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE: July 5, 2008
I’m a wife! Ha ha, women who aren’t married, I am officially better than you! And as for you married women who are married to some loser who only married you because he couldn’t do any better (pretty much all of you), I am better than you too! Oh and also, I’m better than every woman who isn’t hot.
Nick and I tied the knot exactly a year ago today. I really think that being married to Nick has made me a better person. He’s taught me how to chill out about things and not be so anxious all the time. For example, he’ll come home from work, and I’ll tell him about something that happened to me that day, and he’ll say, “Yeah, whatever,” and turn on the TV. I see what he’s doing here: he’s saying that my attitude toward these things should be “Yeah, whatever.” That’s solid advice.
We love to do silly coupley things — like last weekend we drove to Delaware just because neither of us had ever had sex in Delaware. Nick wanted to try it, and I wanted to tell my friends about it so they’d be jealous. But I’m gonna tell them we went to Hawaii instead of Delaware.
As I mentioned, today is our one-year anniversary, and I’ve thought of the perfect way to celebrate it: we’re having a treasure hunt! I’ve hidden clues around the city at different places where Nick and I have hung out. As every girl knows, when you take mundane events in your life and refer to them in a treasure hunt, that makes those events special.
After the treasure hunt, we’ll have sex again. It might seem like we’re having a lot of sex for a married couple. My friends had all warned me that the sex would stop quickly. But what they don’t understand is, if you want to withhold sex in the future as a motivator, you’ve got to set a high bar in the present. So bring on the cock!
NICK DUNNE: The Night Of
Boney, Gilpin, and I had relocated to the police station. They kept asking if I wanted to call Amy’s parents, but I was hoping they’d get the message and call them themselves. Those people are impossible to have a less than 90-minute conversation with. You can’t even get a word in edgewise. I can imagine the phone call now:
“Hi Marybeth, it’s Nick. I’m sorry to call so late, but I have some bad ne—”
“Nick? Hi there! So tonight Rand and I had salmon for dinner…”
“That’s great, Marybeth, but I really need to—”
“Usually Rand eats the middle part of the fish while I prefer the edges…”
“Uh huh. Well I’d love to hear more about the salmon sometime but it’s really important that I tell you—”
“But tonight I ate the middle part of the fish and Rand ate the edges…”
“Please, can you just let me talk for five sec—”
“And the potatoes Rand made? They were so good that we both ate the edges…”
“Look Amy is miss—”
“I’ll put him on to give you the recipe. RAND? RANNNNNNNNND?”
Boney and Gilpin said they wanted to ask me some more questions, so we went into an interview room and sat down across a table. It was just like all those crime shows I’d seen on TV…although much cooler, because this time I was the star!
“You okay there, Nick?” asked Boney.
“Yep, why?”
“You’re smiling,” she said.
“Of course he’s smiling,” said Gilpin. “His wife might be gone for good.” Gilpin gave me another fist bump. I wasn’t sure if he was playing good cop, or just being a guy. Maybe it was a little bit of both.
“So Nick, we first want to ask you a little more about Amy,” said Boney. “How does she spend her days, usually?”
“Drives me crazy. Complains. Makes me wish she were dead.”
Boney and Gilpin gave each other that look again.
“What?” I said. “It’s the truth!”
“How about drugs, Nick? Does she do any?”
“She’s too crazy for drugs,” I said.
They looked confused.
“Amy’s way of being annoying is so manipulative, so subtly crafted, that it requires her full mental capacities to pull it off. She could never be this annoying on drugs.”
“Nick, can I ask,” said Gilpin, “if all this is true, why are you still married to her?”
“Because she has money and I don’t, duh.”
“What’s your wife’s blood type?” asked Boney.
“WHY? DID YOU FIND SOME???” I said, maybe a little too enthusiastically.
“Uh, no,” said Boney. “Okay that’s enough about Amy for now. Let’s move on to you. Sorry this is taking so long, by the way.”
“Totally fine with me!” I said. I knew the statistics from the crime shows I watched: if the victim wasn’t found in the first 48 hours, chances went way up she’d never be found, period. “You guys must be exhausted,” I said. “You’ve been going nonstop all day. How about we all take a break? Meet back here in, say, 48 hours?”
“Thanks Nick, but we really need to keep working,” said Gilpin. “I apologize for these next few questions, but we just want to establish you’re not responsible for what happened.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
“Nick, can you just tell us where you were between the time you left the house in the morning, and the time you returned to find Amy missing?”
“I was at the beach.”
“The beach? In Missouri?” said Boney.
“Well not the beach beach, the picnic tables by the river.”
“And you were at this ‘beach’ the entire seven hours?”
“I also had a karate lesson.”
“Karate lesson. Really,” Gilpin said.
“Really! Oh, and I also went hang gliding, and shot a few scenes of a major motion picture with Keanu Reeves.”
Perhaps telling them all this wasn’t the smartest thing. If the police talked to anyone who knew me, they’d quickly learn that I didn’t like the beach or karate or hang gliding, and I wasn’t starring in a major motion picture with Keanu Reeves.
“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 squa
d 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!”
Gone Bitch Page 2
