“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.”
Gilpin reached down the tweezers one more time, and my stomach dropped as I imagined him pulling out my Preggo Pounders 5 DVD. But instead, he pulled out an envelope that said “Nick”. Clue number two.
I opened the envelope, and there were two notes instead of one. The first was written on a heart, and said,
My darling husband,
I figured this would be the ideal place—these hallowed halls of learning—to let you know that I’ve learned you’re right, and that I really should lose 15 pounds.
Xo,
Amy
It was a transparent attempt to win me back. But I admit I was turned on by the thought of her being 15 pounds lighter.
“Wow,” said Gilpin, who I hadn’t realized had been reading over my shoulder. “She’s hot now, but if she lost 15 pounds she’d be smokin’ hot.”
“Thanks,” I said, and put the notes away and started leading Gilpin out.
“Aren’t you gonna read the second clue?” he said.
I told him I’d read it on the drive back. Anything to get him out of there before he found my midget bukkake videos.
After finally ridding myself of Gilpin, I drove over to the Days Inn where Rand and Marybeth were staying. I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to them in private since they’d arrived, which was fine with me. But for some stupid reason they wanted to meet, so now I had to take time out of my busy day to meet with them.
When I got to the hotel, the lobby was filled with people wearing lanyards, because that weekend the hotel was hosting the National Lanyard Wearers Convention. I headed up to the Elliotts’ room. They’d left the door open for me, and when I walked in they were watching a news report on TV about Amy.
“I hope they use the photos we sent them,” said Marybeth.
The photo montage started, and the photos were all covers of Idiotic Amy books which featured a cartoon version of Amy. “Perfect,” said Marybeth.
“Do you think we should give them any photos of Amy in real life?” said Rand.
“Good idea,” said Marybeth. “We have some great ones of her holding the books.”
“That’s why I love you,” said Rand, and they started that gay fake cuddling again.
The Idiotic Amy books had been wildly successful, and that success wasn’t simply an accident. Rand and Marybeth were both trained psychologists, and they realized that a woman’s need to feel superior to other women is actually part of her psychology when she’s as young as five. The Idiotic Amy books made girls who read them feel superior to another girl—Idiotic Amy—and they got hooked on this feeling for life. Every new Idiotic Amy book fed the addiction, and once Rand and Marybeth realized how much this was driving sales, the later titles really started playing on it. Case in point: Idiotic Amy and the Girl Who’s Better Than Her (i.e. You).
“Do you guys think Amy’s disappearance might be related to the books?” I asked. “Like, maybe some crazed reader chopped Amy to pieces the way Gary the Guinea Pig got chopped up when Idiotic Amy accidentally dropped him down the garbage disposal?”
Rand and Amy just stared at me, stunned. It was a gross, terrible thing to say. Which is why I said it.
“Actually, Nick, people have been suggesting that someone a little closer to home did it,” said Rand. “Which is kinda why we wanted to talk to you. Because you know, the traditional first suspect to look at in these cases is—”
“I know, I know, the victim’s parents,” I said. “But just so you guys know, I told the cops that I was fairly confident you’d never hurt Amy. Although I couldn’t completely vouch for you because I don’t know you that well, and I had to admit to them that if someone told me you murdered Amy I wouldn’t be completely surprised.”
“We were actually thinking about you as the suspect,” said Marybeth. “Of course we don’t think you’d ever do anything like this, but when we spoke to the police, they seemed really interested in your alibi involving a karate lesson and hang gliding and shooting a major motion picture with Keanu Reeves.”
“Of course they were interested,” I said. “Who wouldn’t be interested in karate and hang gliding and a major motion picture starring Keanu Reeves?”
My disposable cellphone rang. Crap, I’d forgotten to put it on vibrate. I quickly silenced it.
“You really should pick up every call,” said Rand.
“I recognized the ring, it was Keanu,” I said. “That guy always wants to talk. Hey what about that mentally disturbed Idiotic Amy fan you guys told me about a while back? Did you tell the police to look into her?”
“You mean Hilary Handy?” said Marybeth. Hilary Handy was a book reviewer for the Village Voice who’d written a couple scathing reviews of Idiotic Amy books. To Marybeth and Rand this meant she was clearly mentally disturbed and had a sociopathic personal grudge against the Elliott family. “Yep, we gave them her name. We also mentioned Desi.”
“Desi” was Desi Collings, who’d been in the same kindergarten class as Amy and had been in love with her ever since. But Amy had never wanted to date him and put him in the friend zone. And Desi had stayed in the friend zone ever since. For almost 30 years he’
d been going places with Amy, talking to Amy on the phone, and doing things for Amy, all in the hopes of hooking up with her. But Amy had never let him be more than friends, and she was never going to.
“Good call on Desi,” I said. “Anyone who lets himself stay in the friend zone for 30 years is obviously a wack job. I mean, just lower your standards a bit and find an uglier girl who’ll fuck you, am I right?” I offered Rand a hi-five, but he just stood there.
“We should be realistic, though,” Marybeth said. “While technically Desi and Hilary are possibilities, the police strongly suspect it’s someone more closely connected to Amy.”
I nodded at Marybeth and surreptitiously pointed at Rand. “Definitely,” I said.
AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE: August 23, 2010
Everything happened at once.
First, Nick lost his job at the greeting card company. Which wouldn’t be a big deal in itself, except now all Nick does is sit around the house all day watching porn. He says he’s going to become a porn reviewer because that’s the big new industry. But I never see any actual reviews. I asked him about this once, and 20 minutes later he came up to me holding a wet, crumpled kleenex and said, “Four stars.”
Next, I lost my job at Yelp. Rather than being sympathetic like a decent husband should, Nick kept saying asshole-y things like, “That wasn’t a job,” completely inventing false bullshit just to annoy me.
Third and finally, my parents stopped by because we needed to have a “talk.” Turns out that over the past several years, they’d invested all of their savings in an Idiotic Amy theme park, “Idiotic Amy’s Idioting World.” They saw how much money the Harry Potter park was making and figured they could cash in. “It was gonna be so fun,” said Marybeth. “We’d built an exact replica of the school library where you crapped your pants.”
But they’d wildly miscalculated how many $1,500 season passes they could pre-sell (they’d assumed it’d be more than zero) and run out of money. Idiotic Amy’s Idioting World now stood half-built and empty. Equally empty was my parents’ bank account. That’s why they were here: they’d come to ask us to give back some of the money they’d given us over the years.
Gone Bitch Page 3
