Free Gone Girl: A Novel by Gillian Flynn Page A

we can do?”
    “Jesus, Go! You really need me to feel more fucking impotent than I do right now?” I snapped. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. There’s no ‘When Your Wife Goes Missing 101.’ The police told me I could leave. I left. I’m just doing what they tell me.”
    “Of course you are,” murmured Go, who had a long-stymied mission to turn me into a rebel. It wouldn’t take. I was the kid in high school who made curfew; I was the writer who hit my deadlines, eventhe fake ones. I respect rules, because if you follow rules, things go smoothly, usually.
    “Fuck, Go, I’m back at the station in a few hours, okay? Can you please just be nice to me for a second? I’m scared shitless.”
    We had a five-second staring contest, then Go filled up my glass one more time, an apology. She sat down next to me, put a hand on my shoulder.
    “Poor Amy,” she said.

AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE
APRIL 21, 2009
    DIARY ENTRY
    P oor me. Let me set the scene: Campbell and Insley and I are all down in Soho, having dinner at Tableau. Lots of goat-cheese tarts, lamb meatballs, and rocket greens, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. But we are working backward: dinner first, then drinks in one of the little nooks Campbell has reserved, a mini-closet where you can lounge expensively in a place that’s not too different from, say, your living room. But fine, it’s fun to do the silly, trendy things sometimes. We are all overdressed in our little flashy frocks, our slasher heels, and we all eat small plates of food bites that are as decorative and unsubstantial as we are.
    We’ve discussed having our husbands drop by to join us for the drinks portion. So there we are, post-dinner, tucked into our nook, mojitos and martinis and my bourbon delivered to us by a waitress who could be auditioning for the small role of Fresh-faced Girl Just Off the Bus.
    We are running out of things to say; it is a Tuesday, and no one is feeling like it is anything but. The drinks are being carefully drunk: Insley and Campbell both have vague appointments the next morning, and I have work, so we aren’t gearing up for a big night, we are winding down, and we are getting dull-witted, bored. We would leave if we weren’t waiting for the possible appearance of the men. Campbell keeps peeking at her BlackBerry, Insley studies her flexed calves from different angles. John arrives first—huge apologies to Campbell, big smiles and kisses for us all, a man just thrilled to behere, just delighted to arrive at the tail-end of a cocktail hour across town so he can guzzle a drink and head home with his wife. George shows up about twenty minutes later—sheepish, tense, a terse excuse about work, Insley snapping at him, “You’re
forty
minutes late,” him nipping back, “Yeah, sorry about making us money.” The two barely talking to each other as they make conversation with everyone else.
    Nick never shows; no call. We wait another forty-five minutes, Campbell solicitous (“Probably got hit with some last-minute deadline,” she says, and smiles toward good old John, who never lets last-minute deadlines interfere with his wife’s plans); Insley’s anger thawing toward her husband as she realizes he is only the second-biggest jackass of the group (“You sure he hasn’t even texted, sweetie?”).
    Me, I just smile: “Who knows where he is—I’ll catch him at home.” And then it is the men of the group who look stricken:
You mean that was an option? Take a pass on the night with no nasty consequences? No guilt or anger or sulking?
    Well, maybe not for you guys.
    Nick and I, we sometimes laugh, laugh out loud, at the horrible things women make their husbands do to prove their love. The pointless tasks, the myriad sacrifices, the endless small surrenders. We call these men the
dancing monkeys
.
    Nick will come home, sweaty and salty and beer-loose from a day at the ballpark, and I’ll curl up in his lap, ask him about the game, ask him if