The Complete Gillian Flynn Read online

  “And brains?”

  “Brains you hide. I had a lot of friends, but no one I was close to, you know?”

  “I can imagine. Were you close to your mom?”

  “Not particularly.” I’d had one too many drinks; my face felt closed and hot.

  “Why?” Richard twisted his swing to face me.

  “I just think some women aren’t made to be mothers. And some women aren’t made to be daughters.”

  “Did she ever hurt you?” The question unnerved me, particularly after our dinner conversation. Hadn’t she hurt me? I felt sure someday I’d dream a memory of her, scratching or biting or pinching. I felt like that had happened. I pictured myself pulling off my blouse to show him my scars, screaming, yes, look! Indulgent.

  “That’s a bizarre question, Richard.”

  “I’m sorry, you just sounded so … sad. Mad. Something.”

  “That’s the mark of someone who has a healthy relationship with his parents.”

  “Guilty.” He laughed. “What about I change the subject?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, let’s see … light conversation. Swing-set conversation.” Richard scrunched his face up to mime thinking. “Okay, so what’s your favorite color, your favorite ice cream flavor, and your favorite season?

  “Blue, coffee, and winter.”

  “Winter. No one likes winter.”

  “It gets dark early, I like that.”

  “Why?”

  Because that means the day has ended. I like checking days off a calendar—151 days crossed and nothing truly horrible has happened. 152 and the world isn’t ruined. 153 and I haven’t destroyed anyone. 154 and no one really hates me. Sometimes I think I won’t ever feel safe until I can count my last days on one hand. Three more days to get through until I don’t have to worry about life anymore.

  “I just like the night.” I was about to say more, not much more, but more, when a broken-down yellow IROC rumbled to a stop across the street and Amma and her blondes piled out the back. Amma leaned into the driver’s window, cleavage teasing the boy, who had the long greasy dirt-blond hair you’d expect of someone who still drove a yellow IROC. The three girls stood behind her, hips jutted out, the tallest turning her ass to them and bending over, lean and long to pretend to tie her shoe. Nice moves.

  The girls glided toward us, Amma waving her hands extravagantly in protest of the black exhaust cloud. They were hot little things, I had to admit. Long blonde hair, heart-shaped faces, and skinny legs. Miniskirts with tiny Ts exposing flat baby tummies. And except for the girl Jodes, whose bosom was too high and stiff to be anything but padding, the rest had breasts, full and wobbly and way overripe. All those milk-fed, hog-fed, beef-fed early years. All those extra hormones we put in our livestock. We’ll be seeing toddlers with tits before long.

  “Hey, Dick,” Amma called. She was sucking on a red oversized Blow Pop.

  “Hi, ladies.”

  “Hi, Camille, make me a star yet?” Amma asked, rolling her tongue around the sucker. The Alps-inspired braids were gone, as were the clothes she’d worn to the plant, which had to reek with odors of all kinds and species. Now she wore a tank and a skirt that passed her crotch by an inch.

  “Not yet.” She had peach skin, so free of blotches or wrinkles, her face so perfect and character-free she could have just popped out of the womb. They all seemed unfinished. I wanted them to go away.

  “Dick, when are you going to take us for a ride?” Amma asked, plopping down in the dirt in front of us, her legs pulled up to reveal a glimpse of her panties.

  “To do that, I’d have to arrest you. I might have to arrest those boys you keep hanging around with. High-school boys are too old for you.”

  “They’re not in high school,” said the tall girl.

  “Yeah,” Amma giggled. “They dropped out.”

  “Amma, how old are you?” Richard asked.

  “Just turned thirteen.”

  “Why do you always care so much about Amma?” interrupted the brassy blonde. “We’re here, too, you know. You probably don’t even know our names.”

  “Camille, have you met Kylie, Kelsey, and Kelsey?” Richard said, pointing to the tall girl, the brassy girl, and the girl my sister called …

  “That’s Jodes,” Amma said. “There are two Kelseys, so she goes by her last name. To avoid confusion. Right, Jodes?”

  “They can call me Kelsey if they want,” said the girl, whose low spot in the pecking order was likely punishment for being the least of the beauties. Weak chin.

  “And Amma is your half sister, right?” Richard continued. “I’m not as out of the loop as all that.”

  “No, it looks like you’re right in the loop,” Amma said. She made the words sound sexual, even though I could think of no double entendre. “So, are you guys dating or what? I heard little Camille here is a real hot ticket. At least she was.”

  Richard let out a burp of a laugh, a shocked croak. Unworthy flared up my leg.

  “It’s true, Richard. I was something back in the day.”

  “Something,” Amma mocked. The two girls laughed. Jodes drew frantic lines in the dirt with a stick. “You should hear the stories, Dick. They’d get you pretty hot. Or maybe you already have.”

  “Ladies, we’ve got to be going, but as always, it was definitely something,” Richard said, and took my hand to help me out of the swing. Held on to it, squeezed it twice as we walked toward the car.

  “Isn’t he a gentleman,” Amma called, and the four got to their feet and began following us. “Can’t solve crime, but he can take the time to help Camille into his crappy-ass car.” They were right on us, Amma and Kylie stepping on our heels, literally. I could feel sickly glowing where Amma’s sandal had scuffed my Achilles tendon. Then she took her wet sucker and twirled it in my hair.

  “Stop it,” I muttered. I twirled around and grabbed her wrist so hard I could feel her pulse. Slower than mine. She didn’t squirm, in fact, just pushed closer into me. I could feel her strawberry breath fill the hollow of my neck.

  “Come on, do something.” Amma smiled. “You could kill me right now and Dick still wouldn’t be able to figure it out.” I let go, pushed her away from me, and Richard and I shuffled to the car faster than I would have liked.

  Chapter Nine

  I fell asleep, accidentally and hard, at nine o’clock, woke to an angry sun at seven the next morning. A dried-out tree rustled its branches against my window screen as if it wanted to climb in next to me for comfort.

  I donned my uniform—the long sleeves, the long skirt—and wandered downstairs. Gayla was glowing in the backyard, her white nurse’s dress brilliant against the greenery. She held a silver tray on which my mother was placing imperfect roses. My mother wore a butter-colored sundress that matched her hair. She was stalking through the clumps of pink and yellow blooms with a pair of pliers. She examined each flower hungrily, plucking off petals, pushing and prying.

  “You need to water these more, Gayla. Look what you’ve done to them.”

  She separated a light pink rose from a bush, pulled it to the ground, secured it with a dainty foot, and clipped it off at its root. Gayla must have had two dozen roses on her tray. I could see little wrong with them.

  “Camille, you and I are going shopping in Woodberry today,” my mother called without looking up. “Shall we?” My mother said nothing about the square-off at the Nashes the day before. That would be too direct.

  “I have a few things to do,” I said. “By the way, I didn’t know you were friends with the Nashes. With Ann.” I had a catch of guilt for my taunting her about the girl at breakfast the other morning. It wasn’t that I truly felt bad that I’d upset my mother—it was more that I hated any debits in her column.

  “Mmmm-hmm. Alan and I are having a party next Saturday. It was planned long before we knew you were coming. Although I suppose we didn’t really know you were coming until you were here.”

  Another rose snapped off. />
  “I thought you barely knew the girls. I didn’t realize …”

  “Fine. It will be a nice summer party, a lot of really fine people, and you’ll need a dress. I’m sure you didn’t bring a dress?”

  “No.”

  “Good then, it will be a nice chance for us to catch up. You’ve been here over a week, I think it’s time.” She placed a final stem on the tray. “Okay, Gayla, you can throw these away. We’ll pick some decent ones for the house later.”

  “I’ll take those for my room, Momma. They look fine to me.”

  “They’re not.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Camille, I was just looking at them, and they’re not good blooms.” She dropped the pliers to the ground, began tugging at a stem.

  “But they’re fine for me. For my room.”

  “Oh, now look what you’ve done. I’m bleeding.” My mother held up thorn-pricked hands, and trails of deep red began to roll down her wrists. End of conversation. She walked toward the house, Gayla following her, me following Gayla. The back-door knob was sticky with blood.

  Alan bandaged both my mother’s hands extravagantly, and when we nearly tumbled over Amma, working again on her dollhouse on the porch, Adora plucked teasingly at her braid and told her to come with us. She followed obligingly, and I kept waiting for those knicks at my heels. Not with Mother around.

  Adora wanted me to drive her baby blue convertible to Woodberry, which boasted two high-end boutiques, but she didn’t want the top down. “We get cold,” she said with a conspiratorial smile at Amma. The girl sat silently behind my mother, twisted her mouth into a smart-ass smile when I caught her staring at me in the rearview. Every few minutes, she’d brush her fingertips against my mother’s hair, lightly so she wouldn’t notice.

  As I parked the Mercedes outside her favorite shop, Adora requested weakly that I open the car door for her. It was the first thing she’d said to me in twenty minutes. Nice to catch up. I opened the boutique’s door for her too, and the feminine bell matched the saleswoman’s delighted greeting.

  “Adora!” And then a frown. “My goodness, darling, what’s happened to your hands?”

  “Just an accident, really. Doing some work around the house. I’ll see my doctor this afternoon.” Of course she would. She’d go for a paper cut.

  “What happened?”

  “Oh, I really don’t want to talk about it. I do want to introduce you to my daughter, Camille. She’s visiting.”

  The saleswoman looked at Amma, then gave me a wavering smile.

  “Camille?” A quick recovery: “I think I’d forgotten that you have a third daughter.” She lowered her voice on the word “daughter,” as if it were an oath. “She must take after her father,” the woman said, peering into my face as if I were a horse she might buy. “Amma looks so much like you, and Marian too, in your pictures. This one, though …”

  “She doesn’t take after me much,” my mother said. “She has her father’s coloring, and his cheekbones. And his temperament.”

  It was the most I’d ever heard my mother say about my father. I wondered how many other salesladies had received such casual tidbits about him. I had a quick vision of chatting up all the store clerks in southern Missouri, putting together a blurry profile of the man.

  My mother petted my hair with gauzy hands. “We need to get my sweetheart a new dress. Something colorful. She’s prone to blacks and grays. Size four.”

  The woman, so thin her hip bones poked from her skirt like antlers, started weaving in and out of the circular racks, creating a bouquet of splashy green and blue and pink dresses.

  “This would look beautiful on you,” Amma said, holding a glittery gold top to my mother.

  “Stop it, Amma,” my mother said. “That’s tacky.”

  “Do I really remind you of my father?” I couldn’t help asking Adora. I could feel my cheeks get hot at my presumptuousness.

  “I knew you wouldn’t just let that go,” she said, touching up her lipstick in a store mirror. The gauze on her hands remained impossibly unsmeared.

  “I was just curious; I’d never heard you say my personality reminded you of …”

  “Your personality reminds me of someone very unlike me. And you certainly don’t take after Alan, so I assume it must be your father. Now, no more.”

  “But Momma, I just wanted to know …”

  “Camille, you’re making me bleed more.” She held up her bandaged hands, now pocked with red. I wanted to scratch her.

  The saleslady bumped up on us with a swatch of dresses. “This is the one you’re absolutely going to have to have,” she said, holding up a turquoise sundress. Strapless.

  “And what about sweetie-pie here,” the woman said, nodding at Amma. “She can probably already fit into our petites.”

  “Amma’s only thirteen. She’s not ready for these types of clothes,” my mother said.

  “Only thirteen, good god. I keep forgetting, she looks like such a big girl. You must be worried sick with all that’s going on in Wind Gap now.”

  My mother put an arm around Amma, kissed the top of her head. “Some days I think I won’t be able to take the worry. I want to lock her away somewhere.”

  “Like Bluebeard’s dead wives,” Amma mumbled.

  “Like Rapunzel,” my mother said. “Well, go on, Camille—show your sister how pretty you can be.”

  She trailed me into the dressing area, silent and righteous. In the little mirrored room, with my mother perched on a chair outside, I surveyed my options. Strapless, spaghetti straps, cap sleeves. My mother was punishing me. I found a pink dress with three-quarter sleeves and, quickly doffing my pants and shirt, pulled it on. The neckline was lower than I’d thought: The words on my chest looked swollen in the fluorescent light, like worms tunneled beneath my skin. Whine, milk, hurt, bleed.

  “Camille, let me see.”

  “Uh, this won’t work.”

  “Let me see.” Belittle burned on my right hip.

  “Let me try another.” I rifled through the other dresses. All just as revealing. I caught sight of myself again in the mirror. I was horrifying.

  “Camille, open the door.”

  “What’s wrong with Camille?” Amma chimed.

  “This won’t work.” The side zipper was sticking. My bared arms flashed scars in deep pink and purple. Even without looking directly in the mirror I could see them reflected at me—a big blur of scorched skin.

  “Camille,” my mother spat.

  “Why won’t she just show us?”

  “Camille.”

  “Momma, you saw the dresses, you know why they won’t work,” I urged.

  “Just let me see.”

  “I’ll try one on, Momma,” Amma wheedled.

  “Camille …”

  “Fine.” I banged open the door. My mother, her face level with my neckline, winced.

  “Oh, dear God.” I could feel her breath on me. She held up a bandaged hand, as if about to touch my chest, then let it drop. Behind her Amma whined like a puppy. “Look what you’ve done to yourself,” Adora said. “Look at it.”

  “I do.”

  “I hope you just loved it. I hope you can stand yourself.”

  She shut the door and I ripped at the dress, the zipper still jammed until my furious tugs yanked the teeth apart enough to get it to my hips, where I wriggled out, the zipper leaving a trail of pink scratches on my skin. I bunched the cotton of the dress over my mouth and screamed.

  I could hear my mother’s measured voice in the other room. When I came out, the saleswoman was wrapping a long-sleeved, high-collared lace blouse and a coral skirt that would come to my ankles. Amma stared at me, her eyes pink and darting, before leaving to stand by the car outside.

  Back at the house I trailed Adora into the entryway, where Alan stood in a falsely casual pose, hands stuffed into his linen trouser pockets. She fluttered past him toward the stairs.

  “How was your day out?” he called after her.


  “Horrible,” my mother whimpered. Upstairs I heard her door close. Alan frowned at me and went to tend to my mother. Amma had already disappeared.

  I walked into the kitchen, to the cutlery drawer. I wanted to just look at the knives I once used on myself. I wasn’t going to cut, just allow myself that sharp pressure. I could already feel the knifepoint gently pressing against the plump pads of my fingertips, that delicate tension right before the cut.

  The drawer pulled out only an inch and then jammed. My mother had padlocked it. I pulled again and again. I could hear the silvery clink of all those blades sliding onto each other. Like petulant metal fish. My skin was hot. I was about to go call Curry when the doorbell insinuated itself with its polite tones.

  Peering around the corner, I could see Meredith Wheeler and John Keene standing outside.

  I felt like I’d been caught masturbating. Chewing the inside of my mouth, I opened the door. Meredith rolled in, assaying the rooms, letting out minty exclamations of how beautiful everything was and sending off waves of a dark perfume more suited to a society matron than a teenage girl in a green-and-white cheerleading outfit. She caught me looking.

  “I know, I know. School days are over. This is my last time to wear this actually. We’re having a cheer session with next year’s girls. It’s sort of a torch-passing thing. You were a cheerleader, right?”

  “I was, if you can believe that.” I hadn’t been particularly good, but I looked nice in the skirt. Back in the days when I limited my cutting to my torso.

  “I can believe it. You were the prettiest girl in the entire town. My cousin was a freshman when you were a senior. Dan Wheeler? He was always talking about you. Pretty and smart, pretty and smart. And nice. He’d kill me if he knew I was telling you this. He lives in Springfield now. But he’s not married.”

  Her wheedling tone reminded me of just the kind of girls I was never comfortable with, the types who peddled a sort of plastic chumminess, who told me things about themselves only friends should know, who described themselves as “people persons.”

  “This is John,” she said, as if surprised to see him beside her.