Hidden Bodies

Amy shaves her legs, and Joe rents a red convertible. As they drive, Joe thinks, “We are your worst nightmare. We are happy. We don’t need you, any of you. We don’t give a fuck about you, what you think of us, what you did to us” (7). He blames everything that has gone wrong on Guinevere Beck and believes she suffered from Bipolar Personality Disorder, which he says cannot be fixed. An Elton John song comes on the radio, and Joe grimaces: Beck corrupted Elton John for him, because it was playing when he killed her friend, Peach Salinger.

The fact that he left the mug haunts him because it is proof of his imperfection. He blames Beck for being such a mess that he had to hack into her e-mail and surveil her constantly. Amy isn’t online, so he can’t stalk her. She doesn’t even have a bank account. Even though she uses burner phones, he still checks them to “know she isn’t lying” (9). Amy always wears college apparel despite not going to school.

Behind them, a cop turns on his lights. As Joe pulls over, Joe replays his memory of murdering Beck, and also how he framed her therapist, Nicky Angevine, for murdering Peach. He also killed a man named Benji Keyes and a woman named Candace.

The cop, Thomas Jenks, says Joe didn’t signal when he turned. Twenty minutes pass while Jenks is in his car, checking Joe’s information. Joe knows a Rhode Island police officer named Nico, and Officer Nico thinks Joe’s name is Spencer. Amy eats a peach while Joe thinks about the mug and wonders if his alias is about to cause problems with Jenks. However, Jenks lets them go and says his system was slow.

Joe and Amy have a picnic at a lemonade place, where they criticize the allegedly famous slushies. He tells Amy about Beck and her snobby, Ivy League views. She asks for the story, and he tells her that Beck cheated on him with her therapist. Amy googles Dr. Angevine and reads about the murder. When she goes to the restroom, Joe looks at her phone. He thinks about how Amy’s search history vindicates his feelings for her. Then she catches him and demands the phone. They look at a happy family sitting nearby. Joe says they both have issues with trust because they didn’t grow up like them. Amy agrees that they are similar, with similar emotional baggage.

They can see the Salinger cottage from their hotel. Joe tells her about Peach’s friendship with Beck and Peach’s (presumed) suicide. All the while, he thinks about getting the mug back.

Joe and Amy go to the beach, and he wonders how to get into the Salinger home. A man comes over to tell them the beach is private. Amy strips off her top as a distraction and the man goes back to his wife. Joe is shocked that the Salingers aren’t mourning Peach but are instead frolicking on the beach. After swimming, Amy reads a children’s book called Charlotte & Charles to Joe. It’s a story about two giants living on an island. Humans arrive and try to kill them by ringing bells—the noise hurts the giants—but Charlotte and Charles discover that they can protect themselves by putting cotton in their ears. At the end of the story, humans are arriving again, and Charlotte is excited. Joe finds the story depressing.

That evening, they go to a restaurant called Scuppers by the Bay. It is busy and they don’t have a reservation. They talk to a couple—Pearl and Noah Epstein—at the bar. Soon, a host seats all four of them at a table together. After dinner, Joe and Amy skip out on the check. Back in the hotel, he looks at the nearby lights from the Salinger house.

They head home. The next day when Joe goes to work, the door is ajar, and the violets are on the floor. His laptop is missing and there are papers everywhere. The basement is open as well. He goes downstairs with a machete to find that the wall of Portnoy’s Complaint is gone, next to an empty bowl filled with fruit stains. The Yates book is gone as well. Amy left her copy of Charlotte & Charles, along with a note. It says they are too similar, they both lose control, and they both have secrets. She also stole Joe’s acting manuals. His laptop is downstairs, but the search history has been cleared: However, Amy only erased an hour of the search data. While looking through the rest of the search history, he finds a schedule for an Improv 101 class in Los Angeles. She has left to make it in Hollywood. Enraged, he plans to kill her.