The Passenger

by Lisa Lutz

  “No. Here. In Recluse.”

  “What is anyone doing anywhere? We all have to be someplace.”

  “Look around,” said Sean. “Everyone in this bar was born here. Most had plans to leave at one time or another, but then at some point they got caught in a snare, and like an animal, lacked the cunning to undo the clamp.”

  “What was your snare?” I asked.

  “This bar. I worked here a few years after I turned eighteen, was saving money to go to Alaska, where I heard real money could be had. Homer, the owner, had no kin and when he got lung cancer, he just left the whole thing to me.”

  “That was generous,” I said.

  Sean finally put down that rag, dropped two shot glasses on the table, and poured some decent stuff.

  “Was it?” he said. “Because lately I’ve been thinking that Homer knew what he was doing. Way back in the day, when I’d talk about getting out, being free of Recluse, Homer liked to take a hammer to my dreams, knocking the legs out of my plans. I think he liked the idea of others facing his same sorry fate. Then he didn’t feel as alone as he always had been. I think his generous gift was a curse, and he knew it. His final act as a dying man was to make sure that someone followed in his sorry footsteps.”

  “That’s quite a sinister theory you’ve got there,” I said.

  Sean shrugged and slid the shot glass in front of me. He raised his.

  “What are we drinking to?” I asked.

  “To escape plans?”

  “Whose?”

  “Anyone with the guts,” said Sean.

  We clinked glasses. I downed my shot, put a few bills on the bar, and slid off the bar stool. Sean nodded so slightly it was almost imperceptible.

  “Come back,” he said.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  But I knew I’d be back. I had no other place to go.

  THE NEXT DAY Andrew and I were sitting on the stoop when Cora stepped outside and craned her neck to get a longer look down the road.

  “Did you see that man?”

  “What man?”

  “There was this guy watching the school earlier. He was just standing outside the fence while the kids were at lunch. Then I just saw him again through my office window.”

  “Did he try talking to them?”

  “No. He just stood there, like he was looking for someone.”

  “Maybe he’s a relative of one of the kids or something.”

  “I know everyone’s kin,” said Cora.

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Cora said sadly. “It’s that kind of town.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open,” I said. “It’s probably nothing.”

  Thing is, I knew it wasn’t nothing. You know that stumbling walk you do after you’ve tripped? That’s what my brain felt like.

  “Have you ever been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art?” Andrew asked.

  We’d been talking about our class assignment and Andrew had gotten quite fixated not just on the idea of breaking into a place and staying the night, but on art museums and places that only big cities had to offer. It’s not that he hadn’t been some places worth seeing—the Grand Tetons, cowboy museums—but he was taking note of a world out there beyond his imagination. Lying low all this time, I hadn’t seen much of the world, either.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t,” I said.

  “Have you been to New York City?”

  “No.”

  “Huh.” He looked disappointed in me, as if some of my shine had worn off.

  If he only knew.

  Before Andrew could quiz me any further about my narrow worldview, his mother mercifully arrived.

  RECLUSE OFFERED a limited number of patterns for a life to take. I had only been there a month and I was beating a well-worn path. There were lessons all day, class cleanup in the afternoon. A few nights a week I stayed in my basement apartment, made noodles on a hot plate, and studied up for the next day’s assignment. A few other nights a week, always at least one night on the weekend, I ventured into the Lantern. I had one or two drinks, on rare occasions three, but I knew better than to get blotto.

  On a three-drink night, Sean invited me to Andrew’s birthday party, the next weekend at Dead Horse Lake, another name that didn’t exactly instill confidence. Sean was taking his grandson and a few family friends out fishing on a friend’s boat. Maybe another kid from the class would come, but so far no one had accepted the invitation. On a one-drink night, I would have thought wiser of exposing myself to a full day of socializing, but I accepted the invitation.

  The next weekend I boarded a boat, baited a fishing rod that Sean had brought just for me, sat under a cold cloudy sky, and waited for something to bite. Andrew whined about the chill in the air. He’d managed one companion. His name was Clark. He was one grade below, had a deviated septum and a pronounced lisp. It was easy to conclude that Andrew didn’t much care for Clark, but he was better than nothing, which was an idea that I was all too well acquainted with. Also on board the Royal Fortune—the boat’s owner had affection for pirate lore, I learned—was Andrew’s perpetually tardy mother, Shawna, and her boyfriend, Cal, who as far as I could tell was under a strict word quota for the day. He answered questions with a minimalism that would have impressed a monk under a vow of silence. If a nod could suffice instead of a yes or no, Cal took that option. Sean had also invited a few of his fishing buddies, all amiable sun-baked men far more interested in the cooler of Bud Light than any bounty the lake had to offer.

  The wind picked up at midday and the sky swirled gray and blue and dank. The cold air felt like impending rain. We weren’t far from shore, so Sean suggested we wait it out despite the lurching of the boat and Andrew’s determined pleas to return to land. No one caught anything and Clark was leaning over the railing, fighting to keep the contents of his stomach from spilling into the choppy waters.

  I picked up a beer, uncapped it, and got tossed onto the deck at the bow, spilling the watery brew all over my shirt. I heard a howl and when I returned my gaze to where Clark had been buckling over the railing, he was gone.

  My companions were staring into the blue abyss, panic pumping their blood but also freezing their feet in place. I quickly shucked my shoes and jacket and jumped overboard.

  Diving into the frigid lake knocked the breath out of me. I surfaced in the choppy waters, gobbled air, and dove under, eyes searching in the murk. There are no damn fish in this godforsaken lake, I thought. There was also no sign of Clark.

  I kicked to the surface again, to check for signs of him. On deck, they were all gesturing for me to swim toward the bow. I crawled against the current, dove under again, and caught a glimpse of Clark’s orange windbreaker, the color choice a stroke of luck. I grasped a tiny purchase on his sleeve, pulling him into a vise grip until I could swing my other arm around him and lift him above the lapping waves. He gurgled and coughed, and I saw the lifesaver Sean had thrown overboard. I backstroked until I had my free arm looped around it.

  Clark thrashed in my arms, still in a panic. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get him on the boat. But Sean was quick on his feet and tossed me a rope. I tied it under Clark’s arms and the crew hoisted him up along the gunwale. When he was safely on board, I dolphin-kicked over to the pontoon ladder and climbed back on deck.

  Clark and I huddled under a blanket while Sean guided the motorboat back to dock at such a clip, he forgot to release the throttle and beached, which caused a sound that would have made the boat’s owner cry dollar signs.

  Andrew, Clark, and I drove in Sean’s four-seater pickup back to Recluse. The heat was cranked so high, I could see drips of sweat spilling down Andrew’s cheeks. He didn’t say a word. He simply looked cautiously back and forth between me and Clark.

  “You okay, young man?” Sean asked the sopping-wet boy.

  Clark stuttered a bit before he spoke. “I-I-I don’t feel like throwing up anymore.”

  We dropped the boy off first at his parents�
� house. It was a cabin so small and square you could hardly imagine it fitting more than a single room inside. I watched the exchange through the fogged-up window of the truck. They seemed to take matters in stride. The mother took him into the house to get him out of his clothes, and the father nodded earnestly and patted Sean on the shoulders in that no-hard-feelings kind of way. At some point Sean gestured toward our truck and the father saluted me, as a signal of thanks, I suppose.

  Andrew climbed in the middle of the front seat next to me.

  “I can’t wait to tell everyone at school about this,” he said.

  I knew then that my days in Recluse were numbered. I just hadn’t started the countdown yet.

  Chapter 13

  * * *

  I GOT the nickname Nemo because Andrew told the class I swam like a dolphin. Being landlocked, the kids had never heard of any of the Sea World stars, so they named me after the only famous fish they could think of. It beat Shamu. The local rag gave it all a small write-up. I generally avoided having my picture taken, but one of my colleagues managed to capture from a distance a grainy shot of me refereeing a game of dodgeball. Because the tiny paper was run by a retired newsman, not inclined toward modern technology, the article never made it online. I ran a series of searches on “Debra Maze” just to be sure. I found others, and I think I caught a reference to the real one—a missing person from Ohio. But I figured I was safe for a while.

  I figured wrong.

  Clark didn’t warm to me as I had expected after I pulled him from the lake. I used to catch him giving me sidelong glances whenever he was in my vicinity. I could always feel a cactus resting softly on my neck when he looked my way. If I tried to meet his gaze, he’d avert his eyes. If I offered a greeting, warm and friendly, he returned it with a mumble and an almost imperceptible nod.

  Andrew had noted Clark’s unease and commented one afternoon while we kept our vigil on the stoop, awaiting his mother.

  “I think some boys don’t like to be saved by girls,” Andrew said.

  Even though we had just been discussing whether the Boston Tea Party resulted in a spell of overly caffeinated fish in Boston Harbor, the transition didn’t shake me. I knew exactly what Andrew was talking about.

  “Why do you bring that up?” I asked.

  “Clark looks scared of you now or something,” said Andrew.

  “I noticed that too.”

  “Don’t seem right, you saving his life and all. He should be grateful.”

  “You don’t save a person for the gratitude.”

  “Have you done that before?” Andrew asked. “Saved a life?”

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “What did you do?”

  It had been a long time since I had spoken anything true about my past. I could have evaded the question, but it was easy to be yourself around a child. Besides, I felt like Andrew of all people deserved the truth.

  “I pulled someone out of the water who might have drowned otherwise,” I said.

  “Did the person also fall off of a boat?”

  “No, the person was trapped in a car after we drove off a bridge.”

  “Why did you drive off a bridge?”

  “That’s a really good question,” I said as I realized I was saying too much.

  “See, I knew you’d done it before,” Andrew said.

  “Just that once.”

  “Was it a boy or a girl that you saved?” Andrew asked.

  “A boy.”

  “Was he grateful?”

  I felt a lump in my throat. For a moment I wasn’t sure I could hold back the tears. “No. He was not.”

  I could feel another question on the tip of Andrew’s tongue, but then his mother pulled up in front of the schoolhouse and he gathered his books together.

  “See you tomorrow, Ms. Maze.”

  “Tomorrow, Andrew.”

  I SAW the man after Shawna’s Pontiac was long gone. He was standing across the empty street watching me, or maybe he had been watching Andrew. When our eyes met, he should have walked away. Any man these days knows that loitering outside a schoolhouse is suspect, no matter what his intent. Instead he just stood there, letting me memorize his face for a sketch artist.

  He looked perfectly ordinary, aside from that unwavering gaze. He wore unflattering tan trousers and a button-down blue shirt with a wrinkled cardigan. He had on scuffed-up sneakers, perfect for making a quick and quiet escape. His cold brown eyes were stuck in a squint. We stared at each other across the asphalt divide. I stood up and walked down the steps, waiting for him to say something.

  “Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it, ma’am?” his said in a slow, lazy tone.

  “Who are you?” I said.

  I figured he’d run, but he didn’t.

  “I think the more pertinent question is, who are you?”

  Then the ordinary-looking man nodded a good-bye and walked away.

  I WENT to the Lantern for a drink to settle my nerves. I hadn’t yet established a regular order at the bar, but Sean poured me a whiskey before I even sat down. As it turned out, that was what I was thirsty for. It went down so smooth, like gulping water after a scorching day in the sun. He poured me another. We had an unspoken exchange of head nods and eyebrow lifts. Sean thought I looked tired. I agreed. The constant vigilance of life as an impostor had begun to take its toll. Being a sentry even in sleep can only be sustained for so long.

  The door to the bar whined open and shut. I felt the flash of daylight blink on and off. Wood-soled boots clopped slowly along the concrete floor, adding a beat to the John Fogerty song playing in the background. The man in the boots took a seat one bar stool away from mine. Before he spoke, before I recognized the voice; before I saw the face I had seen before, I could feel it was him. I also knew he had come for me, even though he held his gaze on the shiny stable of booze that hung on the mirrored wall behind the bar. If he’d tried to catch my eye through the reflection, I wouldn’t have seen it. I stared straight down at my drink and tried to make myself as small as possible.

  Sean approached the new patron.

  “What can I get you?”

  “Two of whatever she’s having,” he said.

  His voice scared me, even though I kind of liked the tenor of it. It was a deep and solid voice, missing some of that twang you often get in these rural parts. I remained mute with the foolish notion that I could somehow slip away unnoticed. Sean poured the man two whiskeys. I finished my drink and started a slow climb off the bar stool. Just when I thought I might be able to leave without any trouble, he slid the second whiskey in front of me.

  “Have a drink with me, Debra.”

  This caught Sean’s attention, since I had yet to arrive or leave the bar with another person or show the slightest interest in getting acquainted with anyone besides Sean and a mixed bag of students.

  “This a friend of yours, Debra?”

  “We didn’t know each other for very long,” he said. “But Debra here made an impression.”

  “She does that,” Sean said.

  He must have seemed more friendly than sinister to Sean. I’ve discovered that men don’t always pick up on the dark subtext.

  Sean extended his hand to the man and said, “Sean. Proprietor.”

  The man said, “Domenic. Customer.”

  “Pleasure meeting you. Now, how do you know our Debra?”

  This time I had only Sean to blame for encouraging the conversation. From what I saw his pleasantries were a guise to feed his hungry curiosity about me.

  “It’s a long story,” Domenic said.

  “Well, I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

  I finally looked Domenic in the eye, which must have been a shocker for him, and searched for his intentions. He didn’t give anything away.

  We were quite a pair.

  Domenic scrutinized my new look with a shadow of amusement. Last time we met, I’d been blond and blue eyed, and didn’t wear sundresses and sneakers that were covered in fing
er paint. Although I only noticed the finger paint when I looked down at my lap to avoid eye contact.

  “You look different, Debra. What is it?”

  “Haircut,” I said.

  “I like it. What else is different? You look more natural or something.”

  Run, was the message my whole body was telling me. But I knew if I ran, I was chucking whatever life I had in the trash. A new life would be an unknown, and I had seen where the unknown could take me. I didn’t like it all that much.

  Domenic put his hand over mine. “Don’t go,” he said. “Have your drink.”

  I swallowed my whiskey, hoping it would settle me, but instead I felt like I’d stepped in quicksand. I tried to remind myself not to fight it.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “Visiting,” Domenic said. He motioned for Sean to pour two more drinks.

  “What do you want?” I said, looking him straight on.

  “That’s a complicated question. One I doubt I could answer in just one day.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I have to say, you have the most beautiful b—brown?—eyes I have ever seen. Brown. Hmm, I have to admit I remember them differently. Still, they suit you.”

  This didn’t look good. A cop tracking me to a new town where I’d made a transformation that looked far more like a disguise than a makeover. Hell, it was even possible he’d found out who I really was, or at least who I once was. I had no idea what Domenic knew or didn’t know, and I was pretty sure at that moment that the game was up. So I finished my drink because, as far as I knew, you couldn’t get whiskey behind bars—at least the kind made in a barrel, not a toilet.

  “That’s more like it,” Domenic said.

  A few more patrons fell into the bar—Glen, one of the mechanics at the local gas station, and his buddy George, the town electrician, although he got most of his work in Jackson. Both men had children at JAC Primary School.

  “Miss Maze,” Glen said, tipping an imaginary hat.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, nodding in return.

  Domenic observed the exchange and smiled. He took the opportunity of new arrivals to take the seat right next to mine. This allowed us to converse in tones too quiet for even Sean to decipher when he’d lean on the bar, cleaning an imaginary spill.