The Passenger by Lisa Lutz

with clothes. Modern ones. Blue was prepped to run at a moment’s notice. I could learn a few things from her.
    I checked the window and saw Blue’s silhouette in the main house. I looked inside the bathroom. At least she had a few luxuries she couldn’t live without. Perched on the ledge of the shower were a fragrant body wash and shampoo and conditioner that looked pricey; at least, the bottles had this foreign design that you never see in a drugstore.
    I roamed into the bedroom while I still had time and opened the nightstand, the place where most people hide their secrets. Inside I found a battered old teddy bear and a gun. When Blue came back, I was lying on the couch, pretending that her entrance had woken me. Blue clocked the entire apartment and looked me in the eye.
    â€œYou saw the gun, didn’t you?” she said.
    â€œYes,” I said. No point in denying it.
    â€œI have a husband. Although I regard him as more of an ex-husband,” she said as if that were the common explanation for owning a firearm.
    â€œIs he a violent man?” I asked.
    Then I realized the answer was obvious. I’d never noticed it before, but Blue had a slice above her brow, and her left eye drooped slightly, almost like a reflection in a carnival mirror. Nerve damage. I’d seen it once before, at Frank’s bar. I never got her name; she was passing through town with a man. She had that haunted look you see in some women. In Blue it was different, though; whatever happened to her didn’t exactly seem to have stolen anything from her, except maybe a conscience. She was like a person turned upside down.
    â€œHe’s no more violent than I am,” Blue said. “Then again, it wasn’t always that way.”
    â€œWho are you?” I asked. It was a reasonable question. I’d already told her everything about myself, but all I knew was that people called her Blue, and she poured drinks at May’s Well, and she was putting as much ground as possible between herself and her ex.
    â€œMy first name was Debra Maze,” Blue said. “Then I got married and became Debra Reed. I was a third-grade teacher for a few years until I stopped being presentable in front of the children. Then I had to run, and my cousin who looks maybe like my sister let me have her old driver’s license. I’m Carla Wright for now, and as long as I don’t apply for credit or anything official, I can probably hang on to this name for a little while. But my past will catch up to me eventually, just like yours did.”
    â€œHow long did you stay with him?”
    â€œSeven years.”
    â€œHow long have you been gone?”
    â€œSix months,” Blue said. “When I saw your fake passport, which is as fine a forgery as I’ve ever seen, I figured you might be connected. It never occurred to me that your predicament could be further south than my own.”
    â€œSorry to get you tangled in my mess.”
    â€œNo apology necessary. Who knows, one day you might get tangled in mine. Then we’d be even.” She opened a cupboard overstuffed with towels and bedding and withdrew a blanket and pillows. “You need to sleep,” she said, “as do I. Everything looks so much simpler after a bit of shut-eye.” Then she walked into her bedroom and shut the door.
    I found her bourbon and took a slug, slipped off my shoes, and put the blanket over my head, blocking the midday sun, which seemed to shine directly on the couch. I could feel that exhaustion where every part of your body seems to be sinking into itself, but I couldn’t quiet my mind. On a loop I replayed the car accident in jump cuts. Each clip began with that queasy feeling in my gut, sitting there, powerless. Someone else’s hands gripping the wheel, foot to the floor, knuckles white, tendons bucking under the skin.
    In the dream, I know what I have to do because I didn’t do it before. I’ve