The Passenger

by Lisa Lutz

  “What?” I said impatiently.

  “Do you love him?” Ryan asked.

  “Who?”

  “Jason.”

  “What do you care?” I said.

  “I care.”

  “You disappeared.”

  “They made me stay away from you,” Ryan said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know,” I said, even though I wasn’t entirely sure myself.

  My mother’s reputation probably had something to do with it, and maybe my father’s suicide, and maybe the old forty-two-inch television sitting on the brown lawn of my house.

  “What difference does it make?” he said.

  “Did you send Logan that day to break up with me?”

  “What?” he said.

  “You didn’t know?”

  He didn’t know.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “Being a coward,” he said.

  “It’s been nice catching up.”

  I started to walk away. Ryan blocked my path, put his hands on my shoulders, leaned in, and kissed me. The kiss felt different from Jason’s, but I still shoved him away, maybe because I felt something. Maybe I was worried that there was something in me that was like my mother. I started to dress.

  “Jo, I miss you,” Ryan said.

  “What do you miss?” I said as I threw a sweatshirt over my swimsuit and shoved my damp feet into a pair of sneakers.

  “You were my best friend.”

  “You don’t kiss your best friend,” I said, and I picked up my schoolbag and started on my way.

  “Sometimes you do,” Ryan said, stepping into my path.

  He kissed me again. It was different. I was lightheaded, warm, and scared because I thought maybe it was just a prank. Maybe Logan was hiding in the bushes, egging on his brother.

  “I have to go,” I said, walking along Wildcat Alley, remembering that day, the look on Logan’s face.

  Ryan followed me.

  “Didn’t you miss me?”

  “A little,” I said.

  “I want to be with you,” he said.

  “You’re not allowed. Remember?”

  “We’re sixteen. We only have to hide it for two years.”

  I BROKE UP with Jason the next day.

  For almost two years, Ryan and I hid our relationship like two married people having a scandalous affair. We met in the woods by Stonehenge most afternoons, always with a solid alibi in place. Sometimes we’d drive to a different town, park in a remote location, and have sex in the backseat of his car. We became so skilled at car screwing, we once joked about writing a book together. When the weather allowed, we’d spread a blanket in the woods and check ourselves for ticks when we were done. A few times, Ryan sprang for a motel room. Those nights we imagined what our future might be like. I never imagined a future without Ryan. Even after what happened, even when I became someone else, I still hung on to the hope that one day he’d be my future.

  We were caught a few times and aggressively punished. Ryan’s car was taken away and sold. He had to hitch rides from his brother and friends after that. My mother tried to ground me once or twice, but she always passed out too early to enforce her punishment.

  IT WAS at a swim meet when Logan first noticed Melinda, really noticed her. At a party later that night, he brought her a beer and asked her to go for a walk with him, an invitation rarely refused. She refused. The next day at school, he found her by her locker and asked her again. She said no. He persisted, doing things that in the past would have never occurred to him. He picked flowers, left her sweet notes, waited for her after swim practice with a mug of cocoa. Melinda’s resolve began to weaken. She thought perhaps she was the one woman who could tame him.

  They went out one night to a drive-in movie in Everett. He figured he’d at least get to third base that night. Most girls put out on the first date. He rarely had a need for a second. Melinda let Logan kiss her, and that was it.

  After that night, Logan could think of no girl but Melinda.

  Melinda agreed to a second date and then a third. I told her to be careful. I told her what I knew, what I had seen that one afternoon in Wildcat Alley. Melinda thought there had to be a logical explanation. She didn’t break up with Logan. Not then.

  A month later, after their relationship status was cemented, Melinda saw the side of her boyfriend that I had told her about. Logan caught Melinda talking to Ben, a boy from her French class. They were speaking in another language and Logan assumed that Ben was making a move on his girl.

  After school, Logan broke Ben’s nose. Melinda figured her nose might be next. She broke up with Logan that evening. She quickly got herself another boyfriend. Hank Garner. I heard he was a chemistry major, a college boy, and a gentleman. He held doors and walked on the right side of the street. Melinda cared about those things; I never did. All you really need to know is that Melinda moved on. Logan didn’t. He graduated and stuck around Bilman the next year, working odd jobs for his father and keeping tabs on Melinda.

  WHEN SENIOR year rolled around, we began to make plans. Ryan would turn eighteen in January; I would in March. Ryan applied to several colleges back east. He had the grades for them. I thought maybe I could still get a swim scholarship.

  One night, after a statewide swim meet, where Melinda got first place in the freestyle and I got second, we celebrated by getting tattoos. Melinda got a dolphin; I decided on the Chinese nothing. We kept training after school, but I’d start to miss a practice here and there. While Melinda kept her eyes on the prize—a swim scholarship—I had lost my focus. Ryan and I made more plans. Many young girls make that mistake at one time or another—they lose themselves in a boy. But I doubt any girl paid more dearly than I.

  “NEXT STOP. CHICAGO.”

  I had a four-hour layover. In the restroom I got a good look at myself under the unforgiving fluorescents. No one would ever have seen an old picture of Nora Glass and thought it was the same person. I only hoped that one day I might look in the mirror and recognize myself again.

  I stopped into a bar for a drink. No man paid me any mind. I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. The news was on, but the sound was muted. I stared in a daze at traffic and weather reports. Then I stared in a daze at a familiar face. The picture had been taken outside a police station. The woman was emaciated and wearing a scarf to cover her bald head. She looked like death was beating on her door and she was just about to answer.

  The headline on the screen said, Naomi Glass confesses to fraud and obstruction of justice.

  I spilled my drink. The bartender cleaned up the mess and poured me another.

  “Would you mind turning up the sound?” I said.

  The bartender unmuted the TV, just as a picture of me from ten years back flashed on the screen, all flesh and lightness and eyes bright and clear and full of hope, with a stupid school-photo grin.

  The newscaster, standing in front of a familiar Craftsman house, said, “Mrs. Webber claims that her daughter, Nora Glass, was the victim of a criminal conspiracy involving a prominent family in her hometown of Bilman, Washington. She insists that Miss Glass is innocent of all pending charges. Authorities have recently discovered that Nora Glass has been living for eight years as Tanya Dubois. Tanya is currently a person of interest in the suspicious death of her husband, Frank Dubois.”

  The bartender asked me if I wanted another. He looked me straight in the eye without a hint of recognition.

  “Yes,” I said, still riveted by the television screen.

  Chief Lars Hendriks of Bilman, Washington, the caption read. He wasn’t chief when I lived there. He stood at a podium outside the police station and read from a piece of paper.

  “Nora Glass, if you’re out there, please come home. We have new information on your case. I think it’s time we put these crimes to bed.”

  The news cut back to the Craftsman house again, my old h
ouse. The door opened and my mother, looking as thin and fragile as a glass doll, stepped onto the porch. The reporter asked her a question. She answered it. I couldn’t make out the words, I was so stunned to see her after so long. Too many emotions were vying for attention. My eyes watered and burned as the reporter signed off and the weatherman took over the screen. My bartender poured my drink and tipped his head in the direction of the TV.

  “Do you know she was living for ten years under another name?” the bartender asked. “What do you reckon? You think this Tanya/Nora is guilty?”

  “I think she’s probably guilty of something,” I said.

  Chapter 28

  * * *

  I BOUGHT a ticket to Everett, Washington, on the Empire Builder. It followed the Lewis and Clark trail for part of the journey. I looked at my watch. I would be home in forty-eight hours.

  Snow-covered mountains made every window look like a landscape photograph on the move. I tried to enjoy the view, but the memories kept flooding back. My mother’s face was lodged in my mind. Not the woman I saw on the news, but my mother on the last night I saw her. She was drunk yet sober. Her eyes glassy and clear. She said, I told you to stay away from that boy. I remembered the smell of hair color stinging my nostrils as my mother’s shaky hands massaged in the dye. And I remember thinking that none of this would have happened had I not wanted to be with him.

  I leaned my head against the cold train window. It felt nice against the heat of my anger. I let myself go back to that night, the moment when I took a battle-ax to my entire life.

  It was prom night. Ryan and I went separately since he was still on close watch by the Olivers. We danced once that night. Afterward, a knot of students changed clothes and congregated at Stonehenge. We had dozens of oil lamps, two kegs, and hard liquor that was passed around and drunk straight from the bottle. The reflection of the lights on the reservoir made it look like the water was on fire. I was stupid happy in that way you can only be when you’re young.

  I remember Logan turned up later. He had hitched a ride with some locals, kids who’d graduated a few years back but still hung with the high school crowd on weekends, buying them booze and lurking around jailbait. I saw Logan out of the corner of my eye, drinking from his private bottle of bourbon as he roamed the grounds searching for Melinda. I remember catching a glimpse of her with Hank, making out behind a boulder. They were there and then they weren’t there. I only learned that they’d left when Logan asked for my car keys.

  “No. Go catch a ride with one of your townie friends.”

  “Give me your keys or I’ll tell them I saw you two fucking in the woods,” Logan said.

  “Fine,” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll drive.”

  Ryan and I followed Logan toward the clearing where all the cars were parked, including my mother’s beat-up 1986 Datsun. Impatiently, Logan circled back and snatched the keys from my hand and beat a path through the woods.

  When Ryan and I caught up with Logan, he was standing like a statue, staring at Hank’s Volvo. The radio was playing, the dome light was on. You could see their silhouettes inside the car.

  The booze loosened my tongue. I said all of the things I had wanted to say ever since I figured out he wasn’t as shiny as everyone thought.

  “Get over it,” I said. “She doesn’t love you. She’ll never love you. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”

  “Shut up,” Logan said.

  “No one good, no one decent, will ever love you. You might fool them for a little while, but then they’ll find it, that thing inside of you that you hide so well. Anyone can see it if they look hard enough—”

  “Nora, stop,” said Ryan.

  I didn’t stop.

  “You’re dead inside. You need to find a dead girl—”

  Logan wrapped his fingers around my throat. This is what drowning feels like, I thought. Ryan tried to wrestle his brother off of me. Logan shoved Ryan to the ground. I heard the Volvo’s engine turn over, the lights blink on. Logan released his grip on my neck. I sucked in air. Logan unlocked the driver’s-side door of my mother’s car and got in.

  I wasn’t thinking ahead. I had no notion of what Logan might do. I just thought my mother would kill me if I came home without her car that night. I raced around the car and jumped into the passenger seat and Ryan hopped in back.

  The Volvo pulled out of the driveway onto the two-lane country road. The Datsun spat dirt charging in the wake of the Volvo.

  “What are you doing, Logan?” Ryan said.

  Logan said nothing. He just followed the car as Hank and Melinda traveled the foggy two-mile stretch of Reservoir Lane. Logan lead-footed the gas until he was only a few feet away from the bumper of Hank’s car. Logan started honking the horn.

  “Slow down,” I said.

  Logan said nothing.

  “What are you doing, Lo?” said Ryan.

  Logan said nothing.

  “Make him stop,” I said to Ryan.

  Logan tapped the bumper of the Volvo. I knew then that something horrible was about to happen. Hank picked up speed, but not enough. He was scared, I guess. Logan wasn’t scared.

  Hank made a sharp right turn on Skyline Road, heading north toward Everett. Maybe he was heading home. Logan followed. As they reached the Skyline Bridge, a one-mile stretch of road that crossed a fingerlike extension of Moses Lake, Hank slowed down. It was a narrow bridge with low guardrails that would invite caution in any other circumstance, but slowing down at that moment was the biggest mistake of Hank’s life.

  When I looked over at Logan, his eyes were fixed, his jaw clenched and pulsing.

  “Please stop,” I said, but he had already done it.

  Logan put his foot to the floor and rammed into the back left fender of the Volvo.

  Hank’s head slammed against the steering wheel. He never had time to hit the brakes. The Volvo jumped the guardrail and dove headfirst into the water below. Logan kept his foot on the gas; he never straightened the wheel. Our car plunged into the lake, landing just shy of the Volvo.

  I smashed my head against the dashboard but came around when bone-chilling water began spilling into the car. I couldn’t see Melinda or Hank. I couldn’t see much of anything other than Logan rolling down his window and crawling out into the water.

  In the sinking Datsun I felt a sharp stabbing on my forehead. I touched my hand to my head and came back with blood. I turned around and saw Ryan sitting in the backseat, buckled up, gazing forward in shock, frozen with fear. The water rushed into the car and had risen to his nose. I unbuckled my seat belt and took one last gulp of air. I swam over the seat and unbuckled Ryan. He began to panic as the water rose above his head.

  I wrapped Ryan’s arm over my shoulder, opened the back door, and pulled him out of the car, pumping my legs until we reached the surface. I held Ryan above the choppy water as he gasped for breath. We swam to shore. Ryan coughed and wheezed on the rocky beach.

  I fell on my back and looked up. I remember the sky and thousands of stars. And then it all went black.

  I WOKE IN the hospital. A doctor or a nurse told me I had a concussion. I was kept another day for observation. My mother sat by my bed but refused to look me in the eye. When I asked her what happened, she said that her car was at the bottom of Moses Lake and left the room to get a cup of coffee.

  The doctor informed me that Ryan still had some fluid in his lungs and Logan was suffering from mild hypothermia. The Oliver boys were expected to be released in the next day or two.

  Aside from my mother, the only visitors I had were two detectives. I can’t remember their names. A man and a woman. I asked them what happened to Hank and Melinda. The female officer told me they were dead. The way she said it was strange, without any sympathy. The man told me not to go anywhere, which I thought was an odd thing to say to a girl in the hospital.

  I cried for an hour when I got the news. No one tried to comfort me. I didn’t notice that at the time.

 
The phone calls, text messages, and online taunts began shortly after I came home. I felt like a ghost. My mother could barely look at me or speak to me. Those same detectives dropped by our house to take my statement. They kept asking me if I was sure that’s what happened. My mother went outside for a smoke. I told the cops everything I remembered. They nodded their heads, made notes, and told me again that I shouldn’t go anywhere. I wondered where they thought I wanted to go.

  Ellen, an acquaintance from math class, sent me a text: Why did you do it?

  John, from English: I hope you get the death penalty.

  Bitch

  Sociopath

  I hope you die

  Murderer

  I CALLED Ryan’s mobile number. He didn’t pick up. I called his house phone, and his mother, Sarah, answered. She sounded heavily sedated. Her words slurred like they were slipping down a slide.

  “Heeesss not abailable to talk,” she said.

  I asked where he was. Sarah mumbled something I couldn’t make out and hung up. I called Edie. She didn’t answer, so I dropped by her house. I went straight to her bedroom window and knocked quietly three times.

  Edie opened the window and said, “What do you want?”

  “I want to know what’s going on,” I said.

  “You should know that better than anyone,” Edie said.

  “Why are people calling me a murderer?”

  “Because you are one.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Melinda and Hank are dead. Has no one told you?”

  “I know that, but it was Logan who was driving.”

  “No. You were,” said Edie. She looked at me as if I weren’t even human. I would get used to that look, but I wasn’t just then.

  I returned home to my mother, who was chain-smoking and drinking a bottle of cheap bourbon on the porch. I asked her what was happening.