“Was anybody hurt?”

“Nope. No people. No cars. Which is kind of a miracle because we were still half-full. A lot of guests had asked for late checkout after today’s memorial in the cemetery. Mostly Trumanistas, who are a bunch of bitch-istas if you ask me. Thank God for a reporter from one of the British tabloids. He knocked on doors and helped me get everybody downstairs during the tornado. People wouldn’t pay attention to me, but they listened to his accent. It’s like they thought they were being rescued by Prince Harry or Idris Elba.”

“I’ve heard of Trumanistas.” I’ve trolled their Facebook group more than once.

“Trumanell is their #MeToo icon, but it’s Odette they ought to idolize.”

“You knew Odette?”

“She helped me out a couple of times when I was a kid. Most of the police here are for shit. Not Odette.”

“It sucks that it’s been five years and they don’t seem to have a clue,” I say tentatively. “Are they any closer to figuring out what happened to her?”

“I’m fucking done with reporters today, OK?”

“I’m not a reporter,” I shoot back. “Look, do you recommend another place I can go?”

I’m defensive enough that her face eases up a little.

“All three hotels in this town are lined up on this side of the highway per a dumbass city regulation,” she explains. “All of us got slammed and are shutting down. I was recommending Marjorie’s Bed and Breakfast in town, but they’re already full and Marjorie is getting mad because I keep giving out her number just to get people off my ass. People are offering three hundred dollars to sleep on her porch. A lot of them are drunk. They went from the cemetery to the bar.”

“What’s the next town with a hotel?”

“I saw on Twitter that a lot of the exits are now blocked both ways. Lots of wrecks. As usual, idiots parked under the underpasses. Vehicles got slammed everywhere. I keep seeing tow trucks and cop cars pass.”

She bursts into tears. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get that tornado out of my head. They don’t tell you about the sounds of animals outside panicking. A woman twice my age was under this counter with me, literally crying ‘Mommy.’ My own baby was at daycare and all I could hope was that someone was holding her like I was holding that woman.”

“Is your baby OK?” I step closer to the counter. Empathetic. I see a line of tiny liquor bottles lined up in front of her computer, half of them uncapped and empty.

“Yes. Thank God. My ex picked her up right before it happened so that makes up for ten missed child support payments, right? I really need this job, and the guys on the roof say it’s going to take five months to get this place up and running again. I just got a raise and was promoted because my Yelp reviews are so good. See my badge? Concierge. Not everybody gets that title. The Best of Trumanell Town, Texas. I’m the one who made that up for our website.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’ll check out your Yelp reviews.”

“Here, take a little bottle of tequila. Take two. I’m Loree with two e’s. I ask everybody to try to spell it right in their reviews because there’s also a L-a-u-r-i-e and L-o-r-i.”

I hesitate. “It seems to me that you were a hero today, Loree.”

She swallows a sob. “I think I was. A lot of the guests were pissed off once they realized they were alive. Like that was almost a bad thing—to be inconvenienced and nothing terrible come of it. My boss is in Hawaii. Only one police car showed up and once the cop saw I was competent, he tore off down the road.”

She is suddenly laser-focused on my face. That’s all it takes when I’m tired. I feel an instant shot of panic. Is there a piece of mascara stuck to the acrylic on my eye, or dirt from the cellar? There was so much wind. Things slip in, and I can’t tell. I check mirrors often. Bunny says it’s a habit I need to break or people will think I’m conceited.

Can’t you feel that in your eye? People have asked it incredulously, like a knife is sticking out of my stomach or something. Then I worry they will see the tiny scar, that one eyelid droops just a little more than the other and that the green iris on one side doesn’t always slide around as fast as the other one. Someone will talk too much and too loudly about the girl with the weird eye, and my father will find me. Maybe in Trumanell Town, Texas.

It takes everything in me not to look down into Loree’s little mirror.

“You seem nice. I really like your earrings.” Not eyes. Loree is looking at my ears. “I’m usually not such a mess,” she continues. “In answer to your other question: The money is still on Wyatt Branson. But the men in town stopped bugging him after he got some high-quality tripwires out there. Women here love him. To them, Wyatt Branson is the Texas Idris Elba, white with a drawl.”

I’m trying to decide if this is racist. I decide it isn’t, but I wouldn’t ask for opinions on Twitter.

Loree hands me her card. I hand her a twenty-dollar bill. “Thanks for the information,” I say. “I really appreciate it.”

It’s not like I have any money to spare. Now I need new Asics. But strangers have handed me twenty-dollar bills when I was low. Also, I need to redeem myself for wanting to draw blood out of Wyatt Branson. What if Wyatt saved me, not once but twice?

I must be in the sixth stage.

As I shove open the door, one of the men on the roof is letting loose with a loud stream of Spanish. I’m picking out a few words I learned not to use unless I was Mexican myself.

I tilt the rearview mirror and check my eye for foreign objects—all clear. I wheel the car to the top of the road and feel as alone as I ever have. In my mind, alone is second only to blind.

I uncap one of the tiny tequilas and toss it back. My aunt would be proud. It goes down like a lit match.

I swivel my head both ways, twice on the left, always so careful, before I inch out.

I don’t want to go back there.

I turn right anyway.

47

If someone catches me, I won’t be able to explain myself.

That’s what I’m thinking at the side door of the Blue House, fumbling with the lock for the second time in less than ten hours. Left, right, left. My eye scoots back and forth. The windows that can see me, in the house across the alley, are dark and still.

The Blue House seems to have withstood the storm just fine. A few twiggy branches are scattered on the front lawn and the Texas flag on the front porch is knotted around its pole. It kills me not to go over and fix the flag. If there weren’t a porch light shining on it that would expose me, I would.

Every Oklahoman and Texan I know feels this way about a twisted, disrespected flag, even if they’re a shit kind of person.

The big thing this flag tells me about the Blue House is that someone is paying attention, honoring the flag by keeping a timer light on it at night. Which means sleeping at the Blue House is a really dumb idea. I guess, we’ll see.

I’ve tried to be careful. I parked the car six blocks away and transferred a few overnight things from my small carry-on to my backpack. I scrunched low in the backseat and slipped on dry clothes, a white tank top and bright blue Tweety Bird sweats, which I figure can double for sleeping hard or running fast.

I know for sure that people are more likely to ignore someone in light clothes than dark clothes, especially walking around at night in their neighborhood. Always look normal.

The lock clicks.

I barely shrug off my backpack before I’m crashing. Head wheeling, mouth dry and tingly, all the regular signs I might faint. Four gummy worms are the last things I ate. I fumble around in the dark cabinets. Not much. I pick Ritz crackers and a can of pork and beans, expired six months ago. I shove ten crackers in my mouth and am almost instantly better.

I’m scared to make noise, so I don’t heat up the beans in the microwave. I jump at the little slice of light when I grab a beer from the refrigerator.

I shove down the first bite of congealed beans in direct line of sight with Betty Crocker’s spine, barely visible in the shadows.

Chicken and Dumplings. I can see the picture in my head, a mushy, unappetizing blob shot in a pre-Instagram world. Except it was delicious when my mother made it. I know the exact page number, 95. The list of ingredients. Bisquick, chicken-mushroom soup, 1 cup of frozen peas and carrots. My mother let me run a permanent black pencil line through the celery. Better with ? teaspoon garlic salt, was the advice of her messy scrawl.

Halfway into the can of beans and all the way through the beer, my head feels pretty solid.