—Wow, you really need to calm yourself down, I said, reaching for my bra between us on the seat. I snapped it on and adjusted the cups.
Omar hated being told to calm down. In fact, saying calm yourself down was the best way to get him to not calm down at all. He grabbed the front seats and hurled himself at the steering wheel, his T-shirt hanging bunched around his neck, his arms still free.
—No, I got it. You’re fucking ready. Let’s go then, he said.
He pushed his arms through the sleeves, grabbed at the keys and turned them, revved the engine. I tugged on my underwear, seeing that, though I’d picked them out because I thought they matched, the bottoms were actually navy blue, the bra black.
—Omar, for real? I yelled. Then, like a mom, I said, Oh-mar, please. Then, Oh! Seriously! Come on already!
He put the car in drive.
—You know what? I said. You’re right. Let’s fucking go.
He turned in his seat and screamed, You’re the one who says she’s ready!
I realized then the confusion, and I almost lowered my voice, but I didn’t know yet how effective that could be. I yelled, To New York, asshole! I’m ready to go to New York, not go from here! But whatever, do whatever you want!
I struggled to find my pants, then twisted them around until I found the leg holes. I shook them out and wiggled them on while Omar cursed up front. I found my blouse and tried undoing the buttons—Omar had just pulled it over my head to get it off, hadn’t bothered the buttons with his bulky fingers—but it was inside out. Omar kept changing gears on the car, which kept lunging forward, then backward, not really going anywhere. I flipped the blouse and opened it, then wrapped the fabric around me, making sure the holes lined up with the buttons by starting from the bottom.
—Hey genius, he finally said.
I didn’t answer, just looked out the window as my fingers climbed up, fastening me into my shirt. He pressed his head against the steering wheel, then lifted it and smacked his forehead with both his hands four or five times.
—We’re fucking stuck, he said.
My hands froze. What do you mean we’re stuck?
—I mean the car. He put his hand on the latch to open the door, but before he pulled it, he asked, You dressed?
I murmured yes, and he opened the door, and dim light from the dome overhead suddenly yellowed everything.
I scrambled up to the front seat in time to hear Omar say, Oh fuck.
All he’d done was stand up, so I said, What?
He stepped forward and I heard what sounded like a wet fart, and then he said, Are you fucking serious?
I tried to look past his legs in the doorway at the ground, but my eyes were still used to the dark. I couldn’t see anything but him.
*
How could I not have thought about the possibility of mud? About the Miami rain that soaked the grass every day in the summer? We’d driven onto the rough—a word I didn’t yet know meant the long grass, grass meant to be long, to slow things up for a golf ball. We’d glided onto it in the dark and rocked the car with our bodies enough to dig us in deep.
I will always—always—give Omar credit for trying everything he could to get us out of that mud without anyone’s help. His sneakers were ruined that night, along with the shirt he was wearing and the jeans. The towels from the backseat, already wet with sweat, were also ruined once he used them to clean the mud off his face, arms, body.
I got to keep clean, mostly. Everything I was told to do—press the gas, then try neutral, then turn the wheel all the way left, then all the way right, now straight, straight!—involved me staying in the car, not getting slapped with mud. I stepped out only once, right after I’d pressed the gas down all the way like he’d said to do while he rocked the car from behind. I heard Omar scream and I thought maybe I’d been in reverse and had killed him—Oh my god, I thought, I ran him over!—so I threw the car in park even though it wasn’t going anywhere and jumped out, felt my flip-flops sink and the mud seep between and over my toes. It wasn’t even cold; the mud was as warm as the air around us. I’d sunken in so fast and deep that when I lifted my leg, my shoe made a sucking sound but wouldn’t budge: if I’d tried to step forward, I would’ve fallen face-first. So I turned at the hip, holding on to the Integra’s roof for balance, and saw Omar, who, covered head to toe in so much mud, really looked like a monster.
Only when it hit one A.M.—after an hour and a half of trying—did I venture to say, Omar, it’s late. My flight was at seven forty-five the next morning. Omar called his friend Chino, who found the number for a tow truck and gave it to us. Chino offered to come out himself, but thankfully Omar said Don’t worry about it and hung up before he could ask any questions.
The tow truck didn’t even take ten minutes to find us. The swirling yellow and red lights mounted on top of the truck reminded me how even this last time, we’d never really gone that far from anything.