Page 52 of Everything's Coming Up Rosie

I strap my bag around my shoulder crossways, pull the key from the ignition (as if anyone could steal the golf cart in its current state), and draw in a breath.

“Mud washes off,” I tell myself as I spin sideways and scootchto the passenger side, holding my brown chunky feet up over the dash. Maybe if I go fast, I won’t sink. Maybe on the other side of the cart it’s not so wet.

I take another breath and, before I can think about it, I jump out of the golf cart, trying to run toward the grassy area with every ounce of strength in my body.

Nope. It’s just as wet. And even a little deeper. My feet sink to mid-shin, and because I leapt with Olympic-long-jump fervor, my torso momentum continues as my feet stay firmly planted.

I instantly flop over, hands out, face down.

I gasp, pulling my face up, inhaling a mouth full of thick, wet dirt as I do. I spit and swipe, trying—failing—to clear my eyes and nose with mud-covered hands. I can’t see anything, but I can hear rustling to my right. I start shouting, “Stay away from me, coyotes!” while flailing my arms, because somewhere, once upon a time, I saw on a nature documentary that you’re supposed to “make yourself big” if confronted by a wild animal.

“You don’t want to mess with me!” I yell, but with the mud slathered on my face, it comes out sounding like,“You don wanf messif me!”I’m still mostly lying prostrate on the ground when, out of nowhere, I feel myself pulled up out of the muck like a rag doll and placed in an upright position.

I’m verbally protesting—becausewhat is happening?—but quickly realize the rustling I heard wasn’t El Chupacabra; it was an actual person. Someone must’ve come to my rescue.

Unless this is the start of a murder-by-opportunity type scenario.

When I shout, “Don’t murder me!” (because that’s a good deterrent for murderers—they run away for sure when you shout that at them) I get another mouthful of sludge that slid down from my forehead and over my nose, which I spit out directly at the person who pulled me out of the muck.

“What the—? Rosie! Calm down!” the voice says. “It’s Booker.”

I go still.

Of course. Of course it’s Booker.

My hands are caked and useless, so I try to shake the mud from my face—only to succeed in thwapping a mucky slab of hair around and smacking myself in the face with it.

Lying face down in the mud—or a coffin—is preferable to him seeing me like this.

“Don’t say anything,” he says, and I swear I can hear stifled laughter in his voice. If it’s there for real, I’m going to get back in the cart and drive over him.

“Just grab my arm and walk with me. I’ve got a towel in my cart.”

I never thought the words“I’ve got a towel in my cart”could be a turn-on, but here we are.

I let him lead me out of the muddy area and onto firmer ground.

He stops. “Okay, wait here. I’ll be right back.”

As if I could go anywhere with my eyes burning and my face covered in sludge.

I hold out my hands for the towel when I feel him return, his body close enough for me to reach out and touch, but he steps closer, ignoring my outstretched hands and begins wiping my face with the towel.

“I think it’s safe to open your eyes,” he says.

I blink them open, and it’s like he’s an angel, bathed in light as the sun sets behind him. I go to wipe some of the mud from the corner of my mouth, and he stops me.

“Let me get it...” He reaches up and wipes a glob away. It falls to the ground with a wetplop.

I wince.

“Do I even want to ask?” He glances past me to where my golf cart has sunk even lower in the mud.

I just look up at him, a grotesque mud monster from the depths.

He grins.

“Why are you smiling?” I ask, because honestly,whyis he smiling?

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