The Track
an excerpt

It didn’t stop raining. We got used to it and Tamara dozed a little. For awhile we sang all the rain-related old songs we could think of – “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” “Listen To the Rhythm of the Falling Rain,” “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” “Raindrops,” “Purple Rain.” We didn’t know all the words to any of them, so we’d start the song, skip to the chorus, and then start another one once we got bored with humming the rest. Tamara knew more old songs than I’d thought she would. The only song we both knew all the words to was Milli Vanilli’s “Blame It On the Rain.” We sang that one as loudly as we could, went on to another song, then did Milli Vanilli again. But after an hour or so, we got bored with that too.

“How far is Tennant Creek?” Tamara asked.

“Pretty far. I think we were supposed to drive about ten hours today.”

She looked out the window at the sky. It was impossible to tell whether night had fallen or not; the clouds had completely blacked out the sun for most of the day. “I need to use the bathroom,” she said.

I did too. I’d been looking for a town for awhile now but hadn’t seen one. There didn’t seem to be much of anything between Mount Isa and Tennant Creek but rain and mud. “I’ll look for a place," I promised.

Another hour went by. We made small talk but we were both growing acutely uncomfortable. Once or twice I thought I might have passed an exit off the mud track we were driving on, but I couldn’t see whether there was a gas station or not. There weren’t even any other cars anymore. We might have been at the bottom of the ocean by ourselves. Finally Tamara murmured, “I think we’re just gonna have to get wet.”

“Huh?”

“Well, there aren’t any cups in the car. There’s nowhere to go. I can’t hold it anymore. If you need to go as bad as I do, I think we’re just going to have to pull over and get wet.”

I tried hard to think of an alternative. I couldn’t. She was right. Reluctantly I pulled over as far as I dared, and shut off the engine. We looked at each other.

“Are you sure?”

She took a deep breath and looked outside. “At least it’s not cold.”

I nodded. “Are we taking turns or going together?”

“I don’t care. I’ll go first, I guess.” She twiddled her finger around her necklace and jumped out of the car. At least she had a skirt on; it was easier to pee by the highway that way. She was out there for about a minute and then the door opened just long enough for her to leap back into the passenger seat, sopping wet like the time she’d fallen in the river. “You are going to spend more time wet on this trip than dry,” I mused.

“Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “Just go so we can get back on the road.” She squeezed her hair, wringing it out onto the floorboard.

I took a deep breath, unfastened my pants, and jumped out.

It was like jumping into a lake, one with a very fast current. I ran around to the other side of the car, trying to minimize the time I was out there, but by the time I got around I realized I was already completely soaked so I might as well take my time. I squatted and tried not to pee on my jeans, but I had no idea whether I did or not. Everything was soaked anyway. The rain felt weird on my bare ass and I remembered a time I went skinny-dipping with a group of girls from work at a party we’d been hired to dance at. By the time I got back in the car, Tamara was already bent over the back of the seat, rummaging in her suitcase.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Getting dry clothes,” she said. She pulled out a clean tank top, a dry skirt, and a pair of panties. “You should too.”

I waited until she was back in her seat and climbed into the back for my suitcase, which was farther back than hers. I had just found a change of clothes when I realized she was naked in the passenger seat. “Tamara!”

“What?”

“You can’t get naked right here by the highway!”

She laughed. “Why not? Who’s looking? There’s nobody here but us.” She pulled on her tank top and turned to look at me. “Where were you gonna change? Outside?”

I grumbled and stripped off my shirt, pulled on the dry one, then removed my wet bra. I tried to change my pants discreetly too but there’s only so much you can do in an SUV. Once dry, I climbed back into the driver’s seat and gave Tamara a triumphant look. “Ready?”

She grinned. “Let’s try to get to Tennant Creek before we have to do that again.”

“If you drink anything, I’ll kill you.”

As we pulled back onto the highway, Tamara started singing again. “You see I’ve been through the desert in a truck with no name, it felt good to be out of the rain…”

I joined in and we sped into the sopping night singing, “La laaaaa, laaa, la la la laa…”