Motocross Me (23 page)

I know I shouldn’t still be wasting brain power thinking about Ryan because it is pretty much guaranteed he has no redemptive qualities in his entire being, but some small ray of hope wants to know if he had tried calling me last night but couldn’t get through. And if he did, then I won’t feel as hurt and forgotten.

I head to the driver’s side window of the next truck in line and prepare to hand over my clipboard when I recognize the passenger. Of course Jacob wouldn’t come to the races in his Mustang – yet he looked out of context in the truck with his family.

“Shelby will be right with you sir,” I say to his father, and call for her to join me. She looks confused for a moment until she notices her crush and then she blushes a deep shade of burgundy that even her tan can’t hide. Jake thanks me with a bashful grin and I give him an eye roll and a thumbs-up as I head to the truck behind them.

Although I try to use willpower and not look down the line of vehicles waiting to enter, I do anyway. It is the smallest of glances but it’s enough to let me know Ryan’s truck isn’t here yet and that my mom and Danny are three cars away. I don’t understand why they wasted time driving here when they could have walked through the backyard.

I have to find a way to get out of talking to them. I call for Shelby but she’s still talking to Jake’s family and doesn’t hear me. Two of our worthless helpers have drifted away from the line and are braiding each other’s hair with their clipboards tossed to the ground and forgotten. The other two girls work together taking money from the next car in line.

I have no choice but to take as long as possible with the next person and hope someone else would move on to the car behind them. I approach the minivan and if karma is be good to me today, it’ll be filled with a dozen people who will all have to sign in. If I am exceptionally lucky, they will pay me in dollar bills, or quarters, or maybe even Euros so I can calculate the exchange rate.

“Hello,” I say to the man in the minivan while handing him the clipboard. I peer behind him and notice that both rows of backseats are empty. Is he some kind of anti-social freak? Why did he come to the races by himself instead of bringing many friends who would take a long time to sign in? I kick the dirt with my toe and watch him sign every letter in his name, wishing the pen would slip out of his hand, stab me in the skull and put me out of my misery.

He hands back the clipboard and a fresh ten-dollar bill at record speed. How dare he be so quick and agile! I stifle the urge to punch him in the face and tell him to enjoy the races. Without looking in Mom’s direction, I call to Shelby again. She’s still chatting with Jake and doesn’t hear my desperate call for help. I rub the back of my neck, trying to calm myself. This is proof that no good deed goes unpunished.

I root my feet to the ground and watch the minivan drive forward. Soon Danny’s filthy car will roll up next to me and I’ll be forced to see my mother and her barely-out-of-diapers new husband. I’m running out of time to make a decision. I can walk away and hope another girl would sign them in or I can stay and be more of an adult than my own mother.

She probably expects me to run away and avoid her. She knows I hate confrontations and I know she loves confronting me. I don’t know if I’m being courageous or acting out of spite, but I choose to stay.

I pretend to read the disclaimer on the sign-in sheet and wait for them to make a complete stop.

“Hey kiddo,” Danny greets me.

“Excuse me?” I say, shoving the clipboard into his hand. That is hardly the way to say hello to someone you’ve only met once while nursing a hangover.

I hadn’t noticed it during my last day in Dallas, but Danny’s arms are lined with tattoos. I bet his bad-boy image was a contributing factor in what is sure to be a high-quality list of standards my mother consulted to pick out husbands. A roaring tiger with a rose in its mouth stares at me as I watch him sign his name and then my mother’s – it is foreign to me now that we don’t share the same last name.

He takes an extraordinarily long time to retrieve money from his wallet and I take this obvious hint to acknowledge Mom. “Hi Mom, it’s great to see you,” I say, bending at the waist to see her from inside the beat-up Honda. The ball is in her court now.

“Great to see me?” she scoffs, glancing at her acrylic nails.  “Right.”

I smile behind clenched teeth. “You know what, Danny?” I wave away his hand, “No need to pay. You can have the special family discount.”

“Cool, thanks chick,” he shoots back and hastens to get the money back into his wallet before I change my mind. Mom’s watches me with a look of, well, either annoyance or respect. Both emotions are the same on my mother. He starts to pull forward. Right as I let out the breath I’d been holding, Mom’s hand flies out and makes him slam on the brakes.

“Hana,” she says, leaning across Danny and looking up at me. “Since you’re wondering why I’m here, I thought you should know that your father invited me.”

“That’s cool,” I say as if it really is cool. “Great idea.”

My nonchalant response triggers her infamous scorn. Before Danny accelerates again, she calls out one last time, “And of course, I wanted to see what sort of thing was so great it was worth missing my wedding!”

Shelby and I emerge from the gate with a new outlook on life as we had just survived the longest sign-in in the history of Mixon Motocross Park. Every square inch of the pits has a car parked in it. There are even cars lined up to the edge of the woods that separate our house from the track.

“Did you happen to see Ryan?” I ask Shelby while we trudge through the grass, clipboards and moneybags in tow.

“Yeah, he was with his parents in their truck. I signed them in as a favor to you,” she says, smiling.

“Did he say anything about me?” I must have said this with a little too much hopeful yearning in my voice because Shelby hesitates before answering.

“No…but, I don’t know why you would care about him anyhow.”

Practice is already over by the time we get to the tower and wait to be assigned our next task. Molly and the older women are busy registering people at the windows and other staff members come in and out of the tower on errands. Everyone seems busy except for Shelby and me. I look over Molly’s shoulder at the track below.

The new section of the track is blocked for practice. When I ask Dad about it he laughs as if I had made a joke. “Yeah right, Hana. If anyone got to practice on that section then they’d figure out the secret! And
no one
gets to know the secret.” He belts out another hearty laugh as he walks away shaking his head, still amused at the
hilarious
joke I accidentally made.

I slump into the futon and bury my head in my knees as an overwhelming feeling of guilt envelopes me. Of all the stupid things I have done in my sixteen years, telling Ryan the track secret is the worst. Ryan will win the race now that he has the upper hand on Ash. Sickening remorse doesn’t begin to describe what I feel.

Shelby is next to me in an instant. “Do you feel sick?”

I shake my head and remain hidden between my knees and fallen hair. “Then what’s wrong?” she asks.

I blink back tears and sit up, looking into the eyes of the closest friend I have ever had. Tears catch in the corners of my eyes, causing her to shift into a watery form and for a moment I see Ash staring at me through her eyes. His face is more masculine and often conceals their identical features, but the guilt I feel causes their similarities to stand out even more.

“Ash isn’t going to win…” I mumble.

“What are you talking about?” Her face softens. “Of course he will.”

A loud clink sounds from outside, followed by another and another. Someone, or something, climbs the stairs to the tower. Startled, Shelby and I turn to the door, curious about what causes the obnoxious noise. The clunking stops and the door swings open, revealing my little brother, dressed head to toe in his riding gear.

“Momma!” Teig yells into the small room. Molly rushes over to him and he whispers something in her ear that makes her laugh and send him back outside.

At the rider’s meeting, Dad stands on the roof of the score tower and goes over the rules of the race into the microphone. I stand next to him and look at the crowd of riders standing below us listening to every word he says. The younger kids listen as if their lives depend on it, while the experienced racers don’t look as though they need the information but listen anyway out of respect for my dad.

Shelby hangs out with Ash and Shawn during the meeting and I watch them while Dad explains the race order and then defines what each colored flag means. Ash stands rigid with his arms crossed, eyes watching my dad while his mind is somewhere far away. Shawn plays with a toy dirt bike, still wheelchair-bound but at least he’s gained some weight. Shelby watches Ash with a look of concern.

Not only does Ryan not deserve to win, Ash doesn’t deserve to lose. Although Ash is to blame for refusing to practice in the weeks after Shawn’s injury, Ryan knows the secret and that is completely my fault. I can’t allow Ash to start the race without a fighting chance. If Ash would stop being stubborn and allow me to tell him the secret, he may have a chance. There’s still time to catch him before he races, but I don’t know if he’ll even talk to me. Of course, getting to him without having Shelby next to me will be another problem.

Dad ends the rider’s meeting and everyone stands for the National Anthem. Alyson is visibly nervous as she begins to sing. I can almost see her knees shaking when she belts out a few off-key notes. I can’t blame her for being nervous in a crowd that is ten times the size of our normal races.

After the anthem, everyone disperses to their pits with a collective feeling of enthusiasm. Motors crank from every direction and the first moto lines up on the gate. Shelby and I gather with the rest of the staff who would be flagging today. Molly hands everyone a big yellow flag and tells us which area of the track we’re stationed.

My flagging section is one turn away from the finish line, probably the best view of the track. I can see every major part of the track from this angle and will have a clear view of the victor of each race. We have ten minutes before we need to be on the track. Molly advises for everyone to take a bathroom break. I grab a sports drink out of the cooler and head away from the bathrooms hoping to lose Shelby in the shuffle so I can find a way to talk to Ash.

It seems to work because as I meander through crowds of spectators, Shelby is nowhere to be found. I pick up speed and jog through the pits to where I had seen Ash’s truck earlier this morning. When I find the Mazda, his bike stand is empty and his family is gone. Defeat washes over me, making my knees weak and my stomach sick. I have to tell Ash the track secret. I owe it to him. With no more time to kill, I run all the way back to the track and to my section.

The first moto revs their engines at the starting gate. The pro class is the last moto but I won’t be able to leave my spot until after they raced and intermission begins. Unless Ash and I are somehow telepathic and I can find a way to activate those magical powers now, I won’t be able to talk to him before he races.

The riders on the line rev their bikes and lean forward, in full concentration. The sun beams down on me as I stand on the edge of the track, holding a yellow flag, wearing a lame purple shirt, and commiserating on the situation I am in: stuck with no way to tell Ash the secret, and desperately needing to pee.

Way to go, Hana
I think as the gate drops and the races began.

Chapter 21

The first moto is a complete blur. I stand in silence as bike after bike tears through my section of the track, throwing dirt on me in the process. The only thing I concentrate on was holding my flag tightly closed – we’re only allowed to have it waving in the air when a rider falls down.

Less than seven minutes later, the track goes silent as the second moto lines up on the starting gate. For whatever reason, as I heard Dad explaining earlier although I hadn’t been paying attention, the motos today are only three laps long instead of the usual six.

Moto after moto races past my little corner of the track. Luckily, I never have to wave my yellow flag. This is good news of course. It means no one crashes near me.

Marty commentates the entire race through the PA system but I am remarkably good at tuning it out until he says the words “Eighty-five Novice.” Teig’s class is next and I can’t believe fourteen motos have gone by without me realizing it. Apparently, time flies when you’re baking in one-hundred-degree weather and agonizing over how you ruined the chances a gorgeous dreadlocked motocross racer had of winning the biggest race of his career.

I shrug off the feeling of self-loathing and try to focus on Teig. He picks a piece of paper out of a hat and throws a victorious fist up in the air, meaning he got a good gate pick. I smile, watching him show the number to Dad while they wait for the rest of the riders to draw a number from the hat. Though it doesn’t make much sense to me, having a good gate pick means you can line up wherever you want on the gate because some places are worse than others for getting the holeshot.

He’s second to choose his spot on the gate and he takes the one on the far right. Everyone starts their bikes and I get a case of the pre-race jitters Molly always talks about; I am both nervous and excited for Teig. I take a deep breath and try to send him good vibes. I mostly just want him to not get hurt, but it would be nice to see him win.

Dad walks to the center of the starting line to the lever that drops the gate. A girl I recognize from Oak Creek prances out into the middle of the track about fifty feet in front of the racers, holding a big sign with the number thirty on it. Dad nods to her and she turns the sign sideways then scampers off to the sideline.

All of the bikes rev up, ready for the gate to drop at any moment, signaling the start of the race. I watch Teig lean forward and focus straight ahead of him, his toes barely touching the ground and his elbows up and ready.