Black Flag (Racing on the Edge) (24 page)

Just like a child that
slams his finger in the door. He doesn’t do it again, unless of course he’s
Tommy and does this weekly, because he does.

When you think about
it, a child, other than Tommy, doesn’t know that it hurts to slam your finger
in a door until he does it. We don’t know anything is wrong until we have done
it once and the outcome wasn’t ideal. Then we have something to go on.

I’ll be honest with
you, it bothered me that my parents kept their illnesses from me but I also
understood at the time of mother’s onset of breast cancer, I was young and
wouldn’t have understood anyways. You couldn’t expect a 6-year old to
understand that.

With Charlie, I think
he kept it from me because as I said, fear of the unknown. He feared my
reaction or maybe the lack of reaction and instead the withdrawal.

There were many times
throughout my life that I wish I had my mother around. Like when my first
boyfriend, Adam, broke up with me in the third grade because I wouldn’t share
my pudding cup with him. I cried for a week and almost sent poor Charlie off
the deep end. By the way, I still don’t share pudding cups. Thankfully, Jameson
has never asked because yes, I’d have to say no.

I knew there would be
times in my life where I wanted Charlie around; the
birth of
my child or for him to walk me down
the aisle. Despite my wants, I
wasn’t so sure Charlie would be around for them. What I focused on though was
what I could control, not what I couldn’t, as it was out of my hands.

Just like a car that
was loose, you try to control it more than it wants to be controlled and you’ll
end up in the wall. You have to find a balance between what is and what isn’t.

Now, if only Jameson
would tell me what was bothering
him.

Every time I asked, he
gave me a pensive shrug dismissing my attempts.

I don’t know how the
media got wind of me being pregnant, but the questions to Jameson and me were
relentless in Darlington. It might be that I was now sporting a noticeable baby
bump, which I tried to hide.

My attempts to hide came
to an abrupt halt when Spencer, Aiden and I were standing around the garage
area and Jameson was on the track for his second practice session Thursday
morning.

Ashley, the whore FOX
Sports reporter, made her way over to me. I didn’t care for Ashley Conner.
Mostly because she slept with Jameson a few years back and I just didn’t like
her.

“Look at you!” her eyes
gave me that gauging once over. “Looks like someone should to cut back on the
carbs,” she snarked smiling toward Spencer and Aiden.

If I didn’t think it’d
hurt the baby, I would have pummeled her miniature ass right then. My mind
shifted imagining a time when Jameson and
her
were
together in ways we were.

I almost puked all over
her when I thought about Jameson having sex with her.

“She’s not fat, she’s
pr—” I cut Spencer off.

To prevent being
exposed, I reached around in my purse and threw the first thing I could at
Spencer’s head to just shut him the fuck up.

Ashley gasped rather
loudly when she looked at what I’d thrown.

What did I grab from my
bag?

My pregnancy book, with
my ultrasound picture taped to the outside. It landed with a thud next to
Spencer’s feet. He rubbed the spot on his forehead where the book hit. Four
sets of eyes examined it closely.

By doing this, I just
inadvertently told the entire world I was knocked up, with Jameson Riley’s
baby.

Did I say anything in
that moment to redeem myself?

No, instead I took the
book from Aiden, who was holding it out with a smirk of amusement, and replied
with, “I’m really hoping it has Jameson’s hair.”

Ashley turned toward
me. “Don’t expect him to marry you now.” Her eyes did that
gauging-judging-glance again as though she was now imagining what
I
did
with her and Jameson just moments ago. “Jameson will never be faithful to one
woman,”

Again, if I didn’t
think it would have harmed my baby, I would have pummeled her.

Later that afternoon, a
portion of my dignity had returned and then left as quickly as it came.

There we were relaxing
and eating ice cream in the motor coach, Jameson, his attention balanced
between the television and laptop, he mindlessly flipped through the channels
pausing on FOX Sports.

Distracted, his
attention flickered from the points standings to the flat screen television in
the corner when they told on me.

“It appears NASCAR’s
Rowdy Riley will be dealing with his own little hothead come March. His
girlfriend, Sway Reins, General Manager of Grays Harbor Raceway in Elma
Washington, confirmed this afternoon that she is expecting.”

They then showed the
clip of me chucking the book at Spencer and my reply.

I should have known it
was being recorded.

Jameson glanced from me
to the television, to the laptop, and then back again. His eyebrows pulled
together in confusion and then arched giving me that what-the-hell-where-you-thinking
look.

“Did you
...
say that?”

I shrugged and
continued to eat my Chunky Monkey ice cream not letting on to my lack of
judgment earlier in the day.

“Oh this I wanna hear.”
His grin widened. “Come on honey. Don’t hold out on me now.”

After the media
shenanigans, I decided shrugging was safer than speaking. I should have had
that revelation earlier today. It would have saved me a lot of grief and
embarrassment.

Jameson laughed
throwing his arm around me. “I had bets it’d be Spencer that told the media—not
you. I just lost two hundred dollars to Alley.”

8.
          
Shut
Down – Sway

Shut Down – Turning the
engine off to avoid mechanical damage. Drivers will shut down the engine to avoid
more severe and expensive consequences when an engine is vibrating.

After qualifying Friday
morning, the night was open. Knowing he needed a break from everything
surrounding us, Jameson decided it was time he hit the dirt.

There was something
about those cars where when he was in them, nothing else mattered. It was just
him, the rumble and eight hundred horsepower in his hands.

Justin had called on
Thursday letting him know he was heading out to race sprint cars at Summerville
Speedway, a 4/10 clay dirt track about two hours south of Darlington.

Around one that
afternoon, and after a stop at the local Ford dealer, we found ourselves
cruising down Interstate 95 toward Summerville where sweet tea and sunscreen
held memories for me.

For one night, it would
be nice to get away from the politics and go back to why Jameson loved racing
in the first place—why any of us loved racing. It was for the excitement, the
thrill and draws it held.

Summerville South
Carolina, in my mind, might just be the hottest place in the south. Today was
no different. And did I mention Jameson’s Mustang didn’t have air conditioning?
Well, it didn’t.

Not only that, but I
was pregnant and heat seemed to be something I was producing now. I felt like I
was a heater. So you add that, the blistering haze outside, no air conditioning
and Jameson touching me too much and I wasn’t real happy by the time we made it
to this sauna they called Summerville South Carolina. Oh, and the humidity
today was something like 100%.

Stepping from the car,
the heat felt like an inferno. In a state full of mountains, swamps and
beaches, all I saw here was heat and clay.

“At least it doesn’t
smell like cow shit.”

I sniffed and nearly
threw up. “And a paper mill is better?”

“It’s not shit.”

He had a point. I
looked around, reminded of the way it was out here. Just like an old worn
country road and overgrown wheat fields, the town was homegrown.

Lathering myself in
ungodly amounts of sunscreen, Jameson reached behind the seat for his bag that
held his Simplex driving suit, a few spare t-shirts, his black Puma racing
shoes he couldn’t race without, and his helmet.

His eyes lit up when
Justin and Tommy approached. Laughter on the other side of the haulers drew my
attention toward a group of girls.

Pit lizards. They had
them here too.

With a quick kiss,
Jameson left me alone and headed toward the registration booth with Justin and
Tommy.

An hour passed as the
boys setting up the cars and after a few hot laps I found myself in the pit
bleachers waiting for Jameson’s heat race.

Tommy dropped down
beside me. His greeting, “What’s up fat girl?”

“Nice
...
” my leg mindlessly kicked his shin. “I
see your hair is just as bright as the last time I saw you.”

“Yeah, well.” He leaned
back resting his elbows on the bench behind us before stretching his legs out
in front, his boots coated with the thick red clay from the south. “Melanie
doesn’t seem to mind my hair.”

“Oh
yeah?”
I grinned seeing my opportunity to make fun of him too. “Still seeing pussycat
doll, eh? What is that, some kind of dating record for you?”

His orange eyebrows
raised and his forehead resembled a
shar
pei
puppy with wrinkles, “Pussycat
doll?”

“Never mind,”

“Actually, I only spent
one night with her.” Tommy confessed. “It’s not like I’m in Pocono all that
often.”

“Yeah, this lifestyle
doesn’t lend well to relationships, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t.” Tommy
laughed bringing his water to his mouth. “But I’m not looking for one. I like
this, helping Jameson.”

“He appreciates it.”

Our attention drifted
to the track when the cars roared past for the start of their ten-lap heat.
Jameson started in the rear with the inversion, quickly picking off the first
two cars by the third lap.

Tommy sighed. “I can’t
believe he can race stock cars the way he does and then come out here and do
this like he never left dirt.” His water bottle tipped toward Jameson who
broad-sliding past Cody Bowman for second. The cloud of dirt created by the
cars shifted our direction along with the breeze of methanol.

With the amount of
sunscreen and sweat on my body, the dirt clung to me like I was one of those
lint rollers.

“So
...
” Tommy smiled toward me when they threw
the checkered flag. Jameson had won his heat with Justin finishing second followed
by Tyler and a few local guys. “He knocked you up huh?”

I shook my head as I
stood attempting to rub some of the dirt from my black tank top and jean
shorts. “You’re so subtle.”

Jameson stopped his
sprint car in front of the flag stand. The engine ran lean as he ran it out of
gas to turn the engine off. Winged spring cars were completely different from a
stock car. The biggest difference is their direct drive.

You don’t just start a
sprint car by turning a key. They’re push started to turn the engine over.

The process, once the
driver was inside the tiny cockpit, was simple but complicated to someone who
has never been inside one. First, he places the engine in gear with direct
cable link called the coupler to the rear end that engages the gear. Then he
turns on the fuel, a switch usually located near the steering wheel and he’s
pushed off by a push truck. With their high compression ratios, it takes a good
push to get the rear tires turning. Being direct driver, once all four wheels
are turning the engine can turn over. Once the oil pressure was around 80psi,
the driver fires the engine.

When they shut them
off, they take it out of gear and turn the fuel valve off. As the engine runs
out of fuel it will run lean causing the revolutions to build before the engine
is switched off.

That was the sound
Jameson’s sprint car was making right then.

I’d always been partial
to it as it was a thunderous throaty sound. I’m sure you can appreciate my love
for it once you’ve heard it. It’s unlike any other sound. Just the same as a
sprint car, there was nothing else like those fire-breathing, high
power-to-weight rockets. I think that’s why Jameson enjoyed them so much. They
were different; just like him.

The crowed, some five
thousand fans, roared to life when they spotted Jameson approaching the grass
in front of the stands. He stood there for a moment, smiling at the announcer
who climbed down from his tower to interview Jameson.

Tommy and I laughed.
The women in attendance made their way front and center. Jameson, being the
humble version of himself he was around his fans, smiled and waved to them.