Once Around the Track (10 page)

Badger shrugged and tried to pull away, but she tightened her grip on his arm, and when he saw tears spring into her eyes, he sighed and patted her shoulder. “Okay,” he sighed. “I didn’t eat the turtle. He’s fine. Jesse down to the body shop is keeping him right now, and my buddy Paul is building him a little pen at my lake house with a little spring-fed pool for him to swim in. If the vet ever says he’s well enough to go back in the lake, we’ll turn him loose next time I get down there, and if he doesn’t ever get fit for the wild, I reckon I’ll just keep him around.”

Suzie stared. “Then why did you tell them that you’d eaten him. Did you want those women to think you were a Neanderthal?”

He nodded unhappily. “Sorta,” he said.

“But
why
? They pay your salary! Don’t you want them to like you?”

He thought about it. “Well, to tell you the truth—not too much.” When her horrified expression did not waver, he shook his head. “Come on,” he said softly. “Let’s get out of here, and I’ll explain it to you on the way out.”

“I can hardly wait to hear it,” muttered Suzie. “Has your medication worn off? Is that it?”

“Look, I like animals, okay? Always have, from the time I was a little kid. And I know that ladies are real soft-hearted when it comes to animals—well, from a distance they are, anyhow. I mean, you try to keep a raccoon in the bathroom or a garter snake in your sock drawer and they’ll sing a different tune, but they like to
think
they like animals. You know, in the abstract.”

“Uh-huh. So?”

“So you told them about my big wounded turtle, and they were getting all misty over it, and the next thing you know they’d want to know what its name was, and then they’d try to send little presents for it. Turtle booties or something. And then they’d want to come
see
the turtle. Somebody would tell a reporter and a cutesy story would turn up in a tabloid, and then five hundred fans would send me turtle key chains, turtle tee shirts, turtle
everything.
And then they’d try to get Turtle Wax to sponsor the damn car. Then everybody would want the thing brought to the track. One time Junior Johnson’s sponsor made him race with a live chicken in a cage in his car. Don’t think any of us will ever forget that. I’m not taking any chances on having a damn turtle for a copilot.”

“Okay, but did you have to say that you’d eaten it?”

He shrugged. “Well, it saved a lot of argument. It’s a snapping turtle, anyhow, so he’s not exactly sociable. You ever see a snapper the size of a garbage can lid? This boy bit the tip off a broom handle one day. Anyhow, by telling that lie, I didn’t have to hurt those ladies’ feelings by telling ’em they couldn’t come by to see my turtle.”

Suzie smiled sweetly. “Yes, I expect a lot of women want to see your turtle, don’t they?”

He shrugged and looked away. “That Christine woman sure does,” he said. “I need to keep my distance from her.”

Her last remark had reminded Suzie of another matter she needed to mention to Badger. “By the way, speaking of seeing your turtle, I think the team wants our new publicist to write a feature article about you in your natural habitat.”

His brow furrowed. “What’s that mean? They wanna come to my house?”

“Well, yes, but not to your place in Mooresville. They want to send someone back to Georgia to see where you grew up. You know, the life and times of Badger Jenkins.”

“Follow me around and all?”

“Right. Take photos, put together a little human interest story about you. Would that be all right?”

He shrugged. “I don’t mind, if she doesn’t get in my way. I don’t want to spend my day off sitting around being interviewed. But if I can do my fishing and all while she asks me stuff, it’ll be all right.”

“Good. I’ll have the publicist call you to decide on the particulars. Her name is Sark.”

He nodded solemnly. “And does she want to see my turtle?”

Suzie did not trust herself to reply.

T
aran Stiles reread the online notice in
Engine Noise
for the third time.
All-woman pit crew…
That bit of information interested her somewhat, but what really caught her attention—what held her so spellbound that her luncheon cheeseburger cooled into a puddle of grease in its wrapper on her desk—was the other bit of information tucked in the article. Unable to contain her emotion at this momentous news, she let out a yelp of joy, right there in the office.

Matt Troxler, in the next cubicle, rolled his chair back until he could see her computer screen. “What is it now, you silly git?” he asked, in tones suggesting that he didn’t want to know. “A long-lost Tolkien manuscript discovered?”

“No,” said Taran, “it’s my other obsession. NASCAR.”

“NASCAR.” Troxler shuddered. “Couldn’t you just chew tobacco, dear?”

They’d had this discussion so many times that each of them could have argued the other’s position, so Taran didn’t bother to respond to his salvo. “A new team is hiring Badger Jenkins to drive for them. I’ll get to see him again!”

Troxler raised his eyebrows to indicate incredulity and nodded toward Taran’s work space, adorned with a Badger Jenkins mouse pad; a poster of him in his blue firesuit; a fierce-looking Badger in dark sunglasses on an official NASCAR coffee mug; and her computer screensaver: a candid shot of Badger Jenkins leaning on his race car with a look of fierce determination on his perfect features.
(Troxler called that pose “Badger Erectus.”)

Taran had the grace to blush. “I mean a chance to
really
see him,” she said. “He has been holed up in that Fortress of Solitude of his in north Georgia, and he hasn’t even been interviewed on the SPEED Channel in months. I miss him. But—oh, I feel so guilty, Matt!”

“Really? Why? Have you been buying his garbage on eBay?”

“No, I feel guilty for wanting to see him back out there. It’s so
dangerous
. When he was racing I worried about him all the time.”

Troxler sighed. “You could always watch something else on Sunday afternoons,” he said.

She nodded. “Sometimes I did. When he was in that awful car last season, and he kept having mechanical problems and getting so many laps down—you know what I’d do? I’d put
Gladiator
in the DVD player, paused on the scene where Russell Crowe is in the arena fighting the tigers, and then I’d watch the race. And when it got too painful to watch—when Badger was a couple of laps down, fighting to keep the car out of the wall or having mechanical problems—I’d push
PLAY
on the DVD and watch the movie instead. Somehow it hurt less to watch Russell Crowe being mauled by tigers than to watch Badger wrestling with that awful car, but I still felt like I was seeing the race. I worried about him so much.”

Troxler sighed. Since his own hobby was an appreciation of modern dance, he couldn’t really relate to this fever pitch of anxiety on behalf of one’s hero, but he knew that Taran was desperately sincere about it. Propped up against the poster of Badger was a ceramic leaf inscribed with a Bible verse: Psalm 91:11: “For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” Taran, he knew, was not particularly religious, but just as there are no atheists in foxholes, he supposed that maxim might prove equally true of devotees of race car drivers.

“Taran, you don’t know him,” he reminded her gently.

“I do,” she said. “I got his autograph at the Atlanta Motor Speedway, and then last year he did a signing at an auto parts store. There weren’t many people there, and I shook his hand and he smiled at me, and said, ‘Hey, sweetie.’”

Troxler sighed. “And you didn’t get your name legally changed to that? I marvel at your restraint. Is he married by any chance?”

Taran made a face. “He was,” she said. “To a former Miss Georgia-USA. Very pretty, if you like the type. But she wasn’t a NASCAR fan; she said it was like joining the circus, having to fly somewhere every weekend to sit through a hot, noisy car race. So she dumped poor Badger for a billionaire developer of beachfront condos. Can you imagine?”

“It boggles the mind,” said Troxler solemnly.

“I know. I don’t think he ever got over it, either. Anyhow, I worry about him so much. I hope he’ll be all right with this new team. It can’t be as bad as the last one. Women are more attentive to detail than men.”

“Women?”

“Uh-huh. Did I tell you? The whole team except for the driver is female. The article online said they were looking to hire pit crew personnel.”

Troxler smirked. “Well, I suppose if you really wanted to look out for your precious race car driver, you’d join the team so that you could look out for him personally.”

The look on Taran’s face told him that he should have put more sarcasm into his tone, because her expression had taken on that rapturous look of martyrs and undermedicated saints who are about to give their all for the Cause.

He hastened to add, “Of course, I’m sure it’s very specialized work, pitting. Or crewing. Or whatever they call it. I don’t suppose you can just volunteer.”

“I think you can,” said Taran. “There aren’t many women in the business. They’ll probably train the people they hire.” Idly, she tapped a few letters on the keyboard, making Badger’s face vanish from the screen, to be replaced by an official-looking document: her résumé.

“But you’re an electrical engineer, Taran. Surely the pay cut would be the fiscal equivalent of skydiving.”

“I expect so,” said Taran. “But I do have a parachute. I invested wisely in tech stock and sold them just in time. I could afford a year on minimum wage.”

Troxler sighed, wondering why it was never that easy to persuade people to do things that you actually
wanted
them to do. “You’re quite sure about this?” he said.

Without looking away from the screen, Taran nodded. “If they accept me, I’m gone.”

“Um, look, Tare…I think it’s great for people to want to follow their dreams and all, but I don’t want to see you throw a good job away for a pipe dream. You don’t think that this job is going to lead to a relationship with this driver guy, do you?”

Taran stiffened. She was staring at her screen saver—that impossibly beautiful photo of the stern man in the firesuit and sunglasses with his cleft chin and his perfect, perfect nose. Reflected in the screen’s shiny surface was a dim image of her own face—with its thin lips, freckled nose, and pale, too-small eyes, that radiated not beauty but intelligence. No, there was nothing about her that would make Badger Jenkins even slow to a walk if he passed her on the street. Unless she could somehow make him realize that no one could ever love him as much as she did.

“No, Troxler,” said Taran softly. “I know nothing will come of this. I’d just like to meet him is all.”

Matt Troxler nodded, pretending to believe her. “Okay,” he said. “Well…that’s good. Umm, then can I have your stapler?”

Taran waved away the stapler. “Sure. Whatever. Take it now. But go away. I have work to do.”

And she did have work to do, but she didn’t do it. Instead, she logged on to the Badger Jenkins unofficial fan Web site
(Badger’s Din
), the address of all of her best friends, none of whom she had ever met. At least once a day, the several dozen people who constituted Badger Jenkins’s most loyal and hopeless supporters would log on to hash over the latest rumors about their idol’s NASCAR career, or to alert each other to the mention of his name in news articles. Sometimes one of them would have a thirty-second encounter with Badger at a scheduled appearance, and then a breathless account of What He Said to Me
(“How you doin’, sweetie…”)
would be posted and endlessly discussed. The account was often accompanied by a fuzzy digital photo of Badger gazing pleasantly into the camera lens, flanked by a beaming fan in the transports of religious ecstasy. So you knew what some of your fellow disciples looked like, but not their real names, because the women tended to use aliases, like
Lady Badger
(wishful thinking),
Badgeera,
or
Short Track Gal,
while the male fans called themselves things like
FastDrawl
or
Bonneville Bill.

Some of the guys had an annoying habit of digressing into harangues about pro football or their mostly nonexistent sex lives, and they tended to “flame” any adoring female who dared to make syrupy comments about Badger’s perfect nose or his golden brown eyes, but all in all, the folks at
Badger’s Din
were the only people in the world willing to discuss day after day,
ad nauseum
, the fascinating topic of Badger Jenkins.

Is this new team any good? What is his new number? Sponsor? Has anybody seen any new Badger gear? Ordered a hat or a tee shirt? How is Badger’s turtle doing?
Every day they danced around in a ring and supposed, but Badger never ever replied or took any notice of them at all. They didn’t expect him to, really. They became friends, and sometimes their own discussions of snowstorms, sick children, and job issues took such prominence on the site that one would almost think they had forgotten that Badger was the reason they were there.

But now their personal lives were forgotten, and they were all abuzz with the news of Badger’s new team. An all-female team!
Is it true that Miss Norway is going to be one of the pit crew? Had they hired a beautiful Vegas blackjack dealer as a tire changer?
Rumors were rife. One of the posters had a friend whose son was dating the daughter of a NASCAR mechanic, and so she had it on very good authority that…Except the rumors never turned out to be true somehow.

Taran sat with her fingers poised over the keyboard. She was going to tell them that she would be trying out for a spot on the pit crew of Badger’s new team. She would have the inside track. She would befriend their revered driver. The news she reported would not be a miasma of rumor; it would be actual team business. For once Badger’s fans would know the facts—even before
Engine Noise
got the scoop. She took a deep breath, but she didn’t push down any keys.

She hadn’t actually gotten the job yet. Why get this bunch all excited about a mere possibility? The guys (especially
FastDrawl
) would tease her mercilessly and make bets that she wouldn’t be chosen. The female
Badger’s Din
members would be more supportive, but their very enthusiasm would be annoying, too. They would ask her every day—no,
twice
a day!—if she had got the job yet. And once she had it, they would ask her a thousand questions a week.

What was he wearing? What does he eat for lunch? Can you get him to personalize a team hat for my nephew’s birthday?—
And, worst of all…
When can we visit?

Oh, yes, they would want to visit. Taran would suddenly become the Queen of the Damned, the high priestess of the
Din,
and the dearest friend of several dozen cyberstrangers with agendas. They would want passes to Cup races, permission to attend practices. Oh no! They would want to meet Badger. To have dinner with Badger. To become
pals
with Badger. They would consider Taran their personal ambassador to Planet Badger.
Can he come to my company’s annual picnic? Can we have a tour of his motor home? What’s his cell phone number?

Taran shuddered. She could not possibly tell them what she was up to. No, she would go ahead and try out for the pit crew, without telling any of her friends in NASCAR fandom. All right, they were her friends, sort of, but her first allegiance was to the man himself. She resolved then and there that if she were chosen to serve on Badger’s pit crew, she would have to keep it a secret from the
Din.
Oh, she might tell them some things, a tidbit here and there, just because she knew that they loved Badger, too, but she wouldn’t tell them how she came by her information. And when all her tips turned out to be completely accurate, she would gain the respect of everyone, even the odious
FastDrawl.

Taran nodded to herself. It was the only sensible course of action. Now, having made her decision, she took a deep breath and began to type:

That was Taran’s name on the site: Mellivora, the honey badger. She was proud of having come up with that.