Once Around the Track (8 page)

And in Badger’s case, it wasn’t the money or the fame. Oh, maybe it was for some people. There were plenty of folks who liked to brag about knowing a guy whose cardboard likeness stood in the grocery store aisle, as if that was anything to crow about, if you asked her. And there were always women who—in the words of that song—would
wonder how his engine feels.
But for the people who really mattered, it wasn’t starfucking, it was genuine devotion. And you never knew how he felt in return or even if he noticed the charmed circle that protected him—all the old friends who answered his fan mail, fixed him hot dinners, and guarded his privacy from reporters and clueless fans. Laraine’s own self-appointed task was to present Badger to outsiders as the macho stud people expected NASCAR drivers to be.

You just went on doing things for him and not expecting anything in return but a soft-drawled thank you, when he remembered, and for some reason that was enough.

Whatever it was, you never got over it, she thought, as she went on sorting socks.

T
he occasion was part business meeting and part happy hour. The Walter Raleigh Conference Room at a newly remodeled hotel near the new team headquarters had not been festooned with balloons and streamers, because, after all, motorsports was a male-oriented business, but there was a fifteen-foot copy center banner that read WELCOME BADGER JENKINS in large red letters.

The team hierarchy and its sponsors had gathered to meet their driver.

Just inside the door, a small table draped with a purple tablecloth held an arrangement of flowers and an assortment of name tags, including one decorated with purple ribbons that simply said B
ADGER
. Along one wall stood a long buffet table, which held an assortment of wines and several party trays of finger sandwiches and vegetables and dip, all strategically positioned around an enormous sheet cake featuring a photo of Badger rendered in icing, and checkered flag–patterned paper napkins. On a smaller table nearby, the staff had stacked 100 eight-by-ten color photos of Badger, and a plastic cup full of felt-tipped pens in case anyone missed the point that he would be expected to autograph them.

Deanna, the secretary in charge of securing likenesses of Badger for the occasion, had been in a quandary about what image of him to select, because all the firesuit photos of him linked him to his previous racing teams. Team Vagenya had not yet had a chance to get new photos made of him in their own distinctive purple regalia. Deanna had considered getting portraits of him in what she thought of as “civilian clothes,” but in those shots she felt that he lacked the sexy ferocity of his NASCAR incarnation. The one taken at a charity golf tournament, for instance—sad, really. In that one, Badger was wearing jeans and a red polo shirt, putter in hand, and grinning at the camera like a tourist who has just found the allyou-can-eat buffet. Not his finest hour, image-wise, she thought.

Deanna personally liked photos depicting Badger scowling, or at least looking focused and determined, and these were mostly candid shots of him walking beside the race car or being interviewed at the track. In the end, she plumped for cropping one such photo into a close-up shot of his face in profile, so that only a bit of the blue and white firesuit showed, and you couldn’t read much of the sponsor lettering on it anyhow. In the picture, some reporter had stuck a microphone in Badger’s face, and he had tilted back his head, seeming to consider the question with the earnest sincerity of a general making a tough decision about some approaching battle. She loved that photo, because in it he appeared reassuringly strong and yet so gentle. His dark eyes caught the light, and his feathery hair was brushed forward until it nearly touched his eyebrows. The firesuit even looked like the tunic of a knight. Sir Galahad might have looked like that, she thought, so brave and reverent that it made your heart turn over to look at him.

Just having a photograph of Badger pinned to the filing cabinet beside her desk made Deanna feel safer, as if no one would dare to steal paperclips from a workspace watched over by such a powerful, yet compassionate being. Because of that image, she began to feel that she knew and loved Badger even before she saw him in the flesh.

In the end, after much consideration, she decided to please herself with the photo selection, and the “Galahad” picture was the one she chose. With any luck she could get him to sign a copy for her, too; then she could tape that one up on the filing cabinet next to her desk to look at when she was feeling besieged. She might even frame it. A signed picture would be an even more potent charm of protection. Badger Jenkins, her very own knight in shining armor—and to think that she almost
knew
him!

Suzie Terrell, the attorney who had first approached Badger about driving for the all-female team, was his minder for the afternoon’s event, not exactly his advocate, but certainly, at least in her own mind, charged with seeing that he behaved, and even more that he was treated professionally and not imposed upon. Perhaps it was ridiculous to suppose that a prosperous group of grown women would behave at all improperly toward a male business associate, but Suzie knew that the proximity of celebrities affected people in peculiar ways. Otherwise normal, sensible individuals could become quite pixilated in the presence of someone famous. Suzie didn’t know why this was, but she had seen it often enough in connection with the stars of Atlanta society: the occasional movie star; Atlanta’s Braves and Falcons; and of course, passing musicians, artists, and other cultural luminaries.

People acted as if celebrities did not have feelings to be hurt.
“Boy, you played lousy in the game last week!
” or
“You’re so much prettier on television.”
Many people seemed to think that the maxim “the customer is always right” applied to creative people as well as to retail establishments, and that this gave them license to order the celebrity around.
“Here, sign this book for my nephew. I’ve written out what I want you to say,”
or
“Sing a few notes of your hit song for me.”
Suzie thought that attitude was the modern equivalent of bear-baiting; the poor celebrity was tied to the stake of public opinion and mauled to death by autograph hounds. But the scalp hunters were the worst. All those people who wanted to brag that they’d hugged somebody famous—or more, if they could manage it. Did people go home and boast to their friends about the fact that they’d hugged a celebrity, and if they had slept with one, would that, too, have become a source of bragging rights? Sometimes after an evening at the sort of party that throws social lions to the jackals, Suzie would feel like going home and showering in Lysol to get rid of the taint of celebrity-baiting.

But sophisticated people were expected to know better than to behave boorishly toward the famous. Surely these well-to-do women would be more sophisticated than to misbehave around Badger? No, there were nearly a dozen of them. The odds were too great that there’d be at least one idiot in the bunch. She resolved to stay within earshot of the guest of honor, just in case he needed rescuing.

Badger had made an effort to be presentable, she decided. He was dressed in jeans, of course, and clunky brown work boots that might have added a grace note to his height, but he had put on a crisply ironed sport shirt instead of a tee shirt, and he was even wearing a silk tie, although the way he kept tugging at his collar suggested that he had mistaken it for a noose. He carried a gym bag, and she wondered what he’d thought it necessary to bring. He had trotted along beside her as obediently as a guide dog, prattling happily about nothing in particular. He didn’t seem nervous, but as they approached the conference room, he touched her arm. “I need to find the men’s room,” he said.

Well, thank God you’re not going to pee in the punch bowl,
she thought. She nodded, somehow managing to keep a straight face, and she stationed herself in the hallway outside the men’s room to wait. Three minutes later, a man emerged from the rest room, and Suzie had to look twice to make sure it was him.

He had put on the new team firesuit over his street clothes.

Suzie stared. He looked taller, stronger, wiser—more important somehow. Noticing her sudden loss of composure, Badger smiled. “Yeah,” he said, “firesuits are magic, aren’t they? Nobody can say no to a guy in a firesuit.”

“Did they ask you to wear it?” she stammered.

“No, but I figured they’d expect me to look like a race car driver.”

Suzie nodded. “Well, I guess you won’t need your name tag.”

It was a good psychological ploy, she thought. Maybe Badger was more shrewd than she’d realized. The suit had royal purple sleeves, collar, belt, and trousers, while the chest area was white and emblazoned with the logos of NASCAR and various sponsors, such as Sunoco, the official gasoline of NASCAR, and thus everyone’s sponsor. In the center of the chest, at diaphragm level, was the large logo of the principal sponsor: an embroidered red heart and the slogan
Vagenya Is for Lovers!

The get-up should have been silly, Suzie thought. A grown man standing in the hall of a corporate building dressed like Buck Rogers, but Badger was right: A man in a firesuit was a vision of power and nobility. She didn’t feel like laughing. She had to keep telling herself that it was just Badger, to keep from feeling that she was in the presence of some transcendent being.
Firesuits.
She wondered if medieval knights got the same mileage out of suits of armor. She thought that probably they did.

“You’ve already got the job,” she told him. “You know that. They just want to meet you. They’ll probably be very excited about it. I expect some of them will want your autograph, or to have their pictures made with you.”

Badger nodded earnestly. “That’s kinda usual.”

“I expect it is. You’re right about the firesuit…. It’s perfect for photo opportunities. The corporate people are just going to eat this up. Are you ready to go in?”

“Sure,” said Badger. “If there’s anybody there who’s really important, maybe you should give me a heads-up, though. I’m not too good at recognizing names. I’m always meeting people like TV stars who think I ought to know who they are, and I never do. I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.”

“I’ll stay close by,” said Suzie. “Anything else?”

“Well, you could keep some Sharpies handy in case I have to sign anything.”

“Oh, I think you can count on having to sign things. I’ll carry the Sharpies.” She touched his arm, wondering how she ought to word what she had to say before they went in. “Umm…Don’t take this the wrong way, Badger. I don’t mean to be rude, but is there anything I should know about you?”

He stopped. He had a way of tilting his head back and looking at you through narrowed eyes as if you were a long way away, and his expression was always one of earnest sincerity, as if every comment, even “pass the salt,” required his undivided attention. “What do you mean
anything you should know
?” he asked.

Suzie sighed. “This is awkward,” she said. “Look, I’m on your side. I want you to do well, so I thought I’d ask if there was anything I should watch out for. Are you, say, allergic to seafood, or afraid of dogs, or—”

He considered the question, and when he finally smiled he did not look amused. “So you really want to know if I have trouble holding my liquor or if I’m susceptible to pretty girls, or maybe worst of all, if I’ll be rude to VIPs when they get pushy, right?”

Suzie blinked, perhaps because a career in law had sheltered her from too much plain-speaking about anything. “Well, that pretty much covers it,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“I’ve been through this before,” said Badger. “I could probably drink anybody there under the table, if I had a mind to, but I can take it or leave it. And since I prefer to drink with my friends, I think I’ll stick to punch at this event. Now, pretty girls…” He gave her a wolfish grin. “Well, ma’am, I think the ones here will be over my age limit, and as for the rest: If I have to fight ’em off, I’ll be polite about it. It’s the firesuit. What does that leave?”

“Pushy people?”

“Right. Look, I was raised to be nice to people if at all possible. I’m not naturally touchy. I’ll put up with a lot.” He shrugged. “There’s only forty-three Cup rides, and I want this job. They can rib me about my accent or call me a redneck, you know. Whatever. I’ll take it in stride. But if somebody wants a fight with me bad enough, he’ll get one.”

“I hope that won’t happen,” murmured Suzie, who was more relieved than she sounded. Despite the rising tone of menace in his last statement, Badger’s reply had been as good an answer as she could have expected, all things considered. She didn’t know much about the fine points of auto racing, but she figured that in order to go out there at blinding speeds and face the inevitability of wrecks and the danger of life-threatening injuries, a driver had to be running on high-test testosterone, which meant that behavior problems came with the territory. If he could control his actions, that was about all that could be hoped for.

“I don’t think you need to worry,” she told him. “We’re a mostly female team. Besides, this is just a business meeting masquerading as a social occasion.”

Badger nodded. “In my experience, social occasions most always are,” he said. He reached for the door handle. “I’m ready.”

They entered the room to a momentary hush as the assembled guests looked toward the doorway, followed by a collective gasp as everyone simultaneously recognized the famous and handsome Badger Jenkins, their newly hired wheel man. Or perhaps it was just the magic of the firesuit. Badger had been right to wear it, Suzie thought. If a plumber had walked through that door in the firesuit, he would have been heralded as the conquering hero. Whatever it was, Badger had a captive audience from the moment they saw him. The gasp of recognition gave way to scattered applause and a babble of voices, all talking at once and saying much the same things:
“Isn’t he adorable?”…“Such a talent!”…“Shorter than I expected.”

That about summed it up, thought Suzie, trying not to smile. Adorable, talented, and vertically challenged. To his credit, Badger affected not to overhear any of these comments; certainly he showed no reaction to any of these sentiments. With an affable grin and an appealing veneer of diffidence, as if “meet and greets” would be his favorite thing in the world, if only he weren’t so shy. Badger eased his way through the crowd of admirers, alternately shaking hands and hugging his well-wishers. He had perfected a genial one-armed hug that managed to seem friendly without giving the recipient too much encouragement. Sometimes he’d wink at someone who was standing too far away for a hug or a handshake. Charm personified. She wondered if he had been born with charm or if he had studied his technique as painstakingly as he’d learned driving techniques. Watching him was an education.