Speed of Light (18 page)

“Does it count as waking up if you never slept?” He chuckled. “You have to come up with something outrageous to do for a bucket list. Not normal stuff.”

“What, like skydiving?” I’d probably get hit by dying birds.

“Or running naked in the rain. Or raising a flock of emu.”

I laughed as he continued spouting.

“Or camping in the Australian bush. Or—”

“Stop! I can’t take it.” I dove for his tickle spots and straddled him. He let me pin him for a kiss. “Do we have to get out of bed today?”

“I think someone might notice. Rain check?” He kissed me, then swung out of bed to pad toward the bathroom. I snuggled my face in his pillow, inhaling his sleepy warmth.

“Come on, Merry!” Tens shouted. “You lost your chance to sleep.”

“Coming,” I mumbled.

Unprepared for the sheer enormity of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, we’d driven around the outside before I knew what it was.
So that’s why this entire town is called Speedway
.

From the back, it looked like giant gray scaffolding and bleachers. The outside was fenced in chain link and sported paths with white-pebbled gravel. Golf carts flocked at every entrance.

“That’s where we’re going?” I asked. “That’s a racetrack? Not an airport?”
Or a construction site? Or an alien colony?
A ten-story glass pagoda stood guard over it all, either as sentry or proud parent.
They call this place a finicky female
.

Juliet’s eyes were as wide as mine felt.

“Wait until you see it from the inside. The infield alone can hold eight football stadiums.” Tony grinned at
me. “I’m not much for the cars, but the people watching … ah, that is most awesome.”

We’d broken into two travel groups. Gus, Faye, and Rumi rode ahead. Tony, Juliet, Fara, and I rode in our van, with Tens at the wheel. Delia, the hospice nurse who’d descended on Faye last night upon angelic wings of mercy, was meeting us. She’d gone early to try to make miracles happen.

We drove up to the Hall of Fame museum with its flagpoles and imposing cement construction with architectural tire tracks running down the front.

Delia waved at me as we parked and unloaded. Faye was tucked deeply into her wheelchair with shawls and blankets, and she had a hat and scarf covering the rest of her.

Gus enfolded Delia in a bear hug that clung. When I could, I asked her, “How’d you pull off the rest of this? Gus said he’d only booked a ride in a car?”

“Help from friends I’ve made at Never Too Late. You can imagine how many locals wish for this particular final lap. We have to work between teams’ practices, though.”

In so many ways, the timing could be better
. I knew Gus would cherish this memory, but I wasn’t at all certain this was Faye’s wish for an outing. She gazed up at Gus with all the love and understanding I hoped Tens and I had in fifty years.

An old converted school bus was our chariot. Its lift brought Faye inside and we gathered, listening to a hilarious tour guide rattle off race trivia.
Who knew there were
faster things to watch than Indiana corn grow?
Not that I’d seen that yet either.

The tour guide began. “Now, sports fans, notice we have the Colts colors in the sky above us today. Between the blue of the heavens and the fluffy white clouds, it’s clear that even heaven cheers for our local football team.”

I’m not sure nature takes sides quite like that
.

Tony and Gus laughed. I hadn’t paid any attention to sports teams in the area, so I simply smiled.

The guide continued. “It’s our centennial year here for the Indianapolis 500. A very important year. Only a World War has canceled the race, and we’ve proudly run the events in all weather and through all accidents. The world keeps spinning and so do the cars folks, always to the left, of course.”

The bus took us down under the track and up into the garage area. Cars and trucks were parked around another fleet of quads, cats, and tractors.

“More than a century ago, this was farmland. It belonged to a family named Barnett. We don’t know much about them, except that the last member died without heirs and the farm was made available about the time the automobile market exploded at the turn of the twentieth century. Investors bought the farm and made a track to test out the strange new contraptions called cars.

“And we’re arriving at the pit area,” the guide said. “This is where the cars get fuel and changed tires. Where the teams make adjustments during practice and at race
time. Did you know that last year, the fastest lap in May was two hundred thirty-two miles per hour?”

I got queasy when Tens hit eighty-five miles per hour on the interstate. Four times that? Uh, no thank you.

“We get to go into the pits?” Gus asked, sounding like a kid as we piled off the bus.

Rumi quietly snapped photographs of Gus and Faye interacting.
Their smiles are priceless
. We all knew this was her last big outing.

Rallying, Faye stood, all but throwing off the blankets when they wheeled her near the two-seater.

“I hear we have a special guest driving today?” A salt-and-pepper-haired man with curly locks and larger-than-life charisma marched over holding two helmets.

“That’s Mario,” Tony whispered to us. Even he was awed.

Obviously, Mario is a local celebrity. I feel silly not knowing him on sight
.

Fara stood farther back from the group looking like a metalhead without a mosh pit. Watching her, I realized she’d stationed herself on the periphery and was on constant alert.
She’s guarding Juliet
.

I was so used to Tens doing the same for me and trying to for Juliet that I took his actions for granted. He’d taken the opposite side from Fara. Careful not to draw attention to the weapons under his arms. Fara, too, must carry.
The chains. Knives?

Faye seemed like her old self, settling into the cockpit of the car as if she’d never been ill and frail. She yanked
the helmet down like a pro and gave us a thumbs-up as she listened to Mario point out dials and controls.

Rumi handed out earplugs.
How loud can it really be?

The track’s announcer constantly updated weather information, track stats, even calling out names and numbers of drivers and their teams over the loudspeaker.

“Ready?” Mario called. “Wave as we go by!” They started the motor, and I felt the twang in my guts. The noise was so intense I pushed the earplugs deeper.

I was sure Mario carefully maneuvered the car down the lane and onto the track, but it seemed as if he peeled out and hit the accelerator in one motion.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked Delia.

“You know better than to ask that. Look at Gus’s face. Did you see how she got into the car so easily? She’s rallying, Meridian. This is common.”

I nodded. I usually wasn’t around the dying before they were within moments of transitioning. Auntie lay down to nap and didn’t get back up. The people in hospitals I helped were so ill. Their souls hung on by mere threads.

Faye’s teaching me
.

Behind us, dozens of hot-air balloons lifted off. Baskets full of excited families and spectators rose into the bright blue sky. Their vivid colors and creative artwork from geometric designs to solid swaths of rainbows gave us slow-motion kaleidoscopes above.

When Mario came around the first time, he slowed so
Faye could wave, only a few fingers. I think I heard her squeal with glee.

They spun the track again and again, each time faster. Our crew cheered and shouted.

In between passes, I people-watched. The camera for the jumbo screen panned the airborne crowd. The people in the hot-air balloons waved at all of us below. One balloon’s occupants caught my attention. Inside the basket, a figure wore a scarf wrapped over hair and face, with a big floppy hat in black. I squinted, my gut singing for my attention.
Is that a man or a woman? Why the subterfuge? Who are the suited men in long-sleeved button-down dress shirts?
They seemed to snap photographs from every angle.
Press?
I put my hand up to shield against the sun’s glare. I needed Tens’s binoculars. The balloon’s design was all black and white, but the basket had an insignia with wings and something like a snuffed out candle.
Or a torch? What is that?

The JumboTron panned again and changed views. Without the zoom, I couldn’t see the group.
Can they be Nocti? Ms. Asura?
I didn’t have proof, nothing more than a brief glimpse and a bad feeling to ponder as Faye and Mario came around again.

Word must have passed to race teams and mechanics working today that Faye was living out a last wish, because as her car came around the last time, everyone stopped what they were doing and walked to line the pits. Between the low cement walls, they formed a human
tunnel, clapping and giving Faye high fives as Mario drove her slowly between them and back to us.

Her eyes danced with delight, and her lips stretched from one side of the infield to the other.

Tens joined me as we loaded back into the bus. I tried to find the weird balloon again but couldn’t. “Did you see the balloon with the guys in suits and the person in the scarf and hat?” I asked under my breath.

He shook his head. “I was watching the stands and the traffic behind us. Why?”

“Thought it might be Nocti. Maybe Ms. Asura.”

“In a hot-air balloon? Here?” He frowned.

Tony heard us and leaned in. “Probably press. Sounds like foreign journalists. We get a lot of them. Hot-air balloons give them a unique experience to write about. Should we ask someone?”

“No.
No
.” I didn’t know who we’d ask or how’d we explain who I thought I saw.

“I brought your favorites.” Nelli laid a spread before us in Faye’s kitchen that smelled of spice, seafood, and the bayou of Louisiana country.

I was glad no one assumed Juliet would be in charge of dinner for all of us. Though she was fierce in the kitchen, I worried Juliet might begin to feel used by us for her culinary skills if we counted on her cooking every time.

Juliet closed her eyes, inhaling. I think she’d probably
be able to name the ingredients for me in every dish, especially after Faye passed.

“Mudbugs?” Faye clapped, naming her favorite restaurant.

Fara grabbed a napkin and a hot hush puppy. She handed the bundle quietly to Juliet with a smile that seemed to understand.

“Best in town.” Nelli kissed Faye’s cheek.

Plates were piled high with cheesy crawfish casserole, shrimp étouffée, jambalaya, gumbo, red beans and dirty rice. Hush puppies, with bits of corn and a hint of sweet, cooled down my mouth along with pickle-full potato salad. The salty goodness of freshly fried potato chips added texture to the feast. There were even boiled crawfish that Gus took great delight in sucking the innards out of.
He can have those
.

Juliet tried everything. No one spoke as we all ate as fast as we could. Sighs of contentment were punctuated with Rumi’s exclamations of, “The étouffée is sipid! This is kickshaw; you must taste! I’ve eaten so much I’ll have the collywobbles later.”

“There are beignets for dessert, so leave room,” Nelli said, carefully keeping lemonade and iced tea flowing.

I noticed Faye picked at her food. She moved it around her plate with feigned enthusiasm. She barely ate three bites. According to Rumi, she usually ate the entire menu from Mudbugs in one sitting.
Not a good sign
. Delia noticed my study and nodded at me.
We see the same thing
.

Over fresh black coffee, Faye motioned to Delia, who stood and asked us to listen. I knew there was an announcement coming, but that didn’t take special superpowers, simply logical deduction.

“We decided against this, Faye.” Gus shook his head. Today’s activities gave his cheeks color that this conversation quickly leached back out.

“Today was tops, but merely a reprieve from the inevitable.” Faye touched his hand.

I glanced around.
This couldn’t be about the wedding, could it?

While Gus muttered, Faye took a handful of pills and Delia gave her a shot. “My friends, it’s time,” Faye said.