The Blind Date

by Alice Ward

  EPILOGUE

  Locke

  Eight Months Later…

  I settled into my seat at ISM and cracked open a bottle of beer, then downed half of it as I watched the cars lining up at the starting line.

  “How is she doing?” Laura asked me, sitting next to me with a salad from the buffet. She popped open a water and leaned forward, watching as they were given the signal to start their engines.

  “You know her. She’s cool as a cucumber,” I said with a shrug.

  This was her home, after all. We’d gotten in a week earlier, and she’d shown me the sights. Her old home in Wintersburg. The dirt track. We’d had lunch at the Tin Top. She’d been right. There was a lot of dirt around here. But the second she got here, I felt like this was her race. Her time to shine. She’d been in over fifty races by now, and she’d been closing in on a win every time.

  Laura laughed as she looked at me. “Glad she’s doing well. Wish I could say the same for you.”

  I should have been a pro at watching these races by now, but even now, my palms were sweaty, and I couldn’t focus. Ridiculous considering I got to sit up here in the AC with a selection of craft beers and a full buffet while she worked her ass off.

  But this time, I was even more nervous than usual for her. Emma had only been getting better and more focused with every race and had been flirting with first place for the past few races. She’d been pole and come in second at her first race of the season, the Daytona 500. Yes, she’d actually qualified this year; not only qualified but smoked most of her competition. I’d endured the biggest tantrum from her about that one because she’d been so close. She’d gone to fifth in Atlanta, but in Vegas, she’d placed third.

  And now, here we were, at ISM in Phoenix. Her home.

  “She wants this so bad,” I murmured.

  She was so damn close, it was maddening. But she had her doubts. The last time she’d been here, in November, I’d been out of the country introducing CageFree to China, and she’d pulled a disappointing twenty-third out of forty drivers. She said she should’ve done better since this was the track she’d practically been brought up on, but nerves had gotten to her. The ISM Cup was the top of her bucket list.

  Well… after me.

  “You ever think just wanting something so much makes it harder to get?” she’d asked me the night after the race during a phone call when there were several time zones separating us.

  And maybe it had. Maybe she’d wanted it so badly that it wasn’t possible.

  I wasn’t giving up hope. “Okay, girl,” I murmured, leaning toward the oval. “Three hundred and twelve laps. You’ve got this.”

  “Well, she’s in good shape,” Laura said. “It’s all over the news how she broke the ISM record with her qualifying lap.”

  Yeah, that was all over the news. Now, my name was barely mentioned, except in relation to my sponsorship activities. Our “couplehood” was old news, though pictures of us strolling the beach hand in hand would sometimes show up on People’s website, whenever it was a slow news day. Now, most of the attention was rightfully put on Emma, the athlete, and the way she’d been tearing up the track this year.

  I couldn’t have been prouder.

  “Okay, so,” Laura said, whipping out her briefcase. “I have the contracts for our Hits Like a Girl campaign, all signed by Martha West, our newest property. They just need your John Hancock.”

  Below, the cars were dragging off on their first lap, behind the pace car. She handed me a pen, and I absently signed on the dotted line for Martha, the impressive United States female boxing champion from New England. “You’re in Boston next week to shoot those?”

  She nodded. “Of course, since you’ll be in… where is she going to be next week?”

  “California.” I’d taken over as Emma’s one-person entourage, going with her to every race. Laura hadn’t complained. I thought she preferred doing all of this herself, and I’d just been a nuisance most of the time. Once upon a time, I’d been very anal about ensuring every one of our ads was perfect but loosening the reins had not only been freeing, it gave all the people who worked under me more of a sense of accomplishment. And the quality of the ads hadn’t suffered. Our Shred Like a Girl ads, ones I hadn’t done a thing for except sign the contract, had won three ADDY awards this year for advertising excellence.

  Of course, my favorite would always be the Drive Like a Girl ads. I’d even had a wall-size reproduction of the first one made, the one where she’s standing on the track, in front of the oval in her fire suit, holding her helmet, her hair blowing in her face, and I’d hung it in my bedroom.

  Emma had laughed at it and said, “God, that will give me nightmares.”

  “She should do well in California,” Laura said, stuffing the contract back into her briefcase. “Did you see the Sports Illustrated write-up about her?”

  I nodded. I had. I would’ve framed that too, if she’d let me. It went on about her career, her wins, her hopes, and treated her like a real, substantial force in the racing world. No fluff about how she handled racing with PMS or that questioned how she ever thought a woman could perform as well as men. They just knew she could. The photo of her hadn’t bared her tits; it looked full-on, hardcore, like our ads. And the title of the piece?

  Breaking records and barriers: Emma James is on track to be one of the best drivers in the Cup series… male or female.

  She was getting her due now. Getting the respect.

  The race continued, and maybe I’d regressed, just knowing how much she wanted this because I could barely take my eyes away from the track. I wanted to know what she was thinking in that head of hers, so I pulled on the headset and listened to the chatter.

  A spotter was giving her direction as she swerved around a little skirmish going on between two cars in the middle of the pack. “Easy, easy. Okay, pull left. Left. Got it. That’s it. Gun it, gun it… go!”

  And she was out from that mess as she sailed toward the front of the track. The crew whooped. It was clear sailing from then on, and she killed the first stage, winning it with no other competition even close. “Whoooooooo!” I heard her scream. “That felt good!”

  I smiled. She hadn’t won a stage before. She sounded strong, powerful.

  “Keep it going!” Brody shouted at her.

  Seventy-five laps down, two hundred and thirty-seven to go, I realized, doing the calculations in my head as I rubbed the stubble on my jaw. I hadn’t shaved since Saturday, I’d found it to be my superstitious thing. When I didn’t shave on race day, Emma did better.

  Obviously, it was working now. She looked incredible.

  Beneath me, the crowd cheered. She’d gotten quite the cheering section in the past year, with more and more people buying her 77 merchandise and wanting to follow in her footsteps. No, there’d been plenty of other women who’d raced, but women seemed to identify more with Emma. Maybe because she wasn’t afraid to show her girly side.

  She could be tough and sweet. And Emma loved her fans. I’d often come into her trailer to find her hosting a gaggle of little girls who wanted to be just like her, telling them, “It’s okay to be sweet and want to kick a little butt too.” She’d even gone along with me on the off-season, talking to schools as part of the Cage Foundation’s anti-bullying campaigns.

  “You should eat something,” Laura nudged me when she’d finished her salad. Two cars had spun off the raceway, and the caution flag had come out. Emma had drifted back to sixth, doing a back and forth with Chase Elliott that seemed like an all-out war. Laura pointed at the buffet. “Did you even have lunch?”

  I shook my head, thinking it wasn’t possible to eat anything at a time like this. But right then, my stomach rumbled.

  I took off the headphones, hopped from my stool and got a plate, backing into the room so I wouldn’t miss anything. I filled it up with mostly healthy choices but added a few chicken fingers and fries on the side. I came back just as the green flag came out.

&nbs
p; Laura studied my plate. “I remember the days when you’d never touch that stuff. Are they long gone?”

  I shook my head, and I washed down a fry with a beer. “Moderation. I can eat shit during a race. Super—”

  “Superstition. I got it,” she nodded, laughing. “You’re crazy as Emma is with those superstitions, you know that?”

  Okay, so it was more than just the shaving and the junk food. Emma had shown me more of her little superstitious quirks, and I aided her with them as best as I could. She always wore the yellow and black striped underwear I’d given her, inside out. She drank nothing but purple Ice Gatorade. When I left her, I always said, “See you later.” Never, “Good luck.” And we always fucked immediately before and after a race, sometimes in the bathroom or in the car on the way. As of yet, we still hadn’t fulfilled my bucket list fantasy of having sex on her race car, but I was saving that for when she won a race.

  I cleared my plate just as Chase Elliott sailed past the flag, winning stage two. “Emma is not gonna like this,” I said to Laura, just as I heard Emma’s voice over the line.

  “Dammit!” she shouted. She was in sixth place now, and appeared to be stuck behind Jimmie Johnson’s draft, unable to escape. It was almost like he was toying with her. “Now he’s got me really mad!”

  Oh, watch out. I grinned. Hell hath no fury like a mad Emma.

  “Make your move, baby,” I said, willing it to happen. Now we were in the thick of things, on the longest stage, one hundred sixty-two laps to go. She was just under halfway done with this 500, and this, I knew, was where things got brutal. By now, the fatigue would be getting to her, her muscles would be screaming, and she’d be questioning why she loved the sport so much. She always told me that the fourth quarter was exciting, invigorating, because the end was near, but it was that third quarter that did her in every time.

  This was what separated the men from the… women.

  Though I had to say, my woman was in a class by herself already.

  “She still looks damn good,” Laura said, giving my shoulder a pat. “She hasn’t gone below tenth the whole time.”

  I nodded. It wasn’t surprising. As part of her signature move, she’d been sticking toward the front, trying not to let anyone in front of her. Hating the draft, like usual. Still, though, she had Chase ahead of her, and Jimmie, and others, but was in hot pursuit, trying to worm her way around them.

  As owner, I usually tried to keep the lines open so that Brody and the spotters could be in touch with her as needed. But when she pulled into pit road for a change, I got on. “How’s things going down there? How’s she looking?”

  “You have eyes, boss,” she said to me. She sounded in good spirits, like she wasn’t tired or beaten yet. “How do you think I’m looking?”

  I smiled. “Beautiful.”

  I knew she loved it when I called her beautiful. And she was, easily the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She dressed more feminine now, wore makeup. She did her thing, and no one every faulted her for it or said she wasn’t enough of a race car driver because of it. She was sexy, sweet, gorgeous, and a damn beast whenever she was on the track.

  “Good. I’m gonna go out there now and bring us home a win. Just need to get myself around a few obstacles. Shouldn’t be too hard.” I could hear the smile in her voice.

  And then she was off again, speeding onto the oval and right back into the action.

  Laura took my plate away and popped open another beer for me. I’d had four by now, and I’d like to say it mellowed me, but I was just as on edge as ever. I took another swig, watching the lap counter go down. Now we were down to the last fifty laps. She was still in fifth.

  I drained the beer, not sure how or when. I put it down, clenched my fists, unable to take my eyes off her black car. “Go. Come on, baby,” I murmured under my breath. “You can do this.”

  By now, Laura and I had pushed back our stools and were standing at the open-air balcony so we could be as close as possible to the race. The crowd was roaring and screaming, frantic. The cars were making their buzz-saw scream around the track, and there, passing around Jimmie Johnson from the right, tapping him, nearly wiping out but getting it back, was my Emma.

  “She did it! She’s in fourth now!” Laura said as Emma flew around the back of the mile-long oval.

  I nodded, not ready to celebrate, as I always remembered that this was where the ground dropped out from under us at the Pocono 400. Jimmie made his move and got his place back, nearly pushing her into the grass at the center, throwing up dirt and white smoke. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of enjoying that lead for long. She shifted into high gear and floored it, denying him that chance to gain ground. Then she sailed ahead, chasing third.

  I clenched and pumped my fist.

  Twenty laps now. I kept looking at the counter, then back at her, as the audience roared around me. “Get it, get it,” I heard Brody shouting at her as she sailed toward the red Camry in third. She easily skirted around it, the spotter giving her exactly what she needed to avoid any contact. She passed him on a curve. Not even like he was standing still. More like he was going in reverse.

  “Did he have his thumb up his ass or what?” I said to Laura. “Holy shit, she’s got to be pushing two-ten.”

  “Third!” Laura said, jumping up and down in her high heels. My sister wasn’t one to express excitement, but as astonishing as her display of emotion was, I was too wrapped up in the race to even look at her.

  I crossed my arms, knowing that cameras could be on me, watching my response, and listened to the chatter on the radio. Brody was coaching. “Push it, push it, push it,” he kept saying to her. And she did. She was around the second-place car without any problems, and with only ten laps to go.

  “Holy shit, she’s in second,” I said, reaching down and grabbing the balcony railing in a death grip. My hands were now slick with sweat. My eyes were experiencing this weird dichotomy, where they didn’t want to look, but they didn’t want to look away either. Now, it was just her, coming up hard on the ass of Chase Elliott’s Number 9 Camaro.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Emma suddenly said, her voice laughing.

  Brody’s voice was a warning. “Don’t even think of it.”

  “Aw, come on. Just one little tap?” she asked, in a pretty-please way. “He’s asking for it.”

  “Don’t you dare,” he said to her.

  “Just a little push?”

  “No, you don’t want to get caught in that draft,” Brody said.

  She blew a raspberry at him. “You’re no fun.”

  We were down to five laps now. I closed my eyes. “You can do it, baby,” I murmured again. “But take it easy.”

  The last thing we needed now was for her to push, get caught in his draft, and lose control.

  As promised, she didn’t push him. She came up behind him and cut quick to the left, then as he banked to block her, she managed to swerve to the right, narrowly missing contact with the wall as she forced her way around him.

  It was fucking poetic. And then she was in front.

  “Woohoo!” Brody shouted.

  “Now this is where I like to be!” she shouted, as the spotter started calling directions to her to keep her there. “The scenery is the best up here!”

  The white flag came out. One lap left to go.

  I held my breath and kept it. Breathing wasn’t important right now.

  “Right, keep on it. Keep on it. Push it. Watch your left.”

  Elliott tried to pull the same move on her, but it was too little, too late. He managed to break free of her draft just as she sailed on the straightaway toward the checkered flag.

  It waved directly over her as she bested Elliott by half a car-length.

  She’d won.

  She’d fucking won her first cup.

  “Wooooooooo!” she screamed, so loud that I didn’t need to be wearing the headphones to hear her. My eardrums rattled, and I couldn’t say I minded in
the least.

  “That’s it, baby, that’s it!” Brody shouted as my earphones erupted with a celebration so loud it was like a nuclear explosion.

  Laura jumped up and down and hugged me, screaming herself. “Oh, my god, oh my god, oh my god!” she kept shouting. “She did it!”

  “Knew you could do it, baby,” I shouted at her, and I had tears in my eyes by then. I wiped them away as I watched her car sail forward. Dropping everything, I raced downstairs to the oval, avoiding the crush of bodies in the walkways.

  I got to the opening just as she’d dropped the window net and had begun to do her victory lap. There, I joined her pit crew, who were still jumping around, hugging each other. Jonesy, Tom, Albert, and Brody were all going wild with celebration. Tom did a cartwheel over the wall. When she stepped out of the car, the crowd parted for me, so that I was the first one to hug her.

  “Congratulations, baby,” I said, hugging her tight and kissing her on the top of the head.

  “I can’t believe I did it,” she whispered.

  “First of many,” I told her, and I knew without a doubt that this was only the beginning. Yes, this might have been pure gold for UnCaged, as Laura had said, but Emma was more than that for me. In short, she’d turned my world around. I didn’t think I’d ever been truly happy until she’d come into my life.

  Emma was dazed, still saying that she couldn’t believe it, over and over again, even when she had the giant trophy in her hand, standing on the podium, in front of fifty thousand onlookers. She kissed the top of the gold cup, smiled for the cameras, and waved to her fans as confetti continued to fall. Then she gave Chase and Jimmie, the second and third place finishers, a very sportsmanlike high-five.

  That’s my girl, I kept thinking, again and again, as I watched her bask in her win, wiping tears from her eyes.

  The celebration went on for a long time. There was champagne and lots of it. Shots of some strong alcohol that could have been on par with motor oil. Screaming, and lots of that too. Hugging and kissing and dancing. Confetti everywhere. Somewhere in our drunken revelry, there was a serious discussion of us all getting tattoos to commemorate this night. It was a night none of us wanted to end, and none of us would ever forget.