Avoidable Contact

by Tammy Kaehler

  I elbowed Ian. “Weren’t you having issues with their cars?”

  “The 45 and 54 stuck like magnets to ours all week—always around in practice, quali, even tech inspection.”

  “And now they’re ahead and behind you. Coincidence?”

  He shrugged. “Seemed like they were there too regularly for that. Then again, there are so many of those team cars, one of them has to be nearby, right? Thomas has been warned to be extra careful of any car with those colors on it.”

  “I hope he can keep his cool.”

  “Copy that, Reilly. But I figure, if he can face down fifty thousand screaming fans in a concert, he can stay calm on track, too.” Ian scrunched up his face and played an air guitar riff.

  I smiled. “You look ridiculous.”

  “Thomas is giving me lessons, babe. I’m going to be a rock star if this driving gig doesn’t pan out.”

  In his other life, Thomas Kendall was “Tommy Fantastic,” the lead guitarist for a multi-platinum rock band. But what Thomas really wanted to do was race, and he did so every time he wasn’t on tour. Between Thomas and Miles, Sandham Swift cornered the market on glamour at Daytona.

  “Don’t quit your day job.” I patted Ian on the shoulder.

  He shook his head. “Not today, at any rate. Here we go.”

  Everyone in the pits held their breath. The field of cars formed into pairs around the last turn and headed for the green flag.

  Chapter Four

  2:10 P.M. | 24:00 HOURS REMAINING

  “Green, green, green! We are green for the 24 Hours of Daytona!”

  All eyes in Daytona International Speedway focused on the sixty-eight racecars sweeping under the green flag. They crossed the start/finish line as the official clock began its twenty-four hour countdown.

  Every one of the hundred-plus people packed into the Sandham Swift tent strained to monitor each twitch and bobble of our Corvettes as they negotiated the melee. I exhaled, my release of tension echoed up and down pit lane. The field got through the narrow, tricky Turn 1 with no accidents.

  Holly grabbed my arm. Someone else pointed at the camera feed showing two prototypes shoving each other through Turn 2—only two cars ahead of Mike.

  The cars slid off-track driver’s left at the approach to Turn 3, the right-handed International Horseshoe. Mike and the rest of the sportscars checked up but weren’t impeded. We breathed again.

  Mike fought for position. Still second in class. Dogging the back of the BMW on the GTLM pole.

  “Easy,” I muttered. “It’s only the first lap.”

  As if he’d heard me, the half a car length between Corvette and BMW widened as both cars powered through the Kink, Turn 4, a flat-out, left-hand bend in the track’s inner loop or infield section.

  Through the West Horseshoe, Turn 5. One of the prototypes forced off two turns prior sliced through the GTs on his way back to the front. The prototype dove under our 29 Corvette, and a mechanic next to me growled, “Careful there, you sumbitch.”

  I laughed, provoking a sheepish grin from the mechanic. Daytona was big enough that unless the cars were all on the front stretch, or a car was directly in front of us making a pit stop, we could carry on conversations—and sometimes hear under-the-breath mutterings.

  Someone leaned over me to point at one of the screens. The lead BMW had bobbled under braking. Distracted? Missed a shift? Whatever the cause, he drifted wide approaching Turn 6, the left-hander that transitioned from the inner loop to the banked oval track. I tensed as Mike pounced, slipping under him and scooting away into the lead.

  “Woohoo!” We all cheered. I high-fived everyone around me. Regardless of what happened in the next twenty-four hours, we’d made a small mark on the race. Heavy emotion settled back on my shoulders, and I felt a flash of guilt for being happy while Stuart was hurt. I focused on the monitors.

  Mike had clear road in front of him and the BMW on his tail as he hurtled through the thirty-one degree banking of NASCAR Turns 1 and 2, the oval part of the famed pavement that hosts the Daytona 500. Clean through the Bus Stop—the left-right-right-left wiggle two-thirds of the way down the backstretch, designed to slow us before we reached the other end of the NASCAR oval. Then Mike swung back onto the banking of NASCAR Turns 3 and 4.

  He shot past a prototype slowed by a sagging rear tire. The BMW remained tucked up close behind Mike as the pavement leveled out to an eighteen-degree tilt in the tri-oval, the pointy bit in the middle of the front straight. Corvette and BMW flashed under the starter’s stand. They barreled down to Turn 1 to start the second lap.

  My heart pounded as I watched. Counting down to the braking point in my head, downshifting with Mike. Clear off the oval track banking and into the infield through Turn 1. Turn 2. BMW still behind him but not able to make a move. Turn 3.

  I rolled my shoulders. Looked at the clock: 23:58 hours left. Relax, Kate. Another six or seven hundred laps to go.

  By the fourth lap, the cluster of people in front of the monitors began to break up. Some of the adrenaline dissipated, and crew members wandered off. They prepped for the first round of pit stops, straightened or coiled hoses, and tidied “hospitality world,” the three folding tables laden with food in the corner. Holly moved to stand in the entryway of the tent where she had a little breathing room—she wasn’t a fan of crowds—and could still keep an eye on the action. Mike continued to lead, fending off the BMW and a Porsche that appeared within another lap to join the fight at the front.

  I kept watching the monitors, but I no longer saw the cars. I reviewed memories of Stuart instead. Our post-race dates in different cities. Time spent at his house in Suwanee, Georgia, last October, after the season ended. New Year’s Eve together. His frustration yesterday when I told him I needed to be alone for dinner. I was the racecar driver, but he’d moved at top speed in our relationship, leaving me struggling to keep pace. I wondered if I’d have the chance now.

  I turned abruptly and blundered through the handful of guests between me and the walkway behind the tent. I needed air. Though open to the cars’ pit spaces at the front and to the pit walkway at the rear, the enormous walled tent covering the Sandham Swift setup got stuffy. Or maybe the constant press of people made me feel I couldn’t breathe. I felt a drop and tilted my head to the sky. Gray and cloudy overhead. Rain forecast. Plop. Another drop, right on my nose. I closed my eyes and let the sparse blobs of rain soothe my cheeks and eyelids.

  Someone hurt Stuart. Don’t let them win by damaging you also.

  A minute or two later, Holly tapped my arm and handed me a bottle of water.

  “Thanks. Having a moment,” I said.

  “One step at a time.”

  I downed half the water and turned my face to the sky again. I took deep breaths. Imagined I could feel the air and water flowing through my body, replenishing me. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to make sure I hadn’t missed any updates. Nothing.

  Logically, I knew I couldn’t do anything at the hospital. But I still wondered if I should be there. I typed a quick text message to Polly, the Series person at the hospital, begging her to pass along any information.

  I’d just hit send when Holly nudged me again and looked up the walkway. “Lookie there, sugar, sidewinders.”

  “Where? What? Snakes?” I glanced along the endless row of identical, white, canvas pit tents. Crew and guests milled outside the team next door, WiseGuy Racing, fielding a single GTD Mazda.

  I turned back to Holly. “Why is Nik Reyes wearing jeans and talking to the guys next door? Shouldn’t he be down with his Porsche team?”

  “You didn’t hear? He lost his ride when the revised driver rankings came out this week and had him ranked too high for his car. But he’s not the point. Farther.”

  I looked again, up pit lane to the sprinkling of people outside the enormous Arena Motorsports tent. One of a
pair of tall, handsome, and polished young men turned and caught me watching. He smiled widely and blew me a kiss. His cousin saw his gesture, looked my way, and glowered. I thought I might throw up.

  “Snakes,” Holly repeated.

  “That’s what we needed. My vile, good-for-nothing cousins.”

  “You knew it was possible your uncle—”

  “Please. My father’s younger brother.”

  “That he might be racing here. It must be true. And with Team Colossus, no less.”

  “I don’t want to—can’t—deal with them. Too much else to focus on.” I turned back to our tent. I couldn’t make out specific cars on the monitors, but the lack of tension in those watching meant the race was going smoothly for the moment.

  “Another friend of yours up there?” Holly asked.

  I followed her gaze and saw someone else in the entryway of the Arena tent staring at me. A woman, small and curvy in a fitted, purple, team button-down shirt. She had the kind of full, wavy brunette hair I’d always wanted. A former beauty queen, maybe, since every race paddock was full of those. Her looks were marred by the glare she gave me—like I was dog doo on the bottom of her favorite shoes. “Never seen her before.”

  “I wonder…” Holly pulled out her phone and looked something up. “That’s her, all right.”

  I glanced over to see the Racing’s Ringer site, a blog that covered all people, events, and gossip to do with racing. Run by a racing world-insider, it was known for being accurate and anonymous—to most people.

  I knew who the Ringer was, and when I saw him, I was likely to punch him for posting the photos I hadn’t wanted to see: shots of a curvy brunette kissing a guy in a bar. My guy.

  I snapped my eyes back to the woman up the lane. That’s the bitch who kissed my boyfriend.

  Chapter Five

  2:30 P.M. | 23:40 HOURS REMAINING

  I’d run into Stuart that morning, not long after I arrived at the track. I’d been in our garage, one of the twenty-two spaces forming the back half of Daytona’s main garage, a large V-shaped building.

  I’d looked the 28 Corvette over and said good morning to the crew, then headed back to our team lounge. Stuart was walking toward me. We stopped, but didn’t touch. I think that irritated him, but I wasn’t into public displays of affection yet. If ever.

  “Good morning, Kate.” His smile was more closed-off than usual. I read affection, annoyance, and something else I couldn’t identify.

  “Morning.” I took a deep breath. “Look, sorry again about last night. I’m nervous about the race.”

  He watched me silently for a moment before we were interrupted by a team owner stopping to shake Stuart’s hand. Stuart turned back to me when the man was gone. “Presumably you had to eat.”

  He’s going to be difficult. “You know the race is my focus, and you know I don’t want to make a public statement right before a big race.”

  “I’m starting to think everyone wants something another person can’t give—I want from you, others want from me.” He rubbed his eyes behind his tortoiseshell glasses. “This isn’t a good time or place for this conversation—especially when we won’t cover ground we didn’t cover the other twenty-seven times.” He looked into the distance down the garage lane and ran a hand through his hair, dislodging locks onto his forehead.

  “But I need to tell you two things,” he continued. “One, your reluctance to be seen with me outside the racetrack by anyone in the racing fraternity—or to be seen looking anything more than business-like with me at any time—makes me question how much you care about this relationship.”

  I tensed, feeling heat in my neck and face. Anger? Shame? I wasn’t sure.

  He searched my face before speaking again. “Two, you’re going to find photos online of another woman and me kissing at the restaurant last night.”

  Anger, that was it. “What?” I’d yelled.

  Stuart looked speculative, not guilty.

  “What the hell are you telling me, Stuart?”

  “There was…an incident last night. And a camera caught it.”

  “An incident?” I yelled that too, then lowered my voice. “You’re cheating on me with someone else, and you call it ‘an incident?’”

  He reared back as if surprised, then recovered. “I didn’t initiate it, and I stopped it immediately. I didn’t want it. But it happened.”

  Did he lead her on? Did he flirt? Was it retaliation for me canceling? “Why would you tell me like that? Like you did want it?”

  He pulled his phone out and glanced at it. He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I wanted to know if you’d care.”

  As I gaped at him, my ears getting hot, he reached out a hand to another passerby who’d veered his direction. “Vinny, I meant to tell you earlier, I’m glad to see you’re making connections in the paddock.”

  The trim, dark-haired man shaking Stuart’s hand looked confused. “Sorry?”

  Stuart smiled. “I saw you and Richard Arena talking last night outside the Chart House restaurant. You couldn’t find a better resource for understanding how to operate a world-class racing team here.”

  The other guy smiled and nodded, glancing at me quickly, then looking back to Stuart. He uttered some kind of pleasantry and took off down the paddock. I didn’t pay attention because I was still steaming over Stuart’s news. And how he’d chosen to deliver it.

  Stuart slipped his phone back in his pocket and finally met my eyes again. “Sorry, Kate, I’m late to meet someone who actually wants something from me. Have a good race.”

  Before I could form words, much less come up with more questions or a comeback, he was gone.

  I’d scurried into the team lounge and huddled with Holly, telling her about the interaction and deliberately not searching for the photos online. She made all the right noises until I’d calmed down. Then she burst my bubble.

  “He does have a point, you know.”

  I gasped. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours, of course. But it’s not surprising he’d wonder how committed you are, if you won’t be open about dating him.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “But kissing someone else, Holly?”

  “I’m not saying that’s right—but neither did he, from what you tell me.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Given he’s not a habitual liar, believe him. Who knows what happened? You know how racing groupies are, they’ll take any chance to get close to someone with power, money, or fame.”

  I’d felt better after Holly’s words. I’d resolved to put the matter out of my head to focus on the race. But now I stood in the pit walkway, the race in full swing, confronted by the woman in question. A gorgeous woman who looked like no desperate race groupie I’d ever seen. She looked confident, in charge, and scornful. Of me.

  I felt like I’d taken a knife to the gut. Maybe he preferred her to me. Maybe he didn’t want to deal with me anymore.

  I shook my head and looked away from her, back to Holly. “The world makes no sense today. First Stuart’s hurt and now she’s mad at me?” I threw my empty water bottle in the trash barrel next to us. “I’m taking a walk over to the real bathrooms.”

  “I’ll go with you, then run up and see Greg at Western Racing.”

  After our stop at the restroom building above Victory Lane—an improvement over the port-a-potties that were closer and more convenient to the pits—I followed Holly up to the top end of pit lane, the pit-in end, to her old team. She’d worked for Western for the past five years as the team’s hospitality coordinator or “team mom,” keeping the paddock and pit areas stocked with food and drinks for crew, drivers, and guests. Keeping everything working. Aunt Tee played the same role for Sandham Swift.

  But a change in fortunes for both Western and me had prompted Holly to switch jobs. Western’s owner, Gre
g Davenport, had lost a key sponsor in the economic downturn, and he’d had trouble making a commitment to go racing this year—a fact not helped by the merger of what used to be two separate racing series, which created a shortage of spaces on racing grids. Greg made it here to Daytona, but he’d had to downsize—from two cars to one, from more staff to less.

  At the same time, I’d gotten busier, with commitments to the Sandham Swift team and sponsors, but also to my personal sponsor, the Beauté cosmetics company, and the charity they supported, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. I needed help, and Holly and I agreed to try her out as a combination personal assistant, manager, and public relations person. So far, so good, but I knew she missed her family at Western Racing. That they missed her was evident from the hugs all around when she appeared in their pit space.

  After greeting Holly, Greg gave me a gentler version of his bear hug and expressed gruff condolences about Stuart. He reminded me of my grandfather: short and stocky, with a full head of white hair. But where Gramps was usually jovial, more like a goofy leprechaun, Greg Davenport was morose, taciturn. Not without reason.

  The loss of one of his two main sponsors was the latest straw in a terrible decade for him—the only bright spots being the success his son Ian was having as a pro driver and the blossoming career of his daughter, Jennifer, as a race engineer. Greg had lost his wife to a season-long bout with cancer four years ago and had struggled through the intervening years in the ALMS, where the landscape got more complex every year. New teams, new cars, tougher competitors—all had conspired to produce only marginal results for a team that once won a GT championship. Then the Series merger, and sponsor, supplier, and entry problems.

  I remembered Greg when he was cheerful, ebullient. It had been a long time. At this race, even his pit space looked depressed and disheveled. Tires were stacked neatly near the pit wall, but other equipment was scattered here and there without obvious organization. It was a far cry from the polished, professional opulence of the Arena Motorsports setup—or even Sandham Swift’s mismatching but complete set of tools and supplies.