Palm Springs Heat

by DC Thome

  “It looks like an eagle swooping down on its prey,” Lara said.

  “It is one sexy automobile,” Clay said.

  It is—if you think a bird swooping down on its prey is sexy.

  “Your certificate, sir.” Silvio presented an official-looking parchment to Clay.

  “Certificate?” Lara wondered out loud.

  “Yes, madam,” Silvio said. “Lexus intends to limit ownership of the LFA to a very select few. One must be approved in advance—a mere formality in Mr. Creighton’s case, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  An assistant, also impeccably dressed and wearing white gloves, approached carrying an inlaid wood box, which he opened and presented to Clay as though revealing the jewels of the crown. Instead, resting on red velvet, was a key fob.

  Clay turned to Lara. “Ready for the ride of your life?”

  * * *

  Lara had seen plenty of fine performance vehicles when she attended races with her dad, but she had never been in a car like this LFA. Its powerful V-10 hummed as Clay zigzagged through traffic, heading east on the 10.

  A Bugatti Veyron scorched past them as they were doing ninety just outside Calimesa. Lara looked at Clay to see how he’d react.

  He laughed.

  “That’s a really nice car,” he said.

  “Nicer than this one?”

  “This one’s nice. But the Bugatti…that’s a work of art.”

  “I don’t know of any other ‘work of art’ that goes 200 miles an hour,” Lara said.

  “Now, you see—it’s things like that.”

  “What?”

  “Knowing how fast a car can go.”

  “I thought we settled this.”

  “Not because you’re a woman. I’ll bet ninety-nine percent of men wouldn’t know a thing like that. Or how many cylinders a ’57 Frogeye’s engine had. Or what ran at Targa in 1960.”

  “A man who read your Driver blog might.”

  “How many men is that? One percent?”

  Lara smiled and shrugged.

  “So, you’re a ‘Driver’?” Clay continued.

  “I keep up.”

  “Why?”

  “Know your enemy and yourself.”

  Clay’s eyes sparkled. “Ah, so you’ve bought into my theory?”

  “It never hurts a woman to know what’s going on in your beady little masculine brains.”

  “So, maybe I’m doing the human race more good than I realize.”

  “Don’t get yourself a Tommy John injury patting yourself on the back. My dad used to take me with him to car races.”

  “Tommy John? You know baseball, too?”

  “Geez—you think women don’t follow sports? I played softball in high school, you know.”

  “Yeah, but Tommy John.”

  “I’m not talking about the guy. I’m talking about the surgery. Anyone can injure an elbow. Everyone’s unemployed, we’re fighting umpteen wars, the polar ice caps are melting, but you turn on the news in L.A. and the top story is about some celebrity gone wild, or a hundred-million-dollar pitcher who needs his elbow rearranged. Nothing’s more important than how it’s going with the Dodgers’ rotation.”

  Rotation? Fuck! A wavelet of panic shot from Lara’s chest to her head.

  “Sports is big business,” Clay said. “I mean, if you’re paying a guy a hundred million dollars.”

  Whew.

  Lara looked at the vibrant desert stretching out in all directions. Endless shades of red, brown and gray accented dusty green plants that thrived in spite of the environment.

  “So,” Clay said after a lull, “your father took you to car races?”

  “Is that strange?”

  “I don’t know. Define ‘strange.’ My father was an international playboy.”

  Lara hated to abandon the caresses of the sun and the wind, but she turned to Clay.

  “My dad…more or less…raised me on his own. After I turned seven.”

  “Oh.”

  “He took me to Pomona, Ontario, Bakersfield. He loved anything fast and loud. Stock cars. Formula One. Dragsters. We’d sit in the grandstand and he’d tell me all about whatever cars happened to be on the track. After a while, I picked up on things to where we could argue about which cars were faster, which handled better. I always cheered for the ones with the big horsepower.”

  “Yeah, that’s important, but it all comes down to handling.”

  Lara’s mouth dropped open. “That’s what my dad always said.”

  “No kidding?”

  “He said, ‘What difference does it make if you’re going two hundred m p h if you spin out in the curves?’ That’s how he said it: m…p…h.”

  Clay nodded.

  “‘There’s no sense in stomping your foot to the floor,’” Lara said, “‘if—’”

  Clay took over. “‘If you can’t make the car go where you need it to go.’”

  Lara looked surprised.

  “My old man used to say that, too,” Clay explained.

  “Who would have thought our fathers...”

  “My dad was a decent guy,” Clay said, keeping his eyes on the road. “Most people don’t know anything about him beyond his public persona. Their loss.”

  Lara studied Clay’s face. She could almost read what he was thinking.

  “I loved doing things with my dad,” she said. “A little girl on an outing with her hero. He gave me everything I wanted: Popcorn. Hot dogs. Slushies. If I liked a hat, he’d buy it for me. He knew how to treat a lady.”

  Lara looked out the window. The colors that looked so amazingly distinct before now blew past in a blur.

  “Your dad sounds like the kind of guy I’d like to meet,” Clay said.

  “Oh, um…he died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, it was a long time ago. When I was in high school.”

  “Yeah, but it’s still a big thing. You two had something special.”

  “I didn’t mean to turn this into a downer. I have lots of great memories. Probably more than most people. In his last few months, we’d just sit together and watch NASCAR. Sometimes not talking for hours.”

  They fell silent.

  “You know, that’s a great thing, just sitting and watching sports with someone,” Clay finally said. “Most women don’t understand how men can watch sports together without saying a thing, and then insist it was a great bonding experience.”

  “Anyway,” Lara said, “you have a destination in mind, or are we just out cruising?”

  “I thought we’d hit the salt flats near Whitewater, north of Bonnie Bell. We can put this baby through its paces there.”

  “Salt flats? Let’s do it.”

  * * *

  At Bonnie Bell, Clay exited the freeway and drove into a canyon that opened into the broad, flat bowl of a dried-up lake.

  “I never knew about this place.”

  “Not a lot of people do.”

  There wasn’t a soul in sight. Just white crust and gray-brown mountains.

  Clay stopped the car. The engine purred. “Okay,” he said, “here goes nuthin’.”

  Clay flicked the paddle shifter on the steering wheel and let the clutch snap. Lara felt like she’d been shot from a gun. The car was a sensual cornucopia. G-forces pressed her into the seat. The pistons wailed. She tasted salt on her tongue. The tachometer flickered as it tickled the red zone—nine-thousand rpm—each time Clay shifted.

  As the car screamed past ninety mph, Lara closed her eyes and imagined they were on the verge of flying. And then Clay deposited the car into sixth and jammed the accelerator to the floor. Forces and decibels multiplied, and in a blink of an eye, they were doing one-ninety-three.

  Lara checked the side-view mirror. It occurred to her that she should be frightened by the sight of dust billowing behind them. But as the ride pushed into atmospheres Lara had never experienced, she felt stimulated in new ways.

  Clay slammed the brakes. The car decelerated
rapidly but smoothly as he steered it into a perfect one-eighty, easing up on the brake a touch at the end to bring the car to a stop as soft and gentle as a silk baby blanket.

  “Wow!” Lara exclaimed.

  “Ready?”

  “For what?”

  “To take your turn.”

  Lara’s jaw dropped. “I can’t—”

  But Clay had already turned off the engine, bounded from the vehicle and zipped around to open Lara’s door.

  “Can’t what?” he said, reaching in to help her climb out.

  “You had to apply just to get the car.” Clay had already guided her halfway around to the driver’s side.

  “I gave them their money. I can do whatever I want with it.”

  “What if I…?” Lara dug in her heels as she peered into the supercar’s cockpit.

  “What?”

  “Crash!”

  “Look around.” Clay spread his arms wide. “What’re you going to hit? A mountain?”

  Like that’s not possible.

  Lara eased into place behind the semicircular wheel. Leather trim made the curved top feel alive; the squared-off bottom looked like something out of Star Wars.

  Clay jumped into the passenger seat and buckled his seat belt. “Okay. Let’s see what she’s got.”

  Me—or the car?

  “But I’ve never driven anything like this before,” Lara said.

  “You went to all those races.”

  “And sat in the stands.”

  “Just have fun. It’s the only reason a machine like this exists.”

  Easy for you to say.

  Lara checked the mirrors and nervously opened and closed her fingers on the steering wheel.

  “Really,” Clay said, “it’s not much different than whatever you normally drive.”

  Yes, it does have an engine and four wheels—just like my crappy Taurus.

  “You haven’t seen what I normally drive.”

  “It’s got an engine and four wheels. Just give the engine some gas and point the wheels where you want them to go.”

  Another of her dad’s isms.

  “Um, these things…” Cringing at the thought of sounding like a dumb girl, Lara pointed to the paddle shifters on either side of the steering wheel.

  “You can use the stick if you want.”

  “I’m a little out of practice.”

  “No problem.” Clay pressed a button on the console and a knob rose into view, as if they were in a James Bond movie. Clay turned the knob until it pointed to the word “Auto.”

  “That should work.”

  Lara nodded as she depressed the starter switch. The car howled to life. Just tapping the gas pedal made it growl like an animal. An animal she controlled—she hoped. She gripped the wheel and stroked the leather. She took a deep breath and shifted the transmission to drive. A mere touch on the accelerator launched them like a rocket across the hard valley floor.

  Lara remained cautious for the first few thousand feet. But even as it approached ninety, the car seemed to flow over the terrain. Smooth. Steady.

  Okay so far.

  “How’s it feel?”

  Great not to be in Junkerland for a change. “It almost drives itself.”

  “Give yourself more credit than that. You’re going one-forty.”

  One-forty?

  Lara wouldn’t have believed it, but there it was on the digital display. She battled an impulse to yank her foot off the gas as she edged from exhilaration to ecstasy. She was Lara the Brave, living life, doing new things and liking it. She jammed the pedal almost to the floor, and the booster rockets kicked in. A new sensation, but she still felt in control.

  Of the car. Of the situation. Of life in general.

  The walls of the valley loomed closer with each passing second. Lara eased up on the gas and let the car cruise before applying the brake and bringing the car to a stop.

  “All right!” Clay said. “You sure you never drove a vehicle like this before?”

  “I never imagined.”

  “Want to try another setting?”

  Lara looked at the selector knob, but she clutched the wheel too tightly to let go.

  Clay grabbed the knob. “You’ve already done automatic. There’s sport, normal and wet.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Pick one,” Clay said. “We’ll find out.”

  Clay’s confidence gave Lara the confidence to focus more closely. “We’re in the middle of the desert. What if…”

  She twisted the knob to “wet” and gave Clay a matter-of-fact look.

  “Why not?” Clay said. “This used to be a lake.”

  Lara looked over the tops of her sunglasses as she turned the knob to “sport.” She palmed the floor shifter, licked her lips and pumped the gas pedal. The engine roared. The tachometer raged red. Lara let the clutch fly, initiating a new launch.

  Dust filled the rear-view, only this time Lara had no doubts about how she should feel.

  “So, how do you do a one-eighty?”

  Clay provided a ten-second how-to. Lara dug her nails into the leather on the wheel as she mentally prepared for the maneuver. Then she stomped on the brake and forced the car into a skid. She almost overdid it, but her instinct to ease up just a tad corrected their course. The car spun around, ending up facing the way they had come.

  Clay let out a whoop.

  Lara’s heart pounded as she ripped off her shades. “That was fucking awesome!” She put a hand over her mouth.

  “I guess so, to warrant another F-bomb.” Clay moved her hand away and kissed her.

  * * *

  Clay’s lips were firm. He had not shaved, and Lara enjoyed the bristly feel on her cheeks. Clay tasted somewhat salty, too, a reminder of where they were at the moment.

  But is it THE moment?

  It seemed they were heading toward it. This is a good thing. This is the plan. Still, Lara found herself looking down when their lips parted. Not to be demure. She was straining to stay cool. To avoid revealing what was going on in her head—and other parts of her body.

  Clay broke the silence. “Well.”

  “Yes. Well.”

  Clay’s hand dropped from Lara’s face to her thigh, warming her leg as he stroked it through the thin cotton.

  “This is getting to be a much more exciting day than I had originally planned,” Clay said.

  “What was your original plan?” Lara could feel his gaze, but still averted her eyes.

  “Pick up a car. Drive around.”

  He kissed her neck. Right below the ear. Ah, yes. Lara closed her eyes and tilted her head back to make it easier for him. She felt herself sinking. Willingly. Into the car seat’s embrace. Into a spell. Into the dark corners of her mind. Clay moved his hand along the curve of her hip to her waist.

  Lara exhaled and sank even deeper. “What is your plan now?”

  Clay tugged on the seat belt and grunted. “Tight fit in here,” he said.

  Watching as Clay’s elbow bumped first the shifter, then the steering wheel, then the head rest, Lara could see things weren’t likely to go much further in this setting.

  Maybe the hood…

  “I think we need a little space,” she said.

  Clay nodded and extricated himself from the cabin. Lara watched from her side of the car as he stretched out a charley horse in his shoulder.

  “So, are you coming over here, or do I have to come over there?” he said with a sneaky smile.

  “We could meet halfway,” Lara responded, mimicking his look.

  She nonchalantly moved forward to rest her arms on the foxy rake of the LFA’s roof. But the blazing sun had cooked the steel there as hot as a stovetop, making Lara’s next maneuver—a spastic recoil accompanied by a pitiful yelp—anything but nonchalant.

  She rubbed her arms where they’d been scorched by the searing metal.

  Clay zipped to her aid. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, geez, it’s just a little—”<
br />
  She couldn’t even finish the sentence before Clay grunted.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Clay rubbed a spot under his arm.

  “Nothing…”

  “No, what?”

  He pushed gingerly between two ribs. “It’s stupid. I wasn’t paying attention and banged into the door.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Forget it. Let me have a look here.” Clay lifted Lara’s arms so he could see the underside of her wrists. “Doesn’t look so bad.”

  “Oh, now you’re a doctor?”

  “No. And I don’t play one on TV,” Clay said. “But this much I know: Scientific studies show that simply touching any part of a woman is good for a man’s health. Elevates his heart rate.”

  “Fascinating. But who’s the patient?”

  “Good question.” Clay kissed Lara on one wrist, then the other. Then he continued kissing her arm all the way to her shoulder.

  Feeling better already...

  Lara took a deep breath. Clay moved closer until his body pressed against hers. And then pressed her body against the gutter that ran along the roofline above the car door, giving Lara a clear notion of what it must feel like to be branded. She jerked forward, ramming Clay’s nose with her shoulder.

  “Omigod! I’m so sorry!”

  Clay’s lips moved, but his face was clenched so tightly that no words came out.

  “Are you bleeding?”

  “No—no. Just a little bump.” Clay opened his eyes as far as he could in an attempt to illustrate his point. “See? Good as—”

  He sneezed.

  Lara yelped again.

  “That was suave.” Clay daubed Lara’s cheek with his sleeve. “I’ll have to add that to the Pit Stop Blog: ‘How not to blow it by sneezing on your date.’”

  Lara burst out laughing. “It is a fun car, but it’s got its drawbacks.”

  “I’ll use that line in my review.”

  Lara stopped laughing when she saw a dime-size spot of blood on Clay’s shirt. “You are hurt.”

  The sight of the crimson circle only made Clay laugh harder. “I’ve been going through a lot of shirts since I met you.”