by Naomi Niles
Chapter Nine
Darren
Talking to the girls turned out to have been all the preparation I needed. Penny was like a bolt out of a blue sky, someone too good for this world. Talking to her felt like downing a whole package of Pixie Stix. My head felt light, and I could feel adrenaline pumping through me as I slid behind the wheel of the Mustang.
In the rearview mirror, I could see her and her friend heading off toward the stands together, squinting against the sun. It was hard to tell from the look on her face whether or not she had enjoyed the conversation. The only thing I knew for sure was how adorable she looked. She was wearing a white and yellow t-shirt with a large smiley face on the front of it. When we had first met a few days ago, her hair was so long I thought maybe she was Amish, but now she had cut it above the shoulders, and it really brought out the girlishness of her face.
She was so little I could have easily wrapped her up in my arms and tucked her under my chin. I wanted to do it, but I didn’t want to scare her away when we’d only just met. Maybe if I won the race, she would run up and hug me herself.
I could feel my heart racing as I turned the key in the ignition. In the distance, I could hear the announcers giving instructions, but I barely listened. I already knew what needed to be done. I was ready.
The crowd in the stands was on its feet cheering. A boy in a red t-shirt held up a half-eaten hot dog in one hand as if waving a flag. Beside him his father peered through binoculars down at us, a smile of anticipation on his face. I looked for Nic and Penny but didn’t see them; they had disappeared into the crowd.
With two minutes to start time, Dickie came running up and tapped on the window.
“You sure we fixed this thing up, right?” I asked him as I revved the engine. “I don’t want pieces flying off.”
“You’re the one who tested it, not me,” Dickie shrugged.
“I don’t care if it turns into the Eye of Sauron as long as it gets me over the finish line. I’m going to be pretty damned disappointed if I end up losing forty thousand dollars to Adam.”
“There are some humiliations that can never be lived down,” Dickie said solemnly. “You may have to leave town.”
“If you find the remains of a body in the flaming wreck of this car, don’t worry too much about it. I’ll be on my way to Jamaica to start a new life.”
“It would help if you had the money before you escaped to the Tropics,” he pointed out. “But if anyone asks, I’ll pretend like I don’t know anything.”
I reached my hand through the window and gave him a fist bump. “You always were a good friend to me.”
By now, all the cars on the strip were revving up. Darren turned with a pleased look and trotted off toward the stands. I adjusted my rearview mirror so I could see Adam; his eyes were rooted to the road in front of him, and his lips were silently moving as though in prayer.
The next few moments seemed to pass in an instant. I heard the voice of the announcer telling us the race was starting. He told us to go, and we went. I flew down the runway with the other three cars in close pursuit. The stands vanished into the distance, replaced by the green and blue blur of fields and skies to left and right.
Soon, two of the cars had fallen behind, and Adam remained my only real competitor. He lagged behind by only a few inches and was gaining fast. By this point in the race, my reflexes were automatic. I had given up thinking and was running on adrenaline and instinct. I pressed hard on the accelerator until I had placed a few feet of distance between us.
That was all I needed. Within a few seconds, I had shot across the finish line with Adam at my heels. Behind us, I could hear the roar of the crowd. I tried to imagine the elation on Penny’s face when she saw I had won—shooting up out of her seat with her fist in the air and my name on her lips, the announcer shouting, “I give you… Darren!”
Somehow, I had forgotten all about the money until Adam came walking up to me and shook my hand. “Well, you really did it,” he said. “I didn’t think you could do it.”
“You should learn to have more faith in me, Adam.”
“You certainly have enough faith in yourself.” He waited a beat before adding, “What are you going to do now with all that money?”
“Probably buy a million Pixie Stix.” It was a weirdly Penny-ish thing to say, and he looked at me as though wondering if I was okay. “Or I might splurge it all on a single very nice dinner.”
“It had better be a hell of a dinner,” said Adam.
But before I could answer, Nic and Penny came running up to us. Penny was beaming, and even the smile on her shirt seemed happier than before. Just when it seemed like she was going to attack me with a hug, she slowed and hung back slightly with a shy look on her face.
“I can’t believe you won!” she exclaimed in that adorable voice. “I told Nic you were going to win, but she didn’t believe me.”
“Pen, you weren’t supposed to say that,” moaned Nic. She always seemed frustrated with Penny, but Penny either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“I know you couldn’t see me smiling at you, but I was. I bet that was what powered you over the finish line.”
“It definitely was,” I replied. “I’d never have won if it wasn’t for you.”
“See? Look at me being a good influence.”
“I’ll have to find some way to repay you.” I thought about it for a minute before asking, “Would you like to sit in the driver’s seat?”
Penny raised herself up, and her eyes lit up. “Are you for real? I’d love to!”
I opened the door, and she slid into the driver’s seat with the ease and assurance of a professional driver. She was so little, it was a wonder she could see over the steering wheel. “I’ve always wanted to drive one of these things,” she said quietly. “Growing up, my dad and I used to watch the races together on TV. And I tried to imagine how it would feel to be behind the wheel of a fast car and to hear the crowds cheering my name.”
“If you want, I’ll cheer your name for you.”
Penny rolled her eyes and smiled. “You’re welcome to. I just wish there were a few thousand more of you.”
“Well, that’s the great thing about me,” I replied. “There’s only one of me.”
Stifling a laugh, she reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror. “Do you think Adam likes me?” she asked in a whisper. “He’s been acting flirty ever since we met.”
Whatever high I had been on since the end of the race dissipated in an instant. A shudder of disappointment rippled through me as I watched her watching Adam. It really seemed like Penny was into me, but apparently, my confidence had been misplaced. Penny liked Adam; she had liked him all along. I wasn’t the hero; I was just a side character in someone else’s romance.
It was hard to feel excited about my money knowing I had been wrong about her. I might have won the race, but I had lost the prize.
Just then, however, I heard something that was arguably worse than the sound of my heart breaking. A glance in the rearview mirror confirmed my suspicions: the police had found out about us. A small army of police cars was swarming the strip. We were all about to be busted.
“Shoot!” shouted Penny, gripping the steering wheel tightly. It was an absurd thought at the moment, but I wondered if she had ever cussed before. “Are we about to be arrested?”
“Not if we drive like hell.”
“I don’t have time to switch seats with you!” she exclaimed. But before I could answer, she sat up with a look of miraculous calm and said, “It’s okay; I’ve got this.”
“Do you think—”
But before I could finish the question, I was jerked back, and the words were ripped from my throat. Penny had taken off over the strip with the cops in fast pursuit, and we were either going to hell or prison, but judging from the look of manic delight in her eyes, it seemed clear that she didn’t care which.
Chapter Ten
Penny
I had seen polic
e chases on TV, but had never been in one myself. I had only broken the law once in my life during a trip to New York City, and that had been on accident. And luckily that time nobody had caught me.
So running from the police was a new experience. It was like being in a real adventure. I don’t know if Darren enjoyed it as much as I did. He looked scared. He held onto the grab-handle like he was afraid of being flung out if I slammed too hard on the brakes.
But the car didn’t slow down, and we didn’t make any sudden stops. It helped that we weren’t the only ones in the chase; Adam and the other guys were zipping along beside us like we were in an actual race. I gave Adam a thumbs-up, and he winked at me just before he accelerated and took off.
“They can’t catch all of us,” said Darren, who had finally caught his breath. “They’ll have to pick one.”
“It’s like a race where the prize is not going to prison,” I said in excitement. “I love it!”
Darren shook his head incredulously. I laughed; I couldn’t help it. Sometimes I thought maybe I was too much for him.
Eventually, we did manage to escape from the police. I waited until they swarmed the driver behind us when they were too distracted to be paying much attention to where we were going. At that point, I made a sudden sharp turn to the left, down a couple of side streets, ultimately bringing the Mustang to a stop in the shade of a large bridge.
Darren looked like he had gotten the wind knocked out of him. He kept breathing in and out like a man who had almost drowned. I could feel my adrenaline flowing. I felt giddy and light-headed, the way I had felt the one time I had ever been truly drunk, and I felt a crazed urge to reach over and throw my arms around him. But we were both sweaty and smelly and badly in need of showers.
“I don’t know if I could’ve pulled that off,” said Darren.
“I mean, you did just win forty thousand in a race.”
“I feel like maybe you deserve that money more than me. It’s pretty impressive considering you can barely see over the steering wheel.”
“Just because I’m short doesn’t mean I’m not fast.”
We stayed there hidden under the bridge for another hour until we felt it was safe to come out. Once we were startled by a knock at the window, but it was just a homeless man begging for money. We laughed with relief, and I gave him what I could find in my purse.
***
“So, did you sleep with him?”
It was Monday morning, and there was no one else in the store but me and Nic. She’d been gone for most of the weekend, and this was the first time I had seen her since the race on Saturday. Lazy rays of golden sunlight drifted in through the front windows, bathing the store in a serene glow.
“What? Of course I didn’t sleep with him,” I said in an offended tone. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you had just escaped from the police. I bet your adrenaline was flowing. Those are the kind of moments when things happen.”
“Well, nothing happened. He probably thinks I’m crazy because I outran the police and because I couldn’t stop laughing.”
“That would terrify me if I didn’t know you better. On the other hand, if he’s still into you after that, you’ll know he’s not the sort of person who scares easily.”
“I think I should do that with every boy I meet: take them on a terrifying adventure, and if they still want to be my friend when it’s over, then we can get married.”
“Or you could just sleep with him. It’s not that big of a deal.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this. Nic and I had drastically different views on the meaning and importance of sex. She thought it was the sort of thing you could do casually, like telling someone your middle name. I never understood that attitude. For me, sex wasn’t something you did with just anybody. I was still holding out for the right person. When I finally did it, I wanted it to be special.
“I bet Darren would love to get nasty with you,” said Nic as she wound the clock that hung on the back wall.
“See, when you phrase it like that, it doesn’t sound very appealing,” I pointed out. “I don’t want to ‘get nasty’ with someone—even someone I love. I don’t want to do nasty things.”
Nic placed the back of her hand over my forehead as though checking my temperature. “Bless your innocent heart,” she said. “It makes the rest of us look terrible.”
“If I wanted to get nasty, I would go to the zoo.”
“Please don’t ever say that in public.”
Just then, the front door opened, and Adam came walking into the store. He was wearing a shirt the exact color of his scruffy beard and a pair of cargo pants with a large grease stain across the front. He approached the counter slowly as though hesitant to talk to us.
“What was that tune you were whistling just now?” asked Nic by way of greeting. “I could swear I had heard it before.”
“It’s from The Lord of the Rings.”
“That’s right! I had a boyfriend in high school who forced me to watch those movies.”
“I don’t think you want to criticize ‘those movies’ in front of me,” said Adam, pointing to his shirt which displayed a cartoon portrait of Gimli the Dwarf. “There are three types of people I will never tolerate: fascists, white supremacists, and Tolkien-haters.”
“Yikes,” Nic muttered under her breath. Aloud, she said, “You must be having a hard time lately. I can’t imagine losing forty thousand dollars was easy for you.”
“Okay, I didn’t lose forty thousand dollars,” he said with a smirk. “I just didn’t win it; someone else did.”
“Oh, well excuse me. It couldn’t have been easy not winning the forty thousand—especially knowing Darren won it.”
Adam blinked rapidly and flashed his teeth repeatedly as though trying to think of a rebuttal, but none was forthcoming. “There are worse people it could’ve gone to. I won’t pretend Darren is my favorite person, but I know I can trust him to spend the money wisely. Frankly, I’m just relieved not to be in jail right now.”
“Did they catch the other two guys?” I asked with wide eyes.
“They caught one. Randy is sitting in jail at this moment. But I wouldn’t feel too bad for him. He’s been in and out of jail so often that I’m starting to think he likes it there. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he had deliberately slowed down to let the rest of us get away. So you have him to thank for that.”
“Darn. And all this time I thought I was just faster than the rest of you,” I said sadly. “Don’t tell Darren that.”
Adam raised his arms in a gesture of innocence. “Anyway, the reason I came in here was to see if you could help me with something related to Darren. I know he came in here a few days ago and ordered a part. But he won’t tell me what he ordered, and I was hoping maybe you could tell me.”
“If Darren wouldn’t tell you, what makes you think I’m going to?”
Adam shrugged. “I figured you wouldn’t mind helping a good man out.”
“Well,” I replied, and a smile played at the edges of my mouth, “maybe that’s what I’m doing.”
Again, Adam threw up his hands in the air, but this time with a look of defiance. “Well, you’re being stubborn. I guess I can’t blame you. It was probably pretty thrilling riding in the front seat of his car on Saturday.”
“It was okay,” I said with a shrug.
“But if you don’t want to help me, I’ll just take my business elsewhere. I don’t want to give my money to a couple of lousy Lord of the Rings haters anyway.”
He turned and stormed out of the building. “I actually like Lord of the Rings,” I said, about ten seconds too late.
“Easily offended much?” said Nic, turning on the portable stereo. George Jones’ “The Race Is On” was playing. “At least he’s cute enough that I can sometimes overlook how obnoxious he is.”
“You could find a guy who is both cute and not obnoxious.”
“I’ll believe you when I meet him.” Takin
g a sip of her soda, she added, “Anyway, it’s not like we can give out personal information about customers. He would need a court order.”
“I should probably warn Darren about this.” Reaching into my purse, I pulled out my phone and sent him a short text. “Honestly, why are boys so competitive sometimes?”
“Because they like to impress girls, and because they don’t know any better.”
I shook my head in annoyance. “If a boy wanted to impress me, racing cars would not be the way to do it. He should write a book or something. Become an astronaut. Release all the penguins from the zoo.”
“They would probably all die.”
“Not if he took care of them. The problem with boys is that they think there are only three ways to impress us, and they’re wrong about all three.”
“Hear, hear,” said Nic, raising her soda in the air as though making a toast. “Sometimes, I wish I didn’t like boys so much. Women like you are far more sensible.”
“You’re making me blush,” I said, smiling. “I don’t recommend being single, but it’s not all bad. You can buy a whole bag of grapes and not have to share them with anyone, and if you want to spend the whole night writing, there’s no one to stop you.”
“What about when you just want someone to cuddle? I cuddle with you sometimes, but it’s not the same.”
“Sorry I’m not a boy,” I said sadly.
“It’s okay; you’ll do. What have you got going on tonight?”
I shrugged. “Probably just go home and write and feel sad about my life.”
“What have you got to feel sad about?”
“My dad is dying, and all the boys I know are dumb race-car drivers. I bought myself a jug of pomegranate juice at the whole foods market a couple nights ago, but I can’t get the lid off, and my dad’s hands are too weak to open it. I guess I could ask the nurse, but I keep forgetting. And it’s been a while since I’ve heard a song that I really liked.”
“I’m sorry your life is so hard.”
“It is, though. You don’t even know.”