Sark tapped her pen on the notepad. “Just tell me, okay? What is your favorite food? Say anything. I don’t care!”
Badger sighed. “Bologna on Wonder bread,” he said. “And tomato soup.”
“Fine!” said Sark. She wrote down buffalo in bourbon sauce.
The rest of the interview went along placidly enough, highlighted by Badger’s heartwarming stories of bottle-feeding orphaned fawns and the rescue of his giant turtle. Sark thought she could make quite an appealing press kit out of an expurgated version of Badger’s life story-minus a few DUIs and youthful escapades, that is.
She checked the notes on her clipboard. There was only one more matter to cover. “They asked me to talk to you about our sponsor,” she said, fighting to keep the irritation out of her voice. Why me? she thought. Surely there’s somebody higher up the totem pole who could handle this.
Badger had assumed his earnest retriever expression again. “Oh, yeah. That drug. They said I might have to talk about it in interviews some time.”
“Well, I expect it will come up,” said Sark. “So they want me to give you some pointers in how to deal with it.”
“How about I say I take it regularly and that it works?”
Sark took a deep breath. “You really have no idea what the sponsor is, do you, Badger?”
“Some kinda drug.”
She chose her words carefully and said them slowly to make sure they sank in. “Vagenya is a drug to enhance sexual desire. In women.”
Badger frowned. “I thought that was illegal.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Is that the stuff guys drop in ladies’ drinks to knock ’em out?” He squirmed in his chair. “I sure never needed to do that.”
Suddenly, she had a flash of what a media interview with Badger might be like. She would have to go with him. She would have to devise a signal for shut up. She would make him memorize sound bites. Oh, hell, was it possible simply to hire a Badger impersonator? No, probably not. He was one of a kind, all right. She would have to prepare him for all possible contingencies, and step one was explaining to him just what product his race car would be advertising. Oh, boy.
“No,” she said carefully. “You don’t put Vagenya into a woman’s drink. It’s…um…Do you have Mark Martin’s cell phone number?”
Badger’s eyes widened in bewilderment for an instant, before he realized who had sponsored Mark Martin. “Oh,” he said. “Like Viagra, you mean.”
“Exactly.”
“Oh.” He digested this information for a few anxious moments. “And that’s gonna be my sponsor, huh?”
“Right.”
“So people are gonna give me a hard time about it.”
Sark sighed. “Some of them might.” She repressed a shudder, as she pictured the unauthorized tee shirt slogans. The cartoons on Web sites. Leering woman fans holding up signs at the races: BADGER JENKINS GETS ME HOTTER THAN VAGENYA.
“But I don’t have to say that I use it myself?”
“No. Please, no.”
He brightened at once. “Well, that’s good! Then all I have to say is that it’s a good product and I hope it helps people who need it.” He pulled a box of breath mints out of his pocket and held them up as if posing for the camera. “It’s a good product and I hope it helps people who need it,” he said in tones usually used by finalists in the Miss America pageant. Then he resumed his customarily goofy grin. “Was that okay?”
Slowly, Sark nodded. Now that she thought about it, the combination of Badger and Vagenya might actually work. In interviews, Badger would assume his most earnest guide dog expression and repeat his catchphrase with a worried frown of sincerity every time the subject came up, and only the truly heartless would give him grief about it. Of course, there were a lot of truly heartless people in sports media, but even they would get bored and stop baiting him up after the umpteenth repetition of Badger’s earnest sound bite. If you continue to taunt someone who bears your torment with dignity and grace, eventually the tormenter is the one who looks bad.
Something else might happen, too, she thought: a backlash of sympathy. People said that when Mark Martin first acquired Viagra as a sponsor, the teasing was merciless, but he was so calm and serious about the matter that soon people began to respect him for having the guts to drive for such a potentially embarrassing sponsor and for taking all the taunts with such grace under pressure.
Maybe the same thing would happen to Badger with the Vagenya sponsorship. Maybe this new need for gravitas would reveal a whole new dimension to his personality. She glanced over at Badger, trying to picture him as a dignified elder statesman of Cup racing. He had opened the plastic breath mints box, and now he was tossing a mint into the air and trying to catch it in his mouth.
The dignified elder statesman of Cup racing. Yeah, right.
CHAPTER XII
Once Around the Track
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” said Tuggle, but she could see by the looks on the women’s faces that it would be pointless to argue further. Still, she had to try. “You ladies hired that boy to race. Not to give y’all pony rides.”
One of the socialite types pouted prettily. “But it’s our money,” she said. “And people keep asking me if I’ve gotten to ride in the race car yet, and I’m tired of telling them no.”
“And as you pointed out, Tuggle, we did hire him. It’s our car and our team. I don’t think this little adventure is too much to ask for people who are making all this possible.” Christine Berenson did not raise her voice, but there was stainless steel in every syllable.
Tuggle took a deep breath, swallowing a few sarcastic comments that would have been hazardous to her employment status, and scowled, wondering if further wrangling would be a waste of breath. It probably would be, but she figured she owed it to Badger to try. They were partners, her and him. Crew chief and driver. “It’s like a marriage,” she often said. “Lots of hassling, no sex.” She might be hard on him, in terms of what the team needed from him, and she certainly never cut him any slack, but that didn’t mean she’d let anybody else treat him like a hired hand.
She tried again. “But you see, it’s his day off. He was planning to go home to Georgia. Something about his dad needing him on the farm…”
“Well, we need him here. Anyhow, it won’t take long. There are only ten of us, and at the speeds those cars go, he should be through in an hour at most, surely.”
“So that’s settled,” said Christine. “See about getting a passenger seat fitted in a spare car, and tell Badger that we are so looking forward to this.”
Tuggle sighed. Hell to pay, she thought.
She had been right. Badger Jenkins wasn’t happy about it. “I’m not supposed to hafta be at the track on Thursday,” he said when she told him. “I got things to do.”
“There’s ten of ’em,” Tuggle said. “Every one of them was born with more money than sense, and they’re all spoiled rotten. Do you want to try to tell them why you won’t do it? ’Cause I tried already, and I got nowhere.”
Badger sighed and ran this hand through the bristles of his cropped hair. “You tried to tell them no?”
Tuggle’s voice softened. Sometimes when Badger got that mulish look on his face, he reminded her so much of her long-ago first husband that it made her heart turn over. Maybe if they’d had a son, her and Johnsie. And wouldn’t that have been fresh hell, she told herself, but her voice stayed gentle from the thought of it.
“Did I tell them no? ’Course I did, boy. They paid me no never mind. But, like they said, it wouldn’t take but an hour or so of your day. I guaran-damn-tee you’d spend longer than that trying to talk them out of it.”
Badger turned to look at her, innocence radiating from guileless brown eyes. “They want to ride around the track in the race car wi’me-one at a time.”
“That’s right.” Tuggle smiled. “They said they thought it would be exciting.”
Badger nodded solemnly. “I expect i
t will be,” he said.
The shop dogs had grumbled about the extra work they had to put in to modify the race car, but after all, it was being done for the big wigs, so there wasn’t much point in complaining about it. Everybody knew that it would have to be done, nuisance or not. You keep the owners and the sponsors happy, or you don’t have a job at all. The racing community is the size of a village, and if you prove difficult to work with, pretty soon you won’t get hired by anybody.
The bosses wanted to take a ride-along with Badger, and that was that. Since race cars are strictly one-man vehicles, they had to make some modifications to accommodate a second rider. Even the bosses wouldn’t want them to waste time and money monkeying around with one of the actual Cup cars, so what they needed for this dog-and-pony show was a car that looked like an actual contender but wasn’t, so they built one. By taking the chassis of an old race car and putting a new body on it, they produced a cargo cult version of a race car that looked good, despite the fact that it didn’t run as fast as a primary car. It would go fast enough for civilians, though. When you are hurtling around in tight circles, the difference between 150 and 180 is negligible, especially if you are screaming at the time.
The passenger seat would be as good as the one on the driver’s side, with one major difference: The passenger seat would not be custom-molded to the rider’s body measurements, while the driver’s seat, conforming perfectly to Badger’s size and shape, would fit him like a glove. Tuggle said that even with ten different riders, the passenger seat wouldn’t be a problem, because all the would-be riders were pretty much the same size and shape, anyhow. “Put a dress on the damn jack and use that for your measurements,” she told them. “That ought to work.”
“Gotta alter the setup, too,” one of the mechanics said. “Have to allow for the extra weight of the passenger.”
“Not all that much weight,” said Tuggle, thinking of the stick-figure women. “But figure an extra hundred pounds or so. And make it very drivable-not real loose, not too tight. Don’t worry about maximizing speed. They’ll think they’re going fast enough by the time he hits one fifty, I’ll bet. But I want that car to handle like a dream. We don’t want the boy losing control of the car with serious money on board, all right? They want a thrill, but they sure as hell don’t want a wreck.”
“What about a head rest on the passenger side?” the mechanic asked.
Tuggle thought for a moment. “No,” she said carefully, “might cause a vision problem for the driver. Better leave it off.”
The mechanic started to argue. “But without that head rest-” Then he caught the crew chief’s carefully neutral expression, and a slow grin spread across his face. “Okeydokey, ma’am. You’re the boss. No passenger-side head rest, boys.”
“One more thing,” another shop dog called out.
“What’s that?” said Tuggle.
He grinned. “Can we come watch?”
Early Thursday morning at Lowe’s Motor Speedway was turning into a hot, sunny day, and the place was already a bustle of activity in preparation for the weekend races. At the edge of the track, the newly modified race car sat gleaming in the morning sun, awaiting its masters and commander.
The prospective passengers had all arrived together in a mini-van, which they drove right through the tunnel and up into the infield of the speedway. They had tumbled out of the van, still holding Styrofoam coffee cups and chattering nineteen to the dozen about their forthcoming adventure. They had more cameras than a Mitsubishi press conference. A few moments after their arrival, they had surrounded the car, like a gaggle of meerkats. Tuggle had insisted that each woman be outfitted in a firesuit and helmet for their own protection-as well as to make them hot, uncomfortable, and as awkward as possible going in and out the window of the vehicle. She didn’t want them to enjoy this command performance too much, and if they came away from it with a greater respect for Badger’s skill while working in difficult conditions, so much the better.
After a close but clueless inspection of their newly painted ride, the bosses amused themselves by taking turns photographing each other with the race car in the background, while they assured each other that the firesuits did not make them look fat.
“Before we take any more shots, maybe we should wait for Badger,” one of the older ladies said as another camera clicked.
Sark, who was also on hand to make sure that at least some photos turned out well, smiled reassuringly. “Most of us are shooting digital, Mrs. Wagner,” she said. “So we’ll never run out of film. Now, stand closer together and smile!”
After half an hour or so of posing and chatter, Badger Jenkins stumped out of the hauler, where he had been holed up, ostensibly talking about technical matters with members of the team, but really drinking bottled water and grousing about this additional chore. What was the world coming to when women actually wanted to ride around in race cars instead of pleading with you to stay out of the thing yourself?
If he was still annoyed about it, though, it didn’t show when he emerged from the hauler. His angelic face wore its usual expression of smoldering seriousness, and the opaque sunglasses ensured that his expression would give nothing away. The firesuit did wonders for his image: He actually looked taller when he was wearing that thing. He looked, in fact, wise and powerful and devastatingly competent. Even Tuggle, who knew better, was impressed by the sight of him.
He shook hands solemnly with each of the waiting passengers, and when most of them insisted on hugging him, he bore that with grave politeness as well, although Tuggle noticed that he kept his hands at his sides and endured the embraces like a child ambushed by maiden aunts. She supposed that celebrities had to become accustomed to being hugged by people who didn’t realize that they were total strangers, because they felt that they knew you. Any Cup driver too squeamish to put up with such familiarity would be branded by fans as temperamental and stuck-up, so most of them did endure it with good grace. She didn’t envy them that part of the job. Tuggle wasn’t close to many people, and she reserved the right to choose who she’d hug and who she wouldn’t. Come to think of it, she couldn’t name a single person that she would hug voluntarily.
She took a long look at Badger. Well, maybe one person…
Whether or not Badger minded the embraces of his starstruck employers and their guests, he was polite about it, and he even posed for pictures longer than Tuggle thought he would. She noticed, though, that during the staging of the photos, he didn’t put his arm around anybody. Badger didn’t talk about feelings much, so you got into the habit of observing his body language for cues to his emotions. The fact that he was careful not to touch any of the guests meant that he was none too pleased to see them. In each photo he stood between two ladies, arms at his sides, facing the camera dead-on, with a look of proud intensity. The women on either side of him might have been trees for all the notice he took of them.
“Hercules and the villagers,” muttered Tuggle.
“What?” said Sark, who had been deputized to snap the official group portrait with her own camera and then with half a dozen others belonging to the ladies. There was talk of posting the photo on the team Web site, which meant that she would have to get everyone’s name and do an accompanying write-up as well. “Did you say Hercules?”
Tuggle nodded. “That’s what he looks like,” she said. “Badger. Like some Hollywood hero posing with a passel of anonymous walk-on types in the cast for the publicity photos. Like he’s the star of the movie.”
Sark shrugged. “Well, isn’t he?”
“Maybe so. But I have a suspicion that those women don’t think he outshines them. Remember they’re rich and prominent their own selves. I reckon they think of him as a cuddly pet they picked up at a dog pound. I just hope two things. One, that they don’t insult him, or hug him anymore for that matter. He’d hate that just as much. And two, that he remembers that one of these mud hens signs his checks.”
“Insult him?” said Sark.
/> “Oh, you know how people are about race car drivers. They might think it was cute to call him a redneck or say that he was dumb. You know how city people are about anybody who doesn’t live in a concrete anthill. Or they might make the sort of raunchy remark to him that they themselves would never put up with coming from a man.”
“Well, a lot of people think sexual harassment is a one-way street,” said Sark. “I doubt if any of them would consider a sexual proposition to him as an insult. These women are all rich and well-preserved. Maybe they’d think he’d be flattered if they hit on him.”
“More fool they then,” grunted Tuggle. “He’s got more pride than sense, does Badger, and they’d better show him some respect.”
Sark put the camera back up to her eyes, waving for the group to pack in closer together. A tall storklike blonde used this instruction as an excuse to slip her arm around Badger’s waist and pull him closer. “I always wanted a boy toy!” she declared.
Badger’s smile did not waver, but Sark noticed a glint in his eyes that had not been there before. She snapped pictures in rapid succession, varying the shots by changing her angle and proximity to the subjects, rather than by giving them any further instructions on how to pose. She thought they’d better get the photo session over with before things got any worse. “He sure photographs well,” she murmured to Tuggle.
“He damn well better,” said Tuggle. “There’s a couple thousand guys can drive a race car, and only forty-three slots in Cup, give or take a Bodine. Back in my daddy’s day you could look like a small-town insurance agent and make it out there, but not now. Not anymore.” She remembered a photo taken at a motorsports banquet back in the early sixties-half a dozen of the greatest drivers of the time posed together, all heavy-set, middle-aged men in loud sports jackets. They were indistinguishable from any small town newspaper photo of the local bigwigs; any school board grouping, any Moose Lodge membership portrait would have looked the same. Not anymore, though. Now there were drivers with image consultants and maybe even makeover specialists, for all she knew. Most of the young ones could pass for movie stars these days, or at least for country singers. Well, not the Busch brothers, of course. Sometimes talent did take you places without any help from charm or beauty.
Once Around the Track Page 13