The Curve

by Noelle Bodhaine

  The Curve

  Copyright 2016 Noelle Bodhaine

  First ebook edition: September 22, 2016

  Cover Design by Tiffany Huegele

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976,

  No part may be reproduced, distributed,

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, stored in a database, retrieval system,

  without prior written permission of the publisher.

  Authors Note:

  All events and people described in this story are fictional and a product of the writers imagination.

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-153764406

  ISBN-10: 1537644068

  This book is dedicated to you

  You taught me to appreciate the curve

  to anticipate the curve

  to plan for the curve

  and to master the curve

  You are the greatest curve of my life

  my favorite curve

  Pre-Race

  My Daddy always preferred his cars above all else, except me and mommy of course. It was all he could talk about. From the moment I could hold a wrench, he had me under the hood with him learning all the components of an engine. I was his right hand and I loved it, loved the grease under my fingernails, loved the smell of gasoline and the sound of a roaring engine. This was my Dads world and I wanted to be a part of it, I was a part of it.

  Other little girls had dolls; I had Hot Wheels, thousands of them. The only little girl you would see running around the side of a track, a tiny, honorary member of his pit crew. I had my very own jumpsuit, pink, of course, my mother insisted, the team’s emblem emblazoned across my back and Daddy’s number on my arm, 9. I was a little mascot for his racing team. When he would win he would hoist me up onto his powerful shoulders and sitting high above the crowd I could see all the people cheering; cheering for my Dad, cheering because we won. My mom was a good racing wife; she loved the cars almost as much as he did. She was at every race, every time trial. When my Dad was on the road, we were all on the road and we liked it that way. Racing was our life.

  For five years he ran the track like nobody’s business. No one could catch him, he and my uncle Robert and the rest of his crew finally had that unstoppable car and he was a juggernaut, but his dreams weren’t in Indiana, it wasn’t the Indy Car that was his destiny. It was the F1. Ever since they were boys Daddy and Uncle Robert had dreamed of racing in The Grand Prix, it had always captured their imaginations and he was primed to cross over.

  When I was 11 years old, after winning his 2nd consecutive Indy car he got the call he had been waiting for his entire racing career, the call we had all been waiting for. Cooper was developing a new car, and they wanted my Daddy to drive it. I didn’t know who was more excited, him or my mom. She squealed and jumped into his arms, planting the most disgusting, long sloppy kiss on him. I cringed and looked away before he swept me up into his arms with a laugh and swung me and Mom around the room.

  “Finally taking my girls to Europe! We did it!” He bellowed kissing first the top of my head then my mother again before putting us both down. Before I even had a chance to take a breath the phone began to ring and the throng set in.

  I watched as our circle of friends exploded and changed overnight. Within weeks our house had been packed and we were moved to a little town outside of Cheshire in England. Daddy said England would be the perfect home base for us and mommy agreed. I didn’t care where we were as long as he kept his promise to teach me to drive and I could still travel with him.

  The house we were moved into seemed like a castle to me. It was all stone, with tall spires and more rooms than I could have ever explored. It felt old and grand and made me feel like a princess. It was nothing like our little one-story bungalow with a tiny yard.

  He started training immediately. There was a time track less than a mile from our house, I could walk there when the weather was nice and I always went straight after school to watch him whip around those bends. It was always such a rush when the car would whiz by, taking my hair into the air by the sheer force of its inertia. I loved the feeling in my heart when the cars flew by as if they were racing through my veins. Racing was in my blood. My Daddy made sure of that and I loved it just as much as he did. My hands itched to wrap around a small leather steering wheel, my feet ached to press down on the small gas pedal and feel the power of an engine pull me across the asphalt. I was my father’s daughter, I was a racer.

  Momma didn’t really agree with this, and as much as she loved racing and my father, she was adamant. She did not want me to go into racing and she didn’t want him filling my head with possibilities. I was too smart for that, she said, my potential lay elsewhere. But I knew she was wrong. Every cell in my body, even at 11 knew that I was destined to race. To drive the cars my Daddy drove, to break records, to live fast.

  Chapter 1

  No Substitute

  It was raining after school so I went straight home rather than going to the track. I was helping Momma put away the shopping when Daddy traipsed in the backdoor calling her name.

  “Sonja!” I heard him tap his boots before I heard another set of feet. “Sonja!” His voice grew louder and I heard his boots drop to the floor in the mudroom. “Just leave your shoes there. Don’t want to anger the wife on the first meeting.” I came around the corner just as he was filling up to call Mommy again, “Son…oh there’s my princess!” He swept me into his arms and kissed me softly on the top of my head like he always did, swinging me around wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Where is your mother?” He asked pulling me down the hallway. I craned my neck to look over his shoulder at who accompanied him but he just kept moving, calling for mom.

  “Sonja!”

  “What is it?” Exasperated she peeked around the corner from the kitchen, “I am right here.”

  “There’s my beautiful wife. Come” He let me go and motioned to the man behind him.

  “Sonja,” he pulled her into his arms and kissed her lips before spinning her around, “there is someone I would like you to meet.” I moved behind my dad so I could get a better look without staring. “Sonja, this is Kelley. Kelley, this is Sonja.” He moved back to allow them to shake hands before his excitement got the better of him and he moved between them. “Kelley is new to the team and I’ve decided to take him under my wing.” He was tall and lithe with dark hair and a sweet, crooked smile.

  “Well that is very exciting,” my mother returned warmly. “It’s lovely to meet you, Kelley, please make yourself at home.”

  “Yes!” My father exclaimed, pulling out a bar stool. “Make yourself comfortable, take a seat. Kiki,” he turned to me. “Grab us a couple of beers please.” I glanced only momentarily at Kelley, wondering if he was even old enough to drink before I obeyed.

  “Yes, Sir.” I moved around my mother to the icebox and grabbed two bottles of Boddingtons and removed the magnetic bottle opener from the door, handing it to my Dad before placing the beers in front of them both. I didn’t look at Kelley but focused on my Daddy. He had never talked about a racing partner, I wondered if he was upset? He didn’t look upset, but Kelley looked young. What did this mean? They had just given him the car, why would they be bringing in someone younger? I didn’t understand but I surmised quickly that perhaps it wasn’t for me to understand and I let it go.

  “This here is my daughter, Makayla,” daddy offered as he opened the top on Kelley’s beer. “Call her Kiki.”

  “Hi,” I returned shyly still not meeting his eyes.

  “Nice to meet you, Kiki” He muttered
before taking a long drink of the beer Daddy just handed him. I watched him for a moment as they launched into car talk. I watched his full lips as they pursed to take another drink. He had a clean, handsome face, dark brown eyes and nice teeth. His fingernails were a bit dirty and his hands looked rough but strong.

  I stayed back in the kitchen to help Momma while they moved into the study. When mom finally let me go I peeked into the study to see them still talking. Kelley seemed to hang on every word my dad said, nodding his head excitedly, agreeing profusely. For weeks Kelley came home with Daddy every Tuesday and Thursday.

  “He is my protégé Makayla, it is my job, to help him learn; to guide him and make him a great racer. Don’t be jealous my little princess, it’s not a pretty color.”

  “But Daddy,” I said, shifting in his lap, “I am your protégé.”

  “Yes, princess you are. You are my little racing protégé. But right now, I have to focus on Kelley. You understand right?”

  I did, but I didn’t. I knew I was only 11, but I had potential, Daddy had said so. His pit boss Mike said so, Uncle Robert said so, and I had spent my entire life around cars, so why couldn’t I be the protégé? Why couldn’t he spend that time with me? I missed racing with him, being under the hood, but lately, all he had time for was Kelley. We are preparing for a Grand Prix Kiki, he would say, just hang tight princess, your turn will come.

  Kelley became a fixture in our house, a fixture that buggered the pants off of me. He would come and bring my mom flowers or a bottle of local beer for my Dad, always sucking up, always in my face. His smug smile when he would come through the door made my young blood boil. “Well hello, little Kiki.”

  “Don’t call me little,” I returned with a huff and he just laughed, rustling my hair. I moved out from under his hand and straightened my hair, staring daggers at him. “I am not little.” We stood staring for a long moment before my sassy tongue got the best of me. “Don’t you have a home of your own?” He flinched almost imperceptibly before he stepped closer to me and lowered his head to answer my brattiness, I knew he didn’t.

  “I apologize if I am getting on your nerves little one. I’ll try to stay out of your way.” He winked as he ran a finger down my cheek before stepping around me and disappearing into the study, closing the door behind him. I stomped up the stairs muttering a list of everything I hated about him under my breath. His stupid wavy chestnut hair, that stupid crooked grin he wore. I hated his accent, his smell, the clothes he wore and the words he said. Why was he so tall? It was stupid, and those big hands? What an oaf. I pulled out my journal and started to jot it all down.

  The way he crinkled his eyes when he laughed, yes, I hated that too, and the way he whistled when he chopped vegetables with my mom. God, he got on my nerves, and because of him I hardly ever got to see my Daddy anymore, much less be alone with him. I hardly ever got to go to the track and when I did it was all about Kelley. Come watch Kelley, Kiki, Kelley has real potential Kiki, you could learn a thing or two from Kelley, Kiki. It didn’t help my level of disdain for him and made me not want to go to the track anymore.

  Momma knew I was upset and did everything she could to try and make it right. She put me in riding lessons and the horses were ok, but I missed the garage. Missed the smell of the motor oil, the sound of my dad tinkering, the roar of his engine. Horse dung and stables were no substitute.

  Chapter 2

  Just a Kid

  I watched him glide around the track, so fluid the car became merely an extension of who he was. He was smooth and controlled and calculated. Kelley, on the other hand, was reckless. His speed increased and decreased so many times it gave me whiplash to watch.

  They were testing a new clutch and clearly he was struggling. The car jerked and stalled as Daddy drove by with a wave. I could see Kelley hit the steering wheel with both hands in frustration before gesturing to the pit crew. They ran out and pushed his car into the pit as he climbed out and threw his helmet to the ground in a tantrum. I smiled to myself as he looked up and caught me. He tipped his chin and put two fingers to his temple in salute like he always did, and I ignored him like I always did.

  Daddy finished his lap and pulled into the pit behind Kelley, his mood markedly different. He hopped out and shook Uncle Roberts’s hand, patting him on the back. They rounded the car, Robert hanging on his every word as he broke down the run to them. They began to roll the car back into the garage when he looked up at me and put three fingers to his lips and winked. That was our sign, what he always did when he was on the track, so I knew he was looking for me. My heart soared, but as quickly as it took off it plummeted back to earth when Kelley sauntered into my line of sight, into Daddy’s line of sight. His attention immediately waned and he threw his arm around Kelley’s shoulder as Kelley sulked and they walked into the garage and away from me.

  Within a few months, Daddy and Kelley were like superstars, at least in my eyes. Everywhere we went people would ask my Dad for his autograph, which rarely happened at home. He and Kelley went on some program called Top Gear and they had to drive a Hyundai.

  Daddy made good time but Kelley rolled, ever reckless and a showoff. The girls at my school started wanting to be my friend suddenly after the newspapers printed a picture of me on my Daddy’s shoulder after their last race with Kelley standing next to him.

  “Does he come over? Does he have a girlfriend?” I didn’t understand why they cared. If they knew him they would know that he was just annoying. And who the hell cared if he had a girlfriend? You’re eleven! Get a grip

  Pictures of Kelley started popping up everywhere with young socialites, or at least that is what mommy called them. To me, they looked like all the other groupies I had ever seen. I had heard mommy talk about them, Track Girls, she called them. I had noticed the girls who hung around the track but didn’t seem to belong there. I wasn’t totally ignorant of the way these women behaved because of the status of my father and the other drivers.

  I was personally glad Kelley had found other ways to occupy his time; I was tired of him always being here, but for some reason this worried my mom. Daddy came home from the track without him the next day momma pulled him into his study and closed the door. I pretended not to care at first but my curiosity got the best of me and I pressed my ear to the door and listened.

  “You need to get a handle on him, Dale. That boy depends on you, depends on us. He doesn’t have anybody looking out for him, for the real him.”

  “He will be fine Sonja, he is young and having a bit of fun. Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “Darn it, Dale, we have both seen this happen, he needs your guidance. Not just on the track but off of it as well. You know this, you have been through it.”

  “Ha!” He chuckled “Not like this, Love. Never like this.”

  “Baby, that’s exactly what I mean. He needs to keep his regular dinners with us, he needs someone to answer to, and someone that he knows cares for him. Not the racer, but the boy.”

  “He isn’t a boy, Sonja, that’s your first mistake. He is a man, and I am not his father.”

  “No, but you’re as good as, he looks up to you, he has become a part of our family and I don’t want to see him being thrown to the wolves. He may be a man, but he is also still very much a boy. A boy who needs the firm guidance of a well-formed man. Family is an important foundation that keeps people grounded when the world is pulling them into the clouds. It was your dad that kept you grounded, kept you accountable. You talk about his potential but it will be squandered away if you don’t intervene.”

  “Now you are being dramatic, Sonja. I do not need to intervene; the boy hasn’t done anything wrong. He is just running around with a few girls, that’s all. He is still on the track bright and early every morning, still fully committed to his goals and to our team. He is blowing off a bit of steam. We have all done it at that age, you and I were just lucky enough to be nobodies so we didn’t have press following our every move
. You know he is a good boy. I will make sure he keeps coming for dinner and keeping up on his responsibilities. I will talk to him….a bit. But I won’t promise anything, and I am damn sure not going to tell him to stop being young and having fun. As long as what he is doing on his free time isn’t affecting his driving, I don’t care what or who he does.”

  “I wonder if you would take the same opinion with your daughter.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t, but that’s my princess. Kelley is 18, and not my son. I care for the boy Sonja, and I will do everything I can to help him succeed. To help us all succeed, but I won’t tell him how to live. That is not my job.” I heard Daddy move towards the door and I darted down the hallway before I could be discovered. After that conversation, Kelley was at our house every Wednesday and Sunday for dinner, like clockwork. I got used to him and he didn’t bother me so much anymore. I understood what Mommy was saying, and even though I resented the hell out of him for taking my dad away I knew how lucky I was, and how unlucky he had been. It wouldn’t kill me to share, I suppose.

  I came to count on his coming to dinner more quickly than I would have thought. They would sit in his study and have a beer while mom made dinner, sometimes Kelley would help me with my homework, sometimes I would watch film with them. Every once in a while, I would say the right thing or make a clever observation and Kelley would wink.

  I wasn’t hating him so much anymore. It was when he brought a girl to our house one Sunday for supper that everything changed. No, she wasn’t a girl, she was a woman; a woman who made me so aware of the fact that I was just a little girl that I immediately hated her.

  Kelley sat with his arm around her while they talked about the upcoming qualifying runs. She sipped her wine but didn’t say much most of the night. She just agreed with whatever Kelley said and smiled at my mother like she was trying to sell her something, but what, I wasn’t sure. I knew I didn’t like her, but I wasn’t sure why. When she and Kelley left that night I watched them through the front room window. He walked her to the car, his hand always at the small of her back, opening the car door for her, yet she hardly seemed to notice. As he rounded the car she flipped the mirror down and checked her makeup before leaning over and kissing him once he was in his seat. I turned away and stomped upstairs, totally, inexplicably annoyed.