by Claire Adams
“I think I might actually have something for you if you’re interested,” he says.
I smile and shake my head. “I really don’t know enough about cars to work on them,” I tell him. “I mean, I’ve been reading up on combustion engines and the history of the automobile to try to psych myself up—anyway,” I say interrupting myself.
“It’s not that,” he says. “There’s a race coming up—mostly new people. I only know about it because Mick keeps his ear to the ground about that sort of thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” he starts, “I’ve told you how Mick’s better with the theory of racing than he is at actually racing, right?”
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Well, he found out a while ago that if he goes up against people who are still on their first or second races, they won’t know he’s an old-timer,” Eli says. “Once people find out you’ve been doing this a while, they’re less likely to bet big. Mick, in his infinite lack of benevolence, likes to be the lesson new people around here have to learn.”
“What’s that?”
“That you never go up against someone who’s both interested in racing you and has been doing it for a while,” Eli answers. “When you’re new, you feel ready to take on anyone, but after a few big losses, you start to be a lot more selective about who you choose to go up against.”
“Whom,” I correct. Apparently being away from my mother has caused me to pick up at least one of her more annoying quirks.
Eli raises an eyebrow at me, but we’re both smiling. “Anyway,” he says, “I told Mick to hold off on poaching because I didn’t know if you might want to try to get into it. We can talk about that later, though, if you want.”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m going to have to think about that. I mean, it’s not like my Accord is going to be able to hold up against too much out there.”
“Obviously, you’d want to take the Chevelle,” he says.
At first it comes off like an accusation, but his expression is blank. If it’s a joke or an insult, he’s gotten a much better poker face than the last time I saw him.
“You’d do that?” I ask. “That thing’s your baby, though.”
“It’s a car,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t let just anyone take the thing out, but ever since we first got together, you’ve only ever really asked me for one thing: to teach you to race.”
“Is that really the foundation of our relationship?” I ask myself just as much as Eli.
“No,” he says. “The foundation of our relationship is that we’re both incredibly attractive and delightful to be around. I just thought this might be a fun way to make a little money. If you’re not into it, that’s totally cool, though.”
“I feel like we’ve gotten a bit off topic, here,” I tell Eli.
“All right,” he says.
“I’m not going to be one of those women who decides we need to learn everything about each other in a night, but I really do think we’re going to need to open up to each other a lot more if we’ve got any chance of making it as a couple,” I tell him.
“I know,” he agrees. He opens his mouth to say more, but he closes it. Eli takes the bottle I’d forgotten I’ve been carrying around with me this whole time and he opens it. He takes a quick swig and hands it back to me uncapped while he coughs and sputters from the taste of the liquor.
If he needs a drink before he feels like he can tell me something, I’m not going to get in the way of him telling it. My guard is up, and I’m ready for whatever he throws at me. Only, what follows isn’t a confession.
“I haven’t exactly had the most respectable life up ‘til now,” Eli says. “You know about the racing and how the money goes through the shop, but there’s a lot of stuff—stuff from before you and I knew each other—that might be good for you to know.”
“Like what?”
He takes the bottle from me again and has another drink.
“Let’s just say, I would have killed to have had overprotective parents when I was a kid,” he says. “Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to start a competition to find out who had worse parents. It’s just—you know, I left home so young. I don’t know. I haven’t been consciously trying to hide anything from you, I guess I’m just trying to say that I see your point and I agree with you.”
“You know, if you could manage saying those last nine or ten words more often, we wouldn’t have any problems,” I tease.
He smirks. “I guess I’ve been so concerned about how you feel about who I am now that I didn’t want to risk screwing things up by telling you the way things used to be,” he says.
Red flag, but we’ll see where it goes.
“All right,” I tell Eli. “Tell me something you haven’t told me before.”
He scratches the back of his neck. “Well,” he starts, “would it surprise you to find out that Ransom isn’t a nickname?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s my middle name,” he says. “My full name is Elias Ransom Faust.”
That’s not the sort of thing I was expecting. “Your parents actually named you Ransom?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “From what I understand, my parents were talking divorce when mom found out she was pregnant. After a couple of paternity tests proved that my dad was, indeed, my dad, they sat down and had a conversation. Basically, the conclusion was that if they got divorced, one of them would end up with custody and would use the kid—me—as a weapon against the other. They agreed that night that they’d stay together until I was eighteen and out on my own.”
“How long did it last?”
“Until I was about six,” I tell her. “To be fair, though, seeing the two of them at the time, I was even surprised they’d made it that long. The idea was that if there was some way they could constantly remind each other what would happen if they couldn’t stay together—that one parent would hold me until some ridiculous set of demands was met—they’d be that much more likely to work out whatever problem they were having at the time and stay together. So, they decided to call a leverage baby a leverage baby and they gave me the middle name ‘Ransom.’ Then, of course, my dad left my mom and took me with him.”
“What happened to your mom?”
This isn’t the exact topic that I was expecting, but he’s communicating. It’s something we can build on.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Dad told me she died a few years after he took me. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I remember enough about her that I don’t want to see her any more than I saw my dad.”
“What do you mean he ‘took’ you?” I ask. “Didn’t he and your mom work something out?”
“Apparently, my middle name didn’t make my dad a better person,” he says. “He didn’t bother telling me the truth until I was about fifteen and, well, by that point, I was already waiting for a reason to cut my losses and get the hell out of there.”
“So the name ended up just being ironic?”
He smirks. “I guess so,” he says. “After that, I took my dad’s car—which was easy enough as the thing already didn’t need a key to start it.”
“That’s why you won’t let go of that car,” I observe. “It’s the only thing you have from your old life.”
“I don’t know if it’s the only thing I have,” Eli says. “I did make sure to bring a few posters along, but yeah. I don’t know, talking about it makes me think it’s pretty stupid to hold onto something like that. Every time I look at the damn thing, I think about my parents. I don’t know. I guess I’d just rather pretend that I got something good out of my childhood and that’s about the only thing I can point out as evidence for something like that.”
“If it breaks down so much, though,” I start, “why not just redo everything under the hood? It’d probably save you money in the long run.”
“Tried that,” he says. “No matter how much work I put into the damn thing, it just wants to die.”
I’m about to say, “Well then, let it,” but I think better of it. “Is it possible that you’re hanging onto it because you’d rather avoid the truth about your parents?”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “I’m confronted with the truth about them every time I get into the damn thing.”
“Okay,” I tell him, “but you’re a guy who likes to fix things. Maybe you’re hanging onto the car because you still believe there’s a way to fix your relationship with your parents or maybe even their relationship with each other.”
“Even if Mom’s still around somewhere, I really don’t see that happening,” he says. “I’m pretty sure if I saw my dad again, it’d end with him in the hospital and me in jail.”
Wow. You know, I’ve heard people say that sort of thing a lot, but this is the first time where I have no doubt that it’s not just talk.
My mind flashes to the image of Mick with his nose splint, and I can’t help but feel a little tingly knowing I’m with a man who’s willing to back up his words with action. At the same time, I don’t really want to encourage violent behavior, so I try not to get too carried away.
“Maybe,” I tell him, “but if that’s the case, why do you still have the car?”
We talk for a long time. We’re just reminiscing over the more interesting parts of our pasts, but even more than that, we’re finally getting back to when it was just easy to talk to each other.
It’s not until the blue of the unrisen morning sun starts bleeding around the sides of the red, French velvet drapes I realize just how much time has gone.
I feel great about the new turn Eli and I are taking together, but I’m tired now.
I don’t know yet if this is going to be the major turning point in our relationship, or if staying up all night talking is just the last best effort we could give. Either way, before I ask Eli if I can crash in his bed, there’s one more thing I have to know.
“So,” I start, “tell me more about this race you want me to enter.”
Chapter Eighteen
Quarter Miles
Eli
“So let me get this straight,” Desi says. “She’s entering a race at your urging, and now you’re not sure whether you want her to go through with it or not?”
Kate’s first race ever is going down in about an hour, but to be honest, I’m a bit nervous. I was fine until she asked if it was against the rules for me to ride shotgun for her run, but for whatever reason, that’s got me completely thrown.
It probably doesn’t look good, but I’m back at the bar chatting with Desi. Rather than go back and forth about this in my own head and probably end up at the wrong decision, though, I’m getting some advice.
After all, she’s the one that got me to start seeing reason after that date went sour with Kate a couple weeks ago.
“I’m just worried it’s going to be too much for her,” I tell Desi. “We’ve gone out a few times with her behind the wheel in the last few days, but that whole time I was there to tell her when to ease off the throttle or when to start turning a little earlier than usual. At the same time, though, I don’t know if I want her getting into the habit of relying on me to be there in the car with her. I don’t think anyone’s going to see it as an advantage, given the extra weight I’ll be adding, but I’m not going to be able to be in the car with her every time if she decides she wants to follow through with this after tonight.”
“What do you mean by after tonight?”
“I’ve tried to bring in a lot of people the way Mick brought me into racing, but almost everyone that’s stuck with it long enough to make a wager ends up walking away from it after their first loss,” I tell her.
“Do you think Kate’s going to lose?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “If you’d have asked me a while ago if I’d let someone take my Chevelle a month or two after they learned how to drive a stick, I’d have said absolutely not. Actually, I would have probably told them to find their own car instead of trying to pad their losses by ruining mine, but Kate, I don’t know. She picks things up so fast, she may just go out there and blow everyone away. Eventually, though, everyone loses a race. It doesn’t matter how talented you are.”
“Are you worried about Kate or are you worried about your car?” she asks.
I lean back, smiling. “You know,” I tell Desi, “it never really occurred to me that Kate might get into a situation she wouldn’t be able to handle. It never occurred to me that she might crash the thing.”
“What were you worried about?” Desi asks, and then leans in close to whisper actual nonsense into my ear. Her smarmy boss walks past and Desi leans back again. “Sorry about that,” she says. “It’s better for my employment if he thinks I’m trying to bilk you out of a few hundred dollars. I hope that didn’t just get weird.”
“Not at all,” I tell her and then pick up where I left off. “I think, more than anything, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s going to give Kate a better shot at winning. If she wasn’t so new, I’d say the additional weight of me and the passenger’s seat would overwhelm any reason for me to ride with her, but you know, she’s still really new at this. She’s great and everything, but it’s only been-”
“Okay,” Desi says, “so, I’m hearing that you’re not so concerned that her safety’s in danger. You have a lot of confidence in her, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. At the same time, though, things happen. I remember when you were first starting out, you had a gear slip or something and you almost ended up driving into the post office. I think the real question you need to ask yourself is whether or not you honestly think it’s going to be safe for Kate to drive your car in the race tonight. She may be a natural, but experience is what teaches us what to do when things don’t go to plan.”
“I threw a rod, but I see your point. You know, she’d probably be safe enough out there on her own, but I know she’ll be safe if I’m in the car to help,” I tell her. “She’s got good instincts, but a little extra might not be a bad thing this early in her career. It’s funny: I never realized how invincible I see her as being. It honestly didn’t occur to me that something could go wrong.”
“It’s sweet that you think of her that way, but it’s not entirely realistic, is it?” Desi asks. “Even if she does everything right, there are still any number of things that could go wrong with the car, or the other racer might not have his game together and that could be just as bad, if not worse.”
“You’re right,” I agree. “Winning or losing isn’t that big a deal, but if something were to happen to Kate…”
“You really think she’s going to stick with this, don’t you? The racing, that is.”
I shrug. “I know it turns her on,” I say. “We don’t always talk racing, but when we do, she’s always at least as enthusiastic about it as I am. When she gave me her number, she said to call if I wanted to give her a ride sometime, and she actually meant in my car.”
Desi purses her lips and looks down at the bar for a second. “Well, it sounds like you know what you want to do,” she says. “Don’t know what more you need me for.”
“Gotta get back to work?”
“I probably should,” she answers. “Thanks for stopping by.”
“Hey, thank you,” I answer. “I’d almost forgotten how great you are with advice.”
“It’s my cross,” Desi says, and within ten seconds, she’s already chatting up some guy in a business suit.
I pull out my phone and send Kate a text, saying, “If you still want me to ride shotgun, I’d be happy to.”
If things go the way they usually go, they’ll be deciding where to race sometime in the next hour or two: plenty of time to go over strategy and maybe even sneak in some alone time before the hands drop.
My phone vibrates and I check the message.
The message reads, “Glad to hear it, but you need to get your butt down to the gas station on Stockholm. It sounds like they’ve almost settled on where to run tonight.
”
That almost never happens. Usually, everyone likes to peacock for a couple of hours before they even think about doing anything. Then again, this is rookie night and a lot of people are looking forward to losing a lot of money.
I put a couple of bucks on the counter to pay for my soda, and I get out to the recently-fixed Galaxie.
The flatbed’s parked around the corner and down the block a ways from the gas station. If the flatbed’s here, Mick’s here. He’d offered to cart the Chevelle around tonight, seeing as how it’s Kate’s first race, and in the interest of continued hatchet-burying, I decided to let him.
I had no idea he’d get here before me.
It takes a minute to find a place to park and a few more minutes to find Kate and Mick, but as soon as they spot me, Mick starts heading for the truck and Kate runs over to give me a quick hug and kiss before we follow.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m either really excited or I’m about to throw up from the nerves. If you’ve been looking for a moment to try to convince me to back out, this is probably it.”
“Do you want to race tonight?”
Her eyes go up and to the left, and she tweaks her mouth a little to one side. “Yeah,” she says. “I want to race tonight.”
“That’s all I need to know,” I tell her. “Let’s get to the start line. Do you know who you’re racing or have you not found anyone yet?”
“I was having a little trouble elbowing my way into anyone’s conversation enough to get that far, but Mick set me up against some guy,” Kate says. “I don’t know what he’s driving, but Mick said he’d never seen the guy around, so at least there’s a fair shot he’s just as new to this as I am.”
“Okay,” I respond as we reach the flatbed. “You’re going to do great.”
I get in the flatbed first so I can sit in the middle. It’s a little weird sitting so close to Mick when there’s another option, but I still don’t know that I trust him around Kate.