Page 58 of Furious

Rita shakes her head. “Nope. I’m invested now. Go find who you need to and hurry back. I’ll be waiting.” She pats me on the hand and then pulls a book out of her bag.

It’s such an ordinary Mom-type thing to say that it brings tears to my eyes. “Thanks,” I whisper as I get out of the van.

Since it’s Sunday, there’s not a race today, but my quick Google search about the Richmond Raceway revealed the track is still open for fans to tour and to buy tickets for races later in the season. Heart in my throat, I hurry away from Rita’s van. My sneakers squeak as I move toward the ticket area. The warm June sun beats across my shoulders. Even though there’s no official race, track sounds fill the air. Engines growl as a pair of drivers do a stunt lap and shop tools buzz in the pits. The smell of asphalt baking in the heat fills the air, and I inhale sharply, taking it in. Memories come flooding back with the smells and sounds.

Blink.

Suddenly, it’s February of this year. Mom, Dad, and I are headed into Daytona before sunrise, avoiding the crowds and RVs already filling the parking lot, and we pull into the drivers’ entrance. Dad drives and Mom has a tight, nervous smile on her face. Incongruously, a Rachmaninoff symphony is playing through the car speakers, the music being one of Mom’s favorite pre-race rituals. Dad’s hand is laced through hers over the center console, their fight at breakfast long forgotten. I’m wearing my gold race car necklace. There’s a moment of perfect family happiness as the three of us wait to be waved through the gate, and the sun breaks over the horizon line, spilling orange-pink light across our faces.

Blink again against the tears welling in my eyes.

Now, I’m seven years old, getting ready to race a division up on the junior kart circuit. Mom is braiding my hair and reminding me that although I’m the smallest one there, I’m also the one none of them will expect to hug the turns like we’ve been practicing.

Blink one more time—this time tears fall from my eyes and trail over my cheeks—and I’m standing at the main entrance to the Richmond Raceway. I run a hand over the cool metal of the ticket counter and take a steadying breath.

A white man in his early twenties peers at me through the plexiglass ticket window. He’s got a baseball cap on backward and a long beard that skims his collarbones. He could be Bad Beard Riley’s brother. “Can I help you? Next tour starts in thirty minutes. If you pay extra, you can even sit inside a real race car. It’s a cool experience. Totally worth the two hundred dollars.”

He gives me a leering look, which I shut down immediately with the scowl Mom taught me early in my racing career. It’s a mean look, all drawn-together eyebrows and hard-shell eyes that say without a word: “Fuck-you-don’t-ogle-me-you-have-no-idea-who-I-am-no-I-don’t-think-you’re-charming.” Mom told me she perfected it in her days as a teenage waitress, and then used it often as she joined the mostly boys’ club of NASCAR.

“I’ve been sitting in race cars since before I could walk,” I say to the guy behind the counter. “I’m here looking for someone. Maxine Blum, maybe you know her?”

Recognition flicks across the guy’s face fast enough that I know he knows who I’m talking about. But he shrugs back. “Never heard of her. Do you want a ticket to the raceway’s self-guided tour or not?”

I buy the ticket, not wanting to linger at the ticket counter. I’m not counting on finding Max in this enormous raceway, especially since I know there are many hallways and rooms that the public never sees, but I owe it to El to at least look around.

Moving away from the ticket counter, I walk toward the closest entrance to the stands. Bleachers tower above the track and I climb them, taking the steps two at a time. When I reach the top, I shield my eyes and watch a car slide into a pit across the track. It’s a messy entrance, and one where the driver fumbles the stop. I would never have waited that long to brake. That’s how accidents happen.

I think of Dad, sitting at home, working on filling orders for online car parts. It’s surreal that he’s not been on a track since Mom died. He used to live on racetracks. Knew everything about every one of them, and even now, if we were speaking, I bet I could call him up and ask him stats on the Richmond Raceway and he’d be able to rattle them off, no problem.

I exhale, sitting on the edge of one of the seats. The metal is boiling from the sun, but I make sure my bare legs aren’t touching it.

Being here reminds me of so much—how my family used to be, what we loved, and all we’ve lost.

But we didn’t just lose Mom on that terrible day in February. We lost our family unit. We lost all the memories we might make together. It kills me sometimes to know that I’ll never take another picture with Mom. That the ones we have in our home or I have on my phone are it. There will be no more photos after that last selfie we snapped of the three of us, right outside Mom’s car before the race.

More tears fall at that thought, and on this already weird day, a day where I’ve woken up beside a girl I’ve only known for a few weeks and been to a super-scary pawnshop, I sit all alone at the top of a grandstand in a strange city and at an unfamiliar track, and let myself really, truly sob for the first time in months. Great heaving spasms of grief break through my careful control. I bury my head in my hands and weep—for my mother and the sunrises she’ll never get to see; for my dad in his loneliness and the half life he’s living; for our family, which was so strong and now is like a tree pulled up and left exposed and broken after a storm; for me and the fact that my mom will never see me win another race; and for my own dreams of racing that feel so very fucking far away.

I sob until I’m nothing but a ragged husk of myself, as empty as the waxy popcorn bag caught between the seats in front of me.

A loud roar pulls me back to the present. I wipe my face on my shirt, trying to find my calm again. Trying to remember why I’m at the Richmond Raceway in the first place. Far below where I sit, the two cars still race around the track, caught in an endless, roaring loop of trying to reach a place they can never arrive at. Each lap is a desperate scramble for position, or a frantic attempt to shave a few extra seconds off their times. I close my eyes, letting the thrill of the race fill me. It rushes into my empty corners, a cocktail of adrenaline and hope and furious need.

I want so very badly to be down there, behind the wheel of my own car, driving against the best in the world. It won’t bring my mom back, but it might help me feel her presence somehow. It might make me miss her less. It might help me heal or move on. My mom’s words rise in my mind: Most of us think if we keep running fast enough, we’ll stay ahead of whatever scares us. There’s a certain feeling I’m always chasing….

My eyes fly open, moving to the place where the cars are now. They’re holding close to the wall, pinning each other in place around a curve, and then the blue car—the car that’s the exact shade as the Hornet, Mom’s favorite car ever—breaks free, twisting slightly to the left, and pulling ahead.

My breath snags raggedly in my throat as the blue car speeds forward. It feels like a sign. Like Mom is there with me now, pushing me forward.

I have to keep going with my dreams. I know it in that moment with such clarity, it nearly knocks me over.

Yes, my family has changed. Yes, my dad might not sign the F1 Academy form. Yes, I’m in Dell’s Hollow and feeling increasingly complex things for El Blum, but that doesn’t mean I have to give up on my dreams.

“I’m not afraid, Mom,” I whisper out loud, even as more tears form in the corners of my eyes. Unlike my soul-breaking sobs, these are tears of hope and promise and the sheer exhausted exhilaration that comes from being on track again.

Before I can swipe at my tears, a loud whoop rises from the bottom of the stands. A small, wiry girl with blond hair stands near the track, roughhousing with a pair of guys. She’s wearing a mechanic’s jumpsuit and waving as the blue car thunders past.

Max!

I pull out my phone. There’s a message from El—Call me!—which I’ll do in a minute. Snapping a quick picture of Max, I send it off with an I FOUND HER!