43. Tristan
43
“ Y eah, we fancy like Applebee’s on a date night…” I sing as the rhythm of the Walker Hayes song rolls through my mind. My hips sway as I dance my way forward, shuffling my feet over the metal ramp.
I spin myself around, facing the portable Callahan Motors motorhome, with a grin infectious enough to bubble up Axel’s full laugh. All I need is a cowboy hat and I’d fit right into a honky-tonk, but I don’t care. I’m the kind of person who starts dancing when I’m cheery.
And I have every reason to be cheery.
Finally, my car feels great. The first rounds of free practice went better than expected today, making me believe this is going to be a good weekend, and I needed some good news.
For this first half of the season, luck hasn’t been on my side. I’ve had a rough start this year, having a hard time getting the car to do what I want on the track. But today is the start of a new phase. I can feel it tingling in my bones. I’m going to make it work and show the world I deserve another championship.
That I’m not some fluke.
“You really are a bit kooky, aren’t you?” Axel’s gaze aligns with mine from under his glasses, a dark eyebrow popping above the rim. My mouth crinkles with a smile as I hold my agent’s eyes. We’re nothing alike; he’s the yin to my yang. The Patrick to my SpongeBob. Can’t tell him that, though, because he’d probably fight me on it, arguing that he’s not the pink thing with the pointy head. But he’s also been my best friend since the fourth grade, the one who’s been there for as long as I can remember. And for the last few years, the man who makes sure my career stays right on track.
“Come on, X-man.” I glance up at the clear blue sky, the pine-scented breeze ruffling my already messy hair. “The sun is out. We’re in Spa-Francorchamps. Free practice went splendid . It’s gonna be a great weekend!”
Francorchamps is only a small village in the Belgium Ardennes, but the track is fun, and this circuit is known for its rainy days. The fact that the sun is out should be considered a blessing from the racing gods.
“ Splendid ? Really?”
We walk into the motorhome, taking the stairs to the executive office on the top floor. These portable constructions are the size of full, two-story buildings, and Callahan’s is known for the fully windowed front with a huge logo on top. It still amazes me every season how a line of massive motorhomes creates an equivalent to the main street of a small town. It’s a long way removed from the simplicity of the kart tracks, where I started my career once upon a time.
“Not good? Is swell better?” I goof.
“Definitely not.” The wrinkle in his forehead is holding small drops of sweat, and he rolls up the sleeves of his gray dress shirt to let the AC cool his skin.
He’s, without a doubt, the more pragmatic one of the two of us, always keeping my ass out of trouble and looking the part of my advisor in every way. But I can’t help trying to poke him out of business mode every now and then, just because I know he’s got a fun side to him. The side that turns him into a dauntless Steve Irwin when he’s had a few drinks.
‘Oh! Look at that beauty!’ He will go to the first bee or ladybug he can spot, finding amazement or humor in everything around him. I always laugh my ass off. But on a race weekend, he rarely shows that side of him.
Always the professional.
“Outstanding?”
“No.”
“Excellent?”
“You sound British.”
“How about adequate?”
“How about you just shut up and look pretty?”
We enter the executive office, where Will Packers, CEO of Callahan Motors, and Lennon Brown, my team chief, are already waiting for us from across the table. The room is surrounded by big windows and the glass is fitted with a foil that allows us to look through, but prevents anyone outside in the paddock from peeking in. The real fans who find themselves lucky enough to have paddock passes, the celebrities who Instagram post their way around the track, holding up their phones, countless team members. Everyone is on their way to something, dying to get a glimpse of the drivers.
“Ah, you think I’m pretty?” I bat my lashes and hold my hands under my chin before Axel knocks the air out of my lungs, slapping me on the back with more force than necessary.
Dickhead.
“Shut up, princess .”
With a chuckle, we both sit down in the white leather seats.
“Will. Lennon. How are you guys today?” I fix my attention on the men who are technically my bosses, both sporting white Callahan polos, but only Lennon hides his full head of gray hair underneath a white and orange Callahan cap.
They exchange a look that makes my smile dissolve a little bit as I move my gaze back and forth between the two, feeling how the energy in the room shifts to something resembling a cloudy day. They look both tense and bored, their expressions flat. Both of them haven’t been particularly chatty with me in the last few months, but still, the lack of movement has me swallowing away the dryness forming in my throat.
“Good, good, Tristan. Thank you for asking. There is something we need to discuss,” Will replies.
Straight to the point, okay…
I don’t miss how he doesn’t return the pleasantry, and I hear Axel shift in his chair. But then again, Will is not the most amicable person I know. I’ve known him for a few years now and he’s blunter than a butter knife with a vocabulary close to that of a caveman. Meaning, he doesn’t give a shit about anything and isn’t afraid to voice it. I’m used to it now, but the indifference both men are showing in their old and wrinkly features sets my internal system into defense mode while I wait for them to disclose the purpose of this meeting. I thought it was just to discuss the upcoming race, maybe discuss some strategy after the times I’ve set in the first and second free practice today, but the longer I sit in this uncomfortable chair, the more I feel dread washing over me.
“I’m sorry, but we have to let you go,” Will says, and right away, something pulls me under. I can’t pinpoint it, but my muscles turn into lead, challenging me to keep my back straight. Gone is my cheery mood, completely replaced by a cold shower that stings my every nerve.
There is an ease in the way he’s delivering this news that’s most unsettling.
I blink. I just blink because, surely, he didn’t just tell me they were letting me go? My brain freezes, in serious need of a reboot. Alt-control-delete . That’s what we use for computers, right? Is there something like that for the human body? Twist head, spin arm, wiggle leg, or something? Because I need my brain to start pulsing with electrodes again. Preferably toward my ability to speak.
My brain might not be able to fully catch up with the wording, but my eyes register the look on Will Packers’s smug face just fine. His bald head shines under the fluorescent lights, fake tan sticking out against that row of perfectly white teeth. He tries to keep his flat lips pressed together, but fails when I find the tiniest lift of his arrogant cheeks. I can’t describe it, but it looks something like, ‘Ha! Got ya now, sucker!’
“You’re what ?” I shake my head, ignoring the slow and torturous drum of my heart that pounds in my ears. Ba-boom. Ba-boom. “You can’t do that. I signed for three years. I still have one year left.”
“We will pay you double to cut you loose.”
They will pay me double to not race?
I don’t yell. I never yell. But I’m close to yelling now.
“Hold on—” Axel tries to cut in, but I snap my mouth open before he can.
“I don’t want your money! I want to race!” Racing is who I am. It has been since I found my cousin’s quad in the barn when I was five. I still remember the day in vivid detail. It was dusty and rusty, tucked all the way in the back of the barn, but it was the best Sunday of my little self’s life. I raced up and down the wobbly field next to the barn, smiling from ear to ear. After that day, I begged my dad to take me karting the next weekend. And the next weekend after that. And the next. And now I’m sitting here, twenty-two years later. Being… fucking hell —being sacked?
“And we want you to win,” Will spits back. There is venom in his tone, enough for me to suspect this is personal. Because I know it is.
“Come on, he has been on the podium a few times. It’s not all bad,” Axel argues on my behalf.
My back quickly changes to steel, unbending and hard as rock.
“It’s also not good enough,” Lennon shoots back.
Okay, so this isn’t my best season. I can admit that. I’ve made a few mistakes. I haven’t completely figured out the car, but I’m still a world champion. I’ve got fucking talent. That hasn’t disappeared overnight. I just need time to get the car to work for me.
Like I fucking did today.
“I’ve been improving.”
“Not enough,” Will argues.
“I’m just not feeling the car yet. It will come.”
There is a clear annoyance in the exhale that escapes his throat, tapping into my slow-boiling frustration, because it’s no secret he wants me gone. He didn’t want me on the team in the first place. His first choice was Franco Garcia, but Franco was smart enough to sign with SRT, one of the three best teams on the grid. I would’ve done the same if I was him; except, I already left them two years before.
“Look, we had high hopes, but Finley is doing better than you and he’s less experienced,” Lennon adds.
I resist the urge to scoff, because I have no grudge against Finley. He’s doing better than expected this season, and I think he has the potential to set records one day. But he hasn’t won a single race in his Formula One career and I’m a world champion. I think that earns me some credit, right? I think that buys me some time, for fuck’s sake.
“I don’t care,” I fire back in a flat tone.
“We do.” I snap my eyes back to Will. “This is a hard business, Tristan. You know that. You’re not performing the way we hoped.”
I snort. Of course I fucking know this. As an F1 driver, you have to perform every single race. There are only twenty seats in this sport, and if you fail, there will be countless new boys dying to take your place. But they gave me a three-year contract because I’d calculated that I needed to get to know the car first. Every F1 car might look the same to most people, but the truth is, each team engineers and manufactures the car by their own design. Becoming part of a new team means starting over. There are new engineers, new people to get to know, and also a brand-new car that you need to figure out how to maneuver to the best place on the grid: in the front. Not to mention how they like to change the rules almost every fucking year, and this season, I got a completely different car then last year.
“It’s a new car this year.”
“We expected more from you last year,” Will argues.
“You’re such an ass.” It slips from my mouth, no longer willing to play polite with the man who wants to see me fail, and I sense Axel’s gaze come my way with a scold, but I don’t care.
My world is slipping from my fingers and I’m not having it.
“And your days on the grid are done.”
“Excuse me?” My exterior grows, but on the inside, it feels like my organs turn into stone while my skin fires up with the anxious need to fight back. Fucking feverish and always killing me.
Axel huffs beside me, taking as much offense as I do. “That’s unnecessary, Will.”
“Just face it, Tristan. You’re just not good enough to play with the big boys.”
He did not just say that. “I’m a fucking world champion.”
“Just because you got lucky one season doesn’t mean you got the talent to do it again. Clearly, you can’t do it in our car.”
“That’s because your car is mediocre as fuck .”
“Tristan.” Axel tries to dim me down, but knowing the guy for eighteen years makes it easy to detect the anger in his tone that matches my own.
“Your seat is taken by the end of the season.”
Will says at the same time the timing of this conversation hits me.
That son of a bitch.
“You’re doing this on a race weekend? Fuck with my head like that? You really want me to fail, don’t you?” I snicker, feeling cynical.
“That’s not true. But we want to give you enough time to find a new team before the end of the season.” Lennon tries to smoothen out the situation, and if Will wasn’t looking at me like he just hit the jackpot on a slot machine, I might have believed them. I might have been able to agree on the fact that we don’t match as a team. That we tried, but we turned out to be a shitty fit. But the truth is, I’m done pretending it’s all rainbows and unicorns like I have for the last eighteen months, when in reality, they never gave me a fair shot. They treated me as a second driver, but told me I’d be first when I signed the ten-million-dollar deal.
“You’re making a mistake.” I shake my head, expecting the ground to swallow me whole any second, and to avoid something dramatic like that, I get to my feet.
“You promised me big things,” Will explains. “Big wins and lots of points. You’re tenth on the championship list and we’re fourth in the Constructors’ Championship. You didn’t deliver, hot shot. Don’t blame me for your failure.” He doesn’t even bother to hide his contempt any longer.
“You never wanted me to succeed anyway, did you?” I point my finger at him, waiting for his denial. But I know there won’t be any the second my gaze collides with his. “You’re not even going to deny it, asshole?”
His silence is loud and clear. “The seat is yours until the end of the season. After that, it will be taken by Caleb Braz.”
My heart does a backflip and not in a good way, before my voice fills with bucketloads of disbelief. Caleb Braz? Caleb Braz hasn’t even won an F2 or F3 race. How does he earn a seat on the team when he has got nothing to show for? This is fucked up in so many ways.
“A rookie ? You’re replacing me with a rookie?” I run a hand through my hair, then waver my finger at both men as I ignore the heat flushing my skin while getting up. “You’re going to regret it. Mark my words.”
I don’t know what I expect or what I want them to say. But whatever it is, it wasn't the disrespectful look Will Packers gives me when he says, “Close the door on your way out.”