Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Arthur doesn’t run away, per se. Just vanishes for the formation lap in three of his massive steps, and then he’s surrounded by people, and I’m left to stew in my own flustered irritation as he gets swept onto the track. Sit where he can find me later?
Nope. Telling me what to do is also not how this is going to work.
I get one irritated sneaker out the back door and gasp as the rain soaks through my canvas shoes. Rain. Forgot about the rain. Bouncing back, I look for any other exit or overhanging. There isn’t one. And even if I did miraculously find an escape route to another staff-only section, I wouldn’t make it a minute before the Formula 1 officials had me back in here. Above us is the “Paddock Club,” a fan seating area that’s as expensive and security locked as it sounds. Regular grandstands would be safer.
Hm. There’s an idea.
I throw a rain cover over my camera, pocket my work badge, and head to the closest grandstand, joining the fans lingering in the first row. My camera is in my hands by the time all twenty cars are at the starting line, tires warmed and pedestrians cleared off the track. In Formula 1, there are five lights that hang above the track like stoplights, and all of them have to turn red then go out before anyone can drive. The first light illuminates, and I turn my camera on. The second, and I have it up to my eye. By the third light, I’ve got my foot braced on the chain-link fence between me and the grass and the track, and it sways beneath my sneaker. I miss the fourth light as I get the focus right on Arthur’s car—the back of his orange helmet. The fifth light turns red, and I think about his wrist, that one fragile stretch of skin.
You better win , I think to myself.
The entire crowd leans forward as the five lights turn black at once.
“Lights out,” Arthur says.
“And away we go,” Cameron replies.
Instantly, I understand why Sarah would want someone to watch their first Formula 1 race in person. I could’ve watched a thousand different videos of the first minute from different races, and that still wouldn’t have prepared me for the British Grand Prix with Arthur on pole.
I don’t know how to describe it. Imagine twenty fireworks going off at once, twenty dams breaking, flooding the earth. The overwhelming sound of engines, the booming crowd, the rain slicking clothes to skin, the announcers, information, cars, clocks, ticking.
Usually, I have trouble with noise. And crowds. And being places I haven’t mapped out fully in my mind. Then, once I start to feel anxious—or the ADHD goblins get their hooks in my concentration—it’s hard to come back. Being behind a camera helps, but not always. Filming something that my brain has deemed “boring” is like being on a horrible first date at a restaurant you love; the setting is right, the food is good, but something’s off.
There isn’t a spare second in a Formula 1 race to clock out. No breaking it down into its individual pieces and separating the cars from the noise and the people and the crowds and the action. It’s all so shockingly overwhelming and cohesive that I don’t have to hope that my natural instinct to hyperfocus kicks in.
I just focus.
Arthur is the only thing on my mind as he explodes down the circuit, nineteen cars behind him, the dark gold Leone in second place swerving as it tries to find a way around him. The Leone isn’t the only one, either. Virtually every other driver is trying to pass one another, pass Arthur, weaving, dancing, and I clutch my camera like a security blanket as carbon fiber on carbon fiber comes close again and again, tires almost touching, centimeters apart.
The announcer fills my headphones. “And so begins this year’s British Grand Prix, with an unlikely lead and renewed rivalry as Arthur Bianco makes it through the first turns untouched, followed by an agitated Jean Baudelaire, fast on his trail.”
Damn it. I zoom in tighter to the orange blur as he careens around the bends, straining to hear Arthur’s voice through the announcer’s excitement.
“How’s your visibility, King?” That’s Cameron, and that’s a bit of worry in his tone. I bite my lip so hard, I taste Chapstick and copper. I shouldn’t have sprung the fake-dating thing on Arthur before this race. What if I threw him off, and now he’s not going to be able to concentrate for the next fifty-one laps? The rain has to make this circuit more dangerous than usual, and he hasn’t had as much experience this season, in a car, as the other guys.
My chest aches as the first real thoughts I’ve had in minutes take shape.
Please say you’re okay. Please be safe.
Just… don’t get hurt.
“Oh, I’m having a party out here, Cam,” Arthur says, and hearing his voice—measured and concentrated and a touch ridiculous—makes me let out the breath I’ve been holding.
He’s okay. He’s safe.
He won’t get hurt.
“Excellent,” Cameron replies. “Keep your position.”
“Copy.”
The beginning of the race whirls by, a swirl of radioed words and minute-long breaks while the pack’s on the other side of the track and my heart pounding each time a car gets anywhere close to Arthur’s. Something like a line forms behind him after the first laps; it almost looks like the drivers are trying to follow where he’s driving, tracking a path through the slick circuit. Then the rain lets up, and I flick my camera down the line as they race by. That Leone has dropped into third. That must take some of the pressure off Arthur, right?
“How’s the weather?” Arthur asks Cameron, right on cue.
“Hard to say. Wind’s going quick, though. Pay attention to your grip.”
“Happy days.”
There’s so much strategy to this sport. Each passing car. Every one of the ninety minutes that dance by. When was the last time I thought of how many seconds pour into a minute? Felt life like a digital alarm clock, with big red numbers counting down to zero? Every second of the race burns across my nervous system as I watch Arthur drive by, and by, and by, until my fingers are numb and it’s just me and the camera and the quiet that falls when the cars aren’t in front of us. Focused, completely. I barely blink when there’s an “incident” on the thirtieth lap, after the drizzle has cleared and the circuit is drier—two cars that were running parallel close behind Arthur touching tires, then the other bumped off, spiraling through the grass into a fence. Arthur asks if the drivers are good, Cameron confirms they are, and then we go on. Accepting the danger and moving forward anyway.
My attention only wavers when Cameron snaps at Arthur to “box, box, box” and he pulls into the pit lane, the view illuminated on a large television screen above the track. The pit stop is a dance. Helmeted mechanics crush around him. Two grab the car. Tires are swapped. It lasts all of two seconds, then he’s back on the circuit and I’m back with him, as close as I can get with my camera. Wondering how he can trust that those faceless mechanics put his tires on perfectly—how can he put his life into the gloved hands of this many other people?
I adjust my lens. Get a better shot of the bend in the track. There’s the orange car, yellow, red, green, silver, here one moment, then gone. Arthur isn’t only trusting the Ignition crew to keep him safe while he’s out there. The drivers must trust each other, on some level. You hear the cars before you see them, engines screaming across the circuit on the approach, but you feel them before you hear them, one after the other, the air around you shifting before the sound hits. It does something ancient to my body—raw and primal, a silent whistle that something larger and faster and more powerful than me is around. And yet, there are twenty of them. On one track. Driving at a million miles per hour, all at once.
They’re who I need to film next. I have to start interviewing Arthur and the other drivers he competes against if I’m going to accurately capture this world.
“Pardon me, lovely.” There’s a bald man in an oversized Ignition parka next to me. “Are you filming for the broadcast?”
“Oh—no.” I glance at him, back at the track, him. “I’m… making a film.”
“About who?”
“Arthur Bianco?” Don’t know why his name comes out like a question.
The man grins. “You found the right spot. I’m the biggest fan that boy’s got.”
Laughing under my breath, I get a shot of the stranger’s excited smile, since I’ve got twenty seconds or so until Arthur’s car is back around the circuit. In under fifteen seconds, I learn that he’s a nurse, single, and drove here from Cardiff, a “bloody long drive, but worth it, well worth it.”
“You’re enjoying your day?” I ask.
The cars approach. We go quiet. Our heads turn left, forward, right in sync. Behind us, someone yells in French.
The cars leave, conversation resumes. “Love, this is the best day of my year.” He chuckles and takes a swig from his water bottle. “Beautiful English weather, big happy crowd, and I’ve got my boy Bianco out there again.”
I don’t feel proud or anything. That would be ridiculous, seeing as I barely know Arthur and can’t take any credit for him getting to race this weekend. Documentarians don’t feel proud of their subject matters, nor would they condone such a silly and ridiculous and gas-guzzling sport that… I…
Really like watching. In the rain. With strangers.
As Arthur goes around another time, and I follow with my camera, my seatmate narrates the action for me better than the announcer. “See that red car there? You got it with your camera? That’s Rafael’s Cavalli, real sweetheart rookie. Static’s around here somewhere, probably, if they even want to send their boys out today—they’ve got the darker yellow car than Leone. My opinion, just let the bastards cage-match between themselves and call it a day. A shame to see Static’s strategy wreck itself every weekend. Sodding ‘mustard rules.’?”
“Do you really keep track of all twenty drivers?” I laugh.
“Like I’m their goddamn mother hen.” The man snorts. “You get on social media, the online forums, that’s half the fun of this sport. You got your good guys, your bad guys, fights, loves, rivalries.”
I take a quick, hopefully quiet breath. I’m filming the circuit but getting this audio. “Who do you think Arthur Bianco’s rival is?”
“Is that a trick question?” he replies. “We all know it’s Jean at Leone. That’s who he used to drive with.”
My breath catches in my throat. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a pattern. “Between you and me—keep this one from the big boss.” The stranger’s voice drops to a low whisper. “I’d like to see King go back to Leone, even if he’s got to put up with Jean again. He’s too good to stay reserve.”
I smile. “Good to know.”
Satisfied, I settle back into the wavelength between the voices, driver and engineer and announcer and fan, only zeroing in once Cameron’s excitement booms through my headphones. “Last lap. Stay careful and we can get third.”
“Third? Where’s your competitive spirit?” Arthur bristles.
“This is Faust’s car.”
“Mine today.”
The past half hour hasn’t been kind. Jean’s in first, someone from Cavalli is second, and Arthur is in third place, maybe fourth. Hard to tell when my vantage point gives me about ten seconds of the race at a time, television screen notwithstanding. The circuit is misty, though Cameron keeps talking, his excitement crisp. “Overtake Cavalli and you have a shot at second.”
“I’m not getting second, either,” Arthur laughs. “You see who’s up there? Come on.”
“King, I really need you to—slow down, slow down.”
My eyes snap to the screen. On one winding stretch of asphalt, orange zooms past the side of Cavalli’s cherry-red car, driving beside it for a terrifying moment, then overtaking it. Arthur pulls in front of the car, boxing it back, then accelerates hard. I don’t think the driver angling for second place even saw him coming.
“Your tires are overheating,” Cameron says breathlessly. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad. “It’s too dry now to go this fast. King, slow down now.”
Arthur doesn’t reply. He doesn’t slow down. My heart begins to beat harder against my skin, realizing that he’s still in second place, with that damn Leone in first. What happens if Arthur doesn’t win? Will he still want me or—or want to use me? There’s only gold in front of him and mist behind him and ten seconds until I know how the rest of my summer is going to go. If Arthur needs me at his side instead of behind the camera pointed at him.
If I’m going to pretend to be his.
Then he’s going faster. And faster. And he isn’t second anymore. He’s—
“Arthur.”
The ten seconds between him and the finishing line evaporate, and that’s it. He did it.
Arthur won.
The air around me erupts with cheering. Second and third place cross, fourth, fifth, and my body tilts forward as the massive spike of adrenaline from the last hour and a half rushes from my veins, evaporating like sweat in summer heat. It’s over. He did it. We won.
Arthur pulls to the left of the other finishing cars, slowing and slowing until there’s smoke lifting from the back and a sickening bang from the front right of his car. My hand covers my mouth, and Cameron’s voice rushes onto the radio… because a tire’s blown out.
So that’s what happens when they overheat.
“Sorry,” Arthur chuckles.
“ Goddamn it.”
“We’ll need new ones anyway.”
“Faust’s going to—”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Cameron’s breath puffs out loudly across the airwaves. “Fucking hell, whatever. You won. You won .”
“Absolutely, I did,” Arthur says, sounding completely confident, like there wasn’t any other option. “I had to.”
His words slide through me, cutting through the noise, the cheering, everything. “What are you talking about?” Cameron asks.
“I had to help someone make up her mind,” Arthur replies, a smug smile dripping from his voice.
There’s confusion after a Grand Prix. Music plays, fans jump from seats to walk the circuit itself, celebrities scamper between doorways, avoiding photographers’ telephoto lenses; after the relentlessness of a race, the living, breathing creature that is Formula 1 momentarily stops to catch its breath. My path to the winners’ podium—an actual stage above the crowd for Arthur and company to stand on—is blocked by a massive gaggle of Ignition fans taking a selfie with the racing simulator. “Doc crew? Over here,” says a tired-looking employee in an orange pantsuit, waving me through a hidden doorway vinyl-wrapped with AmEx ads.
Eventually, I make it to the crowd below the stage. The angle is bad. I’m crowded into one place, away from the front. When a particularly tall gentleman in a drenched rain jacket blocks my camera completely, I move to the single sliver of space between two metal poles, slip my foldable stool from my backpack, and hop on it.
I’m clicking through my settings as Arthur appears, grinning, to take the podium at center stage.
My fingers still.
When I’m getting the shot, the footage I have to get or the movie won’t matter, I always hold my breath. It started out of fear of jostling the camera, then became somatic. I hold my breath when Arthur waves to the crowd chanting his name, their voices blending with the British national anthem, growing louder, that final “God save the King” reverberating my ribs. Then I keep holding it through the rest; a quieter Star-Spangled Banner for Ignition as the winning team, a distant cousin of the British royal family appearing to give Arthur a tire-shaped trophy, then a trophy to Cameron of all people, then the other two drivers in second and third place. I hold it even when, out of nowhere, Georges Bizet’s Carmen overture begins, and the three drivers grab the champagne bottles at their feet, pop them, and spray each other with the frothy white bubbles that perfume the humid breeze.
It’s a silly celebration. It’s exciting. Despite my angle working against me, this footage is gold. I imagine someone like me, lonely and jaded, watching this years from now and feeling what it’s like to stand in this very crowd, where nothing matters more than cheering on the champagne-covered winners. When I find Arthur afterward, talking to a journalist, an Ignition baseball cap is pulled over his damp hair, one or two wayward golden waves sticking out from it. Our eyes meet for a second between sentences, and I catch that smell again. Arthur’s cologne. Sweet, floral, fizzy.
It isn’t car fumes, never been toxic. Even before now, Arthur’s smelled like champagne.
He narrows his eyes at me. Mouths hello . Then looks back to the reporter.
Breathlessly, I move my camera up to my eye and look at him through my viewfinder. Not him in a car or him on a podium. Just Arthur.
The first few times you film someone are intimate. I bite my lip as I pull him into focus, the outline of his body sharpening. Broad shoulders, muscular neck, argumentative face, winning smile. This is when I get to know his shape, how he fills the world. And without whispering a word out loud, I’m saying that Arthur matters. He’s in focus. So much work goes into freezing moments in time; chemicals are used in darkrooms to develop film, and digital cameras require energy, time, effort. Most people go their entire lives without anyone else wanting to record that they existed.
Myself included.
The reporter asks another question, just outside my camera’s view. “But how did you feel out there today? What was it like to be back on the track?”
Arthur’s eyes stray to me again, then dart away. “It felt brilliant. I was very excited to have this chance to race for Ignition. But today’s only one day. I’m looking forward to the rest of this season and next year.”
“Really?” The journalist sounds taken aback, which is funny. Someone else miffed by Arthur’s rebellious optimism. “This season won’t last forever. Don’t you find it difficult to remain hopeful about your chances?”
I hold my breath. I hold the shot. Arthur gives the reporter a funny look, as if something just occurred to him. “There’s still time,” he says, smiling.