Chapter 10 Kotov Syndrome
As the race week ticks by, I effectively avoid Faust.
Mei’s too busy to check if I’m at the free practices on Friday. I end up emailing with a brand during Qualifying, the Saturday sessions that determine the driver lineup for the Sunday grand prix. I just need to get to Japan a few weeks from now.
Nonetheless, the week narrows to one all-consuming point.
The Australian Grand Prix.
The street festival begins the night before the race, and the fact that I can hear music through the walls at midnight—meaning Faust can hear music through his walls—almost makes up for having to go to the circuit. “How are you doing?” Mei asks as we walk through the paddock’s back hallways.
“It’s a bit—” I dodge a scampering employee. “Overwhelming.”
“Yeah, true.”
A Formula 1 circuit is not a run-of-the-mill sports stadium.
There isn’t really a stadium, period. Currently, we’re in what’s called the paddock, a boldly pretentious term gifted to the area where the teams actually work.
A hodgepodge of tents, trailers, hospitality suites, and hidden passageways, that end with the garages lining the track.
Cars enter and exit there. For all intents and purposes, the paddock is the F1 battery pack jammed in the middle of as much sellable square footage as possible.
Home of the metaphorical horses and horsepower.
Naturally, fans can buy their way into the paddock, too.
Have an extra five grand laying around? You might be able to afford a Paddock Club pass, where you can watch a race from above the garages, staring at the poors on the grandstands as they stare back.
I manage to side-step around a group of Cavalli racing girls, clad in red, who are taking pictures of a Do not disturb—driver sleeping sign taped to a door.
“Faust did okay in Qualifying yesterday. Not bad, not great,” Mei explains, ignoring the girls and the door and, seemingly, all the other chaos.
How is she not more out of breath? I wore sneakers today but, sheesh. “P10 is in the middle of the grid, right?”
“Exactly. The team’s hopeful he’ll be in the points, and Christine’s P11, so they should be able to work together.”
“Do you think they will?”
“Yes, actually. This race isn’t the end all, be all, though. We want to build traction over the season. Brand awareness, hype, sales, wins.”
The four horsemen of social media success.
We end up in one of the many private Stark-Benzin hospitality rooms, where the walls are decorated in drab gray posters and television screens streaming what’s going on outside—drivers navigating the long walk down the paddock’s outdoor area, pre-race data talks, influencer-DJs fading Tiesto into barely concealed product placements.
It’s slightly dystopian. Like, when you work in F1, there’s no escaping the public perception of the sport, of us.
We’re as much employees as we are characters on the live stream and another set of eyes watching when we aren’t on camera. It’s Schrodinger’s cave allegory.
“Thanks for sending those plans for Japan over, too,” Mei says, eyes glued to her phone while she sits. “I’m impressed with how well you understand Faust. The gray Burberry shirt is going to give people a heart attack.”
I don’t know how to take this compliment. If it’s a compliment to understand that man’s color palette, demeanor, and inherent Burberry-ness. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
“It’s oversized check.”
“There’s red.”
“One stripe of red.”
“Well, thank you.” I tap my fingers on my thighs, then go for my fidget spinner. Clipped it to my bag today. Just talking about him shouldn’t make anxiety pulse at the base of my spine, destabilizing my regular composure, but—oh well.
“Is everything okay?” Mei asks without looking up.
“Oh.” I stop fidget-spinning. “Yeah.”
“Cat.”
“Mm?”
“I will lock you in a serenity room until you have to do Faust’s hair.”
Ah yes. The real reason for my nerves. I have the pleasure of preparing him for his close-up during the national anthem. “I’m fine,” I say, sounding anything but. “And this is really so stupid to ask, it isn’t a big deal, but… has he said anything about me?”
Mei’s soft black eyebrows knit together as her eyes swing up to mine. “What happened?”
“Nothing in particular.” Absolutely shouldn’t have brought this up. Rookiest of rookie mistakes. “I guess it was more so… he doesn’t like fashion, does he?”
That makes her laugh. “Oh. No, probably not. What did he say?”
That I’m fake and I don’t know why and it’s kind of killing me because I am but also—“It was just a vibe. Is he one of those mid-thirties guys who thinks he’s ‘totally above influencers’ when he actually gets all his news from us and also buys anything we link?”
Mei snorts. Better yet, her gaze returns to her screen. “I’ve never caught him listening to a podcast about masculinity and protein milk, so I do think we’re relatively in the clear. Also”—she pauses typing—“he did mentor Christine.”
“He did?”
She smiles at her phone, resuming typing. “My parents have a British bulldog. I think of him like that. Sad, bow-wow. But sweet underneath it all.”
I can’t get over Mei using “bow-wow” as an adjective and that I know exactly what she means.
That, and this new reveal. Faust mentoring a young woman driver into Formula 1 is objectively…
cool. I will give him those points, and then give Christine five thousand more points plus a trophy and a brand-new car for being the person who did the work.
“In the future, you’ll be able to primp Faust before he hits the circuit.
That way, you can mostly relax during the races and see why we voluntarily go insane most weekends of the year.
It’s—” Mei stops. Suddenly, she’s out of her seat, attention snapping to the main television screen.
“There he is. Oh—shit. Did you pick that out? He looks good.”
Yes, he does.
Faust is wearing the exact outfit that I put him in the last time we spoke.
When he called me… yeah, that time. Dark jeans, white shirt.
The camera pans down to his feet and fuck me, he’s wearing the new Doc Marten Oxfords?
Before a race? They aren’t broken in. Did I get so wrapped up in Ted Talk–ing fashion at him that I didn’t warn him not to wear new Docs without a death wish?
“Faust, hello, you look dapper today,” smirks out one of the broadcasters, a young man with an old-school microphone.
For a split second, Faust only looks annoyed to be stopped mid–paddock walk. People look his way as they walk around him, some younger fans pausing to watch the interview. Faust draws a breath, pushes back his hair, and tries a smile. “Thanks.”
“New clothes for a new season?”
His smile widens. “I’m working with someone new, yeah—”
Mei leans forward. “Oh no. No, he isn’t supposed to mention your—”
“Cat Cromwell.”
Surprise shoves into my chest, clearing everything else out. It’s glacially cold, freezing time to a standstill. “What the hell,” Mei exhales. “This breaks the illusion.”
She continues talking. I only half hear her.
The same for the phone buzzing in my pocket; I only feel it through layers and layers of icy confusion.
Faust just said my name. Connecting me to him.
On the international Formula 1 broadcast. I haven’t even posted online that I’m in Melbourne. My family…
Is watching this. They would literally be watching this, right now.
“Cat Cromwell!” the broadcaster says, infuriatingly chipper. “Well, we always love hearing about a new woman working in motorsports.”
Faust’s smile turns mischievous. “Why I named her.”
“And I should’ve noticed the woman’s touch—bit of a Rebel Without a Cause, cool-guy thing you have going on, right?”
Holy hell, can this guy not just ask Faust about his job? The race? Cars? Faust glances at the broadcaster, then straight to the camera, and the serious, quiet man I’ve grown to detest is nowhere to be found. He’s been replaced with pure, targeted chaos. “Cat said it was more like The Bear.”
“What is he talking about?” Mei groans, dropping her phone to rub at her temples. “Train wreck. Awful. He can’t be name-dropping influences. I’m sorry, Cat, I’ll talk to him, this is completely inappropriate.”
“No, don’t—I’ll handle it.” Against the back of my sternum, my heart makes a valiant effort to excavate itself from my body, adrenaline vibrating every rapid-fire beat. “I’ll just… when I do his… excuse me.”
I’m entirely wobbly knees as I leave to pace down the hall.
This can’t be as bad as I think it is, right?
There isn’t any way that Faust figured me out, and I can’t blow my cover by accusing him of intelligence he doesn’t possess.
I’ve been caught one time. Once. Because I got sloppy and dated two brothers from Florida who hadn’t spoken to each other in years but got locked into the same hurricane party that genuinely scared them.
Florida men. Scared. At a hurricane party.
It had taken a literal act of God to get people whispering about the “Hilton Heartbreaker,” and that was years ago.
My record’s expunged, that original judge got caught taking backdoor parking ticket bribes, and I haven’t heard a peep since I changed my name legally.
If anything, Faust is antagonizing me for fun. Period. That’s all.
When I get to the tiny, screenless, windowless room I’m supposed to meet him in, my pulse has gone from drum solo to symphony orchestra, tubas and trumpets and trombones blaring at the same time.
I close the door and sit on the white bench, the only piece of furniture here under the fluorescent lights.
Could I hide under that if I had to? Pretend I’m not here and ambush him like he just ambushed me? Or, I don’t know, hide forever?
With a creak, the doorknob twists.
The door opens.