Chapter 11 Queenside Castling #2
A replay confirms my dread. As the cars thunder by our section of the track a second time, the broadcast plays back the incident.
Bernard’s car. Christine’s car. Almost touching.
The screen shows their racing lines in gold and gray, shows where Bernard cut into Christine’s space aggressively.
A notification runs across the top of the screen: RACE CONTROL—INCIDENT INVOLVING CARS 24 (FAY) someone saying Bernard’s lucky he got away without a scratch, someone else saying the incident is being reviewed.
Someone whispering that they got a text from a friend of a friend that it was clearly—“Christine’s fault,” they sigh.
“But are you surprised? She’s not used to playing with the big boys. ”
My heart sinks with each passing moment. I already know exactly how this is going to go.
I turn to find Mei. She hasn’t left her corner, her round eyes pointed up at the wide screen, glassier than usual.
She rolls her soft pink lips together, then glances at me.
I wonder if all women can silently communicate with each other during times like this, if we’re hardwired for telekinesis or if empathy makes it easy.
Or, if this is me knowing Mei slightly better than I gave myself credit for earlier—and knowing how much it takes for her to look absolutely forlorn.
She closes her eyes. Lifts her shoulders. Shakes her head.
Mouths, motherfucker.
I laugh.
Here’s the thing about Formula 1 races, though.
They last forever. There are ebbs, flows, disasters, joys, all over the course of today’s fifty-eight laps.
I end up relinquishing my primo balcony angle to the waiter to stand by Mei, and we wordlessly split the second spare Rice Krispies Treat.
The cars go around and around and around, so there’s time to consider how righteously pissed Christine’s going to be after the stewards hit her with a penalty point for “colliding with Bernard.” Moments to ponder if I’m making a mistake, sticking around.
This would be the perfect diversion if I were going to bail, gift-wrapped by the motorsports gods.
I’m so sorry to quit so suddenly, Mei. I didn’t know F1 was this scary! I’m just so shaken up!
And there’s so much time to watch Faust pull ahead from the middle of the grid to sixth. Then fourth, after another tangle. Then there’s a messy pit exit for Leone and…
“Unreal,” Mei whispers.
It’s the last lap, and Faust’s in third place.
That’s a podium finish on his first race back with the team.
Tension crackles on this balcony, most everyone around us in Stark-Benzin’s demure gray polos.
“This is huge. We knew he’d do well, but you never know, with a new car,” Mei rambles in a low, excited hush.
“Just… trust me. This is amazing. He hasn’t had a podium in years. ”
I know, I want to say back.
But I don’t, ever the Formula 1 newbie. Here to learn.
My eyes shift from the screen to the track as the cars come back around the horizon.
First a long red car, then gold, then gray, racing closer to the checkered line.
And there’s always something that could go wrong: a freak flood out of nowhere, an unfortunate bird dive-bombing the track, Bernard going rogue and taking Faust out so neither of them end up with trophies.
No one knows how a race is going to end until it ends.
It’s nerve-racking. I’m nervous, looping my necklace over on itself, blinking too much.
Every time I do, I see that one iconic picture of Faust from his first World Drivers’ Championship win; his hair had been longer, he’d been covered in champagne, and he’d broken his trademark cool. He’d grinned.
I want that for him. I want to see him smile like that again, even if he hates me.
Just as quickly as I have that thought, the cars fly by our balcony.
The grandstands leap to their feet. The checkered flag is waving, and Mei cracks the other nonalcoholic mimosa, her smile equal parts adrenaline crash and blissed-out zen.
“Here’s to feeling good all the time, huh?
” she says, clinking her drink with some disturbed-looking man in a beachy floral shirt.
Then she looks at me and puts on a sleek journalist voice.
“Cat Cromwell, you’re the personal stylist to the driver currently in third for the World Drivers’ Championship. How do you feel?”
I don’t know.
“I, uh, it’s cool. Really cool. Should I…?”
Mei is already walking, so I follow her.
Past the tittering crowd, flocked by screens and railings.
Through the back doors. I keep working on her question as we slip toward an employees only section, unable to figure out why I’m so confused by such a simple question.
How do I feel? Weird. Jumbled. Heat dances behind my sternum, and my fingers hurt from clenching my fists for the last half hour.
That isn’t it, though. I’m not just tense from the race, or the chaos behind the scenes.
This is the same nameless emotion from earlier, when I’d been talking to Faust, back with a vengeance.
Then we pass by another screen.
Faust is in the cooldown room, where Formula 1 puts its top-finishing drivers after the race to, I don’t know, catch their breath and watch clips back.
He’s seated, legs crossed, watching carefully as the winning driver pulls off his red balaclava.
The blond guy gives Faust a little smile that makes Faust roll his eyes.
But then he’s reaching down and giving Faust a handshake that’s more like clasping their palms together—personal in a way that makes me stop walking.
Subtitles scroll across the bottom of the screen. (ART) Knew you could.
(FAU) Thank you.
(ART) Shame about—
(FAU) She’ll get back. Insecurity, on his part.
He’s talking about Christine. He has to be. He’s defending her, right there on TV—not to the other driver, but to the world watching. I lean closer to the screen, studying the image like it might identify why I feel like I’m physically buzzing.
To the blond man’s right, a door opens and Bernard strolls in. Both men drop their handshake and turn toward him.
(BAU) Good race.
There aren’t any more subtitles. No one speaks.
The blond—Arthur, I think—taps his fingers on his knee.
(ART) How’s life at Leone now, Bernie?
(BAU) Great.
(ART) Grand.
After another awkward silence, the screen flips to post-race interviews with other drivers, and I catch up with Mei right as she pops open a door to outside.
Thankfully, she’s too busy to talk, winding through a congested garden.
I wouldn’t know what to say if she asked me why I’d stopped.
I don’t know that answer, either, and every footstep unleashes a new wave of nerves.
I know myself. I always have. That’s my North Star.
Can’t pretend to be everyone else if you don’t know yourself.
“I don’t think we can make it to the front-row in time, but look.” Mei nudges my elbow with hers, and I follow her eyes upward, to a lifted stage that soars above the crowd. The winners’ podium.
I watch, mute, as Faust appears from the backstage area first. He waves to the crowd, then hops onto the third-place step.
People clap and whistle, and he looks almost—maybe shy?
As bashful as a large, wide, championship-winning man can be, with his hands clasped respectfully in front of himself.
He hasn’t changed out of his racing suit, and the gray pops against the chaotic Australian Grand Prix screen behind him, flickering through advertisements.
His hair still looks good, too. Soft and finger-combed back.
My fingertips sting. I fold my hands into fists.
You and me, Cat. You think we’re not alike?
Bernard comes out, then Arthur, and the traditional F1 celebration kicks off.
Trophies are awarded, anthems played, loved ones in the crowd looking on proud, a thick stratum of lucky fans clapping just behind the gathered teams. I know what’s coming, and I still feel like I’ve been knocked back on my knees when Faust grabs the champagne bottle from the podium floor.
With one dramatic thunk against the ground, Faust pops his bottle and turns to Arthur—right as the blond finishes shaking his and turns his spray on Faust. In a second, he’s drenched, dripping, rubbing his eyes, laughing.
The world presses closer to me. It’s as if the air has hands and they’re over my ears, and the sun’s found my skin and burrows in, and as much as life’s holding me, I feel like I can’t move.
It’s holding me still, too. Like when you trip and fall, and feel the last pull of leftover gravity tug you in the other direction—two torn forces neutralizing each other.
And you’re here, suspended between where you were and where you’re going.
Only that isn’t right for me, is it? When he’s where I’ve been and where I am and can’t be the ground I’m about to hit, too. He can’t.
But he’s laughing.
He’s smiling.
He’s…
My crush on Faust had been childish, in retrospect. I hadn’t known him yet.
He’s so much better in person.