40. MINNIE
MINNIE
BAKU
‘RaceX have brought a new floor and a new beam wing with them,’ Brian’s saying. I zone out. It’s not like I’m going to get a word in soon anyway.
I’ve contributed less in yesterday’s qualifying show and this pre-race segment than my worst early shows, yet I’m still grateful.
Grateful to have a job, grateful to be here in Azerbaijan instead of the London office, and grateful to be presenting instead of relegated to research.
Sure, Brian’s made three quips about Jack, and Greg gives me warning looks every time I open my mouth, but it’s about the bigger picture, and the bigger picture is one of gratitude.
‘Minnie, what’s your take on Volare finding their feet in this second half of the season?’ Krunal asks.
Wow, my turn. ‘They’re doing phenomenally well.
Those upgrades we first saw at Silverstone gave them some blinding pace.
In qualifying yesterday, they were even outpacing—’ I stop myself blurting He Who Must Not Be Named.
Greg’s death glare confirms I made the right choice.
‘—other drivers, in some sectors,’ I peter off.
Krunal smoothly turns to Brian, his microphone resting thoughtfully on his chin. ‘Brian, let’s look at the third row…’
That was close. It’s been two weeks since Monza and both Pagari and Martinelli have rescinded their restrictions, and Micah’s dad has dropped his baseless legal threat, but we’re still walking on eggshells.
Social media hasn’t forgotten that photo as easily as the paddock – which has thankfully moved on to a photo of Tiago Cabrera with three naked belly dancers.
I’m not allowed to do the grid walk or the media pen or accompany Brian to press conferences. Currently my job includes standing, smiling, and making one-line comments about inoffensive teams. It’s shit, but I deserve shit.
At the sound of Brian talking about Micah, I tune back in.
‘—strong suit’s not managing his tyres.’ I don’t have to look at Greg to know his eyes are popping out of their sockets.
Brian carries on, blissfully ignorant. ‘He was strong in quali as he usually is, but that doesn’t win Baku.
He’ll need to learn from his mistakes last year – or even his teammate. ’
‘Brian,’ Greg seethes once we’ve cut to a feature. ‘What did I say about Micah?’
Brian’s looking at him like he couldn’t possibly fathom what he’s referring to. ‘What?’
‘You have to be positive!’
Brian crosses his arms. ‘So I can’t even talk about his tyre degradation now?’
Greg presses his fingers into his eyes. ‘You compared him to Jack.’
‘Jack is good at managing tyre degradation.’ He really has no clue. It’d be sad to watch if I wasn’t busy looking for a drain to crawl into.
‘Yes, I know, but we can’t point out Micah’s flaws. At least not until the dust’s settled. His team were on the warpath until Thursday. It’s still very fresh.’
Brian hoists his folded arms higher. ‘Well that’s not my fault.’
‘It’s not my fault either, but we have to make it work,’ presses Greg, with more than a hint of acidity.
I know whose fault it is. The stewards rushing past know whose fault it is. The birds in that tree know whose fault it is.
‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ I mumble and speed-walk away before anyone can object.
This is hideous. I’m still grateful, of course, so grateful, but that doesn’t stop my skin from crawling and my head from pounding and my limbs feeling like they’re clamped with weights.
It’ll get better, though. It has to. I can’t live like a pinata forever.
It’s only the race after Monza, these things take time.
I just wish time would hurry the fuck up.
I think I hear someone murmur my name, but it’s probably my tuckered brain, so I ignore it. I hear it again, louder, and glance at the gap between the RaceX and Volare units to see an arm in a Pagari race suit poking from behind a bin, holding a matching coffee cup.
‘What are you doing here?’ I hiss, crouching beside Jack. ‘You should be warming up!’
‘It’s fine, I’m warm. I wanted to see how you were before the race, and give you this.’ He offers me the cup.
‘They’ll get suspicious if I go back with a new coffee, let alone a Pagari coffee.’
‘I know. I thought you could have a couple of sips while you tell me how your morning was.’
Oh why does he make it so hard? I asked for space to think but he’s being so damn sweet all the time.
Good morning texts, motivational GIFs, sweet treats, coffees, winks in the paddock.
Of course, he doesn’t know the real reason I want space is to think about whether I can stay in this situationship, or whatever the hell it is.
He just thinks work’s a shitshow and my reputation’s in the toilet for something we’re equally culpable for.
I take the coffee and drink. Dear god, that Marco’s a magician.
‘Romantic, innit,’ Jack adds with a wicked grin.
My poor, aching heart.
I wrinkle my nose. ‘Smells like sewage down here.’
He nudges me. ‘Get off it, woman.’
All this thinking’s made me wonder if… maybe I’m the one not ready for a relationship. I can’t be honest or decisive; I don’t truly know what I want from Jack; I can’t see what we’ll look like in a year. And maybe that’s the very real constraints on us talking, or maybe it’s me.
The simplest thing to do would be to break it off, but I’ve never felt this way about anyone. When we’re good, we’re really good, more than I ever thought I’d have with someone.
The other option is to quit my job, but I love what I do (I mean, not today, but when I’m allowed to actually do my job).
If my parents’ relationship has taught me anything it’s that a woman doesn’t fit her life around a man.
Besides, DFK would win a podium before Jack would agree to be my boyfriend, so I’d be resigning for nothing.
I think we both need the jeopardy for this to work.
And we’re back to me being an issue. Not quite on Jack’s level, but not scot-free.
I guess there’s a third option, and that’s to… keep doing what we’re doing for now. It doesn’t exactly solve my problems but it postpones the heartache until I can figure out something better.
I stroke aside the hair that’s fallen in his gorgeous face and before I can think too much about it, lean forward and kiss him. He’s taken aback – we haven’t properly kissed since before the photo was released – but he doesn’t falter, hands finding my face and holding me to him.
‘Thank you,’ I breathe against his lips.
‘Thank you.’
I smile. ‘I meant for the coffee.’
‘Of course.’ A beat. ‘I’d do anything for you, Roberts.’
No you wouldn’t, but I have to make peace with that.
I slip out and hurry to the portable toilets. Urgh, what a day. My head’s a state.
I’m washing my hands and about to make my way back when a woman asks in French, ‘Is anyone in that one?’
‘No, it’s free,’ I return, also in French.
When I look up, Celine Fournier’s looking back at me. She’s a legend in French racing, both as a racer and the country’s first female F1 broadcaster, and now she’s head of F1 coverage for France’s Sportif+. We’ve never met but I’ve known of her since I could walk.
‘I was testing you,’ she says, extending her hand, the lines of her supremely tanned face more prominent stretched into a smile. ‘Celine.’
‘I’m Mi—’
‘Minnie Roberts, I know,’ she cuts in. ‘You haven’t lived in Monaco for years and yet you still haven’t forgotten your French. Well done.’
I feel a surge of joy. Celine Fournier has heard of me, and more than as Channel 3’s token woman. Pinch me! ‘It’s a bit rusty.’
She gives a vague shrug. ‘It will come back if you practice. Channel 3, how is that going? Holland was shit, hm?’
She doesn’t beat around the bush, does she. I push down the very British urge to apologise for such a base story crossing her desk. ‘It was ok. My team have been great,’ I lie, ‘and I’m so grateful.’
She screws her face up like she’s bitten into a rotten cake. ‘Grateful? Why?’
‘For how they’ve,’ I swallow at the sight of her staring me down, ‘supported me.’
‘Supported you,’ she echoes, a thin eyebrow raised.
‘And allowed me to keep my job.’
She’s laughing. She’s actually laughing at me.
I don’t think this is good. ‘So English,’ she says with a smirk.
‘If any employee of mine ever felt grateful for having their job, I’d fire them.
Employing them isn’t doing them a service – they’re doing me a service.
If your network are making you feel that way, you should leave immediately.
You’re a talented broadcaster, Minnie; don’t take career advice from skinny ginger English men,’ so…
Greg, ‘and definitely not Brian O’Connell.
I’m waiting for the day cancel culture rips him to shreds. ’
I’m too busy mentally noting all her wisdom to laugh. I wish I had a pen.
‘How long have you and Jack Bowden been together?’ she asks, and I almost jump out of my skin.
She didn’t say it accusingly, her smile’s warm like she’s genuinely interested, not searching for an inside scoop.
But maybe it’s a trap. This could be one of the reasons why she’s such a lauded interviewer, she reels you in with false niceties.
‘We’re not together. It was one stupid kiss. We were both so drunk—’
‘I’m not talking about the photo. When a man looks at you like he’s been looking at you all season, it’s your duty as a woman to put him out of his misery.’
‘I would never compromise my—’ I can’t think of the translation, ‘—ethics of journalism?’ I manage, feeling somewhat like Trevor McDonald.
‘What ethics? Pssht, Minnie, journalism is your job, not your life. We all need to be reminded of that sometimes. We’ll talk more over a bottle of red, hm?’ Her smile’s earnest as she touches my arm and disappears inside a cubicle.