Chapter 9
Two hours later, the sun cast a golden halo behind the Pagoda as an official signed off on Mack’s rookie test, a grueling sequence of increasing stints at increasing speeds, ending with laps at over two hundred fifteen miles per hour.
In the car, she’d been too focused on the work to process what she was accomplishing, but now Mack sat on the low wall of pit lane in her sweat-soaked coveralls, holding her helmet between her legs and blinking back tears.
Don’t be the girl that cries.
Indianapolis was so much more than a sports arena.
It was grit and passion and endurance amplified, the spirit of hundreds of drivers who’d attempted to win the world’s biggest race.
It was over one hundred years of history, each race day tradition honored and beloved by devoted fans.
It was her own history too, the memory of attending races with Wes and Laurie, and the dreams she’d birthed in these very grandstands.
She was so busy keeping her own feelings in check, she’d forgotten Laurie perched next to her on the concrete wall until she heard a sniffle.
Oversize sunglasses covered most of her sister’s face.
Mack didn’t know much about fashion, but she knew the interlocking pearl C’s on the side of Laurie’s sunglasses meant they were worth a month of rent.
Laurie laced her fingers through Mack’s and squeezed.
Her nose looked suspiciously red. “I bet you wish Dad was here.”
No longer able to contain her dammed emotions, Mack dropped her head back to stop the tears from running down her face. Good god, did she wish Wes was here. She could imagine what he’d say: Stop crying and get celebrating!
“Hope you have plans to celebrate tonight, Rookie. You cooked it out there.”
Mack snapped her head up, the moisture in her eyes disappearing instantly at the sight of Leo Raisman and his perfectly imperfect smile. Was he a fucking mind reader or had she said that out loud?
“Welcome to the month of May.” Leo laughed and the sound bounced off the empty venue before the vastness of the area swallowed the noise. “Rest and hydrate tonight. Monday, we start Body Work.”
Mack blinked.
“Pardon?” Laurie said crisply.
A charming little blush crawled up Leo’s neck, but he covered it with an easy laugh.
“Body Work is a gym, with specialized exercises for drivers. Janet has us go three days a week. And we’ll race on the simulator as often as possible, lots of promo stuff for the series, events with our main sponsor. ”
“Sounds like a lot of time together,” Laurie said. Mack hoped Leo didn’t hear the warning in her voice.
Mack shot Laurie a look that told her she could take care of herself. “Can’t wait,” she said to Leo.
“It’s nice to finally have a teammate. See you tomorrow, Rookie.” She watched him walk away, joggers hugging all the places they should, feeling like a total creep perving on her teammate.
“Stop,” she warned before Laurie could say anything. Laurie had been giving her that same side-eye since they were kids, the one that said, you know this is a bad decision, right?
Mack grabbed her helmet and stood up, but the inevitable adrenaline crash slammed into her and she suddenly felt hot and cold at the same time.
Afraid she’d vomit or pass out or both, she clawed at the Velcro closure on her fire suit.
The cool air soothed the worst of the nausea, and Mack let the sleeves dangle at her waist as they walked to the parking area.
By the time they reached the rusty Bronco, Mack felt steady enough to balance on one foot while peeling off her coveralls and pulling on athletic shorts.
If they wouldn’t give her a locker room, they could deal with a parking lot strip show.
Laurie swept an arm toward the rust-speckled car door. “I’ll drive. Hop in, passenger princess.”
They drove east down Sixteenth Street as the sun finally settled below the horizon.
Central Indiana got a lot of shade for being so flat, but Mack thought the endless horizon was beautiful in its own way, with wide-open views that made anything feel possible.
The sky gleamed purple and majestic through the windshield, and as her nausea faded, Mack finally let herself smile as she replayed the test drive and thought about the days to come.
“I guess I have to get serious about sponsorship now.”
“About that,” Laurie said, sitting up straighter. “I started playing around with a slide deck. We’ll need to get numbers on JJR’s ROI and potential hits per view. I think your best move is to target women-centered companies—”
“I can do it,” Mack interrupted.
“Yes, yes, you don’t need me, you’re strong and tough and don’t need help,” Laurie snapped.
“Because you’re always right there offering?” How dare she act like the martyr when Mack had been drowning for the past ten years without so much as a paddle from her sister.
“Oh my god, we are not having this argument!” Laurie banged her palm on the steering wheel in an uncharacteristic show of temper.
Mack and Wes ran hot, mouthy and quick to react, but Laurie was eerily icy.
She once caught Mack reading her diary, and instead of blowing up, she’d silently removed the journal from Mack’s hands and doused the book in the shower.
Laurie settled her shoulders. “I was shitty when I left home. I know that. I left you alone to deal with Dad and I regret it. So much.” Laurie’s voice wobbled and Mack could hardly hear her over the wind.
“I can’t change the past, Mack, but I’m here now and I want to help. Please.”
They drove silently as the city scrolled outside the windows, hospitals and high-rises and tidy rows of houses with green lawns.
It was the please that killed her. In all the years they’d been apart, during all their battling and bickering, it never occurred to Mack that their separation might hurt Laurie, too.
Laurie left first, but had Mack ever let her sister back in?
“Because I have lots of ideas,” Laurie pushed on.
“Think of what Pippa Mann did with the Komen Foundation, or Lyn St. James with JCPenney. We need to look at companies that specialize in skincare, athleisure, organization, home goods. Period vitamins or a coffee chain, anything targeted at women. But nothing icky like weight loss tea or waist trainers.”
“I don’t use any of those things.”
“Of course you don’t.” Laurie groaned. “Don’t worry about the brands. They’ll give you free stuff, show you how to use it, and tell you how to post it on social media.”
“I don’t have any social media.”
“I’ll set it up and manage your accounts.
” Laurie waved dismissively. “The point is that no current drivers target women-centered businesses, but women have always been race fans and continue to be a growing sector of spectators. Evidence shows women are more likely to align with brands supported by their favorite athletes. There’s a huge market space available. ”
“I need to make sure we don’t overlap with any of Leo’s sponsors.”
“Got it.” Laurie peeked a glance at Mack, that same sideways warning. “Speaking of Leo . . . if I remember correctly, he’s your type? Tall, good hair, drives fast . . .”
Mack shot Laurie a scathing look. “I don’t date race car drivers. Or anyone. I’m a swipe-right-on-a-stranger type of woman.”
“With a condom, I hope?”
“And a goddamn IUD firmly in place.”
“So,” Laurie said, arching her perfectly laminated brows over the top of her sunglasses. “You’re Wes.”
“There’s no time for a relationship when you have a family and a business to take care of. I scratch the itch, then go home.”
“That sounds lonely.” Laurie slammed the ancient brakes as a railroad crossing arm lowered over Indiana Street.
They both jerked forward with the force of the sudden stop.
Laurie turned to face her sister, but Mack stared at the train as if she were driving the damn thing herself.
“Have you ever even been in a relationship?”
The soft sympathy in Laurie’s voice irritated the hell out of Mack. How dare Laurie judge her for the choices she’d made? Laurie had no idea how often Mack was barely treading water, swimming from one crisis to another. “Nope. You?”
“A few.” Laurie swiped at the coat of dust on the dashboard. Her hand came away covered in thick copper dirt, and Mack dug in the glove box for a napkin. “Nothing that lasted.”
“That sounds lonely,” Mack mocked. The glare Laurie shot across the cab was so familiar that Mack saw the ghost of the teenager her sister had once been, could almost imagine Laurie was angry because Mack used her tube of Revlon Fire and Ice to mark tires.
“Relationships aside . . . you wouldn’t do anything stupid like start something with Leo, right? Because you won’t get a chance like this again.”
The words pressed down on Mack more than the g-forces she’d weathered on track.
Mack knew Laurie judged her for taking up with Kelley and getting pregnant.
She’d made it clear since that first phone call when Mack told her sister about the two blue lines on the pee stick.
She’d even loaned Mack the money to get an abortion in Illinois and had refused to take it back when the clinic turned Mack away for being three days past the legal cutoff.
In a mortifying moment, Mack had sobbed on the phone to her older sister about how she hadn’t known she was pregnant.
They’d used protection, every time, and she’d had no idea until it was too late.
She’d confessed to her sister that she didn’t want to have a kid, she wanted to race.
Please, Laurie, fix it, please fix it, please, she’d begged.
Laurie had listened in stony silence. They’d never spoken about it again.
Graffiti-covered boxcars lumbered across the tracks in front of them.
Mack felt the grubbiness of her skin and badly wanted to wash away the dried sweat and tiny rubber particles.
A certain truth about life in Indiana was that a train would come whenever you were desperate to be on the other side of the tracks.
Mack closed her eyes and rubbed her gritty eyelids.
As much as she wanted to say something mean and sharp to hurt Laurie right back, there was truth in her sister’s words.
Mack couldn’t afford to lose racing over a man. Again. Even if she’d be spending a lot of time with Leo Raisman’s dark-lashed doe eyes. She could still picture him holding her gaze while she panicked in the cockpit.
“I know better now,” she said, humiliated.
The crossing arm lifted and Laurie slowly accelerated, as if she knew the bumps of the track would further unsettle Mack’s stomach.
They rode in silence as Laurie turned right on Meridian Street.
Ahead, the Soldiers & Sailors Monument peeked over the surrounding buildings, the wings of the bronze figure of Victory at the top glowing with the final rays of the setting sun.
The defining feature of the Indianapolis skyline, the monument reminded Mack of where she was.
Reminded her to keep her head screwed on right and remember why she was here. For the Indy 500, nothing else.