Chapter 29
When she left the infield care center, the world around Mack accelerated as fast as the spin that put her into the wall.
A baker’s dozen of reporters were still waiting for an interview, and she gave a concise account: She was pushing the car to the limit, she heard a noise, she hit the wall.
The irony of getting her first, and possibly last, prime network interview slid into her belly, heavy and sour.
After she gave her statements, every single correspondent—from the veteran network reporter to the blogger using voice record on their phone—apologized to Mack and promised to delete any footage of Shaw.
It was kind but unusual, and Mack turned and saw Billie at her shoulder, glaring at the reporters with a stern fuck around and find out look.
She pointed two long metallic-blue fingernails at her eyes, then turned and pointed the fingers specifically to the reporters with cameras.
One journalist even showed Billie how he’d deleted the footage from his phone, and Mack gave Billie another mental thank-you.
Slowly, she made her way to Gasoline Alley.
She’d asked her family to wait at the RV until she had clear news from Janet; the conversation to come wasn’t something she wanted anyone else to witness.
Her chest ached, her hand and wrist throbbed, and her entire body felt like she’d been through the rock tumbler she’d given Shaw for her seventh birthday, but she couldn’t focus on her physical discomfort now.
From the doorway, Mack got her first view of the splintered parts of her car spread across the JJR garage floor.
Mack knew it was a hard hit—she felt it ringing in her body even now—but the extent of the damage was shocking.
Fiberglass and metal littered the floor, and what was left of the machine was hardly recognizable as a car.
The left-side wheels were both missing, the nose cone completely sheared off, the sidepod crushed, and the rear wing dangled by a metallic thread.
If the bodywork was this damaged, Mack imagined the corresponding components underneath suffered catastrophic damage.
She’d felt the impact but seeing the carnage in person was sobering.
Crew members methodically laid out pieces of bodywork on several tarps, separating salvageable parts from garbage.
They’d worked endless hours to prepare a qualification-worthy car for her, and if there was a worse scenario, Mack couldn’t imagine it.
She’d not only missed her chance to qualify today, she’d smashed the team’s hopes for tomorrow.
As she approached the fractured car, two crew members noticed her and stopped their work.
Then another turned and stared, and another, and another, until everyone in the garage was watching her.
She didn’t know if they wanted penance or a platform, so she spoke first. “You guys worked so hard to put together a hell of a machine and I’m truly sorry for ruining it. ”
She wanted to say more, but words would not put the car back together.
“Mack. You’re okay?” Leo was in his coveralls, earpieces dangling from the zipper, helmet in hand. In the next garage over, she could see his team rolling his car to pit lane.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready to go out?”
Her voice sounded cold even to her own ears. But the crew was right there, and Mack couldn’t help but wonder if they’d seen the social media posts, if they also thought she’d joined the team because of Leo’s influence, if they were judging her as much as people were online.
“That was a scary hit.” He rubbed a palm over his beard and exhaled, and the look of tender relief on his face made Mack wish she could touch him. She clenched her fists to keep from reaching out and an eye-watering stab of pain zipped up her arm. “You’re okay? Not hurt anywhere?”
Mack shook her head, dangerously close to crying and not because of her wrist. Why did she want all these things she couldn’t have? IndyCar, Leo, freedom from Kelley.
“What can I do to help you for tomorrow?” Leo asked.
“There won’t be a tomorrow,” Janet snapped from the back of the garage. Her frizzy hair stood straight on end as she put her hands on her hips and pinned Mack with a look of utter disappointment.
Mack inwardly crumpled, the physical pain forgotten. She’d expected this response but some latent, pathetic optimism convinced her she might get a Hail Mary.
“Janet, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t tell it to me!” Janet shouted. She swept her arms toward the crew, who were doing a bang-up job of ignoring the scene in front of them.
“But I think—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you think!
” Janet scrubbed her hands over her face and then pressed all ten fingers against her forehead.
“I gave you one instruction: Do not. Wreck. The car. And what did you do?” Janet gestured at the debris around them.
“I thought you would take this chance and give it every part of your being, that you would give a million percent to this race.” She glared at Mack, a look filled with frustration but also something more.
Something that made Mack think of a bruise.
“I thought you got it. That you knew the Indy 500 is everything. The only thing.”
With those words, Mack knew for good there would not be another qualification attempt. Even before she’d wrecked the car, she’d damaged any respect she’d earned from Janet by touching Leo at the fountain, and Janet wasn’t the type to forgive.
Mack’s IndyCar run was done.
She should keep her mouth shut and slink away, but she kept seeing the small snippet of the replay on the jumbotron.
If she fucked up, she’d own it. But if she could earn back even a small amount of Janet’s trust and respect, she had to try.
The Indy 500 wasn’t the only reason she wanted to stay.
She wanted to stay with Janet and the team.
“I think the left tire went down. I had the speed, and then the back end flipped on me.”
“We could check the replay,” Leo offered, too quickly.
Janet stood rigidly, staring at the floor. “The goddamn tire was fine. It was a stupid rookie mistake and I’m the dumbass who let you run a car that loose.”
Was it? She’d been on the very edge of her ability to control the car when she heard that pop.
Maybe she’d simply lost the back end. But she could see the last few seconds of the accident replay on the giant infield TV screen.
She knew what she’d seen: Her, flat out in the turn, and then a small blip of movement on the left tire.
“And you,” Janet hissed at Leo. “We will talk after you go out there and qualify in the top ten or else your time on this team is severely limited.” Leo kept his gaze forward as Janet walked away, but Mack could see the lines of tension around his mouth.
The look on Leo’s face, the fear and frustration compounded with the stress and anxiety of the day, the pain in her hand, and Mack couldn’t stop it. She burst into tears.
Not little streamers at the corners of her eyes, but loud, ugly, racking sobs that echoed through the garage.
She’d ruined her own reputation, for good this time, and possibly hurt Leo’s career.
Shaw was hurting and Mack couldn’t fathom the financial consequences of her brief time at Indianapolis.
Who knew what Kelley would do, and Laurie had disappeared again.
She hadn’t even come to the medical tent to check on Mack.
Not only had she not made the race, she’d hurt almost everyone she cared about in the pursuit of nothing. Ashamed, she covered her face and ran toward the exit.
“Mack, wait!” Leo called. He reached for her hand but stopped before he touched her, and the way he held his hand back made her cry harder.
“Shit, Mack. Mack.” He pulled her into his arms and she gasped as her right hand bumped into his chest. She wrapped her other arm around his back and pulled him in close, giving up on protecting her reputation.
She was going home now and she wanted this one final feel of Leo.
She melted into the steadiness of his embrace and let herself have this one thing, for one moment.
“I’m sorry,” Leo whispered.
“Stop,” Mack sobbed. He smelled like laundry soap and motor oil, even in his coveralls. “I don’t need you to try to fix this. I started this whole thing. I can’t seem to stop myself from being impulsive and making bad choices.”
Leo flinched and pulled back. “This isn’t an impulse. I want to see you again. I can come to you on our off weekends and fly you and Shaw out for some races—”
“Leo, stop,” Mack demanded for a second time. “It’s over. It’s all over for me. I’m going home, and Janet’s not wrong. You need to focus on getting out there and qualifying.”
“You don’t want to try?”
My god, she did. She wanted to know all of him. But Shaw and Wes and the dirt track needed all of her now that she’d ruined her shot at the Indy 500. She’d promised herself that after the race, she’d go home and rededicate herself to her family and the family business.
“I can’t.”
Leo watched her, his dark eyes searching hers for the truth of her words. She must have faked it well, because he gave a single nod.
“Do one thing, then. Not for me, but for yourself.” Leo smoothed his thumb over her brow. “Don’t quit. Try again next year. Run some karting races, get back on the dirt track. Don’t slink away like you did something wrong.”
She pulled away from him. “I’m not slinking away, Leo. I got fired!”
Leo shoved a frustrated hand in his hair.
“I meant don’t quit on you. You get to choose your life, Mack.
Not Janet or some pissant online or your dad or Kelley Caruthers.
Don’t let other people make your choices.
If you want to race, race. Find any ride you can and drive the wheels off it. Don’t give up racing.”
Mack blinked in fury. What did he know about quitting? Leo didn’t have a child’s school schedule or a father’s medical bills to consider. He didn’t get called track bunny or whore. Leo didn’t know shit about quitting because he’d never had to find out.
“You know nothing about my life, Leo.”
Leo’s mouth tightened but he held her gaze. They stood there, too long, but Mack couldn’t walk away. She wanted him to yell at her, to tell her where to shove it, to say horrible things so that she could walk away and forget about him.
But he was Leo Raisman, ever steady and kind, so of course he did not. Carefully, he closed the gap between them and Mack stared at his dimple.
“I see you out there on the track, keeping pace with drivers who’ve been doing this for years.
” There was an intensity in Leo’s warm gaze that made it impossible to look away.
He leaned in an inch. “You feel it, don’t you?
When you’re out on the track, you feel it.
That’s where you’re meant to be. Walk away from me, Mack.
I’ll figure out how to live with that. But don’t walk away from yourself. ”
Mack let herself study his face one last time, let herself pull in one last breath of fresh laundry and grease. Then she turned and walked away without saying goodbye.
She’d never see him again anyway.