Racing Outside the Line: A Love Story at 190 Mph (40 page)

"Hi beautiful, what’s your name, can I get your number?" he teased.

I decided to play into his little game, "Sorry, buddy, I’m married to a driver."

"Oh, he’s probably just some loser, forget him and come make out with me." I laughed as he leaned down to kiss me. The fans, who wouldn’t know about our marriage, were wide-eyed and the skanky "look at me" girls were practically plotting when and where to jump me. I pulled back quickly, though, and turned serious eyes on Seth. "Alexandria is waiting for you to be standing with me before she causes her scene. I thought if you weren’t busy, we could get it over with." I watched his light-hearted face become serious and annoyed and felt guilty for adding more drama to a day that should be reserved for racing thoughts only. The only thing that made me feel better was that hopefully this would end Alexandria’s hold on us, and we could start to live our lives drama-free.

He grabbed my hand and whispered in my ear, "Let’s get it done before I lose all my patience and do something I never thought I would ever even imagine doing, like backhanding the stupid woman."

I smiled and reminded him, "Remember, you’re letting
me
handle this, no interference." He nodded reluctantly letting me drag him out of the garage to where Desmond and Chelsea were standing. I looked at both of them sternly and repeated my instructions, "No interference, just stand in the background." They both nodded as well and like clockwork, Alexandria wound her way through the crowd towards Seth and me. We stood there with our arms around each other as she came into focus in my peripheral vision. She was with an older version of her that I guessed had to be her sister, and they both had the look of angry bitches. Well, I knew how best to fight that look.

I smiled up at Seth, and he smiled down at me, kissing the bridge of my nose.

"Seth!" Beauty Queen yelled, "We need to talk."

"Oh," I said sugary sweet in her direction, "Alexandria, honey, I didn’t know you would be here, how are you doing?" I pulled away from Seth stepping toward Alexandria. I placed my hand over my heart affecting a pitying look on my face, "This must be really hard for you, are you sure you’re okay to be here so soon?"

Just as suspected, she was taken aback by my comments. She had been expecting me to cower or fight, poor girl, I fight dirty. She attempted to ignore me and tried to step around me.

"I don’t want to talk to
you
, you’re nothing but a fiancé stealing slut," she spat trying to step around me again, but I blocked her path. She had the crowd’s ears now.

"Oh, hun," I really exaggerated the pity on my face this time, "Don’t make yourself look more," I paused glancing to both sides, then brought my hand up to the side of my mouth. It was a mocking gesture made to look as if I were trying to hide the word I was about to say, but then I went ahead and said it just as loudly as the rest of our conversation, "pathetic." I lowered my hand and added, "It’s really just sad, sweetie." She was fuming angry now.

"Seth, get this little bitch away from me before I hurt her." Yes! That’s just where I wanted her to go with this, and as if on cue, the cameras came up around us pointed directly at her, not me and not Seth. Let
her
be the media magnet.

"Alexandria, honey, I know you’re in pain, but really," I put on my best lecturing a two-year-old face and voice, "violence is never the answer."

"Seth!" she yelled again bringing even more eyes and bodies to our conversation. Yippee! She tried to push past me, but I blocked her again, this time she used her hands to try to shove me out of the way, but, instead, I grabbed her wrists letting my fingernails bite into her skin. Her eyes widened as she caught my meaning that I was sure as hell
not
a wimpy girl that would stand by and let her intimidate me.

Then, in a stroke of brilliance, I yelled, "Ow!" continuing to dig my fingers into
her
wrists. More loudly than before, I said, "You can physically harm me all you want Alexandria; I understand you’re just lashing out at me because Seth and I are completely in love with each other. He
hurt
you, I get that, but he doesn’t want to talk to you anymore." I let go of her wrists as she struggled to pull away from me. "Really, honey," I said placing my hand over my heart again, "you’re just embarrassing yourself, he’s not worth losing your dignity over, is he?" She was so pissed I could see her plotting my murder, but I had given her nowhere to go with this one. She wanted a fight, a media event, but I just made it all fall on poor, pitiful Alexandria and there was nothing she could do except walk away. She looked coldly down at me and said, "This isn’t over, bitch."

I stepped forward letting my true all-encompassing anger come out through my face and my eyes as I attempted to sound like Satan himself, "Oh yes… it is." I saw her eyes widen infinitesimally before she turned to storm away, her sister in tow.

Knowing the cameras were still trained on me, I turned back to Seth and said loudly to him, "I feel so badly for her, poor thing."

He caught the idea and placed his arm sympathetically around my shoulders, "I know you do sweetheart, but she just has to get over it on her own."

As we talked about Belize with Desmond and Chelsea, an effective change in topic, the cameras went away. Several interviewers had tried to get Seth to talk about the incident, but he just told them, "I’ve already given an interview about this to Bert, and out of respect for the pain Alexandria must be going through, I won’t say any more on the topic." I couldn’t have prompted his response better if I had tried. He was such a smart man.

Before heading back into the garage, he kissed me gently and whispered into my ear, "remind me not to piss you off, you were incredible." I smiled, quite proud of myself as well and watched his swagger as he walked back into the garage signing an autograph here and there.

When it was time to line up for the race, I became ridiculously nervous. At first, it was mostly anticipation, but then it changed into something I couldn’t place in such a clear-cut category. It was surreal to stand next to Seth as the national anthem was sung, the prayer was said, and the jets flew overhead. His arm remained attached to my shoulder the whole time, which I was super grateful for since it offered me some strength and comfort as cameras focused on us over and over again. It really took a great deal of effort not to hide behind him, but I managed to stand still and felt that I was doing a pretty good job of looking calm.

I was just patting myself on the back for my composure when it all came crashing down. I was watching Hannah, whose husband was starting a few cars back when Seth leaned down and kissed me on my cheek.

"I have to get in my car now, love," he whispered in my ear, "give me a kiss for good luck?"

"With pleasure," I replied happily as I wrapped my arms around his neck.

In typical Seth fashion, he instantly gained the upper hand of the kiss and had me nearly trembling within seconds. When he pulled away, his smile was contagious, and the love behind his eyes was clear and powerful. I watched him climb into his car and Gary scooted past me to help him with his belts, which is when my stomach dropped to my toes, and my heart began a 180mph race of its own.

Oh, God,
I thought, feeling a panic attack begin inside of me. I took deep breaths trying to get my brain to kick in.
He’s fine… he’s fine… why is he fine?... Roll cage
, I tried to remind myself,
specialized racing seat
,
six-point racing seatbelt, fire, fire, what if there is a fire?
My hand flew to my chest,
calm down, there is a fire thing, what’s it called—come on—think—think—automatic fire suppression system. Bingo! See, totally covered, totally safe.
Wyatt always said, "No expense spared on safety equipment." I knew all of this. I’d known all of this for years and years, straight through Seth’s years racing Late Models when I would lean down and reach behind his seat to pass him his seat-belt. I’d spent years learning everything I could about the hunk of dangerous metal he wielded around the track, yet here I was with heart palpitations over the man I loved climbing into the vehicle.

Silly or not, the magnitude of my fear only made the realization of the strength of my love for him more poignant. I was aware of how rare injury was when all the safety measures were employed, but watching him get into that car just paralyzed me with fear. The thought of losing him, after everything we had been through and yet, after we had experienced so little life had to offer us as a couple, made my chest tighten with some fairly severe anxiety.

"I wish I could say it gets easier, hun, but it just doesn’t," Lacy suddenly appeared at my side. I looked up to notice the area emptying quickly of people. The rest of the drivers were in their cars, and their wives were walking back toward the wall. Lacy had been about four cars down, Jake was starting in ninth. She placed her hand on my shoulder looking over at me with a sympathetic smile. I’d like to be able to say that it put me at ease, but nothing could have prevented the unease from rolling through me at that moment. "I’d say, he’ll be fine, but you know that already, and it doesn’t make a spit of difference when faced with the reality of it, so I’ll just remind you that he knows what he’s doing." She put her arm through mine and, realizing the truth in her words, I allowed her to drag me back over the pit wall and to the pit box.

As far as awesome racing accessories go, I’d have to say that one of the things I loved most about the races was the pit boxes. I climbed up the little ladder that put me into the best vantage point for the race, as far as I was concerned. Gary followed me and pointed to a seat on the end opposite him, yelling into my ear, "They’ll put you on camera at least a few times during the race, and you won’t know when, so sit on the end where they can see you easily." I nodded and took my seat, marveling at the setup. The seats reminded me of well-padded chairs you’d find on a speedboat, they were very comfortable, and I hoped I would still be saying that after sitting in one for four more hours.

In front of me, the bird’s eye view of the pits was unbeatable. I could see everything clearly on the track in front of me. At about chest level from my seated vantage point, a one foot deep counter was folded down revealing several keyboards and a long row of four large flat-screen monitors, each showing different things. The center monitor was clearly on the network broadcasting the race. Two other monitors were scrolling numbers that I didn’t understand on the side of the screen, while the other half showed the race broadcast. The last monitor I recognized was being set up to show lap times.

As I tried to calm down my nerves, I heard the master of ceremonies yell, "Gentlemen, start your engines!" and the roar of 43 demonic cars filled my ears, my head, and all the way down to my stomach. I could feel adrenaline start pumping through my system and that nervous excitement I used to feel when I would be at Seth’s races came back to me ten-fold.

Desmond and Chelsea climbed up into the pit box with Wyatt just then. Wyatt took a seat beside me, while Desmond and Chelsea sat behind me on a padded bench seat. Wyatt nudged me in the arm and pointed at the purple headphones in front of me. I picked them up and was surprised at how much heavier they were than the ones we had used when Seth raced Late Models. Of course, these headphones had an antenna attached and were clearly wireless, much more hi-tech.

I smiled, noticing along the band of the headphones, there was a label that read, "Alexis Keller." These were mine now.

It was tough to really know where to look, there were so many screens and fans and cars passing by on the warm-up laps that I was on sensory overload.

"You ready, kid?" I heard Wyatt ask on the radio while smiling widely. This was a bigger arena, more fans, more money than when I had last seen Wyatt and Seth team up at a race, but we were playing the same game. I couldn’t count how many times I had heard Wyatt ask Seth that, it was their standard opening procedure for any race.

"Let’s get ‘em," Seth said with a laugh in his voice, which was, of course, his own standard response. I felt much more comfortable in that moment, confident even, I knew this racing stuff, and I had been here before, no need to be overwhelmed.

I was expecting the next comment from Desmond’s mouth, but laughed as if I hadn’t heard him say it a million times before, "Don’t screw up, rookie." "Rookie" had been Desmond’s nickname for Seth on the track since the dawn of time, and clearly, he hadn’t given it up. "Can’t have you embarrassing your wife, now can we?" Okay, that was new. I turned around and whacked Desmond sharply in the arm, smiling uncontrollably.

"No, I certainly can’t have that," Seth laughed heartily making me grin like a ridiculous teenager. It was so absurd what his voice did to me even after all these years.

"Okay, enough chit chat," Gary leaned forward to wink at me, "now’s not the time to start thinking about your new bride, get your game face on." I could feel myself blushing.

A voice I hadn’t heard before, but suspected was the spotter said, "Two to go."

And before I knew it, the green flag was out, the fans were on their feet, and everyone on pit boxes all the way down the line were sitting on the edge of their seats. It was thrilling and nerve-wracking all at the same time.

Thankfully, the race was pretty uneventful. Seth had managed to avoid the big wrecks that had happened, and he wasn’t involved in the much-talked about drama between Greg Osborne and Jeff Ford, so there wasn’t too much need for nail biting. He had led 22 laps early on in the race, but by the 178
^th
lap, he had been shuffled back to third. Wyatt explained that Seth preferred to hang back a bit until just before the end when he could make a move if his car was the strongest. According to the information being given over the radio, Seth’s car was the fastest out there. Wyatt also explained that this would all depend on the final pit stop and pointed to the crew members who were running back and forth to other pit boxes asking when they would pit and if they would commit to pitting with us. When it all came down, Seth joined the rest of the lead pack on the pit stop and was able, thanks to the crew really pulling out all the stops, to move up to second place.