“I'll be all right, I think,” I said. Ruby hovered by my side, her wig now completely twisted.
“Miss Lavotini, I don't want to take any chances on you being injured,” Mickey said. “We'll get you checked out and your car towed over to Roy Dell's crew.”
There was no way I was letting some motorhead drive my baby. I'd worked too hard to obtain that car, and I wasn't taking any more chances.
“Nope,” I said, “no way. I'll drive the car myself.”
The EMTs arrived, accompanied by the man Mickey Rhodes had called Meatloaf.
“Miss Lavotini may have a neck injury,” Mickey explained. I grimaced and allowed them to tilt my head this way and that.
“Ow, fellas, take it easy,” I said. “You could do more harm than good here.”
We were sailing along just fine with them prodding and me wincing, when I caught a flash of familiar movement on the edge of the pit where a crowd of onlookers had gathered. For just a moment, I thought I saw a man who looked a lot like John Nailor. I snapped my neck to the left suddenly and almost forgot to moan while I scanned the crowd. The man stood just on the back fringe of the crowd staring, if I was not mistaken, at me. If it wasn't John Nailor, then it was his spitting double. Only thing was, I couldn't imagine a man like him at a dirt track. It just didn't match up.
My stomach did that little flip it always does when I'm around him, the true test that my unconscious recognized him, even if my eyes were a little slow.
“You know,” I said, pushing the prying hands away from my neck, “I think I'll be fine. Moving my head back and forth seems to have fixed the problem. Let's get moving.”
Mickey Rhodes looked relieved. In fact, if I was any judge of human character, I was guessing there was going to be a very hefty tip from him at the end of the evening. Fluffy'd be chomping on gourmet dog food this week.
“Come on, Ruby, let's get to work.” I said. Ruby smiled happily and hopped back into my car. If John Nailor was at the track, then it could only be for one reason: He'd come to see me.
“Follow us,” Roy Dell called, jumping into his battered Vega. Driving slowly, he led us to the pit entrance and down a narrow dirt lane. There were cars everywhere, hoods open, with men hanging half into the mouth of the car, tinkering. Big panel vans sat behind some of the cars, with wrought-iron railings around their roofs and aluminum lawn chairs perched up on top. Small children played in the dirt, pushing little cars and trucks around. But there was no sign of John Nailor.
The track photographer rushed us as soon as I parked my battered baby. He was a short oval of a man, with a belt line that hit him just below the armpits, white socks, black sneakers, and a bald head. He looked like a brown shiny egg, and the closer he came, the more I realized that he smelled much worse than a rotten egg.
“Ladies,” he said, but it sounded more like “lathies,” due to a profound lisp. “I am Harold VonCopage. We're behind schedule. Follow me.”
Harold quickly led us over to a small wooden platform, where he apparently intended to photograph us with every driver and crew member at the Dead Lakes Motor Speedway. I don't know how he intended to do this because I couldn't even see. Thick clouds of red-clay track dust whirled around us and car exhaust fumes made my eyes water. However, as soon as Ruby and I climbed the steps, men began appearing, lining up at the bottom of the platform as Harold had instructed.
“Are you ready?” Harold asked, an eyebrow arching as if daring us not to be. I looked over at Ruby, who was slathering on blood-red lipstick and hitching up the bra of her little Dutch girl costume. She nodded to Harold. I made an attempt to brush off the dust from my French maid's outfit. It was pointless.
“Just a sec,” I called, more to irritate Harold than anything else, and pulled a compact from my purse. My long blond hair was piled high on my head, making me look even taller than my six-foot height in five-inch stilettos. It would be a rusty-red color by the end of the night. I licked my lips slowly and heard the men in the front of the line moan. I wanted to bend over and shift my cleavage even farther north, but this was a family event. My 38DDs probably wouldn't be appreciated by everyone.
I stowed the mirror, looked over at Ruby, and nodded. Then I stretched out my arms to the first man in line.
“Come to Mama, big boy,” I crooned, and the night began.
We'd been standing and posing for about an hour when the smile faded from Ruby's lips.
“Sierra,” she hissed between photo ops, “why didn't you tell me they pinched? My derriere is going to be black and blue, and my costume's gonna look worse. Honey, they didn't even wipe their hands off first!”
I smiled. “Welcome to the life, kid. You're building yourself a consumer base. They'll walk off with your picture, and within a week, half of them'll be in to see you. Think of your bruised ass as an investment in your financial future.”
Ruby looked dubious, but she put on a big smile when the next driver climbed the steps. Throughout the evening I'd look over at her and she never lost that smile, although once or twice I saw her grab a man's hand and pinch the fleshy part between his thumb and forefinger, just like she'd seen me do. But she kept her smile, and the men smiled right back.
Roy Dell Parks was the worst. He kept finding reasons to wander over and talk to her, and Ruby didn't seem to mind him at all. She smiled and spoke softly to him. I couldn't figure what she saw in the big guy.
It was getting late in the evening when I spotted John Nailor for certain. There'd been God knows how many races, all announced over a loudspeaker that was too distorted to understand, and everyone was gearing up for the main event of the evening. Roy Dell Parks and about twenty others were getting set to go fifty laps around the track for the big money purse of the evening. In another half hour the race would take place, and then Ruby and I could leave. I was counting the moments when I looked up and saw John staring at me.
I opened my mouth to call out to him when I realized there was something very wrong with the picture. John, the same guy who'd come into the club on numerous occasions and not all of them professional, the same guy who'd driven me home after some bozo coshed me on the head, was standing not twenty yards away from me with his arm around some tiny brunette.
I should make it clear, here, that John Nailor and I were smoldering somewhere between chemical reaction and friendship with intent to distribute the affection into the physical realm at some point in time.
As such, I recognize the fact that I had no possessive claim on the son of a bitch, but the sparks that had passed between us on a number of occasions led me to believe we meant a lot to each other.
He was watching me now the same way he always did when we first met, from a distance, with an impassive expression on his face, as if I didn't faze him, but I knew different. I'd seen that same look on his face the first time we met, when he was investigating a murder and thought my girlfriend and I had something to do with it. Every time he came to talk to me, he'd look like that, but he kept coming back, even when he didn't have to.
So my mouth dropped open, and my eyes got wide, and I froze, staring at him. He looked at me with those dark eyes of his. Then his companion saw him looking and started to pull at his arm, as if she intended to bring him up to the stage to have his picture taken. He looked down at her, then back at me for just a flash, and that's when he turned away, leaned down, and kissed her.
He kissed her just the way I'd always imagined he'd kiss me one day: hard and like he meant it, like he played for keeps. Then he grabbed her arm and spun her around and they walked off. He was walking rough, and she looked a little surprised but was clearly enjoying this new side to his behavior. I could've told her I'd seen it all before, but I was busy having my picture taken by a smelly egg and my ass pinched by yet another psycho dirt racer.
You'd think by now I wouldn't let stuff like that get to me. It's not as if that was the first time some guy did wrong by me. Far from it. It's just that the kind and quality of man I usually associate with can be expected to be mean. John Nailor was about the last man I thought would deliberately hurt me, and I decided on the spot that I had to know why.
“Break,” called Harold. “Big race is in fifteen minutes. We'll take one last round with the winner, and then you girls can go on home.”
Ruby was looking wistfully after Roy Dell Parks, who seemed to be beckoning her toward his car. Mickey Rhodes was heading in our direction. He was leading Vincent Gambuzzo and some guys in suits. More publicity, and I was in no mood for it. I wanted to look John Nailor in the face, up close and personal, and see if he was as brave eye to eye as he'd been a few seconds ago.
“I'm outta here,” I said, heading for the steps.
“Sierra, where are you going?” Ruby called, but I didn't answer. I kept walking off in the direction I'd seen John head with that perky little bimbo. If he could have picked the almost total opposite of me, he couldn't have done better. She was short, terminally short. I bet in heels she didn't come up over five feet four inches. And she was flat-chested. That is a problem I'll never have to worry about. Her hair was dark and mine was macaroni blondânatural, not bottleâcourtesy of my northern Italian ancestors. And she looked like one little puff would blow her away, a real lightweight in your most Junior League sort of way.
I was searching for them and cursing myself. What was wrong with me that I'd let myself get so worked up over a guy? It was just not like me. No, I take it back, it was just like me, but the me of my North Philly days. Since I'd moved to Panama City two years ago, I hadn't made a fool of myself over anybody. In fact, I hadn't even dated anyoneâhadn't wanted to, really.
I walked past the drivers and the pit crews, barely noticing the catcalls and the whistles. The smell of coffee and greasy hamburgers from the snack shack reminded me that I hadn't eaten since lunchtime. My stomach finally won over where my brain had not succeeded. It was a much saner idea to eat a burger, drink a cup of coffee, and reflect upon my loss of control with John.
I stepped up to the dirty white shack and let the girl working the counter shove a wax-paper-wrapped hamburger into my hand.
“They all got chili and coleslaw on 'em, hon,” she said. “That'll be three dollars with the coffee.” If my French maid costume seemed out of place at the track, she never noticed. Her eyes were glued to the track, where the last semifinal race had just ended.
“Aw, hell,” she said, turning to a young teenaged girl who was wrapping hot dogs. “Meatloaf done lost to Frank. There'll be hell to pay at our house tonight. He'll come home drunk, I guess.” The girl nodded, never looking up from the dogs. “Son of a bitch,” the cashier muttered.
I turned away with my food and wandered out behind the shack. The inner circle of the pit was reserved for parking. It was dark and the ground was a combination of gravel, red clay, and sparse grass.
“All I need is to trip in these heels,” I muttered. I almost bumped into a cluster of three picnic tables and decided the safest thing for me to do would be to sit down and eat while my eyes adjusted.
The loudspeaker began to blare over the constant sound of engines being pushed to their maximum rpms. From what I could catch, the starting lineup for the last race was being announced. I didn't pay much attention. I just wanted the entire evening to come to an end so I could go home to Fluffy and the comfort of my double-wide.
As my eyes adjusted, I could see a trash bin about thirty feet away, and now and then I could discern shapes moving past, heading to or from the parking lot. Someone tossed a bottle and it hit the side of the Dumpster, clanging noisily above the dull roar of the pit.
I started to feel sorry for myself. I was sitting alone at a picnic table eating and thinking: What am I doing here? Why wasn't I home, curled up with a book? True, Vincent had bribed me with money to be here, but was it worth it to come all the way to Wewahitchka, just so I could have my fantasy shattered? I didn't think so.
I got up and started walking toward the Dumpster so I could pitch the rest of my hamburger and get back to the platform. I figured I might as well watch the race and talk to Ruby; that was better than stalking John and his new love interest.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, thinking of the cashier at the snack shack. “They're all alike.”
Someone giggled. It sounded like it came from the other side of the Dumpster.
“Why, I don't know what to say,” a woman's voice said. It was Ruby. I started to say something, but hung back instead. If she wanted to ruin her evening by fooling around with Roy Dell, who was I to interrupt her? She'd learn soon enough that they're all alike. Or maybe she knew something I didn't. I doubted that.
I had turned to leave when I heard her again.
“I couldn't, really,” she said, and I heard a different tone come into her voice, an edge. If that brain-damaged redneck thought he could mess with Ruby, he would be in for a surprise.
I whirled around and started back, only to hear her giggle again. I froze, uncertain about interrupting. A man's voice rumbled and I couldn't make out what he said. The loudspeaker had blurted out something, drowning out their conversation. I started to walk away again.
“Look here,” the man said.
Another giggle from Ruby and then the horrible, unmistakable sound of bone snapping. I sprang forward, lurching to cover the distance to the other side of the Dumpster. As I rounded the corner there was a brief painful flash as I collided with something or someone. The last thing I remember as I slid into darkness was the word “No!” echoing soundlessly inside my head.
HIGH PRAISE FOR
Nancy Bartholomew's
The Miracle Strip