You seem to be using a lot of automotive metaphors lately. Is the job getting to you?
Possibly, Ed. I am very susceptible to atmosphere. The lake was rather picturesque, and he certainly cares about the place. His fishing shack is not exactly a hovel, either. It’s a nice A-frame, furnished with clean, modern pieces in natural wood.
Decorator?
Ex-wife, perhaps. But it is possible that he has taste, you know. I enjoyed having an uninterrupted afternoon to talk to him. By the way, I got him to talk for ten minutes about “Do they know how much we love them?”
About what?
You know…the adoring fans that NASCAR drivers have. He steadfastly ignored (and I did not bring up) the pit lizard sign in the equation. He talked about how no matter how rushed or mad he was, he would never ignore a child. How he came to the sport from humbler beginnings than most guys, and that he had vowed never to lose his head over the money or the fame. Says he never thought he was better than anybody else.
Someday I’ll get a couple of Heinekens down his pretty little throat, and then I’ll ask him about the dark side of the Force. Wonder if he has ever succumbed. The way he looks, I’d put money on a bet that he has given it up to somebody, somewhere, but I don’t think it’s a regular sport with him. He has to know that there are people who salivate at seeing the number 86… He chooses not to notice. I suppose it saves awkwardness…
If I were him, I’d notice if pretty ladies were hot for my bod! I’d have a basket at the track to collect hotel room keys.
I’ll bet you would, thought Sark, logging off. Maybe most guys would. But she was pretty sure that whatever Badger’s vices were, lust was not among them.
CHAPTER XV
The team was having another pit stop practice at the shop, but Badger was not on hand to help. He wasn’t required to be, of course, but sometimes he had dropped by just to encourage them and to see how things were going. Today, though, his personal manager had commandeered him to make a public appearance at the grand opening of an auto parts store. The team knew about this because Deanna, who had been dispatched by Ms. Albigre to get more of Badger’s autograph cards as a rush job from the printer, was still grumbling about it to anyone within earshot.
“She misspelled the name of the sponsor on the sports card,” Deanna told Sark, who had wandered in to use the fax machine. “I told her, and she said she didn’t care. She said they were in a hurry.”
Sark sighed. “This is all new to me, but her idea of publicity certainly differs from mine. A few days ago I got a call from a turtle rescue program, asking if Badger would film a public service commercial for them, so I relayed the request to Melodie, and she said, ‘What’s in it for Badger?’”
“I think a turtle rescue ad would be great publicity for him,” said Deanna. “Is he going to do it?”
“I don’t think she even bothered to tell him about it. No percentage in it.”
Deanna made a face. “I just hate the way that woman talks to him, Sark. I mean, she may be a genius, for all I know. Although with her spelling…but anyhow, she shouldn’t talk to Badger the ways she does, as if he were a mangy old dog. I wish there was somebody we could report her to.”
Sark nodded. “How about Amnesty International?”
Badger was led away to dazzle the auto parts store customers with his boyish charm (“How ya doin’, sweetie?”), and practice went on without Team Vagenya’s official driver. One of the shop dogs was again subbing for Badger, and the pit crew drilled on tire changing while Tuggle timed them with a stopwatch and shouted instructions. After half an hour of precision drill, the crew chief turned them loose for a break while she went to talk to a journalist. The hot and sweaty crew headed for the shop where there were apples and granola bars on the counter and an ice-filled cooler stocked with a selection of soft drinks and bottled water.
The tall young man who had been Badger’s stand-in for the practice dug a Diet Snapple out of the cooler ice and looked at it appreciatively. “This is way better than the guys’ teams,” he said. “They mostly just put out a loaf of Wonder bread and a package of bologna. And regular cola, if they think of it.”
Taran smiled. “That would suit Badger,” she said. “I think that’s what he lives on, anyhow.”
The substitute driver shrugged. “Yeah, but he works out. And that junk food jones of his may be an act for all we know. In private, he may eat plain salad and scrape the butter off his fish. Most Cup drivers are pretty fanatical about their health-or at least about their looks.”
“Well, whatever he does, it works,” sighed Taran, glancing at the poster of Badger taped to the wall of the shop.
Tony shrugged. “He’s a talented guy,” he said. “But he’s lucky. They all are.”
Taran looked at him more closely. “You’re the one who drove the car for our pit stop practices on the day of tryouts, aren’t you?” she said. The name tag sewn on his firesuit said “Tony.” It wasn’t a Vagenya firesuit, though. It was an old one, probably from a time when he’d raced at local speedways somewhere. Almost everybody in racing started out that way.
The dark young man nodded. “I’m just a mechanic, so that was kind of a thrill. Me driving Badger Jenkins’s car. Even if it was just fifty yards to a pit stop. They told me somebody spotted the difference.”
“Yes. That was me.”
He looked disappointed. “How’d you know it wasn’t him?”
“Oh, not because of the driving,” said Taran quickly. “You did a great job. Really. It was the eyes. Badger has very dark, sad eyes. You can’t mistake them. Anyhow, yours are blue.”
Her explanation did not seem to comfort him much. Tony said, “Plus, he’s rich and famous, and I’m just a shop dog.”
Taran thought it would be both impolite and insincere to agree with the patent truth of this statement. Besides, he wasn’t so bad. Tony Lafon was a good three inches taller than she was, and therefore that much taller than Badger himself. He had dark straight hair offset by the fair skin and blue eyes that people associated with Ireland. Tony didn’t have Badger’s perfectly chiseled features, but he looked like a nice, bright guy, and he was certainly easier to talk to.
Taran said, “Well, maybe Badger is more successful than you are, but you look about ten years younger than he is. Are you? Yeah, I thought so. You still have time to make it as a driver. If that’s what you want. Is it?”
Tony looked up at the handsome, stern face of Badger Jenkins staring down at him in air-brushed perfection from the Team Vagenya poster. Some guys got all the breaks. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” he said. “Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been watching racing, and working as a mechanic anywhere I could, and driving at the local tracks in southwest Virginia. You know, the little Saturday night tracks where they raced trucks or Late Model Stocks, and you had to go door to door to the local businesses to get your own sponsors.” He sighed. “You want to believe that working so hard on the local level will someday get you into Cup-and sometimes it does.”
“Of course it does,” said Taran. “That’s how Badger got started.”