by A. E. Grace
Despite my wandering mind right now, I cannot shake the feeling that I’m going to mess this up.
I really don’t want to.
This is such a great opportunity, and it would be so like me to just stuff it up.
How can I ensure that I won’t?
I mean, what if I say something stupid to Cheat Cohen in front of Ms. Jennings?
Speaking of Cheat Cohen… I did some research (obviously). Wow… yeah. Stop it, Circe, because that’s only happening in your dreams.
Dreams. I hope I get some sleep on the flight.
Sleep.
I hope I don’t snore in front of Ms. Jennings!
The cars screamed by, their high-pitched wails like souls of the damned being dragged down to hell.
And they were only warming up.
Circe Cole was glad that she was wearing protective earmuffs, and she looked toward Stephanie Lee Jennings, her enigmatic boss and idol, and grinned.
“Wow,” she mouthed silently. “It’s so loud.”
BZZT! Her boss’ voice came in loud through her left earmuff. “These are radios, too, you know.”
A wave of embarrassment crashed over Circe as she reached atop her head to find, sure enough, a microphone pointing straight upward. She angled it back down until it was in front of her mouth, and for the first time, noticed that on the other side of her boss’ face, there was a mic, too.
“Oops,” she whispered into the microphone, shrugging. “Uh, why do we have mics?”
“We’ll be hooked into Cohen’s frequency once the race starts proper,” Ms. Jennings told her.
“Pay attention,” Ms. Jennings told her. “No, no, put your bloody notepad away. Listen to the cars. Watch them as they weave on the track, warming their tires. See how fat and smooth the rubber is? It’s dry weather, and those tires will wear down fast. Look at Miles. Go on, look at him!”
Circe nodded and followed the woman’s finger, pointing at the red-and-white Formula One car currently weaving in rapid zig-zags across the steaming grey concrete-asphalt mix. Miles ‘Cheat’ Cohen held records in nearly every professional racing outfit there was. Currently the reigning, and seven-time consecutive Formula One champion, he also was the most accomplished driver in Formula Three, Australia’s V8 Supercars, the British Touring Car Championship; he was a one-time winner of Le Mans, one-time champion of the Rolex Sports Car Series, and one-time champion of NASCAR. In short, the man had done it all, and was regarded by armchair experts and other drivers alike to be most skilled driver… ever.
Circe had made sure to do her homework before boarding that plane with her boss. She laughed as she recounted his curriculum vitae in her head. Quite simply put, he was straight out of fantasy, larger than life, and, ultimately, impenetrable. Nobody knew anything about him outside of his professional work. He was never seen with a girlfriend, wasn’t married as far as anybody could tell, and seemed to have no family to speak of. No parents, no siblings, no distant cousin, no anything.
Stories popped up now and again of beautiful women claiming to have spent a night with Cheat Cohen. These were almost always proven wrong, no matter how lurid the details. It was as good a guess as any that he simply wasn’t interested in women, not that there was any indication he swung the other way, either.
“Pay attention!” Ms. Jennings snapped, dragging Circe from her reverie by the scruff of her neck. “See how the tires have darkened?”
Circe nodded. “Yes.”
“That’s because the rubber is warming, starting to soften.”
Circe looked up at the sky, saw the burning sun overhead. It was a hot day in Melbourne, the start of the new Formula One season, and she had scored the equivalent of journalism pole position.
“The race is close to starting,” her boss told her. “They’ll lap one more time, and then take their positions. So we’re watching the final warm-up lap right now. Look at the way Cheat pushes his car right up to the tail of Michael Hamilton’s. Do you see that? What do you make of that?”
“Flirting?” Circe offered, but instantly regretted the poor attempt at humor. After seeing the look on Ms. Jennings’ face, she replied in proper. “Um, intimidation. He’s trying to intimidate Hamilton because that’s his biggest threat to the drivers’ championship.”
“Both right and wrong,” she said. “Right in that Cheat is trying to get in Hamilton’s head. It’s a bit of cocky showmanship. Wrong in even thinking that Hamilton poses any threat.”
“Last season Hamilton finished in second place.”
“And by how many points?” her boss countered. “Cheat Cohen finished first in all but one race. Nobody could catch him. There was no threat.”
Circe thought back to the research she’d done on the season before, but couldn’t remember when Cheat had finished second. But she didn’t dare ask Ms. Jennings that one.
“Everything the drivers do before the actual race,” her boss continued, “is more important than you think. What you are watching right now is character politics. Look at the way Sebastian Keitel has overtaken, even though he’s not supposed to during the warm-up period. Watch how Danny Webber is already taking his corners too sharp. The edges of his tires are touching grass. Watch each and every one of them! If you want a future at Speed, and if you want to cover Formula One, the most prestigious racing to cover – yes, more prestigious than Le Mans – then make sure you pay attention! Journalism is more than just the words, Ms. Cole. Journalism is understanding the nuance.”
Circe turned her eyes toward the track, and saw that the cars had finished their warm-up, and were all moving into their starting positions. That was when she noticed that Miles ‘Cheat’ Cohen was at the very back of the pack.
“Why is Cheat Cohen all the way at the end?” she asked. “Didn’t he qualify?”
“Cheat will be starting last in every race this year. He deliberately throws qualifying.”
“Why?” Circe asked, and her boss laughed.
“Why else? The challenge.”
Circe groaned. “Men.”
“Well, this one is special, Circe. You watch. There’s more to him than simply being a man. I don’t know what it is, but I intend to find out when I interview him this evening.”
Circe nodded. All around her people fell silent as the starting lights flashed their first double-red orbs. A series of five pairs of lights lit up in sequence, one second after the last, and when all five pairs were shining crimson, there was a short pause before they would wink out, and the race would start.
One… two… three… the lights dropped. The bulbs went black. The cars screamed.
Plumes of smoke were kicked up by twenty-two quadruplets of rubber tires. The entire seating area, opposite to where the checkered flag would be waved was choked in the white, foul-smelling gaseous secretions, and Circe coughed and spluttered, looking toward Ms. Jennings, who seemed to be holding her breath.
The cars were off like lightning, with Hamilton’s pole position streaking out ahead, and the rest of the pack lazy to catch up, a turbulent wave of weaving and screeching metal and rubber.
Circe quickly located Cheat, in the twenty-second and last position, and watched as, in a dashing maneuver, he tricked two drivers into blocking right, and the gunned it up their left flanks.
Twentieth.
She watched as he then overtook one car on the outside of the first eighty-degree bend, and she thought for a moment that she might have seen his outside wheels lift slightly off the ground. He must have been pushing his machine to the limit.
The cars were out of sight then, and she had to look at the giant screen opposite the stands to watch their progress. The radio in her left earmuff crackled to life, and she heard Miles ‘Cheat’ Cohen’s calm, baritone voice
“Taking Charlie on the inside at three.”
“Three?” Circe asked her boss, before covering her mouth in shock.
“Don’t worry, they can’t hear us. We’re being relayed their conversations, but we can
only communicate with each other. Three means corner three.”
Circe nodded, saw Cheat overtake again. The next corner came up, and he was ahead of another racer.
Seventeenth.
“He’s overtaken five cars in four corners!” Circe gasped.
“Just watch,” Ms. Jennings told her. “It’s magnificent.”
Circe could see that her boss was clasping her hands together, and the veins on her stringy arms had sprung to life.
“Johnson at chicane,” Circe heard. “On the outside.” She saw Cheat fake inside, and then dart around the outside to take position sixteen. Though she wasn’t a fan of racing, Circe was forced to admit to herself that there was something magical in this driving performance.
Cheat passed another driver on a straight section before breaking late into Ascari – a sharp, ninety-degree right-hand bend – and failing to overtake again, pulling his car up short, and driving head-to-tail to the racer in front.
“Shit,” he growled over the radio. The high-pitched shriek of his car was audible in the background.
He gunned it around the second right-hand corner, before breaking late once again to take the unforgiving double-turn before the finish line was in sight. He passed the car then, and crossed the dotted line at position fifteen.
“Wow,” Circe marveled. In one lap he had moved up seven spots. She thought she was starting to see the appeal in racing.
“Inside at three,” she heard Cheat say over the radio. His voice was unbelievably calm and mechanical, and she watched as he overtook in similar fashion.
“Outside at four.”
“Inside at eleven.”
“Inside at Ascari.” He outright bullied his way into inside position on the right-angle bend, and by the time he crossed the finish line for the second time, he was in tenth place.
“Look at that,” Ms. Jennings cried. “Twelve overtakes in two laps! Unbelievable.”
“Is it the car?” Circe ventured.
“He has got the best car, yes, but it’s more than that. The moves he’s pulled off… ballsy. All risk. The man’s a daredevil with a death wish. Just watch him drive. It’s poetry on asphalt.” She clapped her bone-thin hands together, laughing. “There’s one for the groan-books.”
Circe laughed with her boss, and continued to watch Miles ‘Cheat’ Cohen’s onslaught. He had second place by the seventh lap, breaking the world record for the lap – which he had set last season – by almost two tenths of a second.
But by the penultimate lap, after over an hour of racing, Cheat was still in second place, narrowly tailing Hamilton. Circe looked at Ms. Jennings, and the older woman merely grinned at her.
“He’s toying with Hamilton,” she told Circe. “He’ll take it from him at the last bend.”
“That’s a bit risky, isn’t it?”
Stephanie Lee Jennings’ bony, angular face erupted into the broadest smile Circe had ever seen. “Yes, it is,” the woman said. “It sure is.”
Watching the two drivers on their final laps, Circe was sitting on the edge of her seat, gripping its plastic lip in each hand.
“Come on, Cheat,” she mumbled to herself as he feinted an overtake at the first chicane, did so again as the next bend. Hamilton was all over the track trying to keep Cohen behind him.
They approached the final two turns, one harsh bend leading straight into another in the opposite direction, s-shaped. This was it. It was now or never.
Circe gasped as Cohen faked left, then right, then left again, before cutting harshly into the inside track at the final left bend, bullying the contact-shy Hamilton out of position, and streaking past the waving checkered flag to take first place and win the Australian Grand Prix season opener.
Circe leaned back in her seat, and breathed out the air she had been holding in her lungs for nearly a minute.
*
Miles ‘Cheat’ Cohen removed his helmet, revealing a tangled mass of sweaty brown hair plastered against his scalp. He wiped beads of perspiration from his upper lip with a gloved finger, and rubbed his almond eyes before climbing out of his car.
Removing the racing suit was no simple feat, and once he was standing on concrete, more than a little disappointed that the race was already over, he began the arduous process. Collar strap, wrist straps, gloves off, absorbent towel out, zip down, arms squeezed out, and his upper body was free of the sweltering, fireproof suit. The boots, ankle straps, fire-retardant underwear (which covered his entire body) were next, but quite frankly he couldn’t be bothered, and so tied the empty arms around his waist, before swiping his hair clear of his eyes.
“I need a haircut,” he told portly team manager Richard Ford as the fifty-something year old waddled over, his trouser inseam looking alarmingly invasive.
“Good race, Cheat.”
“As ever.”
“Not going to the podium to spray champagne, then?”
“Of course not.”
Richard broke eye contact. “Right. Well, never doubted you for a second.”
“Somehow I doubt that, Richard.” Miles clasped onto the man’s shoulder. “You’ve always been a fussy sort of man.”
“Why, for God’s sake, did you wait until the last lap to take Hamilton?”
Miles looked at his ‘boss’ – and he only used the term out of politeness – and grinned. “Come on, Richard. Don’t you enjoy a little excitement?”
“You sure it wasn’t because you couldn’t keep up with him earlier? His last few laps were a good deal slower, especially around the corners.”
Miles glared at the man for a moment, and watched his ‘boss’ wilt beneath his stare.
“Alright, alright,” the team manager said, putting up his hands and breaking eye contact. “Forgive me.”
“Already have!” Miles put an arm around the man and patted his bald spot. “Your hair is just melting off, isn’t it?”
“You know, Cheat, sometimes you can be a bit abrasive.”
Miles feigned a shocked expression. “Really? I had no idea.”
“Consider working on it.”
“Will do! Thanks very much for the advice,” he said. Cheat’s gaze homed in on his team manager’s gaping mouth, and he gestured at his front teeth. “Also, bit of broccoli. Was that from last night or this afternoon?”
Miles left Richard picking at his teeth, and walked out of the pit with sunglasses and a cap on, eyeing the throng of reporters, searching for Speed’s Stephanie Lee Jennings. The woman was a remarkable writer, edited for the most prestigious car magazine in the world, and that was why he had agreed to give her his first interview in seven years.
Also, he had come to the realization that he was getting a little bored with life, and so he planned to have some fun with the severe woman. He spotted her at the gates, her silver mane gleaming in the sunlight. She was a tall woman, could literally stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her male contemporaries, and judging by the respectful distance they kept from her, was evidently a force to be reckoned with.
He began his jaunty amble over to Ms. Jennings, weighing in his mind which tack he’d take with the interview. Would he be frustratingly concise? Would he be annoyingly vague? Would he be exceedingly inappropriate?
The possibilities were endless.
“Great race, Cheat!”
“Nice one, Cheat!”
“Hey! Cheat! Cheat!”
Miles waved casually at his fans lining the pit fences, before spotting second-place finisher Michael Hamilton, the man he’d overtaken in the final lap at the final bend.
“Better luck next time, Mike.” He winked at the man, who seemed to want to square up for a moment before the crew at his pit garage pulled him away.
Miles laughed to himself. He had no doubt that Hamilton would not hesitate to gloat if he could. But therein lay the distinction. If he could.
As he approached Speed’s Ms. Jennings, he noticed a much younger woman standing behind her. He tilted his head to the side as though peering around
the trunk of a tree, and caught large brown eyes that seemed to sparkle. The young woman smiled like she was star-struck.
And with good reason, Miles thought to himself. But Stephanie Lee Jennings interrupted him by sticking out a hand. “Cheat.”
“Ms. Jennings,” he said, taking the woman’s thin hand and shaking it. “Who is this you’ve got with you?” The young woman stepped out from her shadow, then, and Miles was floored when he saw her full face.
She was absolutely gorgeous! Big, innocent eyes, with delicate cheeks and lips he reckoned he could kiss for days. He felt his heart rate quicken, felt his temperature rise, and felt his senses awakened. It was the same thump in his chest, kick to his gut, that he hadn’t felt since he was still a schoolboy.
“This is Ms. Circe Cole,” Stephanie said, and she gestured with her head for the young woman to introduce herself.
“Hi,” Circe said, extending a hand.
“Very nice to meet you, Ms. Cole,” Miles said, taking her small digits in his. His hand was easily twice the size of hers.
“She will be assisting me,” Stephanie continued.
Though he didn’t want to, Miles stopped looking at Circe so that he could respond to the young woman’s boss. He caught an amused look on Stephanie Jennings’ face. So, she had seen the way he had devoured up the sight of the curvy and delectable Circe. He could use that to his advantage, he didn’t doubt. The woman was shrewd, and Miles wasn’t unaware that this interview would be the biggest story in automobile journalism.
He decided he was going to change the rules of the game.
“Ms. Jennings,” he said. “I’ve got new terms.”
“Oh?” the woman asked, her lips curling even more. Miles responded with a smirk of his own. “Do tell.”
“I want Ms. Cole here to be my interviewer.” He watched as the beautiful young woman froze up entirely, and looked out of awkward eyes at her editor-in-chief.
Stephanie Jennings seemed to bristle momentarily, before her strategic mind took over. “Ms. Cole is just an intern, and is fresh out of university. She doesn’t have any interviewing experience.”
