Kiss the Bricks

by Tammy Kaehler

  “I don’t mess with superstition. I’ll be there until my luck wears off.” Gramps shook his head. “Tell me, how’s Ryan these days?”

  I smiled, thinking of Los Angeles-based FBI agent Ryan Johnston, the man I’d been seeing for a couple years. When I’d finally taken him to Albuquerque to visit my grandparents earlier in the spring, Ryan and Gramps had gotten on like a house on fire, in Gramps’ words. I was surprised Gramps hadn’t been in touch with Ryan himself.

  “He’s good. Busy with work. He’s not sure he can get out for the race, but if so, it’ll be last-minute next weekend.”

  “He’ll miss a lot. Like Mug ’N’ Bun!” Gramps took two skipping steps.

  We were headed for the historic drive-in on West 10th that had been around for more than fifty years—plenty long, even if it was only half the time the Indy 500 had been running. A local institution, it offered everything from hot dogs, burgers, and grilled sandwiches to fried potatoes and breaded everything. But what kept people coming back was their homemade root beer. That and the history of the place.

  I knew Gramps had been there many times in the past, during his long career as an electrical systems expert on a wide variety of racecars. Now retired, he still worked on a few special projects in the shop behind his home, and he hadn’t been back to Indianapolis in decades.

  “We’re meeting some of your old friends?” I asked.

  “A bunch of old farts like me. We used to get together regularly.” He grinned. “I always liked it when we met here. I do love my root beer.”

  He was in his element an hour later, talking with his cronies, mug in hand—though I was surprised at the age range of the group sharing three picnic tables under the shade structure to one side of Mug ’N’ Bun’s main room. There were plenty of men in their sixties and seventies, like Gramps. But there were also men—and one woman—in their thirties and forties. Even a couple guys my age or younger who paid close attention, soaking up the wisdom on offer.

  I settled at a table with my own root beer, burger, and fries, content to watch Gramps joking and laughing with his friends. It wasn’t long before a good-looking man I guessed to be in his late fifties joined me with his own meal and introduced himself.

  “Paul Lauth. My compliments on your better run today.”

  I nodded in lieu of shaking. “Thanks. You there with a team?”

  “I’m working as a manager now, but I ran there a few times in the past.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.”

  He waved a hand holding a fry. “You can’t know everyone who’s entered the 500. But I wanted to tell you something—reassure you.” He paused and ate the fry. “You’re not PJ, so don’t listen to all of that garbage.”

  I felt my eyes go wide. “I appreciate that. You knew her?”

  “I was dating her.”

  Chapter Twelve

  May 1987

  PJ checked her watch. Paul was late, but she knew how unpredictable debriefing conversations could be after a practice session. Still, she was tired of waiting.

  “You will be here for a few minutes?” she asked one of the mechanics.

  He didn’t take his attention from the engine in front of him. “We’ll be here.”

  PJ flinched at his unfriendly tone and did her best to ignore the resentment on the face of another crew member. Defensiveness flared inside her.

  Maybe I wouldn’t do so poorly if you did your jobs better! Ay, pendejos, did you never consider this is your fault as much as mine? How might this be different if anyone cared about me on this team?

  She swallowed those responses, thanked the mechanic, and exited the garage. She knew she was being unfair to her engineer, Jerry, and Donny, the crew member who escorted her to and from her car each day, as well as others on the team. But as hard as she’d tried, there were men on the crew who’d hated her from day one. She took a deep breath of air scented with hot metal and rubber.

  I will let it blow over me like the wind.

  She walked along the brand-new, concrete-block garage building that housed her team’s cars and rounded the end, headed two buildings away to the garage structure closest to the track, where Paul’s team had their spaces. She stiffened as she heard the first comments from passersby.

  “It’s that slow chick.”

  “That bitch, taking up a car one of her betters could use.”

  “Like who?”

  PJ risked a glance toward the voices and saw a young woman—with long, feathered hair wearing running shorts and a tight tee-shirt—who hung on the arm of a shirtless, over-muscled man, looking adoringly at him. She repeated, in the same breathy tone. “Like who, baby?”

  The man sneered under his thick, black mustache. “Any of them. Everyone knows girls can’t drive as good as men can.”

  PJ snapped her eyes forward again, before the man saw her. Another male voice startled her, speaking right next to her ear.

  “Don’t listen to them.” The tone was aggressive, but the words and face were kind. “You’ve got plenty of supporters, PJ. You get out there and show them the car doesn’t care what you look like.”

  PJ suppressed her impulse to run and instead smiled at the man. “Thank you. That’s nice of you to say.”

  He nodded and held out a program and pen. “Would you sign this for me?”

  “With pleasure.” She was relieved when he didn’t try to detain her once she’d scrawled her name.

  She kept moving, doing her best to tune out the chatter around her. She knew Jerry wouldn’t be happy with her for walking through Gasoline Alley without Donny. But practice had been over for more than an hour, and the crowd had dwindled.

  “Besides,” she muttered to herself, “I’m tired of feeling I have no freedom.”

  She took another deep breath and straightened her shoulders. As she rounded the end of the garage, she saw Paul leaning against the wall in front of his team space. With a tall, willowy blonde plastered to him. Undulating, slithering against him.

  PJ stopped abruptly, gaping, unsure whether to move forward and fight or turn around and give up. No one could blame me for giving up.

  Before she could decide, Paul saw her. He pushed away from the other woman and jogged straight to PJ, who turned on her heel to leave before he reached her.

  “PJ, God, that’s not what it looked like. Wait.” He sounded angry.

  She kept walking, not trusting her tongue.

  “Dammit, stop! Don’t do this.”

  She whirled to him, only vaguely aware of curious onlookers. “Don’t tell me what to do. Not when I see you with that woman. How many others are there every day?”

  Paul grabbed her hands. “You know what it’s like as a driver. There are always fans on you, wanting something, wanting you. It doesn’t mean I want them, but I can’t be rude. You understand that.”

  PJ made a sound that started as a laugh and ended on a sob, which shocked her. She straightened her spine. “No, I do not know what it is like to have fans wanting me. All people want me to do is go away. And from the people I trust—who I think I can trust—I cannot take betrayal.”

  “PJ, look at me.” Paul spoke quietly. “Really look at me, and hear me.”

  She studied him, tall and handsome, with dark hair and cheekbones to die for.

  He held her gaze steadily. “I’m not interested in the offers. I’m interested in you. I was coming to you when she stopped me, and I was trying to be polite.”

  PJ bristled and Paul stopped her. “I’ll be rude next time, okay?”

  “You do that, or you will be walking with a limp when I am through with you.”

  Paul grinned. “That’s my girl.” He laced his fingers through hers. “Let’s get dinner and you can tell me about your car getting better.”

  Three garages away from PJ’s team, they ran into a reporter for th
e broadcast network. The man greeted PJ and inquired after her day, then asked if he could speak with Paul for a moment. PJ went ahead to her team’s office space, and Paul followed a few minutes later. As he approached PJ’s garage, he heard a loud, frustrated voice.

  “What if we weren’t stuck with her?”

  Paul froze outside the door as another man shushed the first. “Isn’t she here?”

  “She’s off chasing after that driver. Or giving Arvie a ride in order to keep her ride.” That was an older, more bitter voice.

  The other man was clearly younger. More innocent. “You don’t think—do you?”

  “Why else is she here? It’s not her driving skills.”

  “But, Jimmy,” the younger man sputtered, “that first day she was so good.”

  “Probably whored out for the Timing and Scoring guys to put her up there.”

  Paul couldn’t move. PJ can’t be in there listening to this, right? She must have stepped out.

  Jimmy went on. “I wish Arvie would get over it and replace her. With a real driver we might actually have a chance.”

  “You don’t think she’ll snap out of it one of these days?”

  Jimmy scoffed. “We’re lucky if we don’t get bumped out of the field. Best case, we’ll end up pretending we’re happy going to the party for the last-row qualifiers. Unless Arvie gets smart and replaces her.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “He can do whatever the hell he wants, if he stops being pussy-whipped.” Paul heard the sound of tools clanking on the floor as the older mechanic kept ranting. “We keep doing this, undoing that, doing the other thing. Fixing shit that ain’t broken, because the princess can’t go fast. I’m damn sick of it. I’m done for today. She can figure it out.”

  “We can’t—”

  “Sure we can. Let’s get the others together, then I’ll buy you a beer.”

  Paul heard the men move down the long garage bay that housed Arvin Racing’s three cars. He slipped into the garage and behind the dividers forming a makeshift office and changing area, hoping against hope the space was empty.

  One engineer sat facing the wall, working with a calculator and a spreadsheet, bouncing away to whatever music played through his Walkman. As Paul moved farther back in the space, his heart sank. PJ was slumped in a chair, her eyes glassy with shock.

  He crouched in front of her and held her cold hands, chafing them to generate some warmth. “They’re ignorant fools. You know better. You know you’ve got talent, and you know Arvie believes in you.”

  PJ finally whispered, “My own team. I didn’t think they hated me that much.”

  Paul hugged her. “Don’t listen to them. Ignore them.”

  “But if I don’t have my team behind me,” PJ’s voice cracked as she spoke, “what can I possibly do?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Present Day

  What would I do without a team behind me, believing in me? Anything? Could I even do as much as PJ had?

  As I drove Gramps back to the apartment Holly and I shared in Carmel, a northern suburb of Indianapolis, I thought about Paul Lauth’s story. About his response when I asked if PJ’s suicide made sense.

  He’d sighed. “Given the kind of harassment she experienced, the almost total lack of support? I’ve had to accept she couldn’t see a way out.”

  “But it surprised you?”

  “Shocked me and hurt.” He’d paused. “I never thought she’d give up.”

  Gramps interrupted my thoughts. “That was Paul you were talking to, Katie?”

  “You know much about him?”

  “Always heard he was a nice kid—open, friendly. Maybe too good-hearted to make it big in this business.”

  “What does that say about me, Gramps?”

  He cackled. “You’re good-hearted. But you’ve also got motivation and the will to achieve—call it the killer instinct to go after what you want. Not everyone has that.”

  We both knew plenty of good drivers who drifted into coaching and other jobs after never managing to put together enough deals to be in a car. We also knew terrible drivers who had full-time, paid rides because of their skill closing deals.

  I sighed. “It all comes back to business.”

  “Racing used to be pure sport. There were still areas where money ruled all decisions, but forty or fifty years ago, talented amateurs could get picked up for top rides. Plenty of automotive journalists raced, at least in sportscar racing.”

  “Journalists and even some electronics specialists?” I teased. I knew he’d raced in the 1960s with some success, but I’d never asked him why he stopped.

  “It’s not that I had teams throwing money at me to race. It was a sideline—a fun hobby that helped me get more work.”

  “Some hobby!” I glanced at him. “You nearly won the 12 Hours of Sebring.”

  His smile was wistful. “We were so close.”

  “Why didn’t you keep racing?”

  “Your mother was born, and Vivien put her foot down.” He shook his head at my expression. “I know what you’re going to say. Your grandmother can be strict.”

  “Hard-nosed, bullheaded,” I contributed.

  He chuckled. “She’s got firm views on what’s right and wrong. Appropriate. Plus she rarely changes her mind.”

  “And she won’t let go of a grudge.”

  “Ah, Katie. I’m working on her.”

  “That aside, Grandmother made you stop racing when my mother was born?”

  “I won’t put it all on her. She brought it up, but I agreed. I wouldn’t risk the possibility of not being there to see my child grow up.”

  We both fell silent. Gramps had watched his child grow up to have a child, and then he’d lost her when my mother died days after my birth.

  “Or of seeing my grandchild grow up,” he finally continued. “I didn’t mind stopping—after the first race or two. My heart wasn’t in it the same way yours is.”

  “I’m not sure what I’d do if I couldn’t race.” I glanced over as I exited Interstate 465 onto Keystone Parkway and saw him shake his head.

  “You’re not that poor girl from thirty years ago.”

  “PJ Rodriguez. Of course I’m not,” I replied.

  “You’ve had more success than she did. And the world is different now.”

  “Did you know her, Gramps?”

  “I don’t remember seeing her, but I knew about her, especially after.”

  “Her family doesn’t think she did it,” I said.

  “Kill herself or give up on racing?”

  “For her, they were probably the same.” I stopped at a light and turned to him. “The more I think about her, I don’t believe it either. People said she was totally focused on racing. One hundred percent. More. And then she gave up?”

  He nodded toward the green in front of us. “It was a tougher time. Maybe she didn’t have the underlying grit after all.”

  I shook my head as I navigated into the apartment complex. “That’s not what people have told me.”

  “Maybe she had other problems in her life. A history of depression. Katie, you can’t know. And if not suicide, then what—murder? Is that easier to believe?”

  “It might be.” I let Gramps out of the car before pulling into my garage. But as I unlocked the door to our third-floor apartment, I thought about the connection I felt to PJ and thought anything was more believable than giving up.

  Would I prove it? How?

  I showed Gramps around his home for the next two weeks—our three-bedroom unit in a large, new complex. Holly and I each had bedrooms to either side of the central living room and entry space. The dining room, kitchen, and screened balcony were open to and accessed via one end of the living room, giving us a large, central common space. I carried his suitcase into our third bedroom—a
combination gym, office, and guest room—and watched as he unpacked.

  “I wish Grandmother had come with you.”

  He gave me a look.

  I smiled. “I know. She’s never come to a race before. But it would be nice to see her. How is she?”

  “She’s fine. She misses you.”

  “At least we talk now.” Which was more than we’d done for a year after I cornered her for an explanation of what happened between her and my father’s family. After my mother died when I was three days old, I was raised by her parents and had no contact with my father or his family until I was twenty-four. My father had one version of the story, and my grandmother, I assumed, knew another. But she wouldn’t talk to me about it—all I knew from her was I should have nothing to do with the vile Reilly family. Then she wouldn’t talk to me again after I accepted the sponsorship deal from Frame Savings, which thoroughly entwined me with my father’s family.

  Two years later, she had unbent enough so we could hold full conversations, if I didn’t mention anything to do with my sponsor. That kind of constraint didn’t make for relaxing, comfortable visits home, and as a result, I’d made fewer and fewer trips to New Mexico in the last couple of years.

  I felt a wave of sadness at what I’d missed. “Gramps, what are we going to do?”

  “About Vivien?”

  “Her reaction to me living my life. I miss you both.”

  “We miss you, too.” He took my hand. “Whatever’s going on, you know she loves you.”

  “I love her, too. Both of you. But I can’t blindly adhere to her opinions, especially with no explanation. She shouldn’t ask me to.”

  He sighed. “Go out to the living room. Let me get something out of my bag.”

  A couple minutes later, he joined me on the couch, a large manila envelope in his hand. “Vivien is slowly coming to accept—not agree with, but accept—that refusing to explain to you what happened back then only pushes you closer to that family.” He grimaced. “I’m afraid she used unkind words about them. And your stubbornness.”

  “I wonder where I get it?”