This Time, Forever

by Pamela Britton

  “Sunny and cool. It’s a great day for a race,” she said.

  Ben nodded, but said nothing. He tended to be intense before a race, but seldom to the point of coolness toward her.

  Then it occurred to Susie: He’d heard.

  As quiet as she’d tried to be, he’d heard her talking about his need for support. Ben was a born leader, and as one, he always gave and expected nothing in return. Had she somehow made him feel diminished with her words? Susie could hardly fathom it, but she could also hardly fathom many other recent changes in her husband. All she wanted to do was make things better, but until she fully understood Ben’s issues, how could she expect to do that?

  Talk to me, please, she thought. But this was what her marriage was becoming—a silent plea falling on deaf ears. Both she and Ben were to blame, really. And though she could do nothing about Ben, she could fix herself. Susie squared her shoulders and bolstered her grit. The time for subtleties had passed.

  BEN CLIMBED OUT of the No. 515 car, pulled off his helmet and took the bottle of water offered to him by a crew member. Even though he wasn’t much of a drinker, he knew he’d be wishing for something stronger by the time Sampson had finished with him.

  Two hundred laps…four hundred miles…and Ben was right back to where he’d started—nowhere at all. Between damage from a piece of debris that had required a longer pit stop than usual, another just generally bad pit, and a couple of missed opportunities on his part, even though he’d started twelfth, he had finished twenty-third. The only good news was that fellow Double S driver Rafael O’Bryan took first, so for now, at least, Gil Sizemore would be occupied by more pleasant things than giving Ben the list of his failings during this race.

  While heading into his hauler’s war room for the race postmortem, Ben kept his head down and avoided those few people from the media who even tried to approach him. If he couldn’t deliver at least an uplifting message, he preferred to keep his mouth shut. And today he felt slogged down in a sea of bull. Uplifting was out of the question.

  “What’s your first impression?” Ben’s crew chief asked before Ben had even closed the door to the cool and quiet wood-paneled war room. Neither had he even looked up from the clipboard in front of him.

  Chris Sampson, unlike the Sampson of yore, did not have long, flowing locks, but close-clipped blond hair. Had it been otherwise, Ben would have found some way to shave his crew chief’s head and get rid of a measure of the man’s power.

  “Mistakes were made,” Ben replied after he settled into a leather club chair a few down from where the crew chief was seated. “On my end and in other places.”

  “Let’s start with your end.”

  “Okay. It’s pretty clear that I could have blocked Kent Grosso and blew it. I also let Bart Branch push me up on the wall. My fault on both counts and I’m not denying it.”

  “Good. Neither am I.”

  For the first time in his racing career, Ben didn’t feel at least an equal to his crew chief. With Steve, his former crew chief, life had been markedly different. Respect had flourished, and Steve had always been willing to admit when he’d screwed up. The same wasn’t true with Chris. Not once this season had Sampson admitted to a tactical error during a race. And while the guy was undeniably good, he was also human.

  “How about you?” Ben asked. “What do you see from your end that could be tightened?”

  “I’ll address that with the rest of the team. I’m focusing on you at this moment. And my question is pretty simple—where is your head?”

  Ben could think of numerous rude responses, but didn’t voice any of them.

  “Exactly where it should be,” he replied.

  “Is it? Because I’ve got the feeling you’re not into the game anymore.” Sampson finally set aside the clipboard, placing it on a low table to his right. “It’s okay, you know. Not many drivers stay in the game as long as you have or achieve even a quarter of what you have, too. It’s okay to get tired and want to move on.”

  Ben tried to absorb what the man was saying. Was this about no longer being part of the Double S team, or was it something even more unthinkable?

  “Are you talking about retirement?” he asked.

  “Well…yeah. Are you going to tell me that the thought has never entered your mind?”

  “Not in a good way, it hasn’t.”

  Thumbing through a magazine on the way out to California, Ben had read about a Japanese corporate business practice that had once existed. Executives a company no longer found useful were not forced out; they were simply put in a windowless room with others of their sort and no work to do. Ben knew there was no such office at Double S’s headquarters, but he knew right down to the marrow of his bones how those execs had felt—empty.

  “Retirement is neither good nor bad,” the crew chief said. “It just is. One day, we all retire. It’s something we need to accept.”

  A pretty Zen-like notion, and easier to produce for a man in his thirties who likely had thirty more years in front of him in his chosen career. Ben knew he was looking at a handful of years at most.

  “The good news is I don’t need your permission or encouragement to retire. That’s mine to choose to consider when and as I please,” he told Sampson. “But let me tell you what I do need. I do need you to be a crew chief, with all the job entails. Let’s flip the mirror and ask you how you feel about your performance. Do you feel you’ve been a team builder? Are you happy with the condition of the car? Do you think you’ve had a positive impact on us this season?”

  Ben stopped there, knowing that frustration and a measure of something damn dark like dread gripped him.

  The younger man frowned. “That’s not what we’re here to discuss.”

  “No, that’s not what you’re here to discuss. I raised it because we’re equals, and I’m allowed to ask you those kinds of questions if you’re allowed to grill me on retirement plans, don’t you think?”

  “I didn’t grill you.”

  Ben grinned though he wasn’t feeling especially happy. “Then explain the burn marks you keep leaving on my ass.”

  If Sampson had an answer to that, he didn’t stick around to hear it.

  Retirement? Ben never wanted to hear that word again.

  SUSIE STOOD in front of the motor home’s open refrigerator and peered inside as though the answer to her husband’s problems might be lurking behind the milk. It wasn’t, though the milk would come in handy with Cammie and Matt, who were outside toasting marshmallows over the barbecue grill. Functioning on autopilot, she pulled the milk, set it on the counter, then found two plastic tumblers.

  It had been a miserable race for Ben, and she was running short of ways to make him see that this was just a slump and not a death knell sounding. Earlier in the season, she’d gone as far as making a chart so that Ben could see in graphic color the number of times a mechanical failure, an accident caused by someone else or just plain old bad luck had hindered him. Ben had feigned interest, but she’d known it was just that—a game of Let’s Humor Susie.

  All she had left to pull out of her bag of tricks was some enforced relaxation. If she couldn’t help him get his head on straight, maybe with some time away from Double S, he’d do it for himself.

  Susie took the milk in one hand, the tumblers in the other and walked out the open door.

  “You can’t have s’mores without milk,” she said to her children. “That would be just flat out wrong.”

  Cammie, who had finally managed to let go of the horse show drama, played along saying, “Like almost un-American.”

  Susie set the milk and glasses next to the graham crackers and chocolate bars on the outdoor dining table that always traveled with them.

  “You want me to make you one, Mom?” Matt asked.

  Her taste buds would love it, but the fit of her clothes, not so much.

  “Thanks for the offer, but not right now, sweetie,” she said.

  Ben would be back soon. She wanted to
have his usual postrace iced tea ready, along with a fluffy towel near the shower. The first several years he’d driven, he’d been too keyed up to sleep or even sit still the night after a race. Now he wanted a cool drink, a hot shower, a nap and a meal—in that precise order.

  Just then she saw Ben approaching. Until the instant he’d noticed her watching, his expression had been grim. The effort he’d taken to look relaxed was something she could feel all these yards away.

  “Want a s’more, Dad?” Matt asked when he was near enough.

  “No thanks, buddy,” Ben replied. “It’s time for me to go in and shower up.”

  “Okay,” Matt said, then turned his attention back to his marshmallow.

  Susie followed Ben inside, then closed the door as a hint to Cammie and Matt that the adults needed a little chat time.

  “It’s been one hell of a day,” Ben said.

  Since just about all Susie could think to say in the way of encouragement was, “Well, at least twenty-third is nearly middle of the pack,” she chose to keep quiet.

  In an echo of her earlier behavior, he opened the refrigerator door and stared silently inside. After several seconds of apparent deliberation, he came out with a beer.

  “Really?” Susie asked, both because it was beer and because she had his tea waiting on the dining table.

  “Absolutely,” he replied as he twisted off the bottle cap and set it on the counter. “It’s been that bad.”

  “It must be. I can’t say I’ve ever seen you pass over sweet tea for beer immediately after a race.”

  “It’s not the race. It’s dealing with Sampson,” Ben replied, then took a long swallow, after which he added, “Though the race was no big prize, either.”

  “Except for those two slow pit stops, it looked pretty good,” she fibbed.

  Ben gave her a skeptical look. “You’ve been at this long enough to know where I screwed up.”

  “Yes, and I agree there was a lost opportunity and a little loose driving, but the pit stops are where you really lost the time.”

  “Better. We’ve been together for too long for you to humor me.”

  Susie laughed as she picked up the beer cap and deposited it in the below-counter trash can. “You think?”

  His smile was slow in coming, but very real once it arrived. “Okay, bad choice of words. Humor me at will.”

  “Actually, I’ve been thinking more in terms of having you humor me.”

  He walked to the sofa and sat down. “That sounds interesting. How?”

  “I’ve reserved us rooms at the most fabulous hotel on Coronado Island,” Susie said as she seated herself next to Ben. “It’s old and kind of fancy-looking, yet laid-back at the same time. Matt and Cammie can explore, and you and I can have some quiet time, and maybe talk a little?”

  “So you have this set up for right after the season ends? That sounds great.”

  “Actually, the reservations are a little earlier than that.”

  “How much earlier?”

  “Like tomorrow.”

  He sighed. “Honey, you know I can’t just take off during the season.”

  “It wouldn’t be that long. I have a rental car being delivered here in the morning, and reservations for all of us to fly out of San Diego early Wednesday morning. Since next weekend’s race is right there in Charlotte, this will barely take a nip out of your schedule. An extra forty-eight hours away from the garage won’t be the end of civilization as we know it.”

  “It depends when those forty-eight hours occur, and this isn’t a good time. How much did the hotel cost?” Ben asked.

  “Somewhat less than a fortune,” Susie replied.

  She wanted to tell him that she’d paid for the trip with her profits from the knitwear she’d sold, but after his reaction this morning when she’d talked to Cammie about him needing them, she decided not to. While she’d like to think he’d be proud she’d been doing so well, she was no longer certain.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t think I’d be very good company. I have things I need to take care of around the garage, and if I’m not doing them, I’ll be distracted. Did you get an adjoining room for Matt and Cammie?”

  “Yes, as always.”

  “It won’t matter if I’m not there. Just cancel one room and the three of you can bunk together.”

  Susie knew that it made no sense to be angry since she’d made these plans without consulting him. All the same, her frustration was becoming so sharp that it might as well be anger.

  “It does matter because I planned this for all of us,” she replied. “If you feel you can’t be there, we’ll just head on home, too.”

  Ben shook his head. “That’s not fair to Matt and Cammie. I’m assuming they know about the trip?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then take the time, build some memories with the kids and then come home rested and happy.”

  “That’s what I’d been hoping for you,” she replied.

  “I appreciate that. Really. But you’re just going to have to go on without me.”

  Which was exactly what Susie was beginning to fear.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AFTER A MONDAY eaten up by travel and time change, Tuesday dawned no sunnier for Ben, who was having a breakfast meeting at the country club with Adriana Sanchez, his business manager. And, really, he was going to have to find a new venue for these breakfast meetings or he was going to start to connect this place to bad events, pretty much like he connected tequila to an overindulged twenty-first birthday.

  “You’re in a better position than many,” Adriana said.

  “It just seems bleak because it’s been so long since we’ve had a discussion about your overall financial picture. The quarterly review meetings I had asked for would have softened the blow.”

  Ben wasn’t into second-guessing as a form of self-punishment. If he wanted to suffer, he’d order up his first shot of tequila in twenty years. Or he’d dwell upon the fact that today he could be out west, on Coronado Island with his family.

  “I agree that the meetings would have been a good idea. From now on, I’ll stay on top of that,” he replied.

  “But let me ask you this…. If, as you tell me, my stock portfolio has rebounded to seventy percent of what it was worth before the market dropped, and if the acreage I hold outside of Charlotte is currently a break-even proposition at best, if I stopped being a driver tomorrow, could I keep everything afloat?”

  Adriana was relatively young—somewhere in her early thirties, the best he could guess—but she was a graduate of one of the top business schools on the east coast and had spent a good number of years on Wall Street before opting for a simpler life and returning home to Mooresville. Ben trusted her judgment implicitly.

  “You’re too young to dip into your retirement accounts without paying a huge penalty,” she said. “So I’m not even going to count those assets…which are considerable…as we discuss this.”

  “Okay,” he replied.

  “I’ve been trying to strike a balance for you, investing what is prudent, but keeping a reasonable cash reserve, even though you are well insured, should there be an accident that takes you off the track.”

  “Not quite the way I want to leave racing,” he replied, earning a smile from this otherwise very serious young woman.

  “That’s good news,” she said. “If you leave racing in a way that doesn’t trigger insurance coverage but hypothetically don’t bring in another penny from this minute forward…which you will…your available cash reserves would get you through approximately two years. Obviously, it will last longer if you make lifestyle adjustments and cut back on your donations. I’m sure you know you’re beyond generous on that front.”

  “I’ve been lucky,” he replied. “And for so long as I can continue to give at that level, I will.”

  His business manager’s brown eyes warmed. “Which is one of the many reasons I like having you as a client.”

  “So what are my other optio
ns if I need to stretch it out longer than two years?”

  “As you’ve mentioned, you have the stock portfolio and the land, though I wouldn’t advise touching either of those right now.”

  “Anything else?”

  “This conversation is wholly hypothetical, right?”

  “Yes,” Ben replied. At least he hoped like hell it was.

  “Well, on a hypothetical level, you could always hole up on the family farm in Tennessee. That would be a far less expensive lifestyle.”

  Ben knew Adriana was joking, but he could work up only a weak smile. He had been a horrible farmer, and he’d gotten out the day he’d graduated from high school. Unlike his dad and his three brothers, he’d had no passion for it, had felt no connection to the land…or their hungry, demanding dairy herd. He’d been happy to buy more land for his brothers and help keep the place afloat just after his dad had died five years ago, but that was as close as he cared to be to Mother Earth at this point in his life.

  Adriana laughed. “Based on your expression, you’d better keep your day job.”

  That’s when it struck Ben—he might need his job, but at this moment, he didn’t love it. And he wondered if he ever would again.

  AT A CERTAIN AGE, children should be able to fly in the same airplane without the mother being subject to “Mom, he’s looking out my window” or “Mom, she’s hogging the armrest.” Apparently, Matt and Cammie had not yet reached that milestone. Susie, who sat in the aisle seat next to the dueling duo, looked longingly across the way at the empty seat between two preoccupied businessmen. She supposed she might startle them if she clambered across the closest man and plopped down between them. Then again, if they’d turned even half an ear toward her children’s general crabbiness, they might welcome her.

  The days on Coronado’s beach had been idyllic, as had been their stay in the vintage part of the sprawling hotel. Susie just wished Ben had been part of it, or that he would have at least taken a call from her. She’d finally gotten through to him at home last night, and he’d somewhat grudgingly agreed to pick them up at the airport today, but only after she’d told him she could always call a limo service.