Fuel To The Fire (New Adult Contemporary Romance)

by O'Connor, Brynn

  By the time the race is down to the last fifteen laps I have guided Marco around five spinouts, three wrecks, five more trips to pit row, and even guided him through tandem racing with Irwin Fletcher. I know the position of every contender. Then with five laps to go Hank cuts his ties.

  “Ma’am,” he says, “It’s up to you now. I gotta focus on my guy so the gloves are gonna have to come off. You’re a smart woman and you obviously have a connection to your driver. You’ll be fine. You’re doin’ great, spotter!”

  I know what’s expected of me. I leave Hank’s side and go back to my spot on the other end of the stand. Now we’re truly alone. “Alright Marco, let’s bring this home!”

  “Roger that!”

  Marco has slipped back to ninth position. I just missed moves that a couple cars put on him while I was focusing on something else. Chalk that up to being inexperienced.

  I’m just about to tell Marco to make a move on the number 91 car when I notice the fifth and sixth place cars starting to get a little rough with each other. Then the number 123 car decides it’s a good time to make his move and decides to split them right down the middle. It almost worked. For whatever reason the number 27 car didn’t see the car moving up on his right. He moved high to give the guy he was fighting with a bump and ended up sandwiching the 123 car. All three cars spin out and into the wall just before turn number three. Marco is right in the middle of that straightaway and dangerously close to the wall. If he keeps his same line he’s bound to tangle with the cars that just plowed into the wall. Time to earn my keep.

  “Marco there’s trouble in turn one. You gotta break low on my count or you’ll end up in the middle.”

  “Too much smoke Carrie, I can’t see a damn thing. Sure you want me to break down?”

  I can hear the tension in his voice. He wants to keep his current line and I can’t let him.

  “Three...you gotta trust me on this one Marco...two...Shit, hold up!”

  Dammit! The freaking second before I’m going to tell Marco to make his move the number 00 car decides to pass him low and inside. If he moves now he risks wrecking with the 00 car. If he stays where he’s at in the line he’ll hit the other cars.

  “What do I do...I’m almost at the smoke Carrie and I can’t see a damn thing...” I can hear the panic in his voice. If I was his regular spotter he’d be all calm and collected because he’d know that his spotter will get him out of the jam.

  Suddenly I get an idea. “Okay Marco, you’re gonna have to trust me on this one.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Go high on my mark. Three, two, one...mark!”

  The number 45 car is on his high side. Yup I just sent him into another race car on the hope and a prayer that the guy in that car will react like I think he will. And he does. Not only does he not want to be put into the wall by Marco, but he’s pissed that Marco just ran into him so he overreacted and pushed hard back against Marco’s car. It has the desired result. It shoves Marco hard down low and Marco’s car just slips down behind the guy who was just passing him on the inside. But the momentum pushes Marco a little lower, just enough to clear the guys car.

  “Floor it!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

  Marco hits the gas and slingshots right by the faster moving 00 car. Marco didn’t have the power or speed to slingshot around the 00 car as he was passing him so I used the 45 car to push Marco into position to slingshot around him. With that extra push and position Marco was able to pass the 00 car and steer clear of the wreck on the wall.

  “Ballsy move, spotter!” I glance up and it’s Alanzo, Marco’s crew chief.

  “What’re you doing here?” I ask. He never comes up to the spotter’s stand.

  “Just checkin’ on my new spotter,” he replies. “Can you bring him home?”

  A huge smile breaks out across my face and for the first time all day I actually feel confident. “No problem!” I reply. “No problem at all.”

  Marco has just cleared turn four and is in the number four position thanks to the wreck on turn three. “You still with me?” Marco asks.

  “I’m here.”

  “No more bumper cars, you hear?” he says with a laugh.

  I smile as I scan the track. Time to move him up into third. By the time three more laps are ticked off, Marco is in second and just getting out of turn two. He’s got about a lap and a half left to his career as a NASCAR driver if he doesn’t. Fortunately, the third place car does it for us when the front of his car is suddenly billowing out thick black smoke. As he moves down and inside and off the track Marco flies by and is just a couple car lengths behind the first and second place cars. This is gonna be a finish for the ages, whatever happens.

  For the rest of the second to last lap, Marco stays on the second place car’s bumper. He’s drafting the guy despite the man’s best effort to keep him from doing just that. With only one lap to go it looks like no one is going to be changing position here and that means Marco is toast. I’m going to have to do a Hail Mary, that’s all there is to it. It may cost him a very respectable third place finish but anything less that first for Marco is as good as coming in last. It’s first or nothing. What the heck are we going to do? Suddenly I have an idea. But I gotta talk to Alanzo so I don’t tip my hand to any of the other drivers.

  “Marco I’m gonna leave you for about thirty seconds, then I’ll be back.”

  “Make it quick then.”

  I switch channels and call Alazno. “What’s up Carrie?”

  “Do the other teams and drivers know that I’m the one that is spotting for Marco?”

  “Of course.”

  “So then it won’t be a surprise if I make a really stupid mistake then...”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Is there a channel that I can accidently broadcast on and everybody will hear me?”

  “Sure, switch to TAC 88. What do you have up your sleeve?”

  “Can’t tell ya. It’s gotta fool everyone.” I reply, praying desperately that this will work. I take a deep breath and switch to TAC 88. “Hey Marco it’s me. I’m having problems with my radio so I had to switch to this one.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea...” He begins.

  “Sorry you’re breaking up I can’t hear a thing,” I lie. “Just static. I’m going to assume you can hear me so here’s what I want you to do.”

  Over the next two laps I feed Marco false information and bad advice and I watch the other cars and spotters reacting. Marco is about to lap the number 78 car. As long as that guy follows race etiquette he’ll move high and let Marco pass him in the groove. That will give Marco enough speed and power to overtake Irwin Fletcher. That was all we needed. Number 78 just had to do the right thing and we’d be home free but he doesn’t do it.

  I’m crushed! Marco is done! After everything we went through today. I just spent four plus hours in 98 degree heat, battled dehydration, my own ignorance about racing, and we lose at the very end by a quarter of a car length to Irwin Fletcher.

  We were about to win the race. All we had to do was pass the number 78 car. He wasn’t even a contender. He was in 38th place and we were just lapping him. He should have moved over and let us by. Marco had the momentum, he had plenty acceleration left, he would have blown by Fletcher for the win but the guy in the 78 car tapped his brakes and moved up just enough to cause Marco to have to slow down to keep from hitting him from behind. Sure Marco ended up passing by him but he’d had to slow too much so by the time he got around the guy Irwin Fletcher is uncatchable. Marco still almost caught him though. He redlined the engine, made a hard charge, and came within a quarter of a car length from winning. The moment they both cross the finish line Marco’s engine blows. By the time he came to a halt a plume of smoke and flame had totally engulfed the front of his car.

  Marco jumps out, runs to pit row and tackles some blond haired guy who had been driving the number 78 car. Marco gets him down to the asphalt and pounds on him. His crew actual
ly keep the guys teammates from intervening until Marco had taken his pound of flesh. Finally, Alanzo calls his guys off and they let the other pit crew rescue their driver. What a fucked up way to end a season and end a career! I watch the whole thing from the Spotter’s stand. I don’t have the heart to go down there for a while. I just sit up there in shock until Alanzo raises me on the radio.

  “Hey girl, why don’t you come on down from your roost? Marco could use you.”

  I stand up, shaking my head. How could it have ended like this? I was so sure after I guided Marco into second place that he would take the checkered flag. I kept having these little visions in my head of our pit crew jumping up and down, screaming with joy as Marco did burn outs on the way to the winners circle. In my head we had already won and that’s what makes swallowing this so damn difficult. We lost and I just can’t accept that.

  “Alright Alanzo, I’m coming down.”

  Slowly, I climb back down to the ground and head over to our pit box. I have no idea what I’m going to say to Marco. What can you say to a young man who has just lost his ride? If that sick fuck in the number 78 car hadn’t had intentionally slowed Marco down we’d be drinking champagne in the winner’s circle. When I reach our pit box most of our team is still there tending to our car. Marco is nowhere to be seen. After a minute Alanzo comes up to me.

  “He’s in his trailer Carrie. Thanks to you, he raced like a champion today. Neither of you have anything to be ashamed of.”

  The walk to Marco’s trailer is only about fifty feet but those are the longest fifty feet I have ever had to walk. By the time I reach his door my cheeks are wet with tears. I pause before knocking. I’m here to cheer him up. I wipe my face, take a deep breath, and knock on his door.

  “It’s open.”

  Slowly I turn the handle and open the door. Marco is sitting on the couch, his racing suit pulled down around his hips and a glass half full of caramel colored liquid in his hand. I take a long look at his face. It’s all written there. He doesn’t even have to say a word.

  “Looks like I have some catching up to do,” I say, pointing to the drink in his hand.

  “We almost did it Carrie. Second place ain’t bad either you know...”

  “Isn’t there a saying about the guy who comes in second though?”

  I shouldn’t have said it but I couldn’t help myself. Seeing him like this is making me feel both bitter and angry, and sorry for myself. But why should I feel sorry for myself? I’ll still be a trauma nurse and can get a hospital job if not on another racing team. Marco on the other hand...

  He gulps his drink down in two swallows. I grab a glass of my own and fill both our glasses. The first searing drink gives me a coughing fit.

  “This stuff is like lighter fluid,” I announce when I can talk again.

  “I’m glad he’s dead you know...”

  “What? Glad who’s dead? Oh my god, did Harvey die?”

  “What? No, he’s fine. I mean my father. I’m glad he didn’t live to see me fail him. The Panata racing family is dead because of me.”

  “Hey, just because you may not race anymore doesn’t mean you can’t be involved. A lot of drivers become spotters I hear.”

  “Winning drivers become spotters. No one will want to take advice and direction from a losing driver who lost his ride.”

  “What about an owner? You said you had a protégé. Maybe he can drive for you. Create your own team and let him race for you. I’m sure he’d let you spot for him.”

  “Such a dreamer, Carrie. It takes millions of dollars every year to field even one driver.”

  “Surely your father left you...resources, right?”

  “You’d think, wouldn’t you? He left it to my mom. We don’t even talk anymore.”

  Even in Marco’s worst moment, even in utter defeat he is desirable. There’s something about him. I just want to curl up in his arms and make sweet passionate love to him. I take another sip of the fiery liquid in my glass and set in on the coffee table. I scoot over to Marco and relieve him of his empty glass. Maybe he just needs to know he’s loved.

  “You’ll figure out something Marco...”

  “If I’m not a race car driver then who am I? It’s my identity. When I was four, my dad gave me my first go cart, took me to a dirt track, and turned me loose. I knew from that moment what I wanted to be in life and I’ve never wanted anything else. How do I go back from there Carrie? How do I become something else that I’m not?”

  “Marco...”

  “I can’t go to school and earn a degree. I can’t change professions and become a doctor or lawyer or anything else because that would make me a fraud. If I was a police officer I would look at myself in the mirror every morning and know that that is not me. I’m just a race car driver pretending to be a police officer...or whatever else I was masquerading as.”

  “What are you to me, Marco?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re not just a race car driver to me. Sure, you race cars, but to me that’s just what you do, not who you are. To me you’re a sensitive, wonderfully caring man struggling to get out from under his father’s oppressive thumb, struggling to become his own man apart from Adriano Panata. Marco, you can’t become your own man as long as you follow exactly in your father’s footsteps. I bet you anything that when your father was 4 his father gave him a go cart and set him loose on the track too. I’d be willing to bet that if you tracked your accomplishments over lifetime and put those next to your fathers own accomplishments it would look like the same person. Wasn’t he the youngest driver to race at the NASCAR level in the history of the sport?”

  “Sure...”

  “Same with you too right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t you both win your very first race in your rookie year? Weren’t you the youngest driver to ever place first in points also, along with your father or course?”

  I can see a change beginning to come over him as he’s beginning to hear the truth.

  “Strike out on your own. Make your own way in this life. Do that, and one day after you have become your own man, if you want to still return to racing you can do so as your own person separate from Adriano’s shadow and people will respect that and give you the chance you need. Right now, they just see the kid who could not become his father and has failed. They don’t want a failure and that’s why you’re losing your ride. Any other driver gets second at Daytona, they’d have sponsors lining up to put him in their cars.”

  For an answer he just leans in and kisses me. He makes love to me with an urgency born out of desire rather than a desperate attempt to chase away his demons. This time I know he’s not using me to keep the past at bay and neither am I.

  For the first time I don’t feel the shadow of a former love as Marco and I make love. I too have been trapped in the past. It’s no wonder I’ve been confused about my feelings for Marco. I told Marco to become his own man. Well, I needed to become my own woman, not just some wounded reflection of past tragedies and sorrows. Lying in Marco’s arms, I savor the moment but I don’t feel the need to capture the feelings or take them hostage. There’ll be another time; of that I am sure.

  Marco’s phone ringing off the hook startles both of us. Marco scrabbles for his phone and finally comes up with it before it stops ringing.

  “What?” he asks, out of breath. And then, after a long pause, “You’re shitting me!”

  Something is up. Marco’s face has gone from annoyance at being woken up to a mask of confusion then wonder. He listens for a moment longer before a giant smile breaks out across his face. He drops his phone, stands up on his bed and just starts jumping around and whooping it up like a kid. What the hell?

  “Marco! Marco what’s going on?” I have to shout to get his attention. It takes a full minute to bring him back down to earth.

  “Carrie Zane, will you marry me? Will you be the wife of the lead driver for the new Team Panata, sponsored by none other than Home De
pot and Red Bull?”

  “What?” I don’t know what shocks me more; his marriage proposal or the fact that he suddenly has one of the biggest sponsors in the sport of NASCAR racing.

  Suddenly Marco drops to his knees and takes my hands in his. When he looks up into my face his eyes are shining with tears of happiness. All thoughts of racing and sponsors and NASCAR flee my mind. I just want to be Mrs. Marco Panata. A sudden wave of pure love and excitement comes crashing over me.

  “Yes yes yes!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “I do...I do, I do!” But...what was that call all about?”

  “Fletcher’s car didn’t pass the post-race inspection. It seems he was busted for having the front of his car too low to the ground. He cheated. His crew chief has been suspended and they awarded me with the victory instead.”

  I don’t even care about the specifics of the race at this point. I’m going to be Mrs. Carrie Panata!

  Epilogue

  Carrie

  The following race season was a busy year for us personally and for the newly reformed Team Panata. Marco took on his protégé, the young kid he was helping out. The kid won in his first ever outing as a full-fledged NASCAR driver. Marco came in second that day but no one really cared. It was a victory for Team Panata, and that’s all that really counted.

  By August, Marco was number on in points and Jimmy, his protégé, was second followed by Ariel Bronwyn in third and then Irwin Fletcher fourth—with a new crew chief, of course. Harvey is back in his position as spotter but he’s training a replacement, me. Yup, who knew I’d have a different career with Team Panata? It’ll be a year or two of course so in the mean time I double as a trauma nurse for the team, working side by side with my best friend and lead medic Rachael. So far, our services haven’t been needed.

  I had wanted a June wedding, but with our racing schedule being what it is, I settled for a December one instead. It was at Daytona though, so it was like June anyway. Afterwards everybody took a dip in Lake Lloyd, the manmade lake inside the oval track.