by Chris Fabry
She glanced at the house and saw her father’s face in the kitchen window, then put the car in first and spun her tires in the gravel. Her mom stepped onto the porch in her bathrobe. Jamie was already halfway down the driveway, and she glanced in her rearview mirror and saw her mom wave.
Jamie went through the motions at school that day, not able to think of anything but the Skylar Jennings Driving School.
As usual, Cassie met her for lunch in the commons. “I heard from the prayer tree that Chad’s doing a lot better and will probably come home today. They said he might have a pinched nerve in his neck or something that’ll hurt for a while, but all the other blood work came out fine. Isn’t that great?”
Jamie nodded. It was hard to think about Chad when her whole world was screeching to a halt.
“You don’t seem very excited,” Cassie said. “What’s wrong?”
Jamie sighed. “How do you do that? Crawl inside my head and know what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking. That’s why I asked you.” Cassie opened her bagel sandwich and whispered a brief prayer.
Then Jamie spilled the story about why she felt so bad. “It’s like I’m a mountain climber and I’m within a few feet of the top of Mount Everest, but somebody comes along and makes me climb down.”
“Wait, let’s look at the positives here,” Cassie said.
“What could you possibly see as positive from all that?”
“Well, first, you are in the top 43 prospects in the country. I’d say that’s pretty good. Plus, there’s one of the top drivers in the world who’s willing to put money behind you to send you to that school.”
“Yeah, but what good does it do if that happens but I can’t go?”
Cassie tried to get a piece of stuck bagel from her teeth. “From what I hear, storms whip up fast on Everest, and if you’re not careful, you can fall to your death. Maybe that’s what your mom is concerned about.”
Jamie shook her head. “And that’s supposed to encourage me?”
“Just shooting straight. But, Jamie, if I know your mom, she’ll listen to your side. Show her you’re serious. That you’re ready.”
“Like how?”
“Talk to some of your teachers. Get their permission to make up the work you’re going to miss.”
A light went on in her head. “And sell the race car to get enough money to pay for my room and board.”
“There you go. Eliminate every one of her obstacles so she sees you’re not only serious enough to talk about this, but you really want to do it. Make her have to say yes, you know?”
“Won’t that make her mad? She already thinks I’m a disobedient daughter.”
Cassie smiled. “You have a backbone, Jamie. She likes that and hates it at the same time. It means you’re growing up.”
By the time school ended, Jamie had talked with three of her teachers and the school guidance counselor. All the teachers frowned when she mentioned missing the last month of school.
“How do you make up PE?” her gym teacher said. “Explain how you can do that, and I’ll get on board.”
Her guidance counselor was more encouraging, but he was one of those people who always saw the gas tank half full. “If you want this enough and you’re willing to work for it, the teachers can be persuaded. That’s your job now.” He got a glint in his eye and said, “I know I’m going to see you interviewed on TV one day, standing by your car, holding a trophy over your head. You need to come up with something interesting to do when you win—like that guy who used to jump off the top of his car backwards.”
“I know who you mean,” Jamie said.
“Maybe you could do some kind of dance on the hood. I think whatever it is, you should start practicing right now.”
Jamie drove to her after-school job at the car-parts store. She helped stock the shelves and waited on customers at times, but mostly she drove the little white truck to garages and repair shops, delivering fuel pumps, brake parts, and whatever else the mechanics needed.
She’d checked her cell phone right after school and heard a message from her mom. “Just wanted to see how your day went. Call me when you get a chance.”
Jamie made her final delivery just before six o’clock and headed home, still with the store hat and jacket on. She liked to think that someday this chain of stores would actually sponsor the car she drove, and her dad had even taken a few pictures of her at work so they could use them for a story about her past. She could imagine the headline in Stock Car Racing: “Delivery Girl Delivers the Cup to Sponsor.”
When she got home, a strange truck and trailer were parked next to the barn, and a man was there talking to her mom.
“I didn’t know you were Dale Maxwell’s daughter,” the man said, smiling. He introduced himself and shook hands. “Now that’s a real good handshake you got there.”
“My dad taught me never to hand anybody a dead fish.”
The man laughed. “Hope you don’t mind—I already looked at the car, even took it down the road a piece. You’ve obviously kept it in good shape.”
“We had a mishap in Alabama in January, but Dad’s team helped me repair the back end. It’s a real good car. I hate to get rid of it.”
“You said you were moving up,” the man said. “To what?”
Jamie glanced at her mom. “I’m not exactly sure right now. But I need the money.”
The man asked if she was firm on her asking price, and she said she might take a couple hundred less.
As he wrote out a check right there, Jamie took out her helmet and some tools she stored inside the car.
“Just for grins,” the man said, “can you autograph the top right here?”
Jamie ran back inside to print out a bill of sale and brought a Sharpie with her. She signed the car in two places and on the back of the bill of sale.
The man shook hands with her again and drove away.
She looked at the check. It was for almost exactly the amount she’d need to pay her driving school bill. If she got to go.
Chapter 11
Missed Call
TIM STUMBLED INTO THE TRAILER, and Vera yelled at him. She had a way of stringing her sentences together like plugging extension cords into each other to make one long cord. “How did you get all wet? Where have you been, anyway? You’re not tracking that mud and muck into my house. Get outside! I swear, I don’t understand teenagers!”
Tim felt glad to be alive, and Vera was worried about her precious linoleum. It felt kind of like she was rearranging the pictures on the Titanic’s walls. The ship was going down, but she was focused on the tiny stuff.
He stepped outside, took off his shoes, and squeezed the water out of his socks. He thought she might bring him a towel or something, but she didn’t. Tim just stood out there, and he could tell people in the next trailer were watching.
He shivered, not because of the cold but because of the way the gator had splashed when he’d gone into the water. He’d heard they were hungry in the evening and would eat anything thrown at them—a chicken or a basketball—it didn’t matter. So when he hit the water, he flailed for the pier posts and grabbed them. He couldn’t swim—that part of what he’d said had been true—but he tried to hold his breath so he would float. His dad had told him that much. He didn’t give the gators time to bite at him—he’d shinnied up the pole and listened for the car to pull away, then climbed onto the pier and walked home.
He paused at the front door and heard Vera and Tyson fighting over the noise of the TV. Funny how money was too tight to afford new clothes for Tim, but they’d been able to buy a satellite dish with a bunch of premium channels.
Tim opened the door and crept to his room, but Vera said something to him from the kitchen. He walked back to her and asked what she had said.
Vera had a thing about boxes—she had to take all the food out of them and put boxes in the trash before she felt done. She even took the cereal out of the boxes and left the plasti
c bags on the shelf so you never could tell what you were getting.
“Somebody called for you while you were gone. Where’d you go anyway?”
“Out for a walk. Who was it?”
“A guy. Had kind of a deep voice. Sounded like he was from up north.”
“Did he say his name or anything?”
“No, just said he’d call back tomorrow.”
Tim went back to his room, shut the door, and sat on the bed next to his ratty suitcase. He pulled out the lawyer’s letter and the key. He didn’t care how he got there or what the people were like; he had to get to North Carolina.
Chapter 12
The Bounce
JAMIE’S MOM AND DAD whispered a lot that night, but for the most part, Jamie stayed in her room and finished her homework, then started on a letter to her teachers. She had to convince them (and her mom) that finishing the year on her own would be a good idea. Even if she had to repeat the semester, she was determined to get to the driving school.
Her dad was up early the next morning getting ready to leave for the race in Texas. There were more whispers and phone calls, but she tried to ignore them. One phone call did startle her—it was from her dad’s main sponsor, and he went into the den he used for an office and closed the door. When he came back out, Jamie moved to the handrail at the top of the stairs and watched her dad hug her mom.
“It’s gonna work out for the best—you know that,” he said, kissing her mom on the head.
“Why are they putting so much pressure on you?” her mother said.
“They want a return on their investment, and I can’t blame them.”
“Things will come together this weekend,” her mom said. “You’ve always done well at Texas. And Phoenix is next week.”
“Let’s hope we can wow them. You’ll FedEx the tickets to Florida today, right?”
“I got it covered. We’ll be watching and praying for you.”
Without looking up, her dad said, “See you Sunday night, Jamie.”
She waved and gave a halfhearted, “Bye.”
Then he was out the door.
/////
Jamie handed the letter she had written to each teacher, but most of them didn’t have a chance to read it before class.
Her English teacher, who had admitted she didn’t know a thing about NASCAR other than how dangerous it was, scratched her chin and let her glasses ride down on her nose as she read the letter after class.
She called Jamie up. “This is a well-written letter, Jamie. If I were giving you a grade, I’d give you a C for grammar—” she pointed out two subject-verb agreement mistakes—“and an A for persuasion. You really want to do this.”
“It’s a huge opportunity, ma’am. It’s hard to get noticed and break into the teams, and this could be my best shot.”
“If you can convince your other teachers, I’ll go along with it.”
A ray of hope, a beam of sunlight, broke through the clouds.
But the storm came after school on her way to her job. Her mother called. “Jamie, I just got back from the store, and there’s an urgent message here from the bank. You need to call a Mr. Conway right away.”
She was passing the bank and pulled into the parking lot. It was a small brick building with the American and North Carolina flags flying out front. The lobby was always warm and inviting, and the lady at the front desk smiled like she was advertising a new toothpaste. Fresh-baked cookies sat on a tray, and the woman encouraged Jamie to take one.
“Thank you,” Jamie said. “I’m looking for Mr. Conway.”
“That’s his office right there,” the woman said. “Have a seat and I’ll call him. Is he expecting you?”
Jamie told her he’d called her house, then sat and ate the chocolate chip cookie. It was about as big as her hand and tasted so sweet she knew she’d have to work extra hard at the fitness center tonight. She usually worked out twice a week to stay in shape and keep toned for her races.
“Miss Maxwell, come right in,” Mr. Conway said. He was a middle-aged man, dressed in a black suit and a yellow tie. He had a nice smile, but his demeanor was all business.
“My mom called and said you left a message at the house.”
He offered her a seat and sat behind his desk. “Yes. Something unfortunate has happened with a transaction.” He picked up a check with a big red mark on it. “This check you cashed for a substantial amount of money was sent back to us for insufficient funds.”
Jamie stared at the check. It was her car money. She’d deposited it the next day. “That’s the check I got for selling my car.”
“Well, there wasn’t enough money in this person’s account to cover that purchase.” Mr. Conway looked at the floor and bit his lip. “What we usually tell our clients about selling expensive items like your car is that they should never take a personal check. Only a money order or a certified check.”
“Maybe he made a mistake—maybe the money’s there now.”
“We sent the check through twice, and both times it came back. I’m very sorry, Miss Maxwell.”
Jamie took a photocopy of the check and studied the man’s name, address, and phone number. Now she had no money for the driving school. What else could go wrong?
Chapter 13
The Letter
TIM DIDN’T WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL. It made no sense for him to go when he was leaving, but Tyson and Vera made him. He went to the office after the first bell and told them that he was being sent to another state.
“Your parents will need to fill out and sign these forms,” the secretary said, giving him a couple of papers. “You can hand them in to the counselor’s office just down the hall.”
Tim took the forms to the library, filled them out, then signed Tyson’s and Vera’s names. He took them to the right office and found an older lady at the desk. “I’m here to officially resign or whatever you call it.”
“You’re not dropping out, are you?” the woman said, her face creasing with concern.
“No, I’m moving up north. I just don’t know what you call it.”
“It’s a withdrawal. Why aren’t your guardians here to complete the process?”
Because they don’t care enough to be, Tim thought. Instead he said, “They’re kind of busy. You know, with all the business stuff they’re doing.”
She took the papers into the next room and came back with a signed yellow sheet that was his official ticket out. “Here you are. And good luck in your new home.”
/////
Vera said they’d received a call from the family in North Carolina, and she told Tim to be ready the next day, though she wouldn’t say much else. He slept late the next morning until he heard a vehicle with squeaky brakes stop outside the trailer. He’d slept in his clothes so he could be ready as fast as possible, and he went to the front room and looked out the window. It was a white FedEx truck, something he’d never seen in this neighborhood.
He stepped to the door, where a lady in a gray outfit waited.
“You Tim Carhardt?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She scanned the bar code on the thin packet, handed it to him, and ran back to her truck. “Have a nice day!” she called over her shoulder.
“You too,” he said.
Tim went back to his room and sat on the bed. At the top was a tab that said Pull here, and he pulled it across and opened the pack. Inside was a white envelope with Tim Carhardt written on the front. He opened the envelope and took out several pages and something printed on thicker paper that looked like tickets. Along with them was a handwritten page on stationery with Nicole Maxwell printed at the top. At the bottom was an address in Velocity, NC.
Dear Tim,
I’m so sorry for the delay in getting you here. Our family is excited about having you live with us, and we can’t wait to help you get settled into your new room.
I talked with Tyson and Vera about this and hope they’ve told you our plans, but since Dale didn’t get
to drive you back up here, he thought you might enjoy the race in Texas this weekend. You’ll find a plane ticket for this afternoon, and then you and Dale will fly back Sunday evening. He thought it would be a good chance for you to get to know each other.
I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to meet you and have you join our family. We’re all thinking of you and hoping your trip from Florida goes well.
See you soon!
Nicole
Tim read the letter twice before he folded it and examined the plane ticket. There were so many numbers on the thing that he couldn’t figure it out. He finally saw the departure time from the Tallahassee airport: 06:55 p.m.
His heart raced. He’d never flown in an airplane before, and he’d heard horror stories about how long it took to get through security and that you couldn’t bring any kind of liquids or things that could be used as a weapon.
Then something ran through him that he hadn’t felt in a long time. Hope. Excitement. He was actually going to another race. Maybe he’d get to be down on pit road with the teams.
He pulled out the letter and read it again.
Chapter 14
Surprise Visitor
JAMIE RUBBED HER PALMS together, a nervous habit she had when she was stressed out.
“Have you told your mom about the bounced check?” Cassie asked.
They were at the youth group meeting at church but had gone into the little prayer room on the second floor. It had a chapel feel to it with stained glass in the windows and a cross on the wall. There were only a few chairs and a kneeling bench at the front.
“She asked what it was about, but I can’t tell her,” Jamie said. “It’ll be the last nail in the coffin of the driving school. Instead of giving her every reason to say yes, I’m giving her every reason to say no.”
