Once Around the Track

CHAPTER VIII

“Hello, Badger. Remember me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Badger meekly. She looked at him, standing there in his tatty jeans and an old Talladega tee shirt. On the wall directly behind him hung a framed poster of Badger Jenkins the Race Car Driver in his firesuit and opaque shades, leaning against the race car with a look of sullen insolence on his chiseled features. As usual, she could find no resemblance between the powerful man on the poster and the shy-looking kid in front of her. When Tuggle entered the team office, he had stood up. Now he was looking at her with all the solemn deference of a nine-year-old called on the carpet in the principal’s office.

Tuggle’s stern expression did not change, but inwardly she was gratified that despite his fame and money, Badger at heart had remained a well brought-up country boy, to whom manners were second only to breathing. Good. He’d live longer. “Just make it Tuggle,” she said gruffly. “You know we’re going to be working together.”

He gave her one of those smiles that could melt asphalt, and his dark eyes burned with earnest fervor. “It is my honor to work with you, ma’am,” he said, in a golden baritone that dipped every vowel in molasses. “I’m going to give this team one hundred percent.”

“Boy, you can’t even count that high,” said Tuggle. “And you can dial back that drawl, too. That accent is your get-out-of-jail free card, but it won’t be working on me.”

His eyes widened a bit, but he contrived not to react to this speech.

“I know about you,” said Tuggle. “I’ve heard tell. We’ve not worked together, but the racing world is a small town, and everybody knows everything, so we’re going to have a little talk now, and you’d better hope we don’t have to have it again.”

He nodded, expressionless, and she couldn’t tell whether he was still all polite obedience or whether he was mad as hell but holding it in for the sake of the job. Well, she didn’t care either way. Whether he took it easy or fought her tooth and nail, things were going to be done her way, and that was that. She knew that some of the team would look at that Christmas tree angel face of his and melt, but it left her unmoved, except as a warning that here was a pretty boy who had cruised through life in neutral on account of that doll baby face. Well, she wasn’t buying it.

“As wheel men go, you’re not half bad, Badger,” she conceded. “You came up on dirt track, and that’s in your favor. Means you can drive a loose car without taking out half the field. That’ll help some. And your instincts are good-you don’t swerve when you can’t see; you don’t throw the race to win a grudge match against some other driver. Put you in a race car, and I got no complaints.” She saw him begin to smile and she held up her hand to forestall his relief. “But-there’s more to this job than seat-of-the-pants talent. And that’s what we need to talk about.”

The smile faded. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Anybody can drive a damn car.” His jaw tightened at that remark, and she knew she would get an argument out of him about that. Deserved one, too. It wasn’t true-not anybody could drive a car, not the way they drove in NASCAR. It wasn’t like a run down the local interstate. It took the courage of a teenaged rhinoceros and the hand-eye coordination of a sniper. You couldn’t learn it much past childhood, either. Most of the successful drivers had started out in go-carts about the time their six-year molars came in; because if you waited for your wisdom teeth before you started racing, you would never be good enough.

Badger had started young, and he had what it took to be great-except that he wasn’t a corporate type, and in today’s sport, that flaw was fatal. Her only hope was to berate him into cooperation. It was a gamble, but she thought it was worth a try. His previous teams had all tried to reform Badger, using everything from bribes to threats, but nothing they did had ever worked. She thought the unvarnished truth was worth a shot.

She took a deep breath and let him have it. “You have the attention span of popcorn, boy. And you are either bone lazy or too overconfident to live; I can’t figure out which. I don’t much care. You’re what they call a prima donna, and with a team full of women, that is the last thing I need. Yeah, I heard about you with that last team you drove for. You acted like they paid you by the hour with no overtime. They practically had to tie you to a chair to see you other than on race days. I heard. They fired you, too, remember.”

She saw his eyes glisten, and she felt the comforting words rise up in her throat, but she choked them back. Hell, she wanted to hug him, poor little thing. Oh, but she knew better. “Don’t look at me like a whipped spaniel, either, boy. Your mother died when you were born. Yeah. Everybody knows that from the press kit information. Poor old Badger. And ever since then those mournful brown eyes of yours have made every woman over the age of twenty want to baby you to make up for it, with the consequence that you have been getting away with murder all your damn life. So I’m just putting you on notice, Pretty Boy, that this act of yours will not be working with me, understand?”

“I hear you,” he said softly, his face as expressionless as milk. He was good, though. She had to concede that. He could do “earnest sincerity” better than a damn cocker spaniel.

“I expect you do hear me. I’m talking loud enough. Just get it through your head that I expect you to do a proper job and to work as hard as the rest of us. You be here when I tell you to be here, and you put us first. Not your business deals or your fishing buddies or your daddy’s tractor problems, or whatever the hell else you come up with that interferes with the running of this team. Do-you-understand?”

She saw his jaw tighten, and on each cheek there was a spot of color in an otherwise ashen face. Tight-lipped, he nodded.

“Fair enough,” she said. “You know, Badger, I believe I would be your momma if you were still young enough to take a belt to. Except that you’re no little kid. Hell, you’re older than Jeff Gordon, and sometimes you look hotter than a two-dollar pistol. And posters of you like that one”-she nodded toward the firesuit photo-“can make even me think thoughts about you that would melt the decals off that race car. Except that I know better than to confuse the paint job with what’s under the hood. You ain’t him. You never saw the day, boy. Well, in real life you’re not him, anyhow. But maybe if you learn to work with me instead of fighting me every step of the way, you can be him on the race track. I’d like you to make me believe it’s that stud on the Technicolor poster that’s driving my car. Will you try to do that?”

He nodded, taking deep breaths like he figured breathing in was better than letting any sound come out right now.

“Well, all right, then. We have a deal.” She took a deep breath. One hurdle down, another big one to go. “Did anybody tell you who the sponsor is?”

Badger’s face brightened. “Yeah. I’m real happy about that.”

Tuggle blinked. “You are?”

“Why, sure. Richmond and Martinsville are about my favorite tracks, and I’m a big fan of the Hokies in football. And there’s King’s Dominion…”

Tuggle digested this information. Then she nodded, not even surprised, really. “The Hokies. Virginia Tech, right? Badger, do you by any chance believe that your race car is being sponsored by the Commonwealth of Virginia?”

“Well, sure. Somebody in the front office mentioned it to me. Isn’t it great? I’ll be honest with you: I was surprised. You’d think they’d want to sponsor Elliott Sadler, though, wouldn’t you? On account of him being from there. Or maybe Jeff Burton.”

“Well, I think I can explain that to you, Badger. What they told you was that the sponsor is Vagenya. Yeah, I know it sounds about the same when you say it, but they didn’t mean the state. Vagenya is the name of a new drug, and the pharmaceutical manufacturer is our team sponsor.”

“Vagenya,” said Badger, thinking hard. “Never heard of it.”

“No,” said Tuggle, “I don’t expect you would have. But since you’re driving for those folks, you’ll probably get asked about it in press interviews.”

Badger assumed an expression that he probably thought of as crafty. “Y’all want me to say I use the stuff?”

Tuggle’s lips twitched. “That won’t be necessary, Badger. Thank you all the same.”

“Vagenya, huh?” He savored the word, probably trying to commit it to memory. “Va-gen-ya. What does it do, anyhow?”

She hesitated. “You have a meeting coming up with the team publicist. Since it’s her job to prep you for media interviews, I think I’ll let her explain it to you.”

Badger’s amiable countenance clouded over again. “A meeting when?” he said. “I’m pretty busy this week.”

Tuggle stared at him expressionless for a long moment waiting for him to blink, and when he did, she said, “You’ve already forgotten what I just told you, haven’t you? You will not give this team lip service instead of full cooperation. You will give us one hundred percent, or else the only drug you will need to worry about is Preparation H, because I will shove my foot so far up your ass…Now, get over to the shop and see do they need you.”

Without a word, Badger turned on his heel and left the office.

Deanna, the secretary who had been hiding in the photocopy room, crept back out when she heard the slamming of the office door. She was in her early thirties, and on her desk was an old Badger Jenkins coffee mug, bearing a photo of a younger Badger with his hair in an Arthurian pageboy, wearing a blue firesuit reminiscent of a knight’s tunic and leaning against a wall with such a reverent expression that he lacked only the horse and sword to look like Sir Galahad.

“Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe you talked to him like that. He’s so famous.”

“I’m trying to keep him that way,” said Tuggle grimly.

“But you were so mean to him. When you said all those harsh things, his eyes glistened, and I was afraid he was going to cry. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears myself. I just wanted to hug him.”

“More fool you,” said Tuggle. “That boy needs to straighten up. Being pretty might help you win fans and sponsors, but the rest of this sport is pure Type A male and it’s run by corporate piranhas. They won’t put up with his shenanigans for one second. Time somebody told him so.”

“Do you think he listened?”

The crew chief sighed. “More or less,” she said. “I reckon I’ll have that speech down by heart before I’m done giving it, though.”

Deanna looked thoughtful. “I’ve got some items here that fans sent in for him to autograph, and he always says he doesn’t have time…”

Tuggle gave her a look.

The secretary shook her finger at the framed firesuit poster of Badger Almighty. “All right, Pretty Boy,” she said. “Sit your ass down at the conference table and sign those hero cards right now.”

Tuggle nodded. “Keep practicing,” she said. “I’ll shoo him back in here when we’re done at the shop and you can tell him that for real.”

The secretary sighed. “Yeah, but I’d rather hug him.”