Once Around the Track

CHAPTER V

Well, it would probably be better than working for the food page of The Charlotte Observer. Probably. Too bad the pay wasn’t better, but at least the hours were.

Melanie Sark knew that there were lots of people in the world-70 million, in fact, if you believed Sports Illustrated-who would clutch their hearts and faint with envy at the thought of getting a job as a publicist to a NASCAR team. To get paid to attend races. To get up close and personal with an actual Cup driver-as part of your job. Oh, sure, a dream come true. But not to her it wasn’t, because she wasn’t a NASCAR fan, and neither were any of her colleagues in journalism, as far as she knew. The glamour of this line of work would be lost on them, which meant that gloating would not be among the perks of her new job.

Her fellow journalists would ask her the same questions they’d pose if she had just taken over the editorship of Shoppers Weekly: How much does it pay? (Not a lot); What are the hours? (Erratic, as far as she could tell, but less arduous than that of a newspaper reporter); What are the perks? (Well, attending NASCAR races, if that happened to appeal to you, but she couldn’t suddenly start pretending that it did.)

Sark had already thought out her response to the polite cynicism of her acquaintances: plausible enthusiasm. No, she wasn’t doing it because she wanted to go to stock car races, and no, she didn’t have a jones for runty little guys in firesuits. The point, she would tell them, was that the job would offer valuable experience in public relations, and it might lead to a more prestigious gig-Hollywood, perhaps, or a corporate position in industry, which would really pay well. Making something look good was the name of the game, whether you hyped a car, a new movie, or a race car driver, so it didn’t matter where she started out, as long as she performed the task with skill and creativity.

The NASCAR job would be a hoot, she would tell her colleagues. Surely she’d soon be able to regale the gang with tales of excess on the Redneck Riviera (aka Lake Norman), and stories about Thunder Road prima donnas behaving badly. Stay tuned, she would tell them, leering.

She took the job. There was never any doubt that she would. Diversification looked great on a résumé, and she was still young enough to get away with it and pretty enough to have a good shot at any job she really wanted. She had a good academic record, a modest legacy from her grandmother to use as a safety net, and two older sisters to deflect her mother’s lust for wedding planning and grandchildren. Sark was out to see the world before age, career demands, or Mr. Right put an Invisible Fence around her life.

She had already worked in the publications office of her university, spent the obligatory year in New York working for a fashion photographer, and worked as a publicist for a minor music company, whose main claim to fame had been a group called “The Okay Chorale.” Then she’d tried her hand at newspaper reporting, but the “assigned beat” system of a metropolitan daily had soon bored her, especially since the reporters with the least seniority got the most mind-numbing assignments. The zoning board. Oh, please. Taking a job as a NASCAR publicist was a small price to pay to escape that; during some of the interminable board meetings she thought she might have gnawed off her own foot to get away.

She had seen the story about the all-woman NASCAR team before it had even made headlines. One of the guys in the sports department had been bruiting the news about as his current favorite joke, but Sark had not been amused. NASCAR was a notoriously all-male enterprise, and on principle she applauded an injection of diversity into the mix. It had been easy enough to get the sports guy to give her the contact people, once she’d managed to convince him that her interest was opportunistic rather than journalistic.

She had e-mailed her résumé to the team, and by the time they called her for an interview three days later, she had put together an impressive portfolio of fashion photographs, zoning board stories, and record company press releases.

Christine Berenson had studied the work samples with clinical interest, and then she’d taken a long look at the slender girl with long cognac-colored hair and an expression of impish intelligence. At last she said, “And just what experience do you have with stock car racing?”

There it was. Sark knew she couldn’t bluff her way through that one. She had done some reading on the subject-at least enough to know that Jeff Gordon and Robby Gordon were not brothers-but she thought it best not to feign an interest or an expertise that she did not have.

“I’m eager to learn,” she said, with what she hoped was an enthusiastic smile.

Christine Berenson’s expression was noncommittal. “Well, your credentials seem satisfactory, and your photography is quite good. How exactly would you suggest we promote Badger Jenkins?”

Sark’s smile wavered. The name of the driver had not been made public, and while she had tried to memorize as much as she could about forty-three race car drivers who were just names on a page to her, she did not recognize this name, and not a single fact about him surfaced in her consciousness. She pretended to weigh the options, while she grasped at what few generalizations she had gathered about the mystique of stock car racing. “Well,” she said at last, “I think that race car drivers are the modern equivalent of…of…knights in shining armor. People see them as brave warriors, risking their lives in a kind of mechanized jousting tournament. I think I would focus on that nobility of spirit.”

Her prospective employer’s eyes widened, and for an instant her lips twitched. “Ah. Badger Jenkins as knight in shining armor. How very unexpected. But our researchers tell us that there are some thirty million female fans of NASCAR, and perhaps that is exactly the image that would appeal to them. Interesting.”

They talked a bit more, and Sark continued to be fortunate in her answers, so that by the time the interview was over, she felt confident of having landed the job. She left with Christine Berenson’s promise that she would hear from them soon.

That evening, Sark had a dinner date with Ed Blair, a freelance writer who specialized in articles for local magazines and occasionally even scored big with a national publication. Over dessert she told him about her new job prospect, careful to keep her tone light and ironic, displaying the elitism of a journalist, certainly of a sophisticated person well beyond the lure of stock car racing.

“It should be a hoot,” she said, toying with her crème brûlée.

Her companion stared into his coffee cup for a moment, deep in thought. “You know,” he said, “it could be quite an opportunity as well. You’ll have the inside track on a NASCAR team. And a notorious one at that. The all-female team. Who knows what goings-on you’ll get to see? It should be a satirist’s dream. I doubt you’d even have to exaggerate. You ought to keep a diary.”

“Why?”

“Well, so that you can write it all up at the end of the season. Surely this ladies’ team won’t last more than one season, so you’ll be out of a job by December anyhow. Then you can shop this article to a national magazine like Vanity Fair and make good money. You might even get a book deal out of it.”

“Vanity Fair?” Sark blinked. “What kind of article?”

“Oh, you know, something hip and sarcastic. Knights of the round track, or redneck cowboys, or something like that. Get the tone right and it would be a great story. It should almost write itself. How hard can it be to make fun of stock car racing?”

No argument there, she thought. “But how would I get a national magazine to look at it?”

Ed Blair smiled. “Keep in touch, Sark. When you’re ready to shop the piece, I’ll make a few calls. I’m sure we can convince somebody to take it. NASCAR is becoming quite a cultural phenomenon, you know. They’ve just purchased some land on Staten Island to build a speedway in New York. That will put the sport on the national radar more than ever.”

Sark thought it over for a few moments. “All right,” she said, “I suppose it couldn’t hurt anything to keep notes, if I get the job. And if I get a good offer for an article, why not? Especially if I’m unemployed at the end of the season. Just don’t forget you promised to help me shop it.”

He raised his coffee cup in a mock toast. “Here’s hoping you get the job, and lots of dirt along the way.”

When the job offer came a day or so later, Sark accepted it with more enthusiasm than she had expected. She didn’t even mind that the pay was not astronomical. After all, she told herself, in a way she would be working two jobs at once.

Laraine set a pile of clean shirts on the bed next to the old brown suitcase. “Fresh out of the dryer, hon,” she said. “But I still don’t see why you have to move up there. I thought you hated Mooresville. You said the air feels like cotton candy in the summertime.”

Badger Jenkins was sitting on the floor, cradling his helmet in his lap, seemingly oblivious to the process of packing. He nodded sadly. “It does,” he said, without looking up. “But they’ll expect me to be around, and I figured I ought to go. Help set up the team.”

She nodded. That was a good sign. Impress his new employers with his dedication before fishing season or apple harvest or some other local distraction lured him away again.

Laraine set the shirts in the suitcase, next to several pairs of patched and faded Levis that she thought would be better off in the rubbish bin than in the suitcase. She looked around the sparsely furnished cabin, wondering what else he would want to take, but he seemed so lost in thought that she hated to ask him. Not the dramatic Badger Jenkins racing poster taped to the refrigerator. She’d always suspected he kept it there as a joke. Not the old racing trophies on the mantelpiece, surely. Not the shotgun or the fishing rods. Not the eight-by-ten color picture of the former Miss Georgia-USA, who was also the former Mrs. Badger Jenkins-speaking of things that should go in the rubbish bin, if you asked her.

She paused for a moment, with a dingy pair of socks in her hand, and looked at him, marveling as she always did at the difference between the stud on the NASCAR poster and the slight, earnest fellow on the floor, hugging the helmet. Pictures don’t lie, she thought, but those firesuit shots of Badger certainly weren’t within hailing distance of the truth. A collection of Badger’s racing posters graced the wall of the diner, and sometimes when Laraine hadn’t seen Badger in person for a week or so, even she’d start believing that the fellow in the picture was real-tall, wise, and powerful, and sexy as hell.

Then one day he’d turn up for lunch, looking like a lost Boy Scout in ratty old jeans and a tee shirt two sizes too large, and in two heartbeats she’d forget all the impure thoughts she’d had about him that wouldn’t bear repeating even on Confession Sunday, and she’d feed him a double helping of everything, and then forget to charge him for the meal.

He put her in mind of a stray puppy sometimes-lost and helpless, and so intent on his own concerns that he barely noticed all the times loving hands rescued him from one mishap or another. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful, exactly. Just oblivious. Whenever life seemed ready to flush Badger Jenkins down the toilet, something or someone always did turn up to save him, and he never seemed to wonder about his charmed life. Maybe you couldn’t if you were a race car driver. Maybe you had to believe in a luck that was stronger than steel and more reliable than gravity. How could you go out there and risk your life on a race track if you didn’t believe that?

She folded another tee shirt (This one said, “No Fear!” Laraine thought they ought to make one that said, “No Common Sense!”) and stole another glance at him, but he was still taking no interest in the preparations for his own departure. Like a child being sent off to camp. He’d thank her when she was done and hug her good-bye with all the sexless abandon of a little kid, but she wasn’t sure if that constituted gratitude as the rest of the world understood it or not. If she hadn’t done his laundry and the packing, somebody else would have. That’s the way the world worked for Badger, fair or not. Somebody would always look out for him; a dozen self-appointed crew chiefs steered him through life, just as the real ones had kept him on-track in the race car.

Another thought occurred to her. “Have you got somebody looking out for the cabin while you’re gone, hon?”

He nodded absently. “Yeah, Paul down at the Bait and Beer said he needs a place to stay while they’re rebuilding his house. Wood stove caught fire, you remember.”

Laraine nodded. She did remember. Someone else’s disaster turned into Badger Jenkins’s luck, just like on the track, when Johnny Benson or somebody had cut a tire, and the resulting caution had allowed Badger to pit just before he would have run out of fuel. His whole life was like that, it seemed to Laraine.

“I’m only charging him four hundred dollars a month,” said Badger, brightening at the thought.

For house-sitting? thought Laraine. But she didn’t say anything. That was another thing about Badger. Just when you thought he had no more sense of self-preservation than a baby bird, he’d come out with something so shrewd and calculating that you found yourself wondering if the whole innocent thing was just an act. She never could figure it out. Maybe Badger wasn’t that macho robot from the racing posters, but that didn’t mean the real guy was any easier to understand.

And why do we love him so much? she wondered. He is handsome enough, but no more than a hundred other guys anywhere you look. He’s kind when he remembers to be, but he can break your heart, too, by forgetting a promise or letting you down at the last minute. What is there about him that makes everybody stick to him like bugs on a windshield? There was a saying around Marengo, generations old: “Nobody ever got anywhere by loving a Jenkins.” Lord, that was true. But it didn’t stop people from trying, anyhow.

And in Badger’s case, it wasn’t the money or the fame. Oh, maybe it was for some people. There were plenty of folks who liked to brag about knowing a guy whose cardboard likeness stood in the grocery store aisle, as if that was anything to crow about, if you asked her. And there were always women who-in the words of that song-would wonder how his engine feels. But for the people who really mattered, it wasn’t starfucking, it was genuine devotion. And you never knew how he felt in return or even if he noticed the charmed circle that protected him-all the old friends who answered his fan mail, fixed him hot dinners, and guarded his privacy from reporters and clueless fans. Laraine’s own self-appointed task was to present Badger to outsiders as the macho stud people expected NASCAR drivers to be.

You just went on doing things for him and not expecting anything in return but a soft-drawled thank you, when he remembered, and for some reason that was enough.

Whatever it was, you never got over it, she thought, as she went on sorting socks.