The Outside Groove (16 page)

Scooter's slight gain, combined with the slow car in front of me, gave car 03 a half-car-length lead heading into turn three. If he was driving his line, though, it was farther out than mine. I got my right tires just to the inside of my mark. My exit speed was not optimal, but I kept up with Scooter, losing only a wheel's worth of track in another lap.

Heading into the backstretch, I drifted to the outside, not far enough to tap Scooter but far enough to budge him. In the next turns, I came closer to hitting my marks.

My exit speed improved. I was racing Scooter dead even in another lap, and Buck Farnham's car 04 seemed to want a piece of Scooter's rear end. I ran with those guys as close as I could to my line, watching for nonsense in my rearview mirror.

Sure enough, heading into turn one, Buck decided to play bump-and-run. He tapped Scooter, whose rear tires slid to the outside. I accelerated and dropped to the inside track to avoid Scooter's spinning front end. I got knocked on the right rear, but I was ready for it. I lifted and rolled around turn two, and then lead-footed to make up exit speed.

As soon as I was in the straightaway, I glanced across the infield, where two other cars were now spinning like square dancers in the front stretch. The two cars ahead of me were running to the outside. In the next turn, I plunged down to the inside before they could react. Around the next corner, I hugged the inside but moved at top speed while the drivers on the outside slowed for the wreck. I blew by them.

Welcome to second place. Problem was, I realized, as the field followed the pace car around the track, the flagman had the white flag under his arm while he waved the yellow caution flag. White flag: On the restart, it was going to be the lead car's last lap.

The leader, an orange Tempo with a blue number 76, shimmied as I pulled up alongside him, crossing over in the backstretch. I didn't know the driver, but I did know that he'd held the lead the whole race. He'd started out in the lead, in fact. I knew I could safely assume that he was running a good car, but I also thought I could assume one more thing—and hang my final-lap strategy on that notion.

On the drive over to Byam, Uncle Harvey had told me that sometimes the driver in first place will push his car too hard, trying to drive his line, maintain maximum speed, and keep an eye out for people coming up on either side all at the same time. Unless the driver in car 76 were some kind of racecar-driving Albert Einstein, fighting off the entire field for twenty-four laps must've been a rigorous mental workout. If his car was still running strong, I figured, then maybe
he
was at the breaking point.

The pace car darted for the infield, and we rolled into turn three. Rounding turn four, I saw the flagman leaning out with the green. Car 76 accelerated a split second sooner than I'd expected and pulled ahead almost a full car length. I must've been thinking too much. I gunned Theo's engine and made my decision.

Knowing Theo was running fast and cornering well, I favored the inside on car 76 as we blew down the main straightaway. Instead of drifting out to run my line in turn one, I held the inside track, watching to see if car 76's white-knuckle driving would lead him wide in the turn. I stuck right to his bumper as he drifted outside—way out—at the top of the turn one-turn two bank. I drifted with him, eyeing a spot pretty close to my optimal turn-two mark, the cauliflower grease splotch, and made a quick move to exit as I passed it.

In the backstretch, I owned the inside track, so I matted the gas and stayed as close to car 76 as I could, keeping the pressure on. Again, Car 76 left a lot of room for me down the center of turn three, so I went a little farther outside than on the previous corner. I felt the difference in my line. Car 76 fought me, hugged close, but we both must've felt Theo pulling ahead on the good line. I hit my turn-four mark—X-shaped asphalt crack—and matted the gas for home.

I pushed the pedal to the floor until my ankle hurt. I locked my arms and held my breath. I flew under that checkered flag. Before anyone else.

***

I ran a victory lap with the checkered flag, probably driving a little faster than winners usually do, since I was pressed for time. At the pit gate, the Sharks waved me in like they were landing a jet that'd just flown through a violent storm—which, I guess, I had. Jim and Uncle Harvey stood back, Jim with the crowbar resting on his shoulder, Uncle Harvey with his arms folded but wearing a huge jack-o'-lantern smile. I smacked Theo's dashboard with my right hand and let out a whoop. My ears popped.

I pulled into my pit, killed the engine, yanked off my steering wheel, and hurled it out the window as far as I could. The Sharks rushed over and practically dragged me out of the car. We tumbled onto the ground, shrieking and rolling and acting like little girls. But we didn't care.

After the Sharks and I picked ourselves back up, Uncle Harvey walked over. “Just plain good short-track racing,” he said. “You see?” He rested his hands on the shoulders of my firesuit. “You run a clean race, you run
your
race, and it pays off.”

Jim stepped up and pulled me to his beefy side. “Good run,” he said, then strode over to Theo.

A few moments later, my name was announced over the loudspeakers. “Go on and get your trophy,” Uncle Harvey said, gesturing toward the pit gate.

The moment I stepped onto the track, I felt dizzy, the high-banked corners and rubber-rutted grooves playing tricks with my sense of up and down. Then the adrenaline spike of triumph yielded to the anxiety of public speaking. When I reached the announcer—a thin, middle-aged man in khaki pants, a gray windbreaker, and thick glasses—he said, “And here she is, folks, your street-stock winner, Fliverton's Casey LaPlante.” I felt the urge to vomit. “Casey, we haven't had but a couple of women racers since I can remember. How'd it feel running out there with the Corkum County boys?”

“Pretty good,” I said. “I definitely ran the best race I could, I got a couple lucky breaks, and I guess that's what it took to get to Victory Lane today.”

“You ran real strong in those last laps. What made the difference, do you think?”

“Tires. Getting a good tire setup and also getting a sense of who was moving around the track and who wasn't. Got to thank my crew for that.”

“Well, congratulations, Casey. Great run. Folks, let's hear it for your street-stock winner, Casey LaPlante.”

A smattering of applause.

The announcer gave me my trophy and I turned and jogged back to the pits.

As soon as I passed through the gate, the Sharks handed me a bag of dresses, like relay racers passing a baton. I flipped them a speedy Byam grip and sprinted for Uncle Harvey's car, which was idling up next to Mr. Ladd's trailer. “Thanks, Jim,” I called to him as he winched Theo onto the flatbed.

He smiled—a smile that I'd never seen before. “Have a great time at the prom,” he said.

***

The whole way back to Uncle Harvey's, I prayed that we didn't get pulled over, not that we were tearing up the country roads in his junker. Still, he knew I was running late if I intended to go out on one decent date in my high school career. We passed through light rain showers about thirty miles from the Fliverton town line, but by the time I was scrambling across Uncle Harvey's slick lawn toward Hilda, the rain had let up.

I fought the urge to floor it all the way home. With one warning from Chief Congreve already, I took it easy down roads where he might be hiding, cornered more cautiously.

Pulling into the driveway, I could see, through the open garage and kitchen side doors, Fletcher sitting at the dining room table. I walked in the front door, dashed up the stairs, and dove into my room.

I tossed the bag of dresses onto my bed, got undressed, and sprinted to the bathroom to take a shower. I stepped under the water so fast that it was still warming up. I let out an involuntary little shriek.

Back in my room about one minute later, I poured the dresses onto my bed and, standing before my closet mirror, frantically held them up in front of myself, one after the other. Naturally, they were all on the short side, and a couple were so slinky that I doubted the prom chaperones would've let me in wearing them. The school district had gotten strict about that. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand—7:15—and grabbed the next dress. It was black and long enough, but it appeared to be made of fabric, again, too sheer for district standards. My eyes began to sting as tears gathered.

Mom knocked on my door.

“How's it coming in there?” she said.

I didn't answer.

“Casey, can I come in?” She nudged the door open and, seeing me standing in front of the closet in a slip, wrinkled her brow. “Why, you're not dressed. Fletcher's—”

“I know.”

“Everything OK?”

I took a deep breath and swallowed. “Just nervous.”

Mom smiled the girlish smile that I usually found supremely annoying. In that moment, it was actually welcome. “Here,” she said, stepping to the bed and picking up the last dress. “Let me help you.”

She stood behind me and reached around so that I could see the dress in the mirror. It was very nice—longer than the others, cream-colored with the faintest shimmer. Although it was sleeveless and tied in back, halterlike, the V-neck front didn't plunge so low that I'd be showing too much skin for our school district. The dress was both modest and, in its sleekness, kind of sexy. “Oh, this is darling,” Mom said. “Where'd you get it?”

“A friend loaned it to me.”

“Well, she must be quite an elegant young lady.”

“She is,” I said and, for a second, imagined all three Sharks standing reflected in the mirror, smiling with approval. I reflexively smiled back, and Mom caught me.

“Lovely,” she said. “You look lovely.”

Fletcher was a perfect gentleman. He pulled my chair out as we were seated for dinner at a nice inn out near the Fliverton-Brogansville line, and he stood when I got up to check my lipstick. Yes, at my mother's insistence, I'd applied a coat of glossy lipstick the color of honey. Fletcher stood again when I returned.

Our conversation got off to a slow start, mainly because we both seemed to be avoiding anything having to do with racing or Wade, which was the only obvious thing we had in common. Eventually, though, after our appetizers arrived, we settled into an easier conversational rhythm. Fletcher asked more questions about college than I felt comfortable answering, since he told me he didn't think he'd be able to go for a couple of years. The thought of him being stuck in Fliverton for the rest of his life made me sad. The thought of anyone being stuck in Fliverton made me sad.

So I got him talking about his new job. He'd been working part-time in the furniture factory on the east side of town, but one of the foremen there had recently left to start a company doing custom cabinetry, and he'd hired Fletcher as an apprentice. I came up with lots of questions about wood and how carpenters managed to get it into so many shapes. When I realized that I was eating a lot faster than Fletcher was, on account of my making him do all the talking, I began telling him about a desk belonging to my Grandma Phyllis, which had innumerable drawers of various sizes.

Fletcher said he was familiar with this type of desk. As he delved into its history, he fell behind again in the dining portion of our evening.

***

The prom was held out at the Granite County Golf & Country Club. Against their better judgment, the prom entertainment committee had hired Center of Detention, a punk band from Brogansville, and they created an undercurrent of chaos that, I sensed, would become an overcurrent of chaos before the night was through. Fletcher and I danced a little, but he seemed to enjoy it about as much as I did, which was not much, although he moved better than the average Fliverton guy. The Dolphins swam through it all, checking everyone out almost as often as they checked themselves out.

At one point, while I was freshening my lipstick in the ladies' room, three prominent Dolphins, members of the prom organizing committee named Stacey, Fiona, and Brittany—I privately knew them as Squeaky, Fishy, and Beachball—complimented me on my dress and hair, which I took to be only a half compliment, since anyone who'd ever seen me before would've known that I hadn't done anything special with my hair, just gelled it back and fastened it with a barrette. I thanked them and reciprocated, making sure to compliment their dresses as well as their choice in entertainment.

When I returned from the ladies' room, the prom was spiraling into the abyss. Some football players had taken trophy deer heads down from a special off-limits part of the club and were running around goring each other with the antlers. Center of Detention had moved into the hardcore portion of their set, so the dance floor was empty except for eight guys from the Young Republicans Club slamming into one another. Several Dolphins were taking it all badly enough to break into crying jags. The chaperones—Mr. and Ms. Weaver, U.S. History and Biology, respectively, and the new Spanish teacher, a frail-looking woman in a tweed suit—anxiously orbited the proceedings. The Spanish teacher stopped at a table where three couples were making out so vigorously that I could practically hear their teeth clacking through the guitar feedback. The teacher leaned to tap the bare shoulder of the girl nearest her.

Fletcher must've been watching me because, when I spotted him standing near the door leading to the patio, he was laughing so hard that he had one hand on his stomach, the other gripping a chair back. I started laughing, too, laughing and dodging Young Republicans who shot out from the dance floor every few steps.

When I reached Fletcher, he opened the door for me, and we stumbled out.

***

Fletcher's Dart was about the ninth or tenth car to pull into the lot down at the fishing access. The weather had remained mild and had even cleared some. The river reflected moonlight through a smoky darkness that hung still, almost like summer. Someone had built a fire, and a cluster of guys converged around a project—a keg, no doubt—at forest's edge.