The same track official I’d talked to the day before stopped by while Maddie was gone. “Personally,” he said, “I loved watching you throw that car into the turns like that, laying down rubber all the way through.”
“But?” I asked, waving him to help himself from the cooler.
Grabbing a Diet Coke, he said, “But you didn’t make many friends out there.”
“Let me guess- the guy with the Audi R8,” I said, smirking.
“Yeah, the guy’s been a pain in my ass all weekend,” he grumbled. “He must have complained to me or one of my crew at least half a dozen times between yesterday and today. And it’s not just about you,” he said, raising his hand to stop my protests. “He’s also complained about the way we’ve run the track day, about slower cars, and I think, once, about how far he had to walk from his pit setup to the bathrooms.”
“You’re kidding me,” I said, laughing. “My buddy here with the McLaren- he’s an ass, and we’re parked about as far as anybody from the bathrooms, but even he hasn’t complained!”
“I know, right? I told him he can park closer next time- the bathrooms aren’t going to move any closer to him.”
“So the guy bitched about that last pass I made on him?” I asked.
“He called it ‘unsafe showboating,’ and threatened to write bad reviews online because we allow pros in our amateur track days,” the official confirmed.
“I failed to notice anywhere in the registration where it said ‘Must be an A level driver, but not an A+ or better’,” I said with a laugh.
“That was my basic answer,” The guy said. “I told him that there was no such restriction, and pros are welcome if they want. They have to follow the same guidelines as everybody else. We don’t dumb down our events to please a common denominator. I told him that the slowest guy on the track, driving a bone-stock twenty year old Miata, that guy never complained once about getting passed.”
By this time June and Danny had made their way over, and caught that part of the conversation.
“Dood,” Danny said. “People complaining about getting passed are freaking lame. Like you said this morning- if you don’t like getting passed, drive faster.”
Chuckling, the official said, “Exactly.”
Maddie and Lainey had joined the crowd by that point, wondering what all the commotion was about.
“Well, anyway,” the track official said. “I’ve done my due diligence, so if he collars me again I can tell him that I’ve spoken to you about your driving.”
“And how awesome it is!” said Danny.
Chuckling, the official left to go back to whatever his duties called for him to do.
June said, “I can’t believe that other drivers are being such pussies!” Suddenly realizing that he might have made a poor choice of words in that crowd, he caught himself. “Um, I mean, crybabies.”
I laughed. “June, don’t you know pussies are tough? When you pound a guy in the balls, he acts like he’s gonna die. When you pound a chick in the pussy, she tells you to do it harder and faster.”
The looks on the two guys’ faces were completely precious, not sure whether to laugh, blush, or get offended.
Lainey, to my surprise, did break out in laughter. “That’s no lie,” she said, scandalizing her daughter.
“Moooooom!” Maddie said, turning red as a beet.
This turned the tide for the two guys and they both laughed, somehow assured by Lainey’s laughter that it was O.K. to do so.
“I can’t believe you said that!” Maddie complained to me.
“Sometimes the truth hurts,” I said with a shrug, getting another laugh from Lainey.
“Hey, uh, Leah?” Danny said. “It was good meeting you. See you around again sometime?”
“Probably,” I agreed, giving the two fist bumps before they walked off.
Maddie grabbed a Red Bull from the cooler as her mom sat down.
“Mads said you wanted to talk?” Lainey began.
“Um, yeah, I did.” Thinking about how to frame it, I said, “Maddie mentioned that it’s hard to really get a lot of track time, since there aren’t very many of these open-track track days, and in the usual session format you only get a couple of hours out on the track per day. In a twenty minute session you barely get your groove going before it’s time to pull back in again.”
“Yeah, it’s always been a problem, even back when she was racing karts,” Lainey agreed.
“I’ve been talking to the guys that run the track here,” I said. “About renting the whole thing for private testing days. Essentially, a one-car track day. Just empty track. Well, I got to thinking that if I do that, and I might do it once a month or so, I’d be O.K. if you guys want to come. That way Maddie could get plenty of time to work on her technique and not have her be concerned about other drivers.”
“Other drivers than you,” Lainey clarified.
“Well, yeah, and maybe a few of my friends. You’ve met Stein, but I have a group of guys I drive with, and I’d invite them, too. But it’d definitely be less than ten cars on the track.”
“Why?” Lainey asked.
“Why what?”
“Why would you invite Maddie?”
I shrugged. “You came over here to talk to me, yesterday. You saw that I was a woman driver, and you wanted advice for Maddie. I’m perfectly happy to help her grow as a driver if I can help, and this is an easy way to do it.”
“I guess…” Lainey said. “So, would you want anything for this?”
“Honestly, it wouldn’t cost me a dime I wouldn’t be spending anyway, right?” I said. “But it wouldn’t really be free for you guys, either. You’ll have to spend money on gas, tires, things like that, and take the time off to be here- I think all the available days are weekdays, so you’d miss work and school…”
“But you wouldn’t charge us anything?” Lainey asked for clarification.
“No, just like I wouldn’t charge Stein or any of my other buddies. Like I said, I could rent the track for the day and be the only one here, or I could rent the track for the day and invite a few friends. It costs me the same either way,” I explained. “Honestly, it’d be boring out here going around and around by myself.”
“So there’d be others?” Lainey asked.
“Last time there was what, seven of us?” Stein said, having joined us mid-conversation.
“At Big Willow,” I said to Lainey.
"So not just you and Maddie?”
Stein looked back and forth between Lainey and me, suddenly recognizing the subtext. “Look,” he said. “Lizzie here may be a thrill-seeking psychopath behind the wheel, but she’s not some sort of predator. Not to cast aspersions on your daughter, but what Liz has at home is a perfect twenty-”
“Not helping, Stein,” I said, interrupting whatever he was about to say. “For once, can it.”
Turning to Lainey, I said, “Whatever what my uncouth friend might have been about to say, the simple reality is this. Maddie seems like a good kid, and I’d like to see her do well. That’s it. Nothing but that one simple thing. My driving buddies are all guys, because it’s mostly a guy thing, and that is itself a sort of barrier to girls who enjoy the sport. Encouraging girls, giving them a bit of help, well, as another woman, it’s the least I can do.”
Looking at Stein, who had in fact shut up, then back at me, Lainey said, “Alright. We’ll take it as it’s offered. But I’m going to be there, too.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said. “You’re her mom. It’s your job to look out for her. You’re her number one fan, her pit crew, and caterer. She wouldn’t be here at all without your support.”
Mollified, Lainey gave me her contact info. As she and Maddie went back to their motorhome, Maddie gave me a final wave and smile.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“How do you think she’s gonna react when she finds out you’re not only married to a woman, but have a lady on the side?” Stein asked when they were out of earshot.
“I’ve told you, Angela isn’t ‘on the side’. She’s in the middle,” I said. “And probably not too well, if it’s presented like that. It seems like she’s got it in her head that gay people are all on the prowl, and finding out I share my bed with more than one woman might not go too well at all. So do me a favor, and keep that to yourself around Lainey and Maddie,” I said, looking Stein straight in the eye to let him know all joking was done. “If they actually make it to any track days I set up, they’ll probably wind up meeting Emmy or Angela, or maybe both, and that’s probably O.K., since both of them can make friends with anybody, but hearing it from a third party, well…”
“Yeah, I got it,” Stein said. After a few moments, he said, “Hey, you looked at the track photos yet? There are some really good shots of you yesterday.”
“C’mon,” I said, tilting my head in the direction of the photographer’s trailer. “Let’s go look.”
Of course, I wound up buying the full package for the weekend, with dozens of pictures from both days, plus a few short videos and a couple of shots in the pits that I hadn’t even realized they’d taken.
Stein bought the full package, too. My favorite of the various pictures of him was actually in the pit, the engine cover up on his McLaren. He was laughing with one of the mechanics from my crew as they talked about something to do with his car. It was a slice-of-life moment, capturing perfectly the off-track interactions that helped make the whole experience so special.
“Seriously, I’d frame that one,” I told him as I looked over his shoulder at the monitor displaying the photos. “That’s a great shot.”
Back at the rig, the guys had packed everything up nice and tight. I thanked all four of them and as I shook their hands goodbye I slipped each one five hundred bucks cash. I told Joachim to let me know everybody’s hours sometime the following week and I’d settle up right away. I was pretty sure it was an expensive weekend, but it was worth it. I’d had a really good time.
Driving the M6 back to Los Angeles felt so very slow, even though I was exceeding the speed limit by a healthy margin.
Calling Emmy from the car, I talked to her and Angela for maybe an hour or so as I drove west. I told them about the weekend, and how good I felt in the new car. I told them about Maddie, and predictably, Emmy was excited about meeting her. I even told them about Lainey’s misgivings, which got Angela completely indignant, but Emmy calmed her down. It occurred to me that Angela was dealing with similar concerns about her own parents, so maybe it hit a little too close to home.
We talked about the recording, and how they were almost finished and soon it would be but nothing but production work which could be done back in Los Angeles, to my relief.
Angela said that she’d probably come back to LA midweek, so she could be with me the coming weekend.
“That’s my San Jose weekend,” I reminded her, but that only seemed to fuel her desire to return to California. She and Emmy started talking about dresses for the speakeasy, and Emmy said they would go shopping on Monday to get her something perfect.
I smiled at that, amused at how easily Angela had accepted her role as Emmy’s dress-up doll. She seemed to enjoy it, even. Of course, visions of Angela in a sexy low-cut number swam in my head, and that kept the smile on my face, too.
The next couple of days were back to the same old routine, but that was O.K. After all, I needed some time to recover from the weekend, right? True to her word, Angela flew back to LA on Wednesday, so there were four of us at the now-traditional Wednesday dinner.
What was a change, though, was that Jenna had suggested we have dinner at their new place. Andy would grill and we could see the changes that had been done on the house’s makeover.
I was more than happy to see what Jenna had done as far as the remodel was concerned. I’d looked at the place when I’d bought it initially, but once Andy and Jenna bought it from me all I did was connect them with our preferred contractors, nothing more.
Angela suggested that we stop for a houseplant as a gift on the way over to Sherman Oaks, and I agreed. It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but it was a nice gesture, so I was glad that Angela had suggested it.
I was pleased that Angela was dressed casually, and not in her more typical sexy attire, but not for the more obvious reasons. O.K., we were just on our way to visit friends and have a backyard barbecue, so dressing like a model didn’t make sense, but Angela’s ripped jeans and ‘I heart NY’ T shirt told me that subconsciously she didn’t feel she had to impress anyone. She was feeling more secure about her place in our world and could just be herself around us and our friends.
Thinking about it, I gave her leg a squeeze at a stop light, and when she looked over at me, I leaned over and gave her a little kiss. This got me smile in return, and a hand on top of mine, holding it there on her thigh.
Luckily, the X6 didn’t require my hand on the shifter, so I was perfectly content to leave my hand where we both seemed to want it. The contact was just a little thing in the grand scheme of life, but at that moment, it meant more than I could have expressed.
I was glad to see that Jenna had gotten the comically ornate wrought-iron driveway gate painted and fixed- it swung smoothly on its hinges when Jenna buzzed it open for us. The house had been painted, too, including the overly ornate railings running up the stairs to the front door and along the front of the house’s large wrap-around balcony. As out-of-place as the ironwork was, it had been one of the things about the house that had caught my eye when it went on the market. It was just so charmingly quirky, so quintessentially Los Angeles- a Mid-Century Modern home with iron railings with spiraling vines… Yeah, nowhere else but LA.
Jenna was waiting for us at the top of the stairs leading to the front door. “Andy’s around back,” she said. When I held out the Weeping Fig in its pot, she said, “Um, that looks heavy. Can you carry it inside?”
“I bought a little fig tree like this when Emmy and I first moved in together. It’s quite a bit bigger now,” I said.
“The one out on your balcony?” Jenna asked.
“The very same. We brought it with us when we moved down here to LA,” I said.
“Well, that’s got to be good luck,” Jenna said with a smile. "Here- over here. This is the sunniest corner,” Jenna said, aiming me in the right direction.
“You guys want the nickel tour?” she asked when I had the little potted tree in just the right spot.
Of course we said yes, and followed around dutifully as Jenna explained that all of the changes had been purely cosmetic- new kitchen countertops and appliances, new shower enclosures, things like that.
“Just getting the floors refinished and the whole place painted made such a difference!” Jenna exclaimed. “Leah, that painter you recommended- that guy was so amazing! You have no idea how worried I was! You know, all the WAGs talk about their horror stories with remodels and contractor nightmares, but your guys were all real easy to deal with.”
“I wouldn’t have sent them your way if they weren’t,” I said, pleased to hear they’d all worked out for Jenna and Andy.
“I wish we had the place a bit more together,” Jenna apologized. “But they just finished the work last week, and you know, with Andy’s schedule, we just haven’t had the chance to even unpack, much less do any furniture shopping.”
“Don’t rush things,” Angela said. “Take the time to settle in properly. You’ll be here for years- a few weeks of living out of boxes won’t make any difference in time.”
Jenna gave Angela a smile of thanks. “You say that now, but we don’t even really have our dishes unpacked. We’ll be using paper plates tonight,” she said with a wry smile.
Out back, we found Andy at the grill in the little backyard kitchen setup that Jenna had left untouched with the remodeling. He looked as happy as I’d ever seen him, and he had every right to be. Here he was, wearing an apron that said, ‘Boys heart Grills’, tongs in one hand and basting brush in the other, cooking dinner for his friends and his fiancée in the backyard of his very own house. A house that he and Jenna owned outright, something his parents had never managed to do. Life was going great for Andy, and he knew it.
“Hey,” I said, giving him a hug and a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for suggesting this.”
“Actually, it was Jenna’s idea,” he admitted. “But I’m happy you guys could come over. Is Emmy still in New York?”
“Yes, for maybe one more week,” Angela replied. “They’re almost done recording. They have all the main tracks finished- now they’re just doing fills as they need them,” Angela added.
“It’d be great to see her again. It’s been months!” Andy said. “Hey, the chicken is almost ready- you guys should go ahead and sit down. I’ll bring it over in just a minute,” he said, turning back to the grill.
Andy and Jenna had set up a cafe table on the back patio and strung lights in a zig-zag pattern, setting a lovely mood for the area.
“I love your house,” Angela told Jenna, who was dishing up the slaw and potato salad. “This patio is lovely- it seems so private- it’s hard to imagine we’re in the middle of a city of ten million people!”
“This back patio is what sold me on the house,” Jenna agreed. “With the hillside, and all the trees, you can’t see any neighbor houses at all. Since the hillside faces north, we get a lot of light, but not much direct sunlight. It’s perfect for relaxing back here.”
“You know what else?” Andy asked as he brought over a plate heaped with chicken. “You were totally right, Leah. It only takes me about twenty minutes most days to get to the training center. But this feels like part of real LA, you know? Not like out there in Calabasas did.”
“Bel Air is just on the other side of that hill,” Jenna said, pointing at the slope that framed the back of the patio. “When I told some of the other girls we were buying in Sherman Oaks, they were like, ‘lolwut?’ but I have to say that just in the few days since we’ve moved in I’ve fallen in love with this place.”
“That’s awesome,” I said, truly happy for the two of them.
After dinner, Andy took me down to the garage to show me his plans for a weight room. The house was a rarity in Southern California in that it had what would pass as a basement, since it was built into the slope of the hill. Only half of the lower level was devoted to the garage, while a large part of the open space was simply empty.
“The last people must have been using this room as some sort of den or something,” he explained. "There was what looked like a bar cabinet against that wall over there, and that wall had a million holes in it surrounding a perfectly circular space with no holes at all.”
It took me a moment, but then it occurred to me. “A dartboard?”
“Yep. I’d bet they had a pool table or something like that down here,” Andy said. “But I’m gonna turn this into my home gym. Jenna and I went and looked at a couple of fitness stores, and we wound up buying about twenty thousand dollars’ worth of equipment. They’re supposed to deliver it on Saturday.”
“Nice,” I said. “You know that means you need a hot tub, right?”
“We’ve talked about it, yeah,” Andy grinned, sheepishly. “I kinda didn’t want one, because of the whole ‘valley’ and ‘hot tubs’ thing. Jenna just laughed when I said that, though, and told me she’d get me a pizza delivery costume.”
"Bow chicka wow wow,” I said, laughing.
“I know, right?”
After we stopped laughing at the idea, Andy said, “Leah, I gotta thank you again for hooking us up with this house. I’ve really given a lot of thought to what you said about our money, and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. I’m not gonna let Jenna and me get caught up in the high-roller mentality most of the rest of the guys on the team have going. We have nice cars, we have a great house that’s big enough for us, and it’s all paid for. We paid off Jenna’s student loans, too, so we have nothing hanging over us. We’re paying for everything as we go, too.”
I wrapped Andy in my arms, all two hundred and fifty pounds of him, and gave him a big hug. “You guys are going to do just fine,” I said. “Just fine.” I let him go, but left my hand on his shoulder. “You know, I had an ulterior motive for recommending you guys buy this house.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s only about twenty minutes from our new place, too, so we can visit back and forth all the damn time,” I said with a smile.
“I knew it!” Andy said. “You tricked me! Curse you and your wily ways!”