Sharyn McCrumb - Once Around the Track

“So, as of now, whether he gets better or not, he’s gone.”

Laraine said softly, “You fought for him, of course.”

“I did,” said Tuggle. “What they did to him wasn’t fair.” But I didn’t fight very hard, she was thinking. Maybe it wasn’t Badger’s fault that the Dominatrix had tried to pull a fast one on the 86 team, but that didn’t mean that Badger was otherwise perfect. For starters, he should have been smarter in his choice of management, and he should have supervised her more closely. Besides, he never was much of a team player. He just wanted to race, but NASCAR had stopped being all about racing years ago. Now sponsors and fan base, image and publicity made the wheels go around. Lose your accent; get plastic surgery if you’re not handsome enough; learn to project a bland and genial media-friendly persona. But Badger just kept on being himself, no more capable of brown-nosing and expedient insincerity than a racing greyhound. Which made him just as vulnerable as they were.

Laraine sighed. “Everybody gives up on Badger sooner or later.”

“I didn’t want to,” said Tuggle. “I hope he never finds out how much I cared about him. He’s all pride and courage-and not a lick of corporate savvy. Just skin and bones, but when he puts on that firesuit he thinks he’s a lion. It made my heart turn over to watch him pulling that kid out of the wreck tonight. But I have to be realistic. I have a multimillion-dollar team to run. And you can’t count on him anywhere but on the track.”

“I know. He will break your heart and never know it. He never means to hurt anybody, though.”

“Well, he’s flushing a career down the toilet. He’d better clean up his act.”

“That won’t happen. He’s been handsome all his life. People let him slide on account of that. Sure, people leave him, but somebody else always comes along to take up the slack.”

“Not forever,” said Tuggle.

“Oh, you can’t explain to Badger about forever. ”

“But you’re still here. How come you never left him?”

Laraine blinked back tears. “Because I understand about forever, ” she said.

“Is that idiot awake yet? I need him to sign some papers.”

Tuggle and Laraine turned at the sound of the corncrake voice echoing down the hall. Melodie Albigre, who looked as if she had dressed for vampire prom night, came tapping down the hospital corridor in her stiletto heels, wearing an expression that suggested that Badger had wrecked solely in order to inconvenience her.

“I don’t suppose he’s too badly hurt if it’s only a head injury,” she said to Tuggle, tapping her forehead with one finger. “Not much up there to get damaged.”

Laraine’s eyes narrowed and she took a deep breath, but Tuggle flashed her a warning look, and she said nothing.

Heedless of the effect of her personal charm on her audience, Melodie went on, “I might have known he’d screw everything up. After he won Darlington, I thought I might actually have some good business deals lined up for us. And now this nonsense!”

“Badger was a hero tonight,” said Laraine. “He pulled that kid out of a burning car.”

Melodie Albigre sniffed. “Grandstanding,” she said.

“Don’t you care how he is?” asked Tuggle in a dangerously quiet voice.

“Oh, I expect it’s too soon to know. But I have made some contingency plans, anyhow.” She dug into her oversized purse and fished out a thick sheaf of papers.

“Good thing he has me around to look out for him.”

“Good thing,” said Laraine evenly.

Something in her tone attracted Melodie’s attention. “I don’t believe I know you,” she said, favoring Laraine with a patronizing smile. “I am Badger Jenkins’s manager. Are you a fan?”

“Yes,” said Laraine. “I am a fan of Badger. Always will be, always was.”

“Laraine is family,” said Tuggle. “Nobody gets in to see Badger without her okay.”

Melodie frowned. “Well, I don’t suppose anyone has told you, Grace, but I have it on good authority that Badger will be let go from the 86 team.”

“Thanks to you.”

Melodie took a deep breath and looked as if she wanted to dispute the point, but then she shrugged. “Oh, it’s no great loss,” she said. “There are other ways to make money. And lots of other rides out there.”

Tuggle narrowed her eyes. “Well, no, there aren’t. This is a non-union sport, with maybe a dozen or so team owners, barring the little independents. If you play fast and loose with one of them, the others will know about it before the end of the week. Just how much experience do you have managing drivers, anyhow?”

“Don’t let her in there!” A woman’s shrill voice echoed down the corridor of the hospital, and they turned to see Melanie Sark running toward them. She had clapped her hand over her mouth in a belated attempt to be more quiet. She had changed out of the power suit she’d worn as team publicist at the All-Star race. Now she wore Nikes, jeans, and a Team Vagenya sweatshirt, but she was still carrying her laptop case, and her labored breathing suggested that she had run all the way from the parking lot and up three flights of stairs with it.

Seeing the astonishment on their faces, she said, “Badger. How is he?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Tuggle.

“He’s no longer your concern,” said Melodie. “Badger has been released from the 86 team.”

“I know,” said Sark. “They want me to change the Web site tomorrow: put up a picture of Judith Burks and say she’ll be the relief driver next week. But I still care what happens to him.” She glanced pleadingly at Laraine. “I need to tell him something.”

Melodie said, “You can tell me privately. I’m in charge of his business affairs.”

“That,” said Sark, “is the problem.”

“I think you’d better tell us,” said Tuggle. “Laraine is family, and Badger is in no shape to make decisions right now.”

Sark hesitated. “But here in the hall? I have papers to show you.”

“Lounge,” said Tuggle. “I think Laraine could use some coffee, anyhow.”

Laraine shook her head. “I shouldn’t leave Badger.”

“Ten minutes,” said Sark.

They walked down the corridor to the waiting room. Sark sat down in a chair next to the coffee table and pushed aside ancient copies of Parents Magazine and National Geographic so that she could spread out the paper trail.

“First,” she said, “I have a confession to make. I’m a journalist.”

“Publicists generally are,” sniffed Melodie.

“Yes, but I didn’t switch to being a publicist. I considered myself working undercover. I was planning to do an exposé of the 86 team for some national publication like Vanity Fair. ”

Tuggle glared at her. “An exposé about what?”

“Whatever I could find,” said Sark. “Badger’s sex life. The team’s incompetence. Drugs. Financial irregularities. Whatever was going.”

“How very unethical,” said Melodie. She had thought better of sitting on the sofa beside Tuggle and Laraine; instead, she was pacing in front of the snack machines, trying not altogether successfully to look bored.

Sark stared at her for a moment, took a deep breath, and said, “Yes, well, I decided not to write that article.”

Tuggle’s scowl had not lessened. “Why not?”

“I became a convert. Badger is pretty amazing. I was an expecting an arrogant jerk, and he’s not one. And the team-everybody was trying so hard. Julie and Roz and the pit crew. It would have been like drowning kittens to make fun of them in a national article. I couldn’t do it.”

Tuggle grunted. “You’re still fired.”