“Hell of a piece,” he said, pouring coffee. “Siripanit basically calling Hirsch a coward. That must have been difficult to write.”
I looked up sharply. “He didn’t call him a coward.”
“The internet thinks he did.” Mason’s expression was sympathetic but knowing. “Headlines are already spinning it as ‘Ferrari driver says Hirsch afraid to compete.’ You made real news, Pulaski. Uncomfortable news. That’s good journalism.”
“It doesn’t feel good.”
“It’s not supposed to.” Mason leaned against the counter. “But after all the whispers about you being too close to your subject, this proves you’re not pulling punches. Even when it costs you something.”
After Mason left, I sat there, coffee growing cold in my hands.
I’d done my job. I’d reported something true, something uncomfortable, and the world had rewarded me for it. Editors were pleased. Colleagues were impressed. The piece was spreading faster than anything I’d written all season.
So why did it feel like I’d just kicked a support beam out from under my own life?
The smell of the coffee was sharp and burnt, industrial. For a moment it shifted into something else in my memory. Something hotter, richer, threaded with oil and rubber. Fuel.
When I could barely read myself, my mom read meChitty Chitty Bang Banguntil I knew every page by heart. I wanted a car that could do flips and races and still make it home for dinner.
I couldn’t help smiling at the memory. It was a British edition, and the pages were thick, scarred where I’d chewed the corners. She’d sit at the edge of my bed and read in her calm, steady voice, turning each page like it mattered.
I carried that book everywhere. Then my mother found a battered hand-me-down model of the flying car at a flea market. The little metal Chitty was missing one wing and half its paint, but I pushed it across the rug like it could still fly.
One Saturday morning my father found me sprawled on the living room rug, pushing it in a frantic circle, holding it in my hand and making it fly, and I growled engine noises.
His laugh was surprised and delighted. “You want to hear what race cars really sound like?”
An hour later we were in his truck with the windows down, the air warm and rushing. I remember the way he kept glancing at me, like we were sharing a secret my mother would appreciate but never quite understand. When we pulled into the parking lot at Nazareth Speedway, the sound hit first. A rising mechanical scream that vibrated in my ribs.
The air smelled like hot brakes and fried food. We climbed the bleachers and sat next to each other, me leaning into his side, with his arm around my shoulder. The first time the cars flashed past, color and motion and fury compressed into a heartbeat, Iforgot to breathe. The smell of fuel burned sweet in the air. My father grinned at my expression.
“See that blue one?” he said, nodding as a car tore past. “I helped build that engine.”
I watched it disappear into the next corner, suddenly certain it was faster than all the others. Later I would learn it ran in the top class that night. At the time I only knew that something my father had touched was flying.
The idea that something born in his cramped garage could move that fast made my chest swell until it hurt.
“Pretty good, huh?” he asked.
It was more than good. It was overwhelming and perfect and real in a way the book had only promised. But that night, when my mother read the story again, her voice soft in the dark, I understood something I didn’t have words for yet. The race at the track had been thunder and heat and motion. The old race car in the book held the moment still long enough for me to live inside it.
I wanted both.
The memory faded, leaving me in the lobby with my untouched coffee and the hum of quiet conversation around me. I’d been chasing that balance ever since. The place where speed and story met, where the chaos of the track could be shaped into something that made sense on a page.
I hadn’t wandered into this world because of Jonathan. I’d been walking toward it since I was small enough to fall asleep with a picture book pressed against my chest and the echo of engines ringing in my ears.
The ache in my stomach eased, not gone but steadier. Whatever this cost me personally, the work itself was still mine. It always had been.
Thursday Evening - The Cost of Objectivity
Thea called at 6 PM.
“The Siripanit piece is everywhere,” she said without preamble. “ESPN picked it up. Sky Sports is running it as their lead F1 story. You’ve officially moved the needle.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It’s good journalism.” I heard the approval in her voice. “This is exactly what I needed to see, that you can write about Hirsch without compromising editorial standards. Even when it costs you something personally. “
