Janet gave an irritated wave in the direction of the security guy, and he turned and walked back toward the pavilion without a word. Mack’s heart bounced between embarrassment and elation, and embarrassment at her elation. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen her sister in the last sixteen years, but now Laurie was here on the biggest day of Mack’s life.
“What’s wrong?”
For her sister to show up randomly, something had to be catastrophically wrong. She hadn’t showed up when Mack was feeding Wes through a straw, or when Shaw’s colicky cries were so intense that Mack wouldn’t pick her up for fear of shaking her.
Laurie scowled as she pulled out a tissue to dab at the tiny beads of sweat on her forehead. “You think I’d miss this? I left a pathologically needy associate in charge of a deposition, but I’m here.” Laurie shifted in her four-inch heels and glanced quickly at the half dozen crew standing around the car, watching her. She motioned at the concrete pit wall. “I’ll ... tuck back here. Out of the way.” She looked pointedly at Mack. “But I’m here.”
Mack was grateful her helmet smushed her face too much to reveal her emotions. Her earliest memories in a race car involved Wes, but also Laurie. How had she forgotten that her sister was woven into the very core of her racing life? Just seeing her now caused tears to build behind her eyes.
No crying, she reminded herself.Women don’t get to cry here.
“Williams, focus.” Janet’s tone was tight. “Feel that breeze? Seems small but you’ll feel it like hell in turn two. Ease out there and get a feel for the car. We have plenty of fuel and tires for today. I’d rather see you take it slow than slam the car into the wall. Keep the throttle where you’re comfortable, I don’t give a shit if it’s one-thirty or one-eighty. The first pass is about getting comfortable in the car. We won’t start the rookie test until you’re ready.”
Nerves fizzing, Mack nodded.
“Make sure the seat feels good before you take off. Jimmy and the boys built a special extender for the pedals to accommodate your height.” Mack was grateful; at IndyCar speeds, even the smallest discomfort could be debilitating.
Again, Mack nodded, a growing sense of disquiet building inside her.
“The back end is going to swing out hard when you first accelerate, and I mean hard.”
Another nod. Did Janet expect her to screw this up?
“And the—”
“Damn, Janet, let the girl try it for herself. You picked her, now you gotta trust her.” Jimmy’s voice sounded surprisingly low and soothing, like Peter Coyote.
“Yeah, yeah, tell me that when you’ve put your own money on the line.”
From the wall, Laurie called out, “Go fast! Be safe!”
Since her very first race, it was the last thing Laurie said to Mack before she buckled in, and she hadn’t even known she needed to hear those words today. For her early races, Laurie had always been rightthere at her side, and now Laurie was here, andherewas the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Mack tried not to give in to nerves but her chest clenched with something dangerously close to panic.
Jimmy gestured toward the cockpit and held out a hand to help Mack over the high, clear safety shield, known as the aeroscreen. The step distance from the ground over the screen was much longer than Mack’s legs but she was all too aware of the crew—and Leo Raisman—watching her, so she shrugged off Jimmy’s offer of help and gripped the side of the titanium and polycarbonate windshield. She lifted her right leg but her foot only made it halfway up the screen. She hopped on her left foot and stretched her right leg farther but got no closer to clearing the lip of the cockpit.
Behind her, Jimmy cleared his throat.
“You can use the sidepod as a step. You’re light enough, it won’t hurt.”
Gingerly, Mack stepped on the wide flange at the side of the car and slid down until her rear settled inches from the ground. The cockpit was extremely narrow and tight, so much tighter than the open cage of a sprint car. Her arms could expand no farther than the width of her own body, the close sides of the car squeezed her hips, and foam safety panels lightly pressed down on her shoulders. Even more disorienting was the reclined forty-five-degree angle of the seat, making her momentarily feel as if she couldn’t see out of the car. Panic took over her body and she fought the urge to flail like a wild animal.
Fear had absolutely no place inside the car. The day a driver succumbed to fear was the day they should retire. Fear created mistakes, and at two hundred and thirty miles per hour, mistakes could be deadly. But Mack couldn’t deny what she felt in that moment was sheer terror.
She felt gentle pressure on her shoulder and looked up to see Leo. He held her eyes for a long moment, and she worried he could see the stress on her face. But he calmly pointed at the steering wheel—a compact oval that comically resembled a video game controller with multiple buttons, dials, and two paddle shifters—and started rattling off the functions as another crew member helped buckle the four-pointharness. Leo cracked jokes along the way, gently teasing the crew for the nonsensical layout of control buttons and telling her a silly story about how he couldn’t figure out the built-in drinking straw for his first two races.
“You got this, Rookie. Only thing you really need to remember is to never turn right.” He winked, actually winked, and Mack rolled her eyes at the tired joke. It wasn’t until Leo had given her a fist bump and walked away that she realized he’d distracted her from her panic.
Jimmy gave her a quick thumbs-up before slapping her helmet with two quick taps. “Radio check. You hear me okay?”
Before Mack could answer, Janet said, “Show me that I’m not stupid, Rookie.”
“Heard that loud and clear,” Mack answered.
A crew member started the engine and the machine growled to life all around Mack. The bassy rumble was a living thing: She could feel the vibration deep in her body and her ears flooded with the low moan of the engine. The car was pure energy, designed for the singular purpose of going as fast as humans could manage. Mack’s lizard brain briefly took over—It’s been too long, I can’t see, what if I wreck on my first try?—and she ruthlessly shoved the thoughts away.
She wasn’t scared of the car; she was scared of failing and losing this last chance at Indy.
She flipped down her visor and thought again of Wes. She’d told him not to come today, wanting to keep both of their expectations in check, but now she wished she could share the moment with him. If Wes hadn’t discovered Janet’s business card, Mack might not be sitting in this race car getting ready to take her first laps on the track that had haunted her dreams. From her first race, he’d been right there when she closed her visor and there again when she flipped it back up. It felt wrong that her dad wouldn’t see her first—possibly only—laps at Indy.
