Chapter Twenty-Three

The Richmond Raceway is a few miles away from downtown. Even with traffic, Rita makes it there in less than fifteen minutes. As she did last time, when she dropped El and me off outside the pawnshop, Rita looks at the Raceway and raises an eyebrow. It speaks volumes.

"You sure about this, JoJo?" she asks. We're on a first-name basis now, and I also know the names of all her kids, her cat's favorite spots to sleep in, and where she's going on vacation later this summer. I've also told her too much about my family, my mom, and my racing aspirations.

I nod, taking in the mostly empty parking lot. "I've been around raceways my entire life. This feels more like home than home, honestly."

"Just be careful, hon, okay? I'll wait for you here."

"You don't have to do that. I can call another car."

Rita shakes her head. "Nope. I'm invested now. Go find who you need to and hurry back. I'll be waiting." She pats me on the hand and then pulls a book out of her bag.

It's such an ordinary Mom-type thing to say that it brings tears to my eyes. "Thanks," I whisper as I get out of the van.

Since it's Sunday, there's not a race today, but my quick Google search about the Richmond Raceway revealed the track is still open for fans to tour and to buy tickets for races later in the season. Heart in my throat, I hurry away from Rita's van. My sneakers squeak as I move toward the ticket area. The warm June sun beats across my shoulders. Even though there's no official race, track sounds fill the air. Engines growl as a pair of drivers do a stunt lap and shop tools buzz in the pits. The smell of asphalt baking in the heat fills the air, and I inhale sharply, taking it in. Memories come flooding back with the smells and sounds.

Blink.

Suddenly, it's February of this year. Mom, Dad, and I are headed into Daytona before sunrise, avoiding the crowds and RVs already filling the parking lot, and we pull into the drivers' entrance. Dad drives and Mom has a tight, nervous smile on her face. Incongruously, a Rachmaninoff symphony is playing through the car speakers, the music being one of Mom's favorite pre-race rituals. Dad's hand is laced through hers over the center console, their fight at breakfast long forgotten. I'm wearing my gold race car necklace. There's a moment of perfect family happiness as the three of us wait to be waved through the gate, and the sun breaks over the horizon line, spilling orange-pink light across our faces.

Blink again against the tears welling in my eyes.

Now, I'm seven years old, getting ready to race a division up on the junior kart circuit. Mom is braiding my hair and reminding me that although I'm the smallest one there, I'm also the one none of them will expect to hug the turns like we've been practicing.

Blink one more time—this time tears fall from my eyes and trail over my cheeks—and I'm standing at the main entrance to the Richmond Raceway. I run a hand over the cool metal of the ticket counter and take a steadying breath.

A white man in his early twenties peers at me through the plexiglass ticket window. He's got a baseball cap on backward and a long beard that skims his collarbones. He could be Bad Beard Riley's brother. "Can I help you? Next tour starts in thirty minutes. If you pay extra, you can even sit inside a real race car. It's a cool experience. Totally worth the two hundred dollars."

He gives me a leering look, which I shut down immediately with the scowl Mom taught me early in my racing career. It's a mean look, all drawn-together eyebrows and hard-shell eyes that say without a word: "Fuck-you-don't-ogle-me-you-have-no-idea-who-I-am-no-I-don't-think-you're-charming." Mom told me she perfected it in her days as a teenage waitress, and then used it often as she joined the mostly boys' club of NASCAR.

"I've been sitting in race cars since before I could walk," I say to the guy behind the counter. "I'm here looking for someone. Maxine Blum, maybe you know her?"

Recognition flicks across the guy's face fast enough that I know he knows who I'm talking about. But he shrugs back. "Never heard of her. Do you want a ticket to the raceway's self-guided tour or not?"

I buy the ticket, not wanting to linger at the ticket counter. I'm not counting on finding Max in this enormous raceway, especially since I know there are many hallways and rooms that the public never sees, but I owe it to El to at least look around.

Moving away from the ticket counter, I walk toward the closest entrance to the stands. Bleachers tower above the track and I climb them, taking the steps two at a time. When I reach the top, I shield my eyes and watch a car slide into a pit across the track. It's a messy entrance, and one where the driver fumbles the stop. I would never have waited that long to brake. That's how accidents happen.

I think of Dad, sitting at home, working on filling orders for online car parts. It's surreal that he's not been on a track since Mom died. He used to live on racetracks. Knew everything about every one of them, and even now, if we were speaking, I bet I could call him up and ask him stats on the Richmond Raceway and he'd be able to rattle them off, no problem.

I exhale, sitting on the edge of one of the seats. The metal is boiling from the sun, but I make sure my bare legs aren't touching it.

Being here reminds me of so much—how my family used to be, what we loved, and all we've lost.

But we didn't just lose Mom on that terrible day in February. We lost our family unit. We lost all the memories we might make together. It kills me sometimes to know that I'll never take another picture with Mom. That the ones we have in our home or I have on my phone are it. There will be no more photos after that last selfie we snapped of the three of us, right outside Mom's car before the race.

More tears fall at that thought, and on this already weird day, a day where I've woken up beside a girl I've only known for a few weeks and been to a super-scary pawnshop, I sit all alone at the top of a grandstand in a strange city and at an unfamiliar track, and let myself really, truly sob for the first time in months. Great heaving spasms of grief break through my careful control. I bury my head in my hands and weep—for my mother and the sunrises she'll never get to see; for my dad in his loneliness and the half life he's living; for our family, which was so strong and now is like a tree pulled up and left exposed and broken after a storm; for me and the fact that my mom will never see me win another race; and for my own dreams of racing that feel so very fucking far away.

I sob until I'm nothing but a ragged husk of myself, as empty as the waxy popcorn bag caught between the seats in front of me.

A loud roar pulls me back to the present. I wipe my face on my shirt, trying to find my calm again. Trying to remember why I'm at the Richmond Raceway in the first place. Far below where I sit, the two cars still race around the track, caught in an endless, roaring loop of trying to reach a place they can never arrive at. Each lap is a desperate scramble for position, or a frantic attempt to shave a few extra seconds off their times. I close my eyes, letting the thrill of the race fill me. It rushes into my empty corners, a cocktail of adrenaline and hope and furious need.

I want so very badly to be down there, behind the wheel of my own car, driving against the best in the world. It won't bring my mom back, but it might help me feel her presence somehow. It might make me miss her less. It might help me heal or move on. My mom's words rise in my mind: Most of us think if we keep running fast enough, we'll stay ahead of whatever scares us. There's a certain feeling I'm always chasing….

My eyes fly open, moving to the place where the cars are now. They're holding close to the wall, pinning each other in place around a curve, and then the blue car—the car that's the exact shade as the Hornet, Mom's favorite car ever—breaks free, twisting slightly to the left, and pulling ahead.

My breath snags raggedly in my throat as the blue car speeds forward. It feels like a sign. Like Mom is there with me now, pushing me forward.

I have to keep going with my dreams. I know it in that moment with such clarity, it nearly knocks me over.

Yes, my family has changed. Yes, my dad might not sign the F1 Academy form. Yes, I'm in Dell's Hollow and feeling increasingly complex things for El Blum, but that doesn't mean I have to give up on my dreams.

"I'm not afraid, Mom," I whisper out loud, even as more tears form in the corners of my eyes. Unlike my soul-breaking sobs, these are tears of hope and promise and the sheer exhausted exhilaration that comes from being on track again.

Before I can swipe at my tears, a loud whoop rises from the bottom of the stands. A small, wiry girl with blond hair stands near the track, roughhousing with a pair of guys. She's wearing a mechanic's jumpsuit and waving as the blue car thunders past.

Max!

I pull out my phone. There's a message from El—Call me!—which I'll do in a minute. Snapping a quick picture of Max, I send it off with an I FOUND HER!

I start hurrying down from the stands, skipping stairs. I miss the last one and tumble down three, landing hard on my left knee. Pain shoots up my leg, but I get up. Max has left the railing that overlooks the track and disappeared.

Ignoring the pain on my knee, I hurry in the direction she went. Up ahead of me, she's joined by a guy and a girl, also in mechanics' jumpsuits, and they move toward the exit.

Out the door they go with a wave to the guy in the ticket booth. They're talking with each other, laughing, and Max has an arm slung around the guy's waist.

A little breathless—I really have to start training more—I follow them into the parking lot. They move away, toward a row of cars. The three of them pile into a royal blue Nissan, which looks very much like the one Paul Walker drove in The Fast and the Furious, but can't be the GT-R model because those aren't legal in the US yet. The car peels out of the parking lot with a screech of tires. I knock on the passenger side window of Rita's van, startling a little shriek out of her.

"JoJo?" she says, unlocking the door. She takes in my bleeding knee and my I've-clearly-just-been-sobbing eyes as I climb into the front seat.

"I'm fine," I say quickly. "Just tripped on some stairs. Now, please, follow that car!"

Rita waits until I'm buckled before speeding out of the parking lot. Despite the Nissan's hurried exit, we catch up to it at the light outside the Raceway.

I check my phone as we drive. While I was hurrying to the car, a bunch of texts have come in from El.

El:OMG THAT IS HER!

El:Where are you? Did you talk to her?

El:Don't talk to her without me

El:Where are you going?

I snap a picture of the blue Nissan and then write back: We're following them. I'll text you the address.

El immediately sends me a string of emojis—hearts, fingers crossed, cheering megaphone, crying face, and more hearts.

I send a few back, hoping that this goes as well as El has been dreaming it will.

Rita keeps enough distance that the blue Nissan doesn't seem to know we're following them, while still managing to stay on their tail. The car stops outside a row of apartments near downtown, and Rita parks a few spaces behind where the Nissan parked. I watch as Max gets out in front of a dingy, split-level unit with dirty brick on the bottom half and dog-puke-yellow siding at the top. Green mildew slicks the white metal front door and parts of the window frames are falling off. A concrete stoop sits in front of the apartment, set into a tiny yard full of dry grass, weeds, and cigarette butts. A scraggly oak tree that's seen better days casts a little shade on the stoop, and a pair of rusty, mismatched lawn chairs are tumbled under the tree.

I check my phone—we're close to the diner, which means El is nearby. I text her the address and then turn to Rita.

"Thank you for everything today," I say, a little sad to be saying goodbye to her. "I appreciate you rolling with this weird day."

Rita smiles. "Never a dull moment on this job. Now, you two girls be careful. Get home to your families soon."

"We will," I promise while I pay Rita for the ride and include a huge tip. By the time I get out of the car, El is strolling up the street at a clip.

"Hey, JoJo," Rita says, rolling her window down as I hop out of the car. "I'll be sure to keep an eye out for your name in the news for winning races. Don't give up on that dream."

She pulls away before I can thank her.

El pulls me into a hug the moment she reaches me. She smells like sweat and waffles and I bury my head in her neck for a moment. This girl feels like home somehow already.

"I can't believe you found Max!" El pulls out of the hug, looking me over. "And oh my God, what happened to your knee?" She fusses over my bloodied knee, but I brush her hand away.

"It's just a scrape. I'm fine, really. How are you? Ready for this?"

El bites her bottom lip, pausing long enough to tell me that she's really nervous. "I have to be, I guess. We came all this way, and we found her."

I lace my hand through hers. "I'll be right beside you as long as you need me. You're the bravest girl I know."

She kisses me then, quick and shaky, and I kiss her back, trying to put everything I can't say into the kiss.

I'm going to leave to chase my dreams. I like you a lot. You kiss me like I matter. There's a certain feeling I'm always chasing….

El pulls away first. Hand in hand, we walk up the concrete step to the apartment door. El rings the bell and we wait a long moment. Her breathing is shallow, and I squeeze her hand.

"Fearless," I whisper.

"Fearless," she whispers back.

We wait and El rings the bell again. Still nothing. A long moment passes.

"I saw her go in there?" I say, not sure what we should do if Max doesn't open the door.

Before I can say anything else, the door flies open. On the other side stands a blond woman, about El's height, who glares at us.

Her face softens when she sees us. "El?" she says, her voice higher than I'd expected and full of surprised delight.

"Hi, Max. Um … This is JoJo, my girlfriend."

Max's eyes dart to me and then back to El, but I'm only looking at El. Her girlfriend? Something in me flutters at that word.

"Huh," says Max, a smile at the edges of her lips. "Well, I guess you better come in."

She moves aside and El drops my hand. "If you don't mind, I think I'll go up alone."

"Uhm, okay," I say, wanting to ask about "where you ride, I ride," but also knowing that she's not seen Max in a long time and it might go badly. "I'll be right here," I say, gesturing to the stoop.

"Thanks, JoJo," El says, turning away, "for everything." Then, leaving me alone outside, she follows Max up the stairs.