Chapter Nine

If I close my eyes, I can still feel El's lips on mine and taste her strawberry chapstick. It's 7:00 a.m. the day after our first kiss, and I'm standing in Grandma Jolene's garage. I've got the bay doors open, and a cool breeze that smells of earth and the deep valleys of the Appalachian Mountains wafts in. I run a finger along my bottom lip, wishing I was back in El's room, Mario Kart on the TV, the space between us nonexistent as El leans in to kiss me.

It was a terrifically brave move on her part—and one I'd been thinking about making from the minute El took me up to Max's attic bedroom. And then again when she'd sat down beside me on the bed. Our legs touching had been absolutely delicious and unbearable, but I still wasn't entirely sure she was into me like that, so I'd sat as still as possible. Not being brave. Until she'd leaned over and asked to kiss me first.

Fearless.

El Blum is fearless, even if she doesn't know it.

Exhaling sharply, I push all thoughts of El away. Today is about Mom's car, not cute girls who kiss me dizzy. I got up before sunrise this morning, grabbed a Coke out of the fridge, and hurried to the garage, wanting a bit of quiet before Grandma Jolene or anyone else arrived. Mom was an early riser; I can't remember a single morning of my childhood when I got up before she did, and I feel oddly close to her as I sip Coke—her favorite drink and her one sugary indulgence—while birds sing and the morning sky shifts from deep blue to lavender.

Slowly, Coke in hand, I pace around Mom's car, running my fingers over the hood, the driver's side mirror, the wheel wells. I can almost see her, checking her reflection in the rearview as she backs out.

Am I really good enough to repair this car? What if I break it while trying to fix it, and it never works again? I'm a driver, not a mechanic really, and the thought of the Hornet falling apart further under my hands causes me physical pain.

Mom's voice floats back to me, almost as if it's carried on the breeze.

"Most drivers are mechanics, too," Mom had said to me during one of our many talks in the garage at our old house in Charleston. "You can't expect to operate a car at the highest level if you don't understand what's happening inside it."

Dad had been telling me something similar for years and letting me help out in the pit when Mom was practicing. I knew how to change a tire before I knew how to read.

But the night Mom told me this is burned in my memory. It was late October, just a week before Halloween, and Mom had just gotten an antique Mercedes as a gift from one of her sponsors. It was lovely—pale blue with creamy brown leather seats—but it didn't work. On that autumn night, she had the hood open. I'd been thirteen, wearing a cat-eared sweatshirt, and my pockets were full of candy corn. I'd won all of my races that spring and summer, but the last three had been miserable defeats. Mom had brought home a bag of my favorite candy from the drugstore and taken me into the garage for some "race car girlie time," she called it. Her version of girl talk. I had other friends whose moms took them to the salon or the spa—my mom did that sometimes with me, too—but a lot of our most important conversations happened around cars. Getting your period? Over the engine of a 442 muscle car. Kissing and consent? Under a souped-up Honda Civic that a friend had loaned Mom, while she was showing me how the nitrous worked. Breaking up with someone? Inside Mom's beloved Hornet with Dolly Parton on the radio.

But, that particular night, rather than talk about the races I'd lost, Mom had put a wrench in my hand. "Don't think; just take something apart."

"This is a Mercedes," I'd said, not wanting to touch anything in the engine. "I don't want to break your new car."

"It's a new-old car," Mom had said. "Besides, you know what you're doing, JoJo Beans. I trust you."

I'd scowled at my childhood nickname, but then I'd stuffed a piece of candy corn into my mouth and taken the wrench, a satisfied feeling surging through me at her trust.

Slowly, painstakingly, Mom talked me through all the parts to adjust in the engine, all the fluids to fill, and all the gauges to check. She let me do everything, watching over my shoulder as I tested things. My worries about my own lost races faded as we laughed and fixed the car. Eventually, many hours later, my hands were grease stained, and all my candy corn was gone. Dad had gotten home after ten and reminded us that the next day was a school day, but Mom had let me keep working until well after midnight.

"I think it's ready," I'd said, after giving everything another once-over.

Mom had handed me the keys. "You can do the honors."

I'd slipped the key into the Mercedes's ignition, praying it worked. It coughed a bit as it turned over, but then it sputtered to life, purring as I gave it a bit of gas. I cheered and Mom beamed at me.

"See," Mom had said, pulling me into a hug once I was out of the car. "You just need to trust yourself like I trust you. You're more skilled than you think, JoJo."

Swiping at tears that have risen in my eyes from the memory, I put my soda down and pop the hood on the Hornet. The noise echoes though Grandma Jolene's garage.

"Trust yourself," I whisper as I stare at the engine's twisting parts and metal guts. That was easy for Mom to say, maybe, but trust won't fix an engine. "Take it one step at a time, JoJo, not all at once."

I could do that at least. Fixing an engine is like training for, or competing in, any race—if you thought about everything you had to do all at once, you'd fail before you started. But if you took it one turn, one lap, one problem at a time, you'd get through it.

Slipping on my headphones and turning on my favorite playlist, I dig into the engine.

Hours later, my phone alarm goes off. It's almost 10:00 a.m., and I've figured out why the Hornet was rattling so much when it drove—there was a split walnut wedged between the tire and the right hubcap somehow, and the engine is running much better thanks to a full oil change and several new spark plugs.

Grandma Jolene waves at me as she walks into the garage, her bangles rattling and a stack of paperwork under her arm. "Howdy, early riser," she says, walking over to the Hornet. "What have you discovered?"

I update her on my progress, and she pats me on the back lightly. "You can keep at it for another half hour, but then I need you to get the tires off that Chevy that came in last night." She nods toward a minivan that's on the lift. "And I brought you some breakfast. Soda doesn't count for shit, no matter what your mama used to say." She shoots me a sad smile, and hands me a brown paper bag.

My stomach grumbles as the smell of one of Grandma's homemade breakfast sandwiches wafts out of the bag. I hold it gingerly in my dirty fingers, eager to dig in.

"Will do," I say, finishing the last of my second Coke. I quickly check my texts—nothing from El, not even a reply to my good-night text last night, which makes me feel like a total dork, if I'm being honest. But she probably just didn't check her texts after I left her house, and she might not even be awake yet. And as I do so, an auto-generated collage of photos and videos pops up on my notifications screen, with the title "Good Times at the Track."

It's from February, at my last race, which happened a week before Mom died. Glancing quickly at the office, where Grandma Jolene is settling behind her desk, I swipe to the first video.

It's one Mom took on my phone, and it starts with her grinning into the camera, selfie-style.

"Say hello, JoJo!" she says, aiming the camera at me.

I scowl as I stand beside my race car, holding my teal helmet at my hip. "Mom! I have to get ready, stop filming."

She cackles and just walks the video closer to me. I roll my eyes affectionately as she zooms in. "My daughter, the future F1 champion!" she declares.

The video stops then, and the collage moves on. The next picture is of Mom and Dad on the side of the track, making funny faces at the camera. Then there's one of him kissing her on the cheek. Her eyes are closed, and his attention is fully on her. They were always—always!—so cute together.

I grip the brown paper bag in my hand more tightly, willing myself to look at the next few photos. Then, there's a series of race moments: me getting into my car, the checkered flag dropping, my car pulling away from the pack. Then, there's a video of the last few seconds of the race. The camera bobs around as Mom jumps up and down and her voice and Dad's deeper one cut through all the other yells of the crowd. "GO JOJO! PUSH!" Mom shouts. "You've got this!" Dad shouts.

Of course, I couldn't hear them in my car, but I still remember that last turn, the way I went a fraction too wide, my feet slamming on the gas as I shifted, fighting against velocity and physics as I wrestled the wheel back. On the video, it's a blurry second of footage as my car nearly spins out, and then I surge forward, barreling over the finish line a nose ahead of the next car.

I remember how relief had flooded my system after that win. How I felt giddy and exhilarated and exhausted all at once. But on the video, I just hear Mom and Dad cheering, hugging each other, and then Mom's voice comes in right before the video cuts off: "I knew it! I knew she'd win this one! She's fucking phenomenal! So much faster and such a better driver than I ever was at her age."

Dad's reply is cut off by a roar from the crowd and then the video montage ends. For the second time that day, I wipe away tears. This is why I never watch those montages my phone makes—because even though they're good memories from times of great joy, they're so incredibly hard to see now Mom's gone.

"Hey, you okay?" says a familiar voice behind me.

I spin around to see El Blum holding two cups of coffee. I sniffle, close my phone's photos, and then take a long steadying breath.

"What are you doing here?" I ask more gruffly than I mean to.

El eyes my tears, and then thrusts a coffee toward me. "Inviting you to a race," she says, forcefully cheerful, which I'll take one thousand times over pity.

"What? Now? It's not even ten in the morning." I can't help it; my eyes linger on her lips, which are sparkly with chapstick. I wonder if she tastes like strawberries.

"Motocross starts early," she says, shrugging. "Plus, after you kicked my ass so thoroughly on Rainbow Road last night, I figured maybe I should show you my track."

I look her over—is she serious right now?—and grin. "So, you really want me to skip out of work, so we can go see a race?"

"I guess I really do. You in?"

I'm not sure how I'll convince Grandma Jolene to let me go, but there's no way I'm turning this down. "Of course I'm in. Wouldn't miss it for anything."

El grins at me and my heart gives a little sputter, not unlike the Hornet's engine before I got it working.