Chapter 3
Keanna
Our hotel room is really nice. The bed is plush and pillow soft, the sheets made of some high threat count. They even smell like fancy laundry detergent. I stayed in a few hotels with Jett this summer, and they all made me feel the same way, like I was wrapped in luxury. These aren’t even five star hotels or anything, they’re just nice and clean.
The bathroom has marble countertops and there’s a large flat screen TV on the wall, which I turn on to a movie channel. All of this luxury is fun, but it reminds me of my old life, where I had a mom who would make us sleep in the car when we couldn’t afford rent. Cheap motel rooms for the night were a luxury and they were already inhabited by the roaches and mice who lived there full time. I used to long for a shower, not even caring how filthy the motel was, just because I hadn’t showered in days.
I’m glad I didn’t know about these nice hotels back then. I don’t think I could have handled it.
I order a strawberry banana smoothie from room service and lay back in bed and enjoy the peaceful serenity of our room with a balcony that overlooks the city of San Antonio, which isn’t like Houston at all. It’s sprawling, with shorter buildings, and not much of a big downtown area. The land is hilly and sloping, unlike the flatness of Houston. It’s pretty here, in its own way. It’s not as busy and filled with people or traffic.
When it’s almost time for the heat races to start, I push myself up out of the super plush mattress. It’s a chore leaving a bed that comfortable, but I’m excited to watch Jett race.
I stand up, and step right on top of my suitcase which I’d left next to the bed. I jump, afraid to put much weight on it because my laptop is in there.
That’s when I squeeze the Styrofoam smoothie cup too hard, and the last few inches of strawberry banana spill out all over the place.
Ugh.
I rush into the bathroom and clean off, but my shorts are pretty much ruined for the day. I kick them off, toss them over the edge of the bathtub and then get a new pair. Luckily, it all went down my legs and missed my shirt, so I leave that on.
I grab my phone and my room key and head down to the lobby. Outside, the stadium looms in the distance. It looks so small compared to the large arenas we’ve been to in other states. I don’t even know if they could host a football game in this one.
I walk toward it, slipping into line with the rest of the spectators. I know I have a pit pass to visit Jett after he races, but for the actual race, I want to sit in the stands so I get a good view. My name is on the will-call list, so they let me in and I make my way down to the section of seats in front of the finish line, which is always the best place to watch a dirt bike race.
The place is buzzing with excited spectators. Children wearing T-shirts of their favorite racer, and parents doing the same. Some little kids play in the aisle next to me with toy dirt bikes. They make the motor sound and have the bikes jump in the air and then tumble downward. I don’t know why they like making the bikes crash so much. In real life, that’s the worst thing to happen in a race.
The smell of exhaust fills the air as the first heat race lines up at the gate. I scan the number plates of all the bikes, but Jett isn’t in this one, so I’m only half paying attention.
I see what Jett meant about the arenacross tracks being different—they’re tiny! There’s a ton of jumps and turns but it’s all jam packed together, and even the track itself is only wide enough for maybe four bikes at a time. At home, our motocross track is huge and it fills several acres. There’s hills and long jumps and little jumps and big sweeping turns, with three long straight ways. You can enjoy yourself on a track like ours at home, but here it’s all business.
A woman wearing lots of perfume slides across the aisle and sits two seats down from me. She’s also wearing a lot of hairspray in her poufy hair, and she reminds me of Dolly Parton. She’s as Texas as it gets and it makes me smile.
“Darlin, you here alone?” she asks me after a few minutes of watching the races. She has one heavily painted one eyebrow lifted in concern.
I nod. “Kind of.”
She lifts the other eyebrow.
“My boyfriend is racing,” I explain, nodding toward the track. “So I’m here with him, but I’m sitting alone.”
She takes her Diet Coke bottle from the cup holder in her chair and moves over to sit next to me. “Not anymore, you’re not,” she says with a grin. “My son is out there, number fifteen.”
She points to the starting line and I find him on a Honda. He’s wearing a lime green helmet that clashes with his otherwise read and black riding gear.
“Nice helmet,” I say.
She nods. “I make him wear it so I can see him out there,” she says with a grin. “It’s so hard to tell one kid from another when they’re going so fast!”
I don’t tell her that it’s pretty easy for me to spot Jett because he’s always up at the front. I just nod. “That’s a pretty good idea.”
“Moms know best,” she says. “My name is Marisol, by the way.”
“I’m Keanna,” I say.
She cocks her head. “Keanna? I’ve only heard that name once. You’re not that famous boy’s girlfriend, are you?” Her eyes go wide. “What’s his name…he’s the son of Jace Adams.”
“Jett,” I say.
