There isn’t time to wonder what Cameron means. Arthur’s car blows through a series of stomach-swooping bends in the circuit. “Fine,” Cameron says. “That wasn’t bad.”
Arthur laughs breathily. “Thanks.”
“Uh-huh. Back to the road.”
“Aye-aye.”
Their voices melt into background noise as I follow Arthur from screen to screen, around each corner and bend and the horrible straights where he drives faster than thoughts can form, the sweet smell of chemicals and burning rubber enveloping the garage. Logically, I believe the engineer I overheard earlier who said that the first Qualifying session is only eighteen minutes long. But in this moment, I don’t know how that’s possible. Time loses itsshape as Arthur drives the miles-long circuit in a minute and thirty seconds, a minute twenty-nine—setting aggressively fast lap after aggressively fast lap.
“Oh, look at that lap time, ladies and gentlemen. With Q1 drawing to a close, it’s a minute-twenty-eight-second go-around for the King, and the best time of anyone out there yet. The prodigal son of Formula 1 is back!”
My headphones buzz. The announcer is talking, and Cameron and Arthur are back, and the driver scoreboard shuffles rapidly as the last cars finish. But I’m buzzing, too, my heartbeat hammering like a mile-high metronome. Beyond the open garage door and the long, wide circuit, fans are screaming in the grandstands, as tiny and Technicolor as spilled ice-cream sprinkles through my camera lens. When Arthur returns to the “box,” the mechanic next to me jumps to her feet, clapping, yelling.
I barely hear her.
This will be the beginning of the documentary. My opening sequence. There’s an entire story in this camera footage: a hero’s comeback, the tenacity of a young man, the roaring public who power his journey.Andit’s happening in England, the country where Arthur was born. Because this isn’t only a movie about Arthur’s behind-the-scenes business drama. It’s about the man in the car and the man outside the car and the people, all of us, watching the cars, watching him win. Arthur will be my allegory. I can show the different sides of Formula 1 through him, the frightening, the masculine, the exhilarating. The addictive, even.
We might actually do this. Arthur and I’s movie might actually be amazing.
When I hear his voice again, he’s sharp and breathless and as excited as I am.
“Did she really watch that?” Arthur asks.
Cameron’s shoulders stiffen. There’s a longer pause than usual, just enough time for me to dissolve.
She.
Who’s she?
Arthur can’t mean me—wouldn’t, since I’m clearly watching, I’m hired to watch him—but then there’s what he’d said in Texas about us, the inevitable suspicions—about wanting someone despite disliking them—and I haven’t thought about it since then, so ridiculous, but it’s how he said it, his tone,really watch that, it almost sounded like—“Who do you mean?” Cameron says after a second. “The doc crew? Or—”
“No,” Arthur cuts him off. “Not… Never mind.”
My pulse flutters distractingly. My camera keeps rolling. There’s another Qualifying session. Then another.
None of that distracts me from that one word.
No. No, not the doc crew, no, not me.
No, there’s someone else Arthur wants to watch him.
Once all three sessions are said and done, Cameron excitedly tells Arthur that he’s “on pole” for tomorrow, and I should care about that, really. I shouldn’t be wishing that the noise cancellation on my headphones would last forever so I couldn’t hear the Ignition garage explode with joy as my throat twists into a knot. I should open up Cameron’s ginger ale. I should…
She.
This isn’t a total surprise. Sure, he hasn’t mentioned having a girlfriend—but Arthur isn’t the girlfriend type. And okay, right, any other subject might’ve mentioned a serious partner while I’ve been filming them, but it isn’t like this is a normal documentary.
Stupid.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I’m not upset. I’m just… When he’d said people would thinkhe was interested in me, I’d almost believed him. No one would think that. No one has for all these weeks. And it’s not like I want him to be, obviously. I don’t. But why had he tried to convince me it was possible?
Why does he lie so often?
I’m grateful I have my camera to hide behind as I march past Cameron and the mechanics to the post-Qualifying media pen. One by one the drivers walk in, some smiling, some not. When Arthur appears, grinning and excited and pushing his sweaty blond hair from his face, I tune in to camera mode. Just a pair of eyes. Impartial. Unbiased.
But my body is warm, and I don’t want to hear him talk, but I do, and this is such great footage. The camera loves him. I don’t know why that isn’t making me feel better.
