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“Hana!” She moves over and makes room for me to sit by her. Her smile looks a lot like the old Shelby’s smile, and it’s great to see her like her old self again. I rush over and give her a hug.
“I’ve missed you,” I say, sitting next to her. She tosses the magazine on a side table.
“Can you believe this?” She peeks out the window behind us that overlooks the pits. “Can you believe so many people are here?”
“Yeah it’s amazing.”
“Is your mom here?”
Her smile fades. “She’s at the hospital. She didn’t want to leave him in case they bring him out of the coma today.”
“How is he?”
She runs a hand through her hair. “He doesn’t have any brain damage. The doctors say they will take him out of the coma any day now.” She gazes out the window. “It’s too bad Mom and Dad won’t let them ride anymore.” Her voice fades into a whisper.
I had to have misunderstood that. “You mean Shawn can’t ride anymore?”
She sighs. “Neither can Ash.”
My mouth forms a circle as I try to say what but nothing comes out. Her expression falters, the same way Ash had looked when he walked me to my truck that night.
“Ash made a deal with them.” She looks out the window again, at everything but me. This time I follow her gaze and see Ash standing in line at the concession stand. “He wants to race the national next month. If he doesn’t win then he will stop riding.”
Relief sweeps over me. “Well that’s good, right? I mean, he’s going to win.” If I say it with enough conviction, it has to be true. Ryan flashes in my mind. And so does the thought of slashing his bike tires right before the race.
Shelby yawns again. She used to be so confident in Ash’s abilities and now she can’t even back me up. Her phone rings.
“It’s Mom, sorry,” she says, going to the other side of the room to answer.
I mouth, “I’ll be back” and leave the tower. I go in a totally random direction that just happens to end at the concession stand.
Frank owns the mobile box trailer-turned food truck. Like Marty, he is one of my dad’s best friends. The side of the stand is painted with pictures of the food he sells. The picture of a snow cone is the only distinguishable one because he isn’t much of a painter. One time I decided to pick on him and asked for the mashed potatoes on a stick and he said, “Girl, that’s cotton candy!” The next day he brought a bottle of pink paint to touch up the painting.
Today there is a cardboard box fashioned into a makeshift sign duct-taped next to the illustrated menu. It reads: ALL PROCEEDS WILL GO TO SHAWN CARTER – SO BUY TWICE AS MUCH FOOD!
Ash is at the end of a long line of people. I’m excited to see him after our last conversation in his bedroom. Maybe he has collected all those pieces of his shattered ego and is ready to date me. I go up behind him and prepare to say hi, but two other girls approach him from the other side. They get to him first.
They aren’t wearing riding gear and are clearly “spectator girls” which means they can’t be trusted. Shelby’s rule of not trusting that type of girl may seem biased and rude but as I watch these girls who are much prettier than me talk to Ash, I know it is true. One is a blond, tall for a girl but still shorter than Ash. She touches him on
the arm and smiles as she talks. He doesn’t notice me step into the line behind them to eavesdrop.
“You’re Ash, right?” she asks him. She pretends to brush something off his arm. What a tramp.
Ash nods and takes half a step backward. I stay where I am, now half a step closer to him. He’s like a whole different person without the twenty pounds of riding gear he usually wears at the track. He rocks lime green and orange Nike’s, something I have only seen Lil Wayne wear. Only a guy with dreadlocks down his back and a T-shirt that fits tightly around his biceps can make neon shoes look sexy.
How did this blond bimbo know Ash’s name? He doesn’t even look like a racer today. She isn’t a usual visitor to Mixon - that I am sure of. Shelby and I love to talk about the girls who have taken a few laps around the track without a dirt bike, if you know what I mean. These girls aren’t one of them.
Ash talks to her now, saying things I can’t hear over the raging fit of jealousy pounding in my heart. The blond girl’s friend looks bored, probably pouting from her friend claiming dibs on Ash. She doesn’t say a word though her tightly closed lips. She just stands there and texts on her phone. Miss Tall-And-Thin is laying it on thick with a fake high-pitched voice and eyelashes that can bat a thousand times per minute. She squeezes his arm. Holy crap I want to punch her. That’s my friend’s arm. Not hers.
“That’s why you’re so fast.” She fake-giggles again. “You must work out a lot.”
“I try.” Ash is so modest. I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from slapping her. My hand closes around my house key and Hello Kitty keychain in my right pocket.
“You should come to Oak Creek. It’s a way better track than Mixon.” Blondie McTrampFace bats her eyelashes again, and something inside of me snaps.
I take out my keys and fling them on the ground. A braver girl may have said, “What do you think you’re doing? Ash is my man!” But I’m so livid I can’t speak or even think clearly, so all I do is throw my keys and stand rigid, wanting to scream.
Ash jumps as Hello Kitty thuds to the ground within an inch of his feet. I know he recognizes my keychain. He turns to me, his lips quivering as he holds back a smile. The texting girl doesn’t notice but the blond sees everything. She crinkles her nose at me. Her hand goes to her hip and she taps her toe like an annoyed schoolteacher. I blush a color deeper than the sunburn I got on my first day of work.
