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“Packed up and ready,” another replied.
I turned to Glenda.
“I better go find Minnie. I haven’t even checked in with her yet, and I want to make sure there’s nothing special I need to know before we head to the track,” I told her.
She waved and I rushed off to find the Freeman matriarch. She was coming out of the office building just as I ran toward it. I stopped in front of her, and she grinned.
“Merry, I was just looking for you,” she said.
“You were?” I asked. “I was looking for you. I’m sorry I didn’t let you know I was here. I got wrapped up in watching them pack everything up and lost track of time. Do I need to know anything specific before I go to the track? Do I need special credentials or anything?”
“They won’t be necessary,” she told me.
“Oh,” I said, hoping I was doing a good enough job of concealing my disappointment.
I’d been hoping I was going to have the opportunity to be right down there in the action with the team. Not only would it let me capture some amazing pictures, it would give me the most authentic experience. But now it seemed like I was being relegated to the general admission area at best, and the backstage area at worst.
“They won’t question you when they see you’re with me,” Minnie said.
“With you?” I asked, not sure what she meant.
“Yes. I came looking for you because I want to invite you to ride with me to the track,” she said.
“I would love that,” I told her, feeling relieved and happy.
She gestured for me to follow her, and we went to the parking lot where she’d parked. I wasn’t going to say anything about it, but there was an element of surprise that she didn’t have a driver bringing her around. With as much money and wealth as Quentin had, I just assumed they would have a luxurious lifestyle. But when I really thought about it, Minnie didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would want to be chauffeured everywhere all the time. She’d want the freedom, the ability to just jump into her car and go where she wanted to go.
“My husband is already at the track with the boys,” she explained when we climbed into her car. “They always want to get a really early start on race days. But I’m not one for hanging around there while they do practice laps and stress over every little detail. Too much for me. I’d rather come here and supervise.”
She laughed and we pulled out of the parking lot, headed toward the track behind the caravan of trucks.
“What’s it like having four sons?” I asked. “That must have been a lot while they were growing up.”
“In a lot of different ways,” Minnie said with a laugh. “But they were worth every single moment of it. You know, you’re far from the first person to say it must have been a lot to raise four boys.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable and worried I’d somehow offended her. “I just meant…”
“No, I know,” she said. “I understand where you’re coming from. Boys can be loud and rambunctious and messy. But it’s not like I had four of the same out-of-control creature running around my house all the time.” She laughed. “That might have pushed me over the edge. They were fairly well spread out in age, so that helped. But they are also just so different. There are some things about them that are the same, of course. They’re brothers. They aren’t going to be but so completely different.”
I listened as she told me about her sons, listing out all the ways they were different and all the ways they were the same, frequently attributing the characteristics to either herself or her husband. Some of the things I heard were surprising, while others just made me more curious. I liked Darren, the youngest of the brothers a lot, but wasn’t familiar with the other two. As far as I knew, Nick didn’t play an active role in the company, and I wondered why. But it was Quentin who was the real wild card.
Quentin and I were working better together, but it hadn’t taken away my questions and anxiety. I still wasn’t sure if he thought I was doing a consistently good job or not. He rarely gave feedback, and when he did, it was mostly things he wanted me to include or just a brief like on the social media platforms. Of course, that drove me insane. I was still out to impress him and wanted him to think I was doing well. Even if I didn’t want to admit that out loud to myself much less to anyone else. Minnie didn’t give me much insight into Quentin or what he might think of me. She told me about when he was a little boy and his relationships with his brothers, but little about him as a man. It meant I was still going to have to figure it out on my own.
