stick helped for some of the forms, but at one point it clattered out of Nora’s hand and bounced into the stairwell. Nora burst into tears. I had to go down a flight and a half to retrieve it, and I was a bit breathless when I got back.
“I think I’ll just stand here, ready to stop it in case it takes flight again,” I said, still puffing. I decided to ignore the tears. “Right, now let’s try ‘Playing the Harp’ once more. You’re not concentrating, Nora, and I think you called her to the wrong side, Louise, and your walker got in the way. Okay, let’s go. Play the harp, Nora.”
Nora glared at me. “Stuff your stupid harp,” she hissed, and she ran straight at me with the yardstick pointed at my chest like a sword. I involuntarily took a step backwards, and the next thing I knew, I was tumbling head over heels down the stairs.
I heard a shout, “How’s that for ‘Needle to the Bottom of the Sea’?”
From my room in Pavilion C when they wheel me over to the window, I can watch the group doing tai chi on the lawn. Merrilee is out in front, but I don’t see Louise and Nora anywhere.
AUDREY JESSUP’S aversion to exercise changed when she read of a Manchester University study claiming that the body cannot distinguish between actually doing an exercise and thinking about doing it. So if you catch her with glazed eyes contemplating her navel she is, in fact, thinking herself into svelte perfection.
RACE
VICKI CAMERON
I change Michael Calendri’s right front tire. That’s my job. They told me crewing on an Indy race car team would make me popular with the girls, but it doesn’t generate much conversation, changing the right front tire. I work less than thirty seconds over the course of a race. That’s my whole job, thirty seconds.
It’s an important job, precise and speed-driven. I have ten seconds to change that tire. One second to get myself and my air gun in place. Seven seconds for the tire. Two seconds to get back to the wall with the gun, swinging its hose clear. I can’t have a bad day, ever. I can’t be off my beat and take a second too long. I can’t take a half step in the wrong direction and get in the way of Jerry changing the left front tire. I have to be a sprinter, too, and dart in front of the car when I’ve changed my tire before the driver screams back toward the track. Other right-front guys on other teams have been run over by their drivers. Hit and run by their own man. Michael has never hit his right-front guy. I’ve never given him a reason to shake a fist at me. Our crew is finished four tires and fuel in twelve seconds.
My goal is to be the first tire changer finished every time. Right now I am half a second behind Jerry, on left front, but he doesn’t have to sprint in front of the car. I watch the other right-front guys on the other teams, looking for ways to shave off a nanosecond.
The crew next to us today is the upstart Lavatin team, one car, one driver, a hodge-podge of sponsors and Ray on right front. Ray is good. I’ve been watching his footwork over the season, his explosive start from the pit, his finesse with the pneumatic air gun. He whips that hose in an arc behind him so it’s precisely in the right spot to unscrew the wheel nut. He has that used tire off and a new one on in one and a third seconds better than my best time.
The entire Lavatin crew is speed obsessed. Even more than the rest of us. The driver, Kurt, sits in the cockpit with eyes blazing right through his visor. His hands are clenched on the steering wheel, and you can see his anger at every pit stop. I hear he resents pit stops and the twelve seconds it takes to refit his car for the next set of laps. I hear he isn’t much of a team player, just wants to get out there and win.
All that focus and raw talent has put him in the lead today. He’s a lap and a half ahead of Michael, and we’re sweating in the pit, pumping ourselves up for speed, more speed. I’ve piled the old tires further back than usual, to give everyone more room to work. I scope out the Lavatin pit, and their tires are not as precisely piled as ours. They keep their old tires up front, forming a privacy screen between them and the next crew. Their new pile is closer to the wall. I measure my stride and pile our new tires four inches closer to the wall. I practise and shave a quarter second off my takeoff.
Kurt is coming into the pits on the next lap. That Ray, he’s braced to leap the wall. I have two more laps to wait, so I give Ray my full attention.
Ray’s sloppy tire pile is to blame. He reaches his right front on time, but the hose catches on the tire pile, and he has to give it an extra yank to get it in position. Costs him a quarter second. Throws him right off his game, and he’s a half-second slower changing the tire. Kurt’s eyes are pinpricks of fire. Ray finishes and explodes into his sprint.
Kurt hits the gas and roars out of there an eighth of a second before Ray clears the car. Runs right over Ray’s ankle. Ray hits the pavement in agony and comes up in a white heat. I don’t know if it’s anger or pain. He says he’s fine, wraps an icepack around his ankle, pops a handful of pills and starts flinging the tires around, clearing his hose path. I watch him for signs of slowing down. If he’s feeling any pain, he doesn’t show it.
Michael hits the pits and I spring over the wall, using Ray’s finesse with the hose. It works. I shave three-quarters of a second off my time. I see Michael grinning as I sprint past him.
Kurt holds the lead. Next Lavatin pit stop, Ray shucks the icepack and is over that wall in a blur, changing that tire in the best time I’ve seen. Motivation, that’s the key. Somehow I’ve become so obsessed with time and precision and style that I’ve lost sight of the real reason we are all here—to win.
Ray leaps back over the wall and lands funny on his ankle. The rest of the crew huddles around him and carries him to the doctor in less time than their pit stop. A mechanic takes his place and starts warming up.
Two laps later Kurt hits the wall on the third curve and explodes in a ball of metal and flame. The television crews go nuts. The Lavatin team become zombies, white faces and jerky movements. We don’t have time to worry about it in our pit. Focus, focus, focus on winning. All the drivers hit the pits under the yellow flag. We do everything but floss Michael’s teeth.
With the Lavatin car out of the lead, Michael has a clear shot. He drives like he does when the finish line is only ten laps away. Flies right past them all into the straightaway, picks up the checkered flag, the trophy and the fat envelope.
We’re all going to Kurt’s funeral in his home town. His sponsors are already searching for a new driver. Word is Ray has three broken bones in his ankle from being hit by the car. They were holding together until his last leap over the wall.
I figure I owe Ray a lot. I learned new pit techniques by watching him. Mostly, I learned to put the fire back in my job, to remember the desire to win.
I don’t have much patience for drivers who mow down their own crew.
I change Michael Calendri’s right front tire. It doesn’t generate much conversation. So nobody asked me about Ray. I never had to tell anyone I had seen him put an old tire on the right front of Kurt’s car.
VICKI CAMERON writes fiction and non-fiction, long and short, ranging from dog training (From Heel To Finish: The System Of Ghent For The Nineties) to UFOs (Don’t Tell Anyone, But… UFO Experiences In Canada). She is the co-editor of and contributor to The Ladies’ Killing Circle, Cottage Country Killers and Menopause is Murder. Her first young adult novel, That Kind of Money, was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, and an Arthur Ellis Award
