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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
As much as Scott and Sonja were enjoying what they were doing together in the grass by the swimming hole, they were still aware that Andy and Diane were getting even more serious. The point was made by the fact that Diane’s bikini top had somehow gotten loose and was laying on the grass behind her. “You know,” he whispered to Sonja, “Maybe we’d better not stand in the way of true lust.”
“Yeah,” she whispered back, “Not that I wouldn’t like to be doing that too. But we’re going to get our chance.”
Sonja sat up and pulled the straps of her swimsuit back on her shoulders – they’d somehow gotten loose, too, while Scott gathered up their towels and clothes. In only seconds they were heading up the path to the car, after Scott told Andy and Diane quietly, “We’re going to take off and leave you guys to it. I hope it won’t be any trouble to walk back up to the house.”
“No, that’s fine,” he heard Diane say. “The two of you have a good time.”
“You too,” Scott said, and turned to follow Sonja. He didn’t mind following her, watching the way her butt stretched the fabric of her swimsuit as she walked.
In only a minute or two they were in his car, driving away. “Any bets whether that bikini bottom is off yet?” Sonja grinned.
“Hell no, it was only hanging on by a thread, anyway,” he laughed, “but while you look dynamite in that white swimsuit, I can’t wait to see you in a bikini like Diane was wearing, at least while she was wearing it. My God, Sonja, you look wonderful in that swimsuit.”
“I can’t help but wonder what you’re going to think when you see me with it off,” she grinned. “Actually, I’ve got one at home that will just about knock your socks off, even if I can’t get to it right now.”
“I can’t wait to see you wearing it.”
“I can’t wait for you see me wearing it, and make you want to take it off me,” she sighed. “God, I never believed I could get this horny. If you hadn’t brought it to an end, we might be back there doing it alongside them. The only thing is that I’d really rather not do it that way our first time.”
“Well, me either,” he agreed.
“Maybe Monday,” she grinned. “If we sleep in a little bit and I still get up before you, maybe I can come join you in your bed. That’d be a nice way to start the morning.”
This isn’t a dream, Scott reminded himself. This is real, no matter how much you’ve dreamed of it happening. This really is Sonja talking like that. Not that I’m complaining, but what the hell happened? “Sounds like it to me,” he smiled. “God, I love you, Sonja.”
“I love you too, Scott,” she smiled back at him. “But maybe we’d better cool it a little before we get back to your folks’ house. We might be, uh, a little too obvious.”
“Probably not a bad idea,” he agreed. “It doesn’t mean I want to, though.”
“Well, me either,” she replied, scooching over to get as close to him as the armrest would allow. “Maybe it’s just being around those two, or maybe it’s just that we’ve finally come clean with each other, but I’m glad we got past that hangup and can move on to what I think we both really want to do. And I don’t mean just sex.”
“Me, either,” he agreed, “but damn, things have changed so quickly between us that I’m having a hard time getting my head around it. Not that I mind, but it seems strange all of a sudden.”
“It does to me, too,” she admitted, “but I think it’s the right thing, finally. I think I’m a little relieved that we finally did it.”
“I am, too,” he said. “Actually, I have to wonder just where it is we’re going to go next, now that we’ve gotten this far. I mean, long-term.”
“I think it’s going to get obvious pretty quickly,” she smirked, “but I think we’re both tentative, cautious and level-headed, so we’re not going to do anything before it’s time. On the other hand, the time for some things is getting to be right about now. At least Monday, or whenever it happens. Let’s not try to get too far ahead of ourselves. We both have to get used to the new situation we’re in. Maybe by the time we get back to college things will make more sense.”
“I think you’re right,” he agreed. “I mean, up till now, you’ve had plans, and I’ve had plans. Now we need to have plans, but at least we’ve got some time to work on them.”
“That’s pretty much what I meant,” she smiled. “Things are going to be different when we’re back in East Lansing this year. But we’ll have time to work things out.”
“I’m sure glad of that. But maybe we’d better back off from thinking about it right now. I don’t think we want the folks to get any big ideas, at least not just yet.”
“I think you’re right,” she nodded. “This is new enough for both of us that maybe we’d better do something a little, well, not suspicious tonight. What was this track thing you were talking about?”
“Actually, that’s about the perfect answer,” he said. “Going out to the Bradford Speedway is pretty much a traditional Saturday night date for Bradford kids. I mean, in most small towns, kids complain there’s nothing much to do.”
“I hate to tell you this, Scott, but in bigger towns it’s sometimes not that easy to find something to do. You can go to a movie or something, but sometimes the ‘or something’ isn’t viable if you’re not of age.”
“Hell, I didn’t know that. Most Bradford kids think city kids have it soft in that regard. Anyway, the Bradford Speedway is a race track. It runs mostly stock cars, not the kind you see on TV, but sort of the lower end of the scale. It might not be the kind of thing either of us would want to do every Saturday night, but it can make for an occasional fun date, and the racing is usually pretty good if you can get into it at all.”
“I haven’t even watched racing on TV, but if it’s a date in this town, I guess I’m up for it, at least once,” she said. “I take it this is something your folks wouldn’t be suspicious about?”
“No, like I said, it’s a typical date. In fact, the story around the class is that the track is where Kevin took Emily on their first date, back when we were at the tail end of eighth grade, and he was a senior over at Amherst. Shae was there, and she spread it all around the class that the two of them spent the last half of the race kissing and petting under a blanket in the top row of the grandstand. You see how that came out. It was a miracle she got through high school before the two of them were married, and general consensus is that it was only because he was in the Air Force most of the time.”
“So there really have been a few romances kindled out there?” she grinned. “Sounds like an interesting date. Did you take many girls out there?”
“I never was a regular out there, but I made it out there several times a year, sometimes with a date, sometimes with a gang that was a sort-of date, just six or eight couples, not all of us even real couples. Like I said, there’s not much else for a kid to do in Bradford on a Saturday night, so I’m glad we have the track. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple of the kids we saw last night out there. Not Andy and Diane, though, at least probably not tonight. I suspect they’ll be doing something else.”
“What should I wear?”
“Oh, whatever. Shorts and a T-shirt would be fine. Occasionally you’ll see a girl dressed up a little because she wants to impress a prospective boyfriend or something.”
“Maybe I could wear that dress I wore last night.”
“You’ll be one of the best-dressed girls there if you do,” he smiled. “God, you looked great in that. But really, it is a race track and you’d be a little overdressed if you did.”
“Maybe I can paw around in your sister’s closet a little more,” she smiled. “She’s not going to mind, is she?”
“Not a chance. First, everything you’ve worn of hers is too small for her. She was kind of like Vicky, her freshman fifteen was more like fifty and she hasn’t been able to get her weight back down since. Most of that stuff she abandoned years ago, before she left for college, and she’s three years ahead of me. It’s just that neither she nor Mom would throw stuff out if there might be a use for it. In this case you’re lucky, there was, though they didn’t know it at the time.”
“I’m glad that part of it worked out. What time do we have to be there?”
“Racing starts at seven, so we probably ought to be there about six if we want to get a good seat. Most of the seats are pretty good, but I like to be up in the grandstand a bit so you get a better view of the whole track. I don’t know when Mom is planning to have dinner, but if we’re a little early, we can just have chili dogs and stuff out at the track. Actually, if we wanted to eat track food, we could leave a little early and take a swing through the track museum. Again, it might not be anything you would be interested in, but they have a few cool cars in there.”
“It’s after four now,” she said. “If we don’t want to be around your folks all that much, maybe we just ought to plan on eating at the track.”
They were plenty early in getting out to the speedway, but neither of them minded too much. Scott was wearing shorts and a T-shirt again, while Sonja had found a wrap-around denim skirt of Abby’s that didn’t fit too badly, along with a rather snug T-shirt she’d found in the dresser. Scott carried a barrel bag with a couple flannel shirts in case it got cool later.
Since they were so early, he suggested they take a pass through the race car museum. Sonja decided it wasn’t exactly her cup of tea, but it was a little interesting. There were several cars there, one of which was an Indy car. A sign by it said had been the last Offenhauser-powered car to try to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 – and that it still held the track record for the fastest lap ever at Bradford. There were several other old race cars on display, and they spent some time looking at them, but Scott soon realized that Sonja’s interest in them was moderate, at best. His wasn’t much greater; he’d seen most of the cars there before. Still, it killed a little time.
They wandered over to the concession stand, got some chili dogs, fries, and other junk food, along with drinks, and sat down at a picnic table that had a slight view of the cars qualifying for the race that evening. Some of them were pretty loud and got around the track in a hurry.
Neither Scott nor Sonja had a great interest in the qualifying; they had things to talk about. Though they’d been friends for a long time, the events of the last day or so had taken them to a level they’d only dreamed about privately, and it was taking a while for them to come to grips with the new reality.
Eventually they finished their dinners – Sonja commented that the hot dogs were better than the ones Emily had served the night before, and Scott had to agree with her. “I don’t know why,” he said. “But hot dogs at a race track almost always taste better than they do anywhere else.” They tossed the trash in a nearby waste can, then Scott led her far up into the bleachers, where he unfolded a blanket for them to sit on.
“This is not anywhere as bad as I expected,” she said as she surveyed the track in front of them. “I guess I always had the idea that a little race track was something of a dump.”
“A lot of them are,” Scott told her. “The one south of Lansing is pretty nice. I went there with a gang one evening, back just before I met you. This place, well, I know that the owners take pride in keeping it nice and clean.”
The stands were partly full, but were filling in rapidly. In only a few minutes, they saw a couple of familiar faces climbing up the stands: Liz Goodrow and Mike Austin. Each couple saw the other and waved. As they got closer, Liz asked, “You got room for two more there?”
“Sure thing,” Scott replied. “Although it might be a little easier to talk if you were in front of us or behind us.”
It didn’t take long for Liz and Mike to get settled down on the bleacher seat right in front of them. “Don’t know why we haven’t been out here before this year,” Mike commented. “The season is half over with.”
“Summer just goes by in a rush,” Scott agreed. “It gets here, you blink, and the leaves are turning. Anybody we know running these days?”
“Gary Apling is still running here, I guess,” Liz replied. “He had a Sportsman out here last season but turned it into little pieces. What I heard last winter was that he was going to go back to running his Economy Stock, not that it was anything more than a wreck the last time I saw it. I guess I’m just as happy Emily decided to not invite him last night.”
“Yeah, he could get to be a pain at times,” Scott agreed, and turned to Sonja. “Gary was in our class, but he was, well, a jerk. One of those guys who talks big but can’t back it up. He started running out here, hell, I guess it was when we were still in middle school, and he kept mouthing off about what a great driver he was.”
“I never saw him finish higher than the middle of a heat,” Liz agreed, “And that was only if there had been a wreck or two he managed to not be involved in. I doubt he’s ever won either a heat or a feature. If he has, I wasn’t here to see it.”
“I know the type,” Sonja smiled. “We had those kinds of people around our high school, too.”
“You get much of that around college?” Liz asked.
“Oh, there are some people like that,” Scott shrugged. “Not very many. Usually they don’t get that far. There are some jocks who can get pretty obnoxious, but to play at that level they at least have some ability and know what they’re doing. Gary was the kind of guy who warmed the bench in football a lot, but to hear him talk about it he was the hero of every game.”
“Yeah, I have to say he’s one reason I’m glad I’m not in high school anymore,” Liz agreed. “I don’t have to deal with him much now, other than when he orders a Double Beef Whopper every now and then. Any more than that would be too much. It’s not like some of those other people at the weenie roast last night. There were a lot of people there I miss from back in school.”
“It’s surprising how fast the good old days got to be the good old days,” Scott smiled, “but I guess we all have to move on in life.”
The four of them sat talking about various things, mostly about the class, until activities got under way on the track. The stands were nearly full on this nice, warm summer evening. The announcer asked the crowd to rise for a prayer, and some woman Scott never had heard of before sang the national anthem, and not badly, either.
Scott couldn’t help but remember a time at the track a couple years before when his classmate Dayna had been the one to sing the anthem, and she really had done a bang-up job of it. He remembered someone saying the night before that Dayna was going to be up at the renaissance faire in Battle Creek this weekend; he hadn’t made any plans for tomorrow, but that might be something he and Sonja could do. As landmark a weekend as this was promising to be, it would be nice to do something special to show her a good time.
Once the crowd got back in their seats the heat races got under way. The heats were short eight-lap events, usually in groups of six to ten cars. The first heats were Economy Stocks, six-cylinder cars dating back to the seventies or before. “Economy Stocks are pretty fun,” Scott explained to Sonja. “The cars are cheap and not allowed to be hopped up very much, so the class gets people who sometimes aren’t real experienced. They tend to go at it pretty hard and bang a lot of fenders.”
“I don’t think there’s quite as much as before,” Mike expanded. “It used to be that about every other heat was almost a demolition derby. These days a car or two sometimes gets banged up, but when you get right down to it, the racing can still be pretty exciting.”
“It helps that they start the cars in reverse order of qualifying times, with the fastest cars at the back,” Liz added. “Keep your eyes on the cars at the tail end of the field and see how fast they can get to the front.”
As the cars got out on the track, the announcer gave the names of the drivers to the crowd. Some of them Scott recognized – a few drivers liked running in the low class and had been doing it for years. After a few warm-up laps, the flagman in the tower low in front of them gave the green flag, and the cars headed into the first corner, three and four wide. Sonja could see that Liz had been right – a guy in an orange and white Ford Maverick went to the outside of the whole pack and passed half the field by the time he was through the second turn. He was in third by the time the first lap had been completed and was closing fast on the pair of cars in the lead – and those weren’t the ones in front at the start of the race. By the end of the third lap he was in the lead, and the guy who had started right beside him at the back of the field was in second.
“Wow, that didn’t take long,” Sonja shook her head. “I can see why they’d want to start someone that fast at the back of the field.”
“Makes life a little more interesting, that’s for sure,” Mike laughed.
A spin brought out a caution flag in the fourth lap, and the field lined up in single file order, with the Maverick in the lead. As soon as the green came out he was off and running again, winning the heat a couple minutes later with a big lead.
The next heat had a battered old sixties Chevy Nova on the pole position; it was black, with “55” crudely painted on it in white. “Wow, is that still Apling’s car?” Scott asked.
“Guess so,” Mike said. “Boy, it doesn’t look any better now than the last time I saw it out here.”
“If he’s starting on the pole, it looks like it doesn’t run any better than it used to, either,” Scott laughed.
“Probably got that right,” Liz grinned.
Again, the field took a few laps to warm up before the green flag came out. As before, there was a mad rush into the first corner, but it was not quite as well controlled. The 55 car was being passed on either side by cars coming from behind, with another one on the outside, when Apling’s car got away from the driver, sliding sideways and tagging the cars on both sides. Instantly the whole field was a mess, with cars going all over the place trying to avoid the pileup. Only the car on the far outside managed to evade the heap; every other car was involved, although some only lightly. They had to bring out the red flag to stop the race while two wreckers and other track crews went out to untangle the mess.
It proved that no one was hurt, although it looked like there were at least a couple of cars that wouldn’t be racing again that evening. “It looked to me like Gary started it all,” Mike said, “but knowing him, it was somebody else’s fault.”
“Yeah, right,” Scott laughed. “Anybody else’s fault.”
It took a while to clean up the mess before they could restart the race from the beginning. Only five cars, including Apling’s, looking even worse for wear, were able to take the green flag. Apling was passed three times, but managed to hold off finishing last only because there was another car even more battered from the wreck running slowly; in fact, he lapped it on the last lap. “That has to be the first time he’s actually passed someone in a while,” Liz smiled.
There were a couple more heats of Economy Stocks, some of Street stocks, then Sportsmen and Modifieds, the fastest cars at the track this evening. Some of the races were pretty good, and some were dull. Eventually the heat races ended, and there was an intermission.
After the intermission, the racing resumed – this time with features, the same cars as were in the heats, but with all the cars in the class starting at the same time, rather than just in small groups. The features ran for twenty laps for the Economy Stocks, and more for the bigger classes. “It’s the same deal as the heats,” Scott explained to Sonja. “The fastest cars start at the back. That means an even bigger mess in the first corner.”
“I can imagine,” she grinned. “You know, this is more fun than I thought it was going to be.”
To everyone’s amazement, the field managed to make it through the first lap of the Economy Stock feature without an accident, although how they could have missed one going four and five cars wide was a true miracle. The luck held out through the third lap, when a car got out of shape in the middle of the pack and the 55 car tagged him, setting off another big chain-reaction accident that again halted the race. “Well, Apling really does have someone to blame this time,” Mike observed.
It was several minutes before the race restarted, this time without Apling and several other cars; it finished up fairly cleanly, with the yellow flag only coming out twice for minor incidents. The other classes then had their races, sometimes clean, sometimes with more carnage.
All too soon, the racing had come to an end for the evening, and people began to file out of the stands. Scott and Sonja soon got separated from Mike and Liz. “No point in rushing to get out,” Scott told Sonja. “There’s always a traffic jam getting out the gate.”
They made it out to his car and just sat inside waiting for the traffic to clear up a bit. “You know,” she said. “That was a pretty good date, and it was a lot more interesting than some of the stuff we had to do up in Pontiac. I can think of worse ways to spend an evening.”
“Well, I’m glad you liked it,” he told her. “I think it was a fun way to spend an evening. Maybe we’ll have to do it again some time.”
