That must have been some evening, Ginger thought. She knew they’d gotten in late then stayed up talking even later, but somehow she hadn’t quite expected this. She certainly didn’t expect to walk by his bedroom door and find him asleep with a girl, not yet anyway. Not that there was anything suspicious; they were both fully clothed and not even under the covers, but snuggled up together like they meant it. This wasn’t like when Will and Telzey fell asleep on the couch watching race videos; that was just where they’d fallen asleep. This was different: Chuck and Larissa were snuggled up like they meant it. In a way, that was a relief. She didn’t know the girl all that well, but from what little she knew Larissa seemed like she’d be a better match for him than Ashley, anyway.

The next day Larissa was still in no mood to go home. She called her mother, explained that things had fallen apart with Matt and said that she was going to be staying with friends for a couple days, and called in to work sick. She checked in at home at least once a day, to discover that Matt had been trying to get hold of her, presumably to tell her that something had happened to her car, or at least that was what she got out of her mother. In any case, it seemed like he was anxious to talk to her, but she had no particular interest in talking to him.

She and Chuck slept late that first morning, and then Chuck took the rest of the day off, as well. They didn’t do much but hang around the house and talk about one thing and another, but they were alone much of that time as Will was out at his grandparents’ doing more of that yard and garden work he hated so much. That meant that Telzey wasn’t around; she was hanging out with girlfriends somewhere doing something. He worked Thursday and Friday, but Larissa hung around the shop anyway, working on her car a little and helping out Ginger with some track paperwork to help make up for the trouble she had been.

Larissa stayed with them on Friday night as well, when the Austins and Telzey loaded up their cars and headed on over to Mannheim Speedway like they’d done a few weeks before. They weren’t running Modifieds that night, so Larissa’s 57 car replaced Ray’s 59 car on the trailer going over there. Running as a Hornet, she wound up third in her heat and sixth in the feature, which tickled her pink with happiness.

They all knew that Matt usually ran at Meridian on Friday nights, so going to Mannheim meant that he was easily avoided. That couldn’t be done on Saturday, when he always ran Bradford since he was leading in the points there. She didn’t want to run the risk of meeting him there – she still wasn’t ready to talk to him and thought she might not be ready for years. But she’d also accepted Chuck’s invitation to go to the NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday, so late in the afternoon on Saturday she headed home to do her laundry and check in with her mother.

*   *   *

Matt was getting more than a little irritated with Larissa. Granted, last weekend they’d had a little spat – well, no, it was one heckuva fight, he had to admit it – but he figured she had to be over her snit by now. He’d tried to get hold of her all week, ever since her car had disappeared from his yard. A couple different times he’d all but called the Paddington police about the car, but in the end had thought better of it. He didn’t honestly think it was stolen, and figured she’d taken it since she was mad at him, but it would at least have been nice if she’d told him she was taking it.

What really yanked his chain was that he wanted to settle things down with Larissa. After he’d told Ashley just exactly where to get off when she’d showed up in his garage on Tuesday night, he figured that the problem was pretty much taken care of. He thought that she’d be happy that he’d told Ashley to take a long walk off a short pier, but he couldn’t get hold of her to tell her.

She hadn’t even been around town. He’d driven all over Paddington looking for her car, either of her cars, but there hadn’t been a sign of either one of them. He checked out several places he knew that she was likely to go, but there was no sign of her there, either. Her mother would only tell him that she was spending some time with friends, and Candy at the pizzeria thought she was sick. It all added up to the fact that she was really torqued off at him for no reason.

Matt had really mixed emotions about going to Bradford on Saturday night. He about had to go, if he wanted to maintain his lead in the points championship, and that was still really important to him. There was also the chance that Larissa might actually be there and he could maybe talk some sense into her. But going to Bradford ran the risk of running into that Ashley chick again, and if Larissa even caught sight of her while he was around then the feathers were going to hit the fan big time.

He was not terribly surprised to pull into the pits at Bradford, unload, and get through qualifying without seeing a sign of Larissa or her car. After all, if she was avoiding him everywhere else she was probably avoiding him here, too. What was a little surprising was that there was no sign of the tall blonde who had been all over him the past few weeks. Even after what he’d told her Tuesday night, he expected her to still be sniffing around him in the pits in hopes that he’d changed his mind. All in all, after the tension he’d had the past few weeks it was really relaxing.

Qualifying done, he decided to head over to the infield concession stand and inhale a couple chili dogs. They really made them good here; they piled the chili onto a Polish sausage so they really tasted fantastic, especially when they were also piled high with chopped onion. They also made those old fashioned crinkle-cut French fries that somehow tasted better than anything any burger burner had ever dreamed of, so he decided to get a paper tray of those too. He headed over to a nearby picnic table to work on them, along with the Coke he bought.

He was just sitting down to his heartburn on a bun when he happened to notice Chuck Austin. Chuck was about his age and was an OK guy, and since he was the son of the track manager, he usually had knowledge of a lot of the stuff that was going on around the area. Maybe he knew something about Larissa. “Hey, Chuck,” he called out, “how they hanging?”

“About the same,” Chuck replied. “How’s it going with you?”

“Could be better,” Matt admitted. “Larissa and I had a little disagreement last weekend, and I ain’t seen her all week. Her car disappeared from my yard, and I don’t know what happened to her or to it.”

Chuck knew in detail what had happened between Matt and Larissa the previous weekend, of course – Larissa had bent his ear about it a lot – but he decided that Matt didn’t need to know where she’d been hiding out, mostly because he really didn’t want Matt to do his best to pound the crap out of him. Since Matt was considerably bigger than he was, that was a concern. Chuck wasn’t one to lie, but decided a half-truth would do. “Oh, she’s been around,” he replied. “She was over in Mannheim where we were last night, ran sixth in the feature. I think she’s starting to get the hang of it.”

“Mannheim?” Matt frowned. “That’s a pretty good haul from here.” In a way, it made sense, he thought. If she wanted to stay with racing and stay away from where he ran, then M-50 or Mannheim were about the best choices. Maybe she knew somebody who ran there or lived there or something.

“Yeah, it is,” Chuck agreed. “Nice track for a quarter mile, though. Not a real big Hornet class, but pretty good. I think she was on it last night.”

“Well, darn,” Matt sighed, realizing that at least the problem of what happened to the 57 car was solved. “I knew she was pretty mad but I thought we had it worked out. I wonder what got into her.”

Chuck reflected that Matt could have no way of knowing that Larissa had seen him with Ashley in his garage on Tuesday. Matt must figure that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. That was no way to treat a lady like Larissa. “Oh, well,” he shrugged, “you know women.”

“Sometimes I think I do, but I usually find out I don’t,” Matt said, taking a big bite of chili dog. He chewed on it while Chuck tried to figure out some way to change the course of the discussion without being obvious about it. He didn’t have a lot of success; Matt swallowed his mouthful and continued, “It’s like that Ashley babe that’s been hanging around the past few weeks. I can’t figure out where she’s coming from.”

Chuck had been aware of the fact that Ashley was hanging around Matt’s pit, and around Matt the past few weeks, and that came from observation, not Larissa. What she wanted with Matt was a mystery to him, but that just proved that she was still a mystery to him, anyway. One that he was well rid of, especially with Larissa in the picture now. He didn’t think that Larissa had any intention of going back to Matt, whatever happened, but if Matt was really hanging with Ashley, it would just seal the deal. “Me, either,” he replied. “I used to go with her, you know. She really is a hot babe, but she can be a handful, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, she acts like she might be pretty good,” Matt said, thinking about the way that she had come on to him a few days ago. He didn’t really want to give up Larissa, but it might not be his choice. If it turned out she was gone, well, women were like streetcars, weren’t they? And that was a pretty nice looking one coming along next. “Kinda strange that I haven’t seen her tonight,” he observed. “She really seems to like hanging around here.”

There was a darn good reason why Ashley wasn’t hanging around the pits that evening, and that reason was Ray Austin. Chuck hadn’t even had to ask his dad to have her barred after he had heard the story of the previous Saturday night, first from Joe Wolsley, and then from Larissa herself. Ray knew Larissa was a racer and therefore deserved some special consideration, especially considering that Ashley was at best a pit lizard and a pest. If he had to make a choice between the two, it was no contest by a long shot. The pit gate staff had been instructed firmly to not sell her a pit pass or let her through the gate until he said otherwise. But Matt didn’t need to know that, either.

“Yeah, she does,” Chuck replied, both truthfully and noncommittally. “Like I said, I can’t figure it out, but then, she’s a woman, so why should I be able to?” The time had come to change the subject once and for all. “Hey, you heading over to MIS tomorrow?” he asked. “I’m thinking Jimmy Johnson is going to run away with it.”

“Naw, I’d like to, but I don’t like the traffic and the crowds,” Matt said. “Besides, Hendrick cars usually don’t run all that well there, no idea why. Probably some Ford will sneak away with it, probably that stupid Kenseth.”

“Yeah,” Chuck replied, glad to have successfully changed the subject. “He’s probably going to steal the whole championship with just one win.”

*   *   *

Ashley was well and truly steamed as she sat down in the end of the stands watching the proceedings. This week had not gone well at all.

Not only had that big dumb grease monkey just absolutely brushed off her advances despite the best she could do up at his garage in Paddington last Tuesday evening, when she got home steaming mad, she found out that her parents had only played nine holes and came home for dinner. She was in deep trouble for taking off with the Chrysler when she was supposed to be grounded.

It had taken her a lot of trouble to get out of the house tonight, and she really wasn’t sure why. She still had hopes that Matt d’Lamater would be the solution to her problem of getting back at the little brat who had stuffed her into the wall. Maybe if she let him know that she was still available, still interested even after what he said, then something might happen. Or maybe that fat broad he was dating would see her, fly off the handle again, and get her butt thrown out of the place. He just had to be made to see that the grass was greener on this side of the fence. Maybe something else would happen, even if she wasn’t sure what. Something had to go her way sometime, that was for sure; she’d been so close on so many occasions, but she always seemed to not quite get it done.

And then to go to the pit gatehouse and be told that she couldn’t have a pit pass, that she wasn’t allowed in the pits! Someone was going to pay for that! Somebody must have mouthed off to Ray Austin, maybe that Larissa chick, maybe that guy who pulled Larissa off of her last week. Possibly even Matt, although she didn’t think he would do it; he wasn’t that bright, and the way he acted Tuesday night told her that he had the hots for her, at least a little. Good grief, she paid a lot of money for those pit passes and they hadn’t done her a whole lot of good, but at least she had been able to keep a finger on things a little. For all she knew, d’Lamater could be over there alone right now, looking for her and she couldn’t get at him.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true; she could still get into the stands, and that meant that she could get into the pits when the spectators were invited down afterwards, and given a little bit of luck she might still be able to do some good with d’Lamater tonight.

The grandstands were a distant second choice, but she decided to head down into the “alcohol allowed” section in hopes of cadging a beer or two from someone to take the edge off her anger. That was another advantage of being a pretty girl; it was easy to get someone to offer her a beer, even if she was obviously underage. Usually all it took was a nice smile; she usually didn’t even have to put up with any groping, although there were times that was fun. It would be especially fun if it was d’Lamater doing the groping.

Three or four beers were enough to take the edge off of her a little during the heat races, but the features were just about enough to tie her in knots with frustration. In the Pony Stocks, Chuck’s little brother ran away with the race for once, and that was all right, so far as it went; even though he was Chuck’s brother she didn’t particularly have anything against him. But what really frosted her was the race for second. Matt spent more than half the race running fender to fender with that little brat in the 24 car that had wrecked her back in the Powder Puff race. He had not one, not two, but dozens of opportunities to shove her into the wall where she belonged, and not once did he take advantage of it. Not once! And then she freaking beat him at the finish line to take second! The perfect chance to settle things up, and she’d missed it . . .

Then, right after the race, she kept her eyes across the track, trying to see what she could see. She’d picked out Matt’s hauler; it was sitting in its usual spot, really hard to miss. It was only after he loaded the 17 car onto the trailer that she realized something strange: the 57 car had been loaded on the trailer at the same time every time she’d seen it, but it wasn’t tonight, nor was it sitting around the pit stall. Thinking about it, she hadn’t seen it in the race, either – that must mean that that Larissa pig wasn’t here at all. Talk about another perfect chance missed!

Her mood was not improved when Chuck took first in his feature in his new car. It was the one that he’d bought with the money from her father – the money she was supposed to pay back by working her fingers into wrinkled, battered shreds washing dishes at minimum wage, for Pete’s sakes! The money that her father still could take out of her by selling her car, her lovely little red Mustang convertible that she had really looked forward to showing off with this summer. If Chuck had just kept his damn mouth shut she wouldn’t have been reduced to begging rides. That was no way for Ashley Hitchcock to live. No way!

When the races were finally over with and the crowd allowed across the track into the pits, she was in the middle of things, headed for Matt’s pickup truck just about as hard as she could go. Maybe, just maybe she could get to him without that freaking girl there, could spend a little quality time making him see reason. But when she got to his pit stall, there was nothing there but empty space. He must have decided to get out of there while he could.

No matter how she could look at it, it had been a wasted and a disappointing evening all the way around. In fact, she couldn’t think of one thing that had gone right.

She couldn’t help but wish that she could think of some other way to properly show vengeance on that little middle school brat. She could think of dozens of ways to hurt her, get even with her, but nothing as appropriate as having her knocked into the wall like she was a deer bouncing off a fender – just like the little bitch had done to her.