Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Yeah. I was a fool for the woman.
“Hey, 71? Can you two move out of the shot?” asked a tall man with a silver beard, a Panama hat and a cigar in his mouth. The yellow band on his wrist identified him as one of the drivers.
“He means us.” I nodded to the number on our car and pulled Chick two large steps away so a few more people could snap pictures of Jiminy with their phones.
“I love our Mouse Trap Civic,” the guy said, “but it’s great when people make their cars look this pretty. Just because this is Lemons doesn’t mean we can’t have nice things.”
Another driver, a large Hispanic man wearing a cartoon mouse on his shirt, lowered his phone to stare at him. “That’s exactly what it means, Roy. It’s implicit in the title. We’re all supposed to be racing fugly lemons that we decorate for laughs. Not classics that are dolled up for an art car parade. Like that hot tub Lincoln a couple years back. That was some funny shit.”
“Then why are you taking so many pictures?”
“Because my wife just lost her dad and I wanted to honor him. It’s giving me ideas for the art car parade.”
“Hey, does that movie poster say—”
I swore under my breath. “Move it along, guys.”
“Sorry, man. Thanks.”
When they finally wandered away, Chick grinned. “Jiminy’s wrap is a hit.”
“It’s not bad.” I’d taken a few unobtrusive snapshots myself, because it was a piece of art.
It shouldn’t have worked. Movie posters from every film Sam Retta had worked on, good and bad. Airline tickets, letters, postcards and family pictures all blended into a brightly colored mosaic that drew the eye, with the background the same bright yellow as the car itself.
Life in Motion.
That was the official name of the theme. Sam’s busy life wrapped around a racecar.
But not only hers.
August’s book covers were on there too, along with a copy of Morgan’s master’s degree, wedding photos and those expensive pics they’d taken of their collies wearing scarves and sunglasses. There were images of Bernie singing with her band. Gene ringing the bell as he finished his chemo. Phoebe at the icehouse with Todd. Lucy and Rick in their Marine uniforms with their arms over each other’s shoulders. Chick and Kingston, each separately walking a red carpet, had been placed side by side. I’d also spotted a teenage Kingston holding a camera bigger than his head the night we filmed that horror movie. What was it called again? Some title that had nothing to do with the badly-pieced-together storyline. Duck Vengeance.
So many memories.
There was one of me, working on a car when I was barely eighteen, and another, working on this one, not long after they’d moved back home.
Most significant of all—at least to me—August had included a picture of the two of us at Morgan’s wedding. She was laughing, her flowers covering half her face while I looked down at her like I’d been hit over the head with a two-by-four.
A blind man could have seen it, even then.
August had made this. She’d cobbled together all the disparate pieces of our lives and turned them into something cohesive and mesmerizing. She’d told a story and, like all the others she’d written over the years, it was made of fucking magic.
She didn’t know it, but this would be Jiminy’s first and last race. I’d already handed over five hundred dollars to Gene and he’d taken it without a word of protest. He didn’t want to ruin this masterpiece any more than I did. Just yesterday, he’d bought Dalton’s high school ride, a green ’76 Plymouth Duster his parents had sold him for two hundred dollars. The body had taken a beating over the decades, but the meticulously maintained high-performance V8 engine would leave most of the vehicles in the paddock in the proverbial dust on the straightaways. Gene was already itching to get started on it.
As soon as I thought of him, he wandered out of the home-base tent toward us, a huge grin on his face and that ridiculous Joe Dirt mullet on his head. He wore his favorite neon-green Hawaiian shirt over his fire suit, with a calculator shoved into the chest pocket. He said it worked, because it represented the many facets of his unique personality. Like Rick’s Coast Guard cap, Army T-shirt and Marine tags. Or Lucy’s lack of a costume. “My life is too layered for a single outfit to convey. But this is usually what I’m wearing while it's happening.”
“Any last-minute issues?” I asked. One of the judges had shown up this morning wanting to talk to him again.
“There are no issues. They love me and our sisters. I left him with Bernie and one of my famous breakfast hot dogs. He was trying to get her number after praising us again for our y u rune classification. They appreciated our pitch. It tugged on some heartstrings.”