Back in Los Angeles, it was back to my usual routine but for the fact that the apartment was lonely without Emmy and Angela. Almost every night we Facetimed (thanks, I’m pretty sure, to Angela), but it just wasn’t the same as having them with me. Since I had no real reason to be home, I went in to the office on the mornings I had class in the afternoons, and stayed late at the office on the other days.

It was on Wednesday when Stein shot me a text. “Hey- Chuckwalla this weekend?” he asked.

“Tell me about it.”, I replied, since I had heard nothing about any track days there. Heck, I’d never even actually been to that track, but I know a lot of drivers raved about the place.

“Open day, no sessions. Just got word some spots opened up.” Stein sent back.

“That sounds sweet- send me the deets”, I texted back. “Should I bring the GT3?”

“Oh fuck yes!” Stein replied. “That’ll freaking slay everyone. All those kids in their Subarus will wet themselves”.

“LOL” was all I sent back.

I quickly got on the organization’s web site and booked both days. Seeing there were a couple of slots still available, I texted James Atherton.

“Any plans this weekend? How does a weekend on the track down here in the desert sound?”

Almost immediately James texted back. “It sounds awesome, but Imogen and I are in Connecticut visiting her family right now. Believe me, I’d rather be putting Godzilla though his paces than face my dragon lady mother in law”.

“Sucks 2 B U” I sent back.

“Take pics- shoot video”, James replied. “WHat track?”

“Chuckwalla Valley Raceway”, I said. “I’ve never driven it.”

“Me either”, he texted. “Pics and video or GTFO”

“Will do”, I said.

I called down to Temecula BMW and spoke with the head mechanic, a Brazilian guy named Joachim, who functioned as assistant crew chief at my birthday. I told him to prep the car, including a fresh set of tires on some spare rims. “Bring the whole setup, including whatever mechanics you might need,” I said. I made it clear that this was coming out of my pocket, but I’d be paying double wages for the time. “Oh, and GoPro the heck out of the car,” I said. “Maybe we can make a promotional video out of the whole thing.”

Satisfied that I’d have a good time that weekend even if I wasn’t with Emmy and Angela, I settled back into work in a better mood than I had been since leaving New York.

At dinner that night, I mentioned the track weekend to Jenna and Andy.

“You really like driving fast, don’t you?” Jenna asked as we ate.

“Guilty as charged, your honor,” I said, sipping my pinot.

“Andy, you have that Mustang,” Jenna said. “You ought to go drive one of these tracks with Leah some time. You’d have a great time,” she said.

“It’d have to be after the season is over,” he said. “Even on our two bye weekends we have mandatory workouts. No way could I get out for a whole day.”

Curious, I asked about his typical weekly schedule and that steered the conversation into two-a-days, sessions with the trainer, so on. I hadn’t really realized that during the season it was basically nine to five with only one or two days off, depending on if they were playing a Monday night game or not.

Since the coming game was at home, there was no flight the next morning and Andy got to sleep in his own bed all weekend long, a luxury he only had half the time during the season.

“What do you do when he’s out of town?” I asked Jenna.

“Mostly reality TV and red wine,” she said with a laugh. “No, seriously, it sucks when he has road games. They leave early Thursday morning and come home Sunday night, or if it’s a Monday night game, they leave on Friday and come home in the middle of the night or early morning Tuesday. I do watch a lot of TV, but that’s also when I get a lot of my work done, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand that,” I said. “With Emmy and Angela gone, I’ve been spending a ton of hours at the office.”

“Pretty much the same thing,” Jenna agreed.

I was at the track nice and early on Saturday morning, pleased to see the Temecula BMW rig already set up. I stopped in and said hello, thanking Joachim and the three mechanics for taking their weekend to help me out.

At the registration desk, the woman signing me in said, “It’s good to see a female driver. I think there are only three here this weekend. What kind of car do you drive?”

“A BMW M6,” I said. “What are the other two girls driving?”

“I think one has a Corvette, and the other…” she said, looking through the check-in sheet. “Has a Mitsu Evo. That’s right- I’ve seen that car. It’s pretty well set up. Well, here’s your wristband and your tech card. Bring your helmet with you when you get teched. Make sure you have an extinguisher. If you don’t, they sell them at the track shop.”

“I have one, but the car is equipped with a fire suppression system, so it isn’t really needed,” I said.

Her eyebrows raised, she said, “Well, that’s not your usual factory option.”

“It is on this car,” I said with a smile, before heading back to my pit.

The guys had warmed the car up, so I grabbed my helmet and drove over to the tech inspection line. As I’d expected, the car got a lot of looks as I rolled through the pits.

When it was my turn to be checked over, the guy took one look inside and said, “This car is ready to rock, isn’t it? Do I even need to check for safety wire?”

“You can if you want,” I said. “If you find the drain plug isn’t wired, well, somebody is in for it.”

Laughing, the guy extended the mirror under the car. “Good to go!” he said and slapped the sticker on the corner of the windshield.

Back at the setup, the guys lifted the car the moment I stepped out, wrapping the tires in warmers immediately. It was still over an hour until the track went hot, but they wanted as much heat in the rubber as possible by then.

It was about this time that Stein pulled up next to us in a Dodge truck, his McLaren on a flatbed trailer. “Mind if I park here?” he asked, leaning out the window.

“Anywhere,” I said. “Who else is coming today?”

“Teddy Bear was supposed to, but they scheduled a reshoot for this weekend. You probably got his spot when he told the track day guys he wouldn’t be able to make it. So now it’s just you and me. And forty or so others.”

“Tech is already open,” I told him. “If you want, I can have my guys get your car off the trailer while you go sign in.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got it,” he said. “It’s no big deal.”

I’d never driven Chuckwalla before, so when the green flag was thrown I went out for a few sighting laps before putting my foot down. A few of the other drivers were fast from the start, clearly familiar with the track, but I wanted to learn the layout and work my way up to a reasonable speed.

After ten laps or so I felt as if I understood the flow of the track, so with every successive lap after that I opened it up a little bit. Eventually I got to a point where I was really pushing it, enjoying the feel of that big BMW slamming into the corners, clipping the apexes and rocketing out hard, tires squealing in their quest for grip.

After running for maybe an hour, I pulled in to let Joachim look at the data and adjust the car as necessary.

Taking a moment to grab a Coke from the cooler and relax while the guys did their thing, I sat down in one of the folding chairs and stretched my legs.

“Excuse me,” a voice said, waking me from my momentary doze. “You’re driving the Temecula BMW race car, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” I said to the woman standing there. “What can I do for you?”

“Can I- can I sit? she asked, pointing to one of the other chairs.

“Of course,” I said. “Want something to drink? We have bottled water, Cokes, I think I saw some Red Bulls…”

“No, I’m fine, thanks,” she said, sitting in the chair facing me. “You’re really fast out there,” she finally said.

I shrugged, not sure what to say.

“My daughter is out there,” she said.

“Yeah? What’s she driving?” I asked, curious.

“She has a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo, It’s gray,” she added.

“Yeah, I saw it. She was going pretty good,” I said.

“Yeah, I bet she didn’t think so when you passed her on the outside in the bowl like that,” the woman said, her tone wry.

“Her lines were good, her braking markers solid,” I said. "I couldn’t see her doing anything wrong.”

“But you still went by her like she was in reverse,” the woman objected.

“Look,” I said. “My car has twice- literally twice the horsepower, and maybe five hundred less pounds. I’m running pure race tires- not street-legal sport tires, and they’re three or four inches wider. I’d be doing something really wrong if I couldn’t roll by like that,” I said.

Just then Joachim came over and said, “The car’s ready. It didn’t take much- just a little bit of tweaking on the suspension, and we adjusted the shift points a bit.”

“And that,” I said to the woman as Joachim went back. “I have a professional crew making adjustments to optimize the car to this track.”

“I guess that all makes sense,” she said.

“So, I hate to be rude, but I need to get back out there. You came over for a reason, and I’m pretty sure we haven’t gotten to it,” I said.

Looking nervous, the woman said, “My daughter wants to race professionally, and when I heard that it was a woman driving the BMW out there, I thought maybe…”

“I could offer some tips?” I suggested.

“Yeah,” she said, looking abashed.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Bring her over here at lunchtime and let’s talk.”

She left, and I climbed into the car for some more laps. It didn’t take me long to get back up to speed, the car feeling even more planted than before. There were a few other drivers that took me some time to pass, but none that managed to pass me once I got in the groove.

All too soon, they waved the checkered flag to indicate that the track was closing for lunch, so I pulled in along with everybody else.

Back at the pit, the guys lifted the car and threw the tire warmers on the moment I stepped out. Ditching the helmet and unzipping my race suit, the breeze almost chilled me after the heat in the car.

Joachim handed me a sandwich and another Coke as I sat down to rest. My first bite of the ham and cheese made me realize how hungry I actually was, and I devoured the rest in short order.

“Damn, Lizzie, you were on freaking fire out there,” Stein said as he walked up, a burrito from the track cafe in his hand. “Seriously, freaking fire.” He grabbed a Red Bull from the cooler and took a seat, leaning back and stretching out. “I’ve seen you punish the shit out of your street cars, so I know it’s not just the race car, but man, it sure doesn’t slow you down any.”

As Stein was talking, the woman from earlier and a gawky girl, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, came over to stand there, looking nervous.

“Hey, you guys,” I said, waving them to come in under the canopy. “Have you eaten? I can have the guys make you sandwiches. Hey, grab some drinks from the cooler, too.”

“Um, we ate,” said the mom.

“What do you have to drink?” asked the daughter, so I pointed her in the direction of the big cooler. She grabbed herself a Red Bull and sat down by her mom, facing me.

Stein looked back forth between me and the two women, wondering what was going on.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m Leah, this here is Stein. He drives that McLaren over there,” I said, pointing to his car. “I didn’t get your name earlier,” I said to the mom.

“Oh- I’m Lainey. This is my daughter, Madison,” she said.

“Do you go by Madison, or Maddie?” I asked.

“Maddie,” she said, smiling shyly.

“Maddie, your mom told me you want to be a professional racer,” I said, to start the conversation going.

“Yeah,” she said, her smile wide. “More than anything.”

“I’m not sure what sort of life or career advice I can give,” I said, “But I’d be happy to give you some driving tips.”

Looking confused, Maddie asked, “Well, I mean, like, how did you get to be where you are? That car of yours- it’s a GT3, right?”

Stein barked out a quick laugh, and I gave him a ‘can it’ look.

“I’m not actually a professional racer,” I said. “I’m just out here, enjoying driving fast around a track, same as you.”

Confused, Lainey said, “But all this? If you aren’t a professional…”

“No, she’s just really rich,” Stein said. “Her in-laws gave her the car for her birthday a few months ago.”

“That’s true,” I said. “I’m not getting paid to do this- in fact, I’m paying a metric assload of money to drive this car here this weekend.”

The look of disillusionment on Lainey’s face was terrible to see, but it didn’t seem to bother Maddie at all.

“So you own this whole setup? The hauler, the race car, all of it?” she asked, looking around.

“Sort of,” I said. “I own the car, but the rig is owned by Temecula BMW. I just hire the guys and the truck.”

“What she’s leaving out is that she owns the dealership,” Stein said.

Sighing, I said, “No, I don’t actually. Not yet, anyway. My father in law owns it.”

“So this is just a… a hobby or something for you?” Lainey asked.

“Yeah, basically,” I agreed with a shrug.

“But you’re the fastest driver out there today, and there are some fast guys here,” Maddie said.

“A lot of that is the car,” Lainey said to her daughter.

“Don’t kid yourself,” Stein said. “See her daily driver over there?” he asked, pointing at my orange M6. “I’ve seen her on the track in that, and she freaking rails. Hard.”

“Does that have the Competition package?” Maddie asked, looking at my coupe.

“Yeah,” I replied. “But it’s a stock car. No mods yet.”

“How much slower would you go in that?” Maddie asked.

“A few seconds, for sure,” I said. “I probably wouldn’t be the fastest out here today if I was driving my M6.”

“You’d still be one of the fastest,” Stein said. “You were blowing everyone’s doors off at Willow.”

“Hey, Joachim?” I called out. “Can you prep my street car? I want to do some laps after lunch.”

“Sure thing, Leah,” he said and hustled over to get the car ready and teched.

“Your Evo, it has a passenger seat, right?” I asked Maddie. When she nodded yes, I said, “Let’s do a few laps in my BMW, then a few in your Evo. Maybe I can see where you might pick up some more speed.”

“Are you sure?” Maddie asked.

“Yeah, why not?” I said. “Maybe we can get you a second or two.”

“Kid, you’re more of a man than me,” Stein said to Maddie. “The idea of riding with Leah terrifies me.”

“She’ll be O.K., right?” Lainey asked, worried.

“Yeah, the car is solid,” I said. “We won’t crash.”

When they waved the green flag after lunch, Maddie was buckled into the passenger seat in the M6. On our out lap I kept the speed reasonable and talked Maddie through the lines and the braking points I was using. On lap two, I picked up the pace a fair bit, but still kept up a running commentary as I drove, trying to do what Alain had done for me at Willow Springs.

By lap five of so we were really flying. Of course the car wasn’t as sharp as the GT3, but it was still holding the track extremely well for a production street car.

“You take a totally different line through that turn than I do,” Maddie shouted over the engine noise as we exited the bowl and headed towards the little right-handed uphill kink.

“It’s to set the next turn up correctly,” I said as I threw the car to the left and ran over the curbing on the inside as we accelerated onto the back straight. “Are you doing O.K.?” I asked after we jinked over the hill.

“I’m good!”

“Alright then, let’s see what we can do,” I said as we flew down the little straight leading into the ninety-degree left-hander. I waited, then stomped on the brakes and threw the car sideways into the turn, kicking the back end out under power to oversteer the car through the double apex.

“Holy shit!” Maddie yelped as the tires hooked up and yanked us back into line just in time to throw it into the following right-hander.

“This car doesn’t have the grip of the race car,” I explained. “So I need to break the back end loose on some of these turns or it’ll run wide.”

Seeing that Maddie was doing fine, even though she was gripping the door’s grab bar for dear life, I squeezed everything I could out of that poor coupe.

The tires howling out of the right onto the front straight, the engine strained to put all six hundred of its horses to the asphalt. I’d given up on talking, as I was too focused on wringing that car’s neck, but Maddie managed to get out an, “Oh, shit!” as I slammed on the pedal and the Brembos clamped down on the ceramic rotors like a pit bull on a Chihuahua as we flew into turn one.

Throwing the car into turn two, I let it run wide right to avoid a Porsche Carrera, then back across the track to the left to line up turn three’s apex.

I thought I heard Maddie say something, but with the engine and tire noises, I couldn’t hear a word she might have said.

After a couple more laps full tilt like that, I pulled back into the pits.

Lainey ran over from where she’d been watching in the grandstand and wrapped Maddie in her arms in relief once we stepped out of the car.

“Mom! That was so amazing! We were going so fast!” she babbled as she took off her helmet.

While the two were talking, a guy in a Chuckwalla Raceway shirt came over to talk to me, and he didn’t look happy.

“Look,” he said. “This isn’t a race, alright? Some of those passes- well, O.K., most of those passes you were making out there were hard, but clean, but there were a few- I got complaints, alright? I was watching, and you were never really at risk- I mean, you obviously know what you’re doing, but you were spooking some of the other drivers.”

“Sorry?” I said with a shrug. “I was just out there having fun, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that, I do, but not many drivers out here are used to getting mugged like that. It spooks ‘em, you passing around the outside sideways in a double-apex. They don’t expect it, and when all of a sudden you’re right there, they kinda freak out.”

“I was going faster in that, earlier,” I protested, jabbing a thumb at the GT3.

“Yeah, you were, but you never got so squirrelly in that. I guess it’s different when it doesn’t look like you’re on the ragged edge as you go by.”

“Well, I think I’m done in the street car for the day,” I said. “Hopefully that’ll calm peoples’ nerves down.”

“Yeah, let’s hope so,” the guy said. “And hey, I saw from the list that your name is Leah Farmer, right?”

“That’s me,” I admitted.

“Look for an email about an invite-only track day coming up,” he said as he walked away.

Maddie and her mom had stopped talking and were just standing there, watching me get chewed out by the track official.

“That’s bullshit!” Maddie said when the guy had gotten out of earshot.

“Mad,” her mom said, warning her about her language.

“Seriously, Mom, Leah was never out of control, even for a moment! Those people are just pissed off because she kicked their asses!”

“Language, Madison,” her mom cautioned.

Trying to divert attention away from me, I asked, “So- ready to take me for a spin in your Evo?”

“I dunno…” Maddie hedged. “It’s gonna feel slow… Can we go out in that?" she asked, pointing at the GT3.

“Sorry- no passenger seat,” I said with a shrug. “Seriously- let’s go out in your car. Maybe I can help you with some pointers.”

Maddie was right- it did feel slow in her car, but like I said- half the horsepower, almost all the weight. Her style was very different from mine, too- she was very precise in her lines and never, ever let the car get loose. I guessed the all wheel drive had something to do with that, but I was sure that it was mostly Maddie's driving style and level of confidence.

The car’s torque vectoring was a bit disconcerting to me, but it tracked true enough. After a few laps, we pulled in to the pit and found Lainey talking to Stein.

“You want to know the real key to Leah’s speed?” I heard him ask as we got near. “She just doesn’t give a fuck. That’s it.”

Lainey looked up and saw us approaching. “How did it go?” she asked her daughter.

“Good,” Maddie said. “Leah showed me some things, and I think if I can really learn what she was talking about I should be able to go faster.”

“Hey, Lizzie- can I ask you a question?” Stein said, loud enough to turn Lainey and Maddie’s attention to what he just asked.

“Of course, Stein,” I said, wondering where he was going with this.

“What would you do if you ran off the track and wrecked your M6?” he asked.

“I guess it depends on how wrecked…” I said.

“Totaled. Just completely trashed, not a single part worth salvaging,” Stein clarified.

“I guess I’d buy another one?”

“What’s that- a hundred and seventy-five grand, right?” Stein asked.

“Yeah, something like that,” I agreed.

“So, what would you do if you wrecked the GT3?” he asked.

“Um, I guess if I completely destroyed it, I dunno- buy another one? They only build enough to satisfy pre-orders, though, so I’d probably have to wait until next year’s allotment come out,” I said.

“And how much would that cost?” Stein asked.

“Five hundred grand?” I said with a shrug.

“See that?” Stein said, turning to Lainey. “She doesn’t even know how much that car cost,” he said, jerking his thumb at the GT3. “The big bummer if she wrecked it would be the wait until she could spend half a million dollars on a new one. That’s what I mean. Leah is willing to go faster than anybody else here today because there is near zero risk as far as she’s concerned. Me, if I wreck my McLaren, I have six months of fighting with my insurance company, meanwhile I’m driving my pickup and wishing to hell I hadn’t fucked my nice car up at the track. If your daughter trashes her Mitsubishi, that’s a big deal, right? How about if she runs into somebody? Leah would just walk over to their pit and say, ‘Sorry- let me pay for that,’ and that’s that. She runs me in my McLaren off the track and fucks it up, hell, maybe she buys it from me to make me whole, you know? It’s just money, after all. This complete and utter lack of concern for repercussions gives her the confidence to push it harder than anybody else here.”

Giving him a cool look, I said, “I wouldn’t pay to get your car fixed, Stein. I’d just have it re-wrapped.”

Laughing, he said, “Bitch!”

“Is he right, Leah?” Maddie asked.

“I’ll admit he’s not entirely wrong,” I conceded.

“How much money do you actually even have?” she asked, her eyes wide. Her mom tried to let her know the question was rude, but I answered anyway.

“Like Stein said, there isn’t a car here today that I couldn’t buy,” I said.

“With the change under her sofa cushions,” Stein added, unhelpfully.

“You really are an ass sometimes,” I said to him, rolling my eyes.

“That’s why you love me,” he said, laughing.