Motocross Me (26 page)

His shoulder is doing extremely well- the doctor said collarbones are one of the fastest bones to heal, and he should be completely well for the race this weekend. He’s spent every hour of daylight practicing at Team Yamaha’s private track in Houston, and I think he’s going to do really well in his first professional race.

I really hope you change your mind and decide to come. I can sneak away from the VIP section and watch the races with you, if you still want to avoid Ash. I just want my best friend back, okay?

-Shelby

PS- Mom said Molly told her you decided to live in a dorm on campus next year? Please say this isn’t so…

I let the letter fall to my bed and resume packing. I don’t know why I bothered to read it again; I know what it says by heart. Shelby smiles at me from under the glass in a photo frame on my dresser. I flash her a quick smile and then cover it with newspaper and shove it into the cardboard box.

I guess the best part of the letter was that she still wanted to be friends. We haven’t spoken in person since the second day of Nationals, when Dad ran up to me fuming with rage and fired me in front of everyone.
“How could you cheat like that, Hana?”
  His words sting me now just as badly as the day he first yelled them.

I know I have lost Ash forever, but at least now I have the comfort of knowing that because of Shelby’s unfailing kindness to every living creature, she is going to give me another chance. But I don’t know how that will work since she looks exactly like Ash and the smallest thought of him makes my heart clench and writhe in pain.

I wrap another picture frame and place it neatly in the box. As a general rule, students can’t bring more than a carload of personal belongings with them to the dorms. I survey my room and sigh. I will have to leave a ton of stuff behind. Dad told me my room would always be my room and I was welcome to leave stuff there.  Even though I no longer work at the track, I would always be his daughter, he had said. If that were the case, then why didn’t he try harder to convince me not to move away?

Mom’s personality did a complete turnaround that day of the race. She said she had seen Ash’s heart break as he watched me from the ambulance. She claimed she literally saw the moment when his heart snapped in two: when Ryan pulled me to him and threw an arm around me, holding his trophy in the other hand and smiling at the cameras that captured the moment he was offered a factory ride by FRZ Frame Energy.

Now she is no longer bitter and spiteful. She calls me daily and urges me to move back in with her and attend community college. Though she claims to be sincere, I think she’s only acting this way because my heartbreak is the advantage she needs to get me back and hurt Dad.

 I wouldn’t move in with her anyway. I don’t belong there with her new husband. I don’t belong here with my Dad who still doesn’t look me in the eye and I fear I have lost his trust forever. The only thing I can do now is start over. And I will do that in a stuffy one-bedroom dorm room with Felicia.

I continue packing, looking for only the essentials and tossing them in a box. Every time I walk past my window I look away; the last thing I want to see is a motocross track. My life will never be about motocross again.

I pick up Shelby’s letter and refold it along the creases, only after reading it one more time. At least Ash got his happy ending. Not even my Dad knew that Team Yamaha was scouting along with FRZ Frame. Even though Ash broke his collarbone, they said it was obvious he could ride and offered him a full factory contract when he healed.

He is a real professional motocross racer now.
Good
, I think.
He deserves it
. I haven’t ruined everything after all – just everything that involves me. I fall backwards on the bed and stare at the ceiling, her note still clenched in my hand.

Will I ever find anyone like Ash again?

A light tapping on my bedroom door startles me back to reality. I hear the click of the door handle turn and I shove the letter under my pillow so I won’t have to answer any curious questions. Molly enters my room wearing an apron spotted with steak sauce from tonight’s dinner. In her hand is an envelope, much like the one Shelby used to send me her letter.

I mute the TV out of courtesy and hope whatever she has to say won’t take too long. Molly isn’t mad at me per se, but she is married to my dad who is still very upset with me, and things aren’t the same between us anymore.

“You have another letter.” She hands it to me and takes a seat on the bed. I stifle a groan. Molly only lingers in my room when she wants to talk. So far I have been lucky enough to avoid parental room-lingering for a whole month; guess my luck just ran out.

“I thought kids these days only communicated through emails and text messages,” she says, staring at the envelope as I turn it over in my hand. Great, here comes the parental talk sandwich. Start with general small talk – sandwich in the personal and embarrassingly awkward thing you have to say – then end with more pointless chitchat.

“Back in my day, we wrote letters all the time,” she smiles.

“Maybe that’s why you have such pretty handwriting,” I add my part of the general small talk and wait for the meat of the sandwich to be thrown in. Her eyes dart to the boxes in the corner of the room, then to the TV.

“You made a mistake, Hana.” Wow, no wonder she can’t look me in the eyes. After an unnerving moment of silence, she sighs and grabs my hand. “People screw up. Everyone screws up in their lives…several times.” She gives my hand a squeeze that invites me to stop staring at the floor and look at her. “I want you to know I would never judge you because of it. You are a part of my family, and I love you. Girl, if you even
knew
the mistakes I’ve made in my life…” She shakes her head and trailed off, letting the memories of her past fill her eyes with nostalgia.

I change the subject, “What’s for dinner?”

“That sandwich your dad likes,” she says, and I snort at the mention of an actual edible sandwich. “The one with sliced-up steak, cheese and Worcestershire sauce.”

“You should really think of a name for that concoction. ‘The Molly’ or something.” We laugh, completing the parental talk sandwich.

Molly leaves, closing the door behind her. I wait to examine the envelope until I hear the echo of her footsteps descending the stairs. The scrawly letters are no match for the bubbly strokes of Shelby’s handwriting. There is no return address and it isn’t even addressed to the house, but to Mixon Motocross Park, care of Hana Fisher.

I slide my finger under the seal. Inside is a folded note written on the Grand Plaza hotel stationery and two colorful papers. I examine the first one: it is a ticket for the supercross race in Houston.
SKYBOX SEATING.
The other paper is an official pit pass like the one Teig has been begging my dad to buy him for weeks.

My hands tremble as I unfold the remaining paper – the note. It is only one sentence, scrawled in the center of the paper, followed by an elaborate celebrity-style signature and the number 336.

My first win won’t be any fun unless you’re there to come home with me.

Chapter 24

“I’ll give you fifty dollars for it,” Teig says, reaching for his wallet. “
And
I’ll still wash your truck.”

“Sorry, but no.”  His offer grows exponentially each time he asks. If I hold out long enough he’ll probably offer me his soul.

“Yeah, I get it. You wanna see Ash.” He kicks a bottle cap across the parking lot as we walk. I do feel guilty for turning him down, but Ash mailed
me
the pit pass, and I intend to use it. It isn’t my fault Dad forgot to buy pit passes before they sold out.

“Okay guys,” Molly says, turning to look behind us at a row of signs. “We’re in parking lot B, section 14. Let’s try to remember that for when we leave tonight.”

After spending an hour in traffic, we had finally made it to Reliant Stadium – home of the Houston Supercross. We arrive in Houston three hours before the supercross races start, but hundreds of people are already here. Many of them come early to hang out in the pits and get the professionals’ autographs, but others come to watch the practice and qualifying races that take place before the main race. That’s what my family is here for. I am here for Ash …I think.

“I don’t see what the big deal is. You got all these famous guys’ autographs when they came to Dad’s track last month,” I say. Teig rolls his eyes to the sky and groans, which is his way of letting me know I just didn’t
get it
. I want to ruffle his hair to put him in his place, since he is my little brother and all, but it doesn’t feel right to be condescending to someone who is already my height. He must have had a growth spurt over the summer. Soon he will tower over me just like every other guy in my life.

A rumble of thunder sounds in the distance, threatening rain. “Looks like it’s gonna rain on you anyhow,” Teig says and I give him a playful shove into a parked car.

The stadium in front of us is still several rows of cars away, and we have already been walking for a while. I thought the turnout at Mixon’s Nationals was the biggest amount of people I had ever seen, but this trumps it.

Once our tickets are scanned and our purses searched for weapons or contraband or whatever they think I’d be hiding in there, we make our way into the stadium. I have  never been in a stadium this size. The atmosphere is mesmerizing. There is a collective energy in the air. Everyone is high on anticipation (or exhaust fumes) as they meander through the large crowds.

We ride up three escalators to what appears to be the main floor out of a dozen other identical floors. From here you can walk in a circle around the perimeter of the stadium, which is what we do while Dad looks for their seating section. There are tons of concession stands and merchandise vendors that sell the same type of shirts we had at the Nationals.

“Section 141, here we are,” Dad pockets his tickets and glances at me, probably wondering if I will join them or leave since I don’t have a section 141 ticket.

That’s when I realize what I am about to do. “I’m just gonna… go, um …go meet Shelby,” I sputter and turn to leave.

“Will you be okay by yourself?” Molly calls after me. I nod and give her a thumbs-up before getting lost in the crowd around me. My original plan was to meet up with Shelby and then decide if I should actually see Ash face-to-face. But now that plan seems too lengthy – I want to see Ash now. I want an explanation for his note. It is obvious that I’m forgiven, but am I still girlfriend material?

I step onto the escalator and watch the floor below me sink as I ascend to the skybox level. He will probably tell me that we should take things slow. I hate slow.

A burly man who looks as though he failed Bouncer School holds out a hairy arm to stop me at the top of the escalator. “Ticket?”

I dig through mounds of lip gloss, spearmint gum and Starbursts that fill my purse to retrieve my ticket. I should play it safe and see Shelby first. She could tell me what Ash was thinking and if he was going to tell me to take things slow.

“You can’t get into the skyboxes without a ticket,” Mr. Beer Gut grumbles.

“I have a ticket, thank you,” I snap back. Finally, I find it and wave it in his face. While he checks it for authenticity, I decide I don’t want to wait any longer. I need to see Ash now.

Doing things by myself sucks. Although I am surrounded on every side by diehard motocross fans, I am consumed with loneliness as I step outside of the stadium and look for the entrance to the pits.

A cool breeze joins the dark clouds. It is a nice break from the scorching sun back at home. I notice a group of people holding pit passes and follow them. Soon, we are walking up a flight of concrete stairs that takes us across a four-lane highway adjacent to the stadium. And that’s when I see the pits.

On the other side of the stadium is an entire parking lot full of motocross rigs and tour busses. Monster trucks tall enough for me to walk under play music so loud it reverberates through the ground. Every company that has anything remotely to do with motocross has a canopy set up that advertises themselves and gives out free stuff. It is a lot like the pits at Mixon’s National race, only a dozen times more extreme.

I can’t help but put on a cheesy grin, knowing somewhere in the commotion is Ash – the newest member of Team Yamaha. I wonder if he is thinking about me, expecting me to show up, nervous that maybe I won’t. Ryan is also out there, the newest member of Team FRZ Frame. He probably isn’t thinking about me. I don’t know why that makes my self-esteem drop a notch.

A line of at least a hundred people wait to get into the pits. Thunder rolls again and I see a bolt of lightning flash from behind one of Houston’s skyscrapers. I look around me at all of the excited faces waiting to meet their favorite professional riders. A hurricane could blow through here and I bet these people would grab on to the fence and ride it out like a kid on a mechanical bull.

The preteen duo in front of me can attest to that. They wear matching Dylan Bakers shirts, the same kind we sold at Mixon. I cringe, remembering I no longer work at Dad’s track and correct myself: the girls wear the same shirts
they
sold at Mixon. Their ponytails are held back with a homemade ribbon with the number thirty painted on in blue glitter.

The name and number are familiar, even though I still don’t know any of the professional riders by heart like Shelby and virtually everyone else around here does.

I take a place in line behind them but stand far enough away so any passersby won’t think I am with them. They share a race program and gush over an interview on page twenty-four. I’m exactly eavesdropping, but I have to do something to take my mind off Ash, so I listen to their girlish giggles. Every second I stand in line makes me want to turn around and run for the safety of the stadium. Can I actually face Ash after what happened?