Trackside

Debbie Richardson

"Mine are named María, Juanita, Ronaldo, and Debbie Richardson."

"What."

"Long story."

This is that story.

 

It's seven o'clock in the morning, and class doesn't start for another hour. The morning light is streaking the sky pink as the sun begins to rise, signaling the start of the day for the sleepy town. Well, it's a secondary signal anymore these days. Anyone within half a mile of the local school's track knows what time it is. Like clockwork, that Ramirez kid, up with the roosters, she's at it again.

She's the fastest kid in town.

It's the same forty-five minutes of ground-shaking, window-clattering exhaust resonation every morning. Lap after lap after lap, there's never a complaint. Not since old Carol from up the street moved out of town, anyway. It's refreshing, really, to see such energy come from a quiet corner of the state. For nearly an hour every weekday, up until the first bell rings to signal the start of classes, there's ambition and life echoing down the streets.

The bell rings, and Cruz reigns it in. It feels good. It's going to be a good day.

"Yeah, girl! You smoked it out there today!"

Cruz smiles at the familiar voice. Out alongside the stands surrounding the track, that sweet little pickup truck sits in the same place as every other day. It's their routine, meeting up at the first bell, pep talking for a few minutes, then going across the road to the school.

"Hey, Debbie! How're you this morning?" Cruz asks.

"Better than ever, but look at you!" Debbie responds candidly. "Consistent much? Those lap times were incredible!"

"Aw, well," Cruz shrugs it off as she comes to a halt before the snow-white Chevy. "You timed them?"

"I can't wait to see you try out at the qualifiers next month, you're gonna put those boys to shame."

"I don't know about that."

Debbie laughed. The sunlight glinted off her pristine paint and bent perfectly along her arrow-straight bodylines. Cruz wondered every now and again the aerodynamic implications of being less curvy. Would she go faster if she had a straighter body? Something about streamlining, right? Eh, physics wasn't her strong suit. Surely, the manufacturer knew what they were doing when they created her. Right? Maybe. Sure.

Cruz turns and slowly begins to drive away from the track toward the school. She's got ten minutes to make it to class now. Plenty of time to cruise and chat.

She slips into neutral for a moment while the daily sequence of events continue like clockwork. Crank-crank-crank. Silence. Cruz counts. One-two-three. One-two-three. Crank-crank-cra-vrrrrm. There, that's the sound an engine's supposed to make.

"There we go," Debbie mutters under her breath as she starts to move alongside Cruz.

Cruz had asked once, when they first met. It didn't seem normal to her, shouldn't an engine only crank a couple times before firing? Well, yes. But not everyone makes it off the assembly line with perfect parts. Defects happen. Sometimes more than one at a time. But Debbie always says "Defects aren't definitions. As long as you can start moving, you can do whatever you want. I drove across the country once, all by myself!"

"Everything going alright at home?" Debbie inquires, her voice changing ever so slightly into a more empathetic tone.

Cruz takes a moment to ponder the question, yet another in a series of conversations they'd been having for the last several months.