Page 37 of False Start

I eased the car into the lefthand lane, turning onto a side street. “You figured it out while setting up a team account?”

“Alright, maybe ‘decode’ was the wrong word. I contacted a friend.”

“Is that code for an employee?”

Trent clearly outsourced most of his life. The lack of clean laundry and the sparkling clean house had only been surface-level indicators. Surely, he had an agent, an assistant, staff.

He shook his head. “Barbie and Ken. Or Mike and Hayden, rather. They gave me their number, offered to help us out if we needed a hand, being newbies and all.”

And apparently, he also outsourced his navigation duties.

“An assistant, though?” He stroked his chin. “I don’t hate the idea. If it didn’t sound so much like cheating, I’d give it a whirl. But we’ve got this.”

“We barely have a clue.”

“We have directions. At least through the next couple of stops.” He rapped the window with his knuckle. “Take this right.”

I followed his directions, waiting for him to cue up a podcast and enjoy some silence. He closed the handbook and reclined back into his seat, eyes on me. “So, why are you doing this, anyway? Like, the real reason.”

My jaw tightened. “Didn’t I already tell you? It’s my dad’s car. He wanted to race it, but he can’t. So, I’m doing it instead. Besides, it’s fun.”

“You don’t look like you’re having fun.” His eyes seared onto the side of my face.

I trained my eyes on the road. “I would be having fun with Derek. He knew how to drive stick.”

Trent frowned. “I’ll learn. This rally just doesn’t seem like your deal.”

“My deal? You have no idea what ‘my deal’ even is.”

His lips tipped up in a grin. “I know a little bit about you. You play kickball, you study a lot, you signed up for this rally because your dad didn’t race this car, and you don’t like me.”

“Okay,” I relented, with a grin that matched his. “Maybe you know a little about me.”

An awkward silence stretched out between us, and I glanced over to Trent, expecting to find him huddled into his phone. He shifted in his seat to face me.

“My dad died a couple of years ago. The car was his project.” The words tumbled out, a well-rehearsed accounting of what happened without getting into the messy emotions. “I couldn’t just get rid of the thing until I…I don’t know, achieved his dreams.”

“Your dad wanted to participate in a shitty car rally?” His tone wasn’t flippant, but curious.

“He wanted to race it. You know, back in the seventies, it was probably fast. But then it just sat in the driveway and once every year or so, he’d tinker with it.” I sighed, pursing my lips and pushing away a slew of memories before continuing. “I checked out a couple of different options: salt flats, hill climbs, autocross.”

“Right, so you could have spent an afternoon and dragged this car to an autocross, achieved your dad’s dream by lunch. Why this rally?”

I could have easily avoided all the time and cost of repairing the car. Within the first six months, the car ran. Not well and certainly not for long, but I could have hauled it out to a coffee and car event, paid fifty bucks, plunked on a helmet and taken it through an autocross track in a parking lot. But even when I found an event, showed up early on a Sunday morning, thegesture felt hollow, insincere. Like I was harming his memory by not caring more. By not putting in more effort.

“I wanted to do something he would have loved. Not just check a box.”

“So, you and your dad were close?”

I flinched at the question, surprised by it. “I guess. We weren’t best friends, but I loved him.”

I spoke to him every week. After an hour-long phone call with my mom, he’d come on the line, ask how I was doing, tell me he missed me. But he never visited. He never asked about my work or my life. My mom connected our relationship more than anything, and only after his death did I regret that. I wished I had learned more about the man who raised me.

“What about you? Are you close with your parents?” I asked.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer, but it deflected the attention off me. I didn’t want to delve into my relationship with my dad. I didn’t want to break down in tears on a car rally with a stranger.

“Absolutely.”

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