Page 16 of Dirty Air
“You’re such a good boy.” His mother squeezes his cheek until he bats her away.
Ella snatches the phone from Madison and reverses the video to dissect the jacket. “I haven’t seen this style in a long time.”
“I think I was in Formation 3 when we made it.”
“It’s ugly.”
“Thank you.”
She pinches the screen with her fingers, zooming in to look at it. “You’d have more fans if you had attractive clothing. Rafael has attractive clothing, but they made me take off his hat when we entered the garage.”
“You boughtFerraro merch?!” Fritz huffs. “I should cancel your pass. Have security kick you out. There is still time.”
“How do you know this girl?” Fritz’s mother asks Madison. “Would she like to come to dinner with us?”
“We don’t know her personally.” Madison uses the break in the conversation to retrieve her phone. “Her video got very popular very quickly. A lot of people like that Fritz took the time to talk to her, since most drivers don’t do that.”
Ella snorts. “Most drivers have more than one fan.”
“I am not getting you anything for your birthday this year.”
“Good. You have terrible tastes.”
“The video has been played over a million times since she uploaded it a few hours ago.” Madison pulls up a couple of screenshots. “It’s been shared by a couple of major sports accounts too. You’ve gained thousands of followers just today.”
Even Ella looks impressed.
Madison smiles. “I know you’re not online often, so I thought you’d like to know.”
Fritz doesn’t know what to do with the information. Still, he says, “Yes, thank you.”
The next morning, Fritz enters the paddock with his sister and mother in tow. They think the photographers are silly, so they give them a show—striking model poses with each other and trying their best to embarrass Fritz.
Fritz continues walking. After twenty-two years of them, he’s immune.
It does seem like there’s more eyes on him today, but it’s his home race and his family draws attention wherever they go.
He takes them straight to hospitality and grabs himself a coffee to go. While the others are in line for food, he wonders if he can sneak out of the building unnoticed.
Yeah, probably.
They’re adults. They found the garage yesterday without his help.
Fritz walks right back out the front door and takes a longer, less direct, path to the garage.
He loves his family, but his sister and mother are far easier to digest outside of work, when he doesn’t have a job to do or the entire world watching his every move.
“I am not here,” Fritz announces to his garage before ducking straight into his driver’s room.
He knows it won’t work for long, so he pushes his headphones into his ears and lays out on the bare mattress. He imagines the car and tries to remember every little thing he felt during practice. The grip of the mediums, the hards, how long they took to warm up.
He still has another practice, another opportunity to test the new wing on the straight.
His phone buzzes with a text alert and Fritz is surprised to see it’s from Craig. His team principal doesn’t usually text him.
Can I meet with you and your father early tomorrow morning? Right when the paddock opens.
Hopefully that’s just a routine conversation. Fritz replies with an affirmative and forwards the message to his father.
