Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein Page A

We’re back home. She should call first thing in the morning.”
    There was a great deal of shouting I could hear on the other end of the phone, but I couldn’t make out the words. Denny let the shouting go on for quite some time before he said, “Maxwell, I am far too exhausted for this right now. Yell at me tomorrow.”
    He hung up the phone, and when it buzzed again, he refused to answer. It buzzed again and again, relentlessly. And when his landline rang, he refused that, too.
    He didn’t even get under the covers. He lay back on the bed, his knees hanging over the end and his feet dangling to the floor, and he fell into a fast, long sleep and didn’t wake up until morning.

Chapter Twenty-Five
    T hat year we had a cold spell in each winter month. Then when the first warm day of spring finally arrived in April, the trees and flowers and grasses burst to life with such intensity that the television news had to proclaim an allergy emergency. The drugstores literally ran out of allergy medicine. But while the rest of the world was focused on the inconvenience of hay fever, the people in my world had other things to do. Eve continued with the unstoppable process of dying. Zoë spent too much time with her grandparents, and Denny and I worked at trying to ease the pain we felt in our hearts.
    Still, Denny allowed for an occasional diversion, and that April, one presented itself. He had gotten a job offer from one of the racing schools he worked for. They had been hired to provide race car drivers for a television commercial, and they asked Denny to be one of the drivers. The racecourse was in California, a place called Thunderhill Raceway Park. I knew it was happening in April because Denny talked about it quite a bit; he was very excited. But I had no idea that he planned to drive himself there, a ten-hour trip. And I had even less of an idea that he planned on taking me with him.
    Oh, the joy! Denny and me and our BMW, driving all day and into the evening like a couple of banditos running from the law. Like partners in crime. It had to be a crime to lead such a life as we led, a life in which one could escape one’s troubles by racing cars!
    The drive down wasn’t very special. The middle of Oregon is not noted for its scenic beauty, though other parts of Oregon are. And the mountain passes in northern California were still somewhat snowy, which made me nervous. Luckily, the snow of the Siskiyous was confined to the shoulders of the highway, and the road surface was bare and wet. And then we fell out of the sky and into the green fields north of Sacramento.
    The track was relatively new and well cared for. It was challenging, with twists and elevation changes and so much to look at. The morning after we arrived, Denny took me jogging. We jogged the entire track. He was doing it to familiarize himself with the surface. You can’t really see a track from inside a race car traveling at one hundred fifty miles per hour or more, he said. You have to get out and feel it.
    Denny explained to me what he was looking for. Bumps in the pavement that might upset one’s suspension. He touched the pavement at the midpoint of the turns and felt the condition of the asphalt. Were the small stones worn smooth? Could he find better grip slightly off the established racing line? And there were tricks to the slope of certain turns, places where the track appeared level from inside a car but were actually graded ever so slightly to allow rainwater to run off the track and not puddle dangerously.
    After we had traveled the entire track, we returned to the paddock—the infield of the track, where the cars get worked on. Two large trucks had arrived. Several men in racing-crew uniforms erected tents and canopies, and laid out an elaborate food service. Other men unloaded six beautifully identical Aston Martin DB5 automobiles, the kind made famous by James Bond. Denny introduced himself to a man who