Chapter Four:

"I said pull over, Letty. I'll drive for a while."

"Mia, I'm fine." Letty snapped back at her, drumming her fingers on the steering column.

"You're not fine, dammit! I've known you since we were kids and you've never stayed quiet this long. Pull the hell over!" Mia bit back and reached for the radio. "Dom, we gotta find someplace to eat."

"Mia…" he began but was cut off.

"Dom—NOW!"

"Lady Problems, there, Mia?" Came Vince's cackle over the radio waves. Letty laughed.

"Fuck that, Vince. At least you made Lady-Stick-Up-Her-Ass laugh."

"Mia, lay off and take the next exit. We'll go from there."

"Whatever."
Half an hour later we were all outside a Waffle House. Vince was holding Mia back from the Louisville Slugger from the backseat of his car. Letty moved to approach Mia and I got in the way

"I don't know what's goin' on with you two and but you're gonna let it go. I thought you two were supposed to be friends, but Mia, I gotta say, you rippin' into her like that ain't the Mia Toretto I know." I turned to Letty. "I don't know why you left and quite frankly, I don't give much of a damn anymore. What I do care about is that I get the chance to know my mother; aside from the stories I've heard since I could walk."

"Maya, I don't…" I held up my hands.

"Mia and Vince are riding together; Daddy, you and Leon are stuck together…I'll be with L…" I stopped. "I'll be with Mom."

I saw her smile to herself—this was a small victory on the road to repairing the bridges we'd burned in our relationship, and with that we headed into the Waffle House. Dad pulled Mom aside.

"What now?" she chided, swatting playfully at his hands.

"Watch what she orders…always gets the same thing whenever a place has 24-hour breakfast."

"What, am I heading into another Twilight Zone moment?" Dom didn't answer but Letty could see the answer in his eyes. She stalked into the slightly dingy diner with Daddy's arm around her neck, whispering something in her ear that made him sucker-punch him in the gut.

"What's good?"

"What, no Waffle Houses in Santa Rosa, Lady-Stick-Up-Her-Ass?" I retorted as she rolled her eyes.

"So you heard that, did you?"

"I think the whole damn world heard it, Mom."

"So, other than the racing restrictions, what else has Dear Ole Toretto gone all tight-assed about?" I sighed and rolled my eyes.

"There's the million dollar question. Let me put it this way: school's about the only place I go without being tailed by god-only-knows-how-many of Daddy's goons."

"They've spent too much time breathin' NOS fumes to see straight." Mom said, laughing.

"What can I get you ladies to drink?" The waitress asked.

"Coffee and tomato juice," came the unison reply. The waitress looked at us like we had three heads before turning and walking away.

"She's never done that before…"I could feel the nerves lowly reclaiming my mind set towards my mother.

"So, how long have I been the equivalent of Johnny Tran to Mia?"

"There's another loaded question. She isn't usually like that." I stopped talking when our waitress returned with our drinks. "I think she's trying to deal with not having to be my mom 24/7 anymore…not that she ain't damn good at it. She'd die happy if she could get me to lose interest in cars." She laughed again.

"Yeah, you're definitely your mother's daughter."

"Was there ever any doubting it from the moment you laid eyes on me in Santa Rosa?"

"No, it was like lookin' in a goddamn mirror!" I cocked my head, contemplating her words.

"I think you just nailed why I'm not allowed to race."

"What, it's taken you from the moment you saw me till now to figure out that you're the spitting image of your menace-to-racers-everywhere mother?

The waitress returned to take our orders and we got the same look from her when we both ordered chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, fried apples and coffee.

"So, I've never seen you at the parties at Race Wars, one of the only things I'm allowed to go to by myself."

"You ever see Dom at those parties?"

"No…"

"He was too busy fighting with me to go to the parties." I felt myself tense physically as the walls slowly went back up.

"Ma, is that what they meant by trying to protect me?"

"Dom thought that if you didn't know where I was then Johnny would leave you alone."

"Johnny, sure; Ming-Na's a whole different enchilada. Hell's more likely to freeze over—twice."

"We should have thrown that bastard and his family off the pier when we had the chance."

"Why, so I'd spend the first eighteen years of my life bouncing from home to home while my parents rot in prison? Thanks but no thanks."

"When I was your age I'd been suspended every year; three times a semester."

"What the hell for?"

"It was always about Dom."

"I get suspended in the first week of school and I'll be doing time at the diner till midterms."

"What you fight over?"

"You and Daddy…Ming-Na and her cousins talk shit about me or my family, I get impulsive."

"How long you got till school starts?" she asked, I shrugged in response.

"Two weeks after labor day, I think. Why?" I wasn't following her train of thought.

"I'm gonna go around Dom's pansy-ass no-racing rule…what he don't know won't hurt him and what happens in Santa Rosa stays in Santa Rosa,

"You're serious?"

"As the heart attack Dom'll have when he finds out."

"When I find out what, Letty?"

"That she's moving to Los Angeles." I answered impulsively. I wasn't sure why I'd said that; maybe it was to stall another fight. "And I was hoping you might let me go to Santa Rosa to spend some time with Mom before school starts back and I have no time for anything?" he glanced suspiciously at Mom, and then back at me, almost as if he knew we weren't telling the truth.

"We'll discuss it later." I groaned when he said this.

"Great; why bother with the bullshit when everybody knows 'we'll discuss' means Daddy Dom will do a lot of yelling and he'll say no and that'll be the end of it." The waitress returned with our food, walking unknowingly into a highly awkward moment. "If you don't mind, I don't need a guard dog to eat my food and not get into trouble."

"What the hell was that?!" I shrugged. In all actuality, my mouth had pretty much overridden my head. "By the way, that's my smart mouth you got."

"So you're the one he's cursin' at when I piss him off…nice to know." I laughed at my own lame joke, trying to lighten the moment up, only to realize that I was failing miserably. I went back to poking at my food, not really eating any more of it since I'd lost my appetite.

We left nearly an hour later and after about an hour more of driving, we go to the base. We were met by Taylor—the sister of someone on Hector's crew—who promptly dragged hector over, and soon enough the coronas had been broken out.

"So I'm guessing nobody's told your moms about You-know-who?" she asked. I shrugged.