Chapter 16 – In his wake?
I woke up the next morning late again. I'd had a horrible night's sleep. It had been filled with nightmares about me and Dom.
About Dom meeting another girl and falling for her while I was gone.
About something happening to him and me not being there for him.
About Dom telling me he didn't love me when I went back.
About me falling for someone else and not wanting to go back.
And worst of all perhaps, about Dom telling me he'd realized he didn't need me anymore when I went back.
It had kept me up half the night thinking about it after I woke up from that dream. I didn't know what to do.
It's like I know I'm missing stuff happening back home and I don't want to. Stuff's changing and I'm not there to see it. Things might never be the same when I go back and I'll have missed all the events that made it happen. I don't want anything to change because I want my old life back. But then my old life wasn't so hot either. But it was familiar. I want Dom to change. But it also scares me that he might change and realize he doesn't want me anymore.
It's one of those you can't have everything situations but that doesn't stop me from wanting everything anyway.
Laying in bed wasn't helping me with any of the things that I feel I have to get done. I hauled my ass out of bed and got dressed and walked out into the kitchen. Brian was no where to be seen but he had left a note on the table for me telling me that he'd gone to the garage and I could head up and see how things went on around there if I wanted to.
I figured I may as well. I was kinda hoping that Rome would remember he'd told me he was going to show me Miami too. But I didn't want to go for a drive with him in shop cloths. I figured if I was just going up to meet people and see how their operation worked I didn't really need to be dressed in work clothes anyway. That meant the tank top and cargos I had on were fine.
I snatched up my keys off the kitchen table and headed up to the garage. The place was huge, bigger then I remembered. All the team's cars that had been in there for safety overnight when Brian had showed me his skyline had been moved out and customer work had been brought in.
"Mornin' Lett. I didn't think you were starting till tomorrow." Brian called out as I walked in the door.
"Doesn't matter. I can start now if you've got something you want me to do but I more or less just came down because I didn't want to sit around the boat alone all day."
"No way girl. You can't get dirty a mere hour before I'm putting you in my convertible." Rome told me from behind my right shoulder which caused me to jump. I hadn't seen him when I walked in and his answer surprised me.
"Oh, are we doing that today?" I asked, pretending I'd forgotten about it.
"Yeah, that's today. I'm taking you out for lunch first though. I hope that's ok?"
"Sure." I answered and dodged a dirty look from Brian. I guess Brian figured it was too 'date-like' for us to have lunch before Rome showed me around the city. Oh Brian, I thought we had this figured out, I mused to myself. I guess Brian is still not thrilled with the idea of me seeing his friend.
"Good. Let's go then." Rome started for the door.
I followed him. I felt Brian's eyes boring into my back as we left, Rome holding the door open for me to precede him out of the garage.
"So I get a guided tour of Miami in a convertible eh? You better make it worth my time." I teased as I got into the car.
"Sounds like a challenge to me."
"Oh, it was." I laughed and Rome joined me.
"So, what did you do for fun in L.A.?"
"Raced mostly. Or, well, watched Dom race. Partied every Saturday after he won. Worked. I worked a lot. What do you do for fun?"
"Hang out at Tej's. Man, it's always a happening party at Tej's. You race awful good for someone who mostly only watches."
"Yeah well, I was taught by the best there is."
"Really? Brian taught you to race?" Rome looked serious. I don't know if he was or not but man, he looked it.
I started to laugh and I couldn't stop. I almost peed on the seat of Rome's precious spyder. He thought there was something Brian could teach me about racing?
He wasn't laughing back. I slowed to a laughing stop.
"You were serious? You thought Chumpy could have taught ME how to race?"
"Brian's the best around here. Don't tell him I said so but he's even just a bit better then I am."
"No way there's anything Bri could teach me about racing. Van taught me to race. Back when I was 16."
"Van?"
"Yeah, Dom's dad. Boy it pissed Dom off when his dad taught me to race. He told me once we were gonna rule the streets but I think he meant he'd rule the streets and I'd be by his side smiling while he did it. Either that or the wanted to be the one to teach me and he just got upset that his dad did it."
"He didn't like it when you learned to race?"
"No. Well, that's not fair. Things changed. He didn't mind at first but then it started to piss him off. At first he got off on the fact that his girlfriend could beat every guy on the streets. But him. I've never beaten Dom in a race."
Why was I telling Rome this stuff? I hardly know him at all. He's just easy to talk to. I some how doubt he asked me out to hear about my boyfriend. Even if said boyfriend is technically somewhere in the grey area between boyfriend and Ex.
"You've tried to race him?"
"Well, hell yeah. He's the best in L.A. I beat everyone else. Our friend Leon can catch me about half the time but Dom gets me every time. I know every detail, every trick and weakness of his car but he still always gets away from me in the end. I mean he has all the same advantages of knowing my car but I still don't know how he does it."
"You know I wonder that about Brian some times. I know he's driving a skyline and that alone makes him hard to keep up with but there's more to it then that. It's in the drive to win I think."
"Well, how do you explain why I can't ever beat Dom then? I have just as much drive as he does."
"Maybe you just think you do."
I shot Rome a dirty look. I was just as driven as Dom.
"Isn't this the guy Brian told me about who looked up to his dad more then anyone in the whole world then his dad was killed in a racing accident?"
"Yeah. That's Dom."
"Then they banned him off the tracks for life and he couldn't follow in his Dad's footsteps like he always just assumed he would."
"Yeah." I thought I knew where Rome was going and I didn't like it one bit. He was about to make me feel sorry for Dom in some capacity.
"So all he ever wanted was to follow in his father's footsteps and then his dad was killed. And that would be bad enough but then in his grief he made a stupid mistake and had the one thing he always figured he'd do, and something his dad no doubt wanted for him, taken from him. So then all he has left for a chance to follow his dad in some capacity is this illegal racing, so he does it so fast and so furious that no one can beat him. It's like he's telling the world and his dad that he's just as good at what he does as he would be on the tracks."
"Um." I answered noncommittally.
"You think I'm wrong?" Rome asked.
"No. I think you're right and it pisses the hell outta me."
"Why's that?"
"Cause I'm still mad at him and I don't want anyone making me feel sorry for him. But you're right of course. He's got more reason to want to be the best then I do. I do sort of forget that. But his dad's been gone a long time. It's time for him to make new goals. No one can street race forever. We all have to stop sometime."
Rome nodded in agreement with me.
"True dat. Hope you like Cuban food. I know the people who own this place and they'll take good care of us." Rome told me as he pulled up to a pretty little restaurant.
The smells coming out of the place were so good. I was more hungry then I'd realized. I hope Rome isn't expecting me to eat like a model cause I don't. I'm a real person and I work up an appetite most days in the garage. I don't have to worry much about my weight because of all the activity I do and so I eat when I'm hungry.
"I'm not fussy. I like most food." I admitted as we got out of the car.
"Well, good. That's how I am too."
We walked into the place and sure enough the older woman manning the counter did rush up to us and hug Rome while chattering at him in somewhat broken English. She showed us to a table in the window and looked me up and down.
"Where did you find the beautiful Senoritia?" She asked Rome in her heavily accented English.
"She found us." Rome answered with a laugh.
"Where are you from?" The lady asked me in Spanish.
I could have pretended not to understand but that didn't seem nice at all. The lady reminded me of what every kid's grandmother should be like.
"My family is Portia Rican but I grew up mostly in L.A." I answered her in Spanish.
"Good!" She answered in Spanish then switched to English for Rome's sake. "I'll get you some menus. Your Senoritia can translate for you this time." She laughed at Rome as she said that then bustled off to get us menus.
"You speak Spanish?" Rome asked, one eyebrow raised.
"Yeah." I admitted somewhat sheepishly.
"Why'd you let the gang think you didn't?" Rome asked, still just looking interested.
"Um...Well..." I didn't really want to answer.
"Oh come on now. There must be a reason."
"Yeah. Brian knows I'm bilingual of course but the reason I didn't let on to everyone was because I think that Suki girl is going to try to use my being a 'Rican who doesn't speak Spanish against me some day and it's going to backfire in her face because, oops, I do speak Spanish after all. I'm sorry if that's mean but ever since she gave me attitude about Brian and I didn't back down from her I've just had this feeling that she's out to get me and I don't know why."
Rome laughed at me. The Cuban lady brought menus and we started to look them over as Rome continued to look at me curiously.
"How'd you figure Suki out so well when you hardly know her? She will likely shoot her mouth off in Spanish someday to try and insult you. And then since you'll get it the fur will really start to fly."
"Maybe but I really don't want to fight with her you know? I just don't let people take advantage of me either."
"I understand. She'll come around. She's always nervous of new people trying to take her place around the garage."
"And what exactly is her place? You can't tell me she's a mechanic."
She'd looked too flimsy. I couldn't see her pulling wrenches or getting greasy. Maybe as a female mechanic I shouldn't feel that way but I do. Some women you can imagine pulling wrenches and some you can't. Suki is one of the ones you can't. Of course she is one of those girls who I could see going to learn mechanics in the hopes that the males in the class will fall over themselves to help her do shit.
"No, she doesn't do mechanics. She designs and paints cars. She's really quite good. She'll either have the designs die cut out of vinyl or she's good with the airbrush too. She did her own car and Tej's and a whole bunch more around Miami. People come to her to have her design their pain jobs and then paint their cars."
"I'm not good with paint so she's got no worries there. I can do designs though. I did the designs for my car and Dom's. Plus, well, hell, I did all the cars on our team. I don't know how Vince ended up with a shark not a coyote but I designed all the team's decals."
"Oh yeah? What do they all have other then Vince and his shark?"
"Dom has a rocket ship, go figure." We laughed. "Leon has a Japanese thunder god with a sword and green eyes. Leon has green eyes." I explained. "Jesse has a person riding a bomb. He wanted a rocket and I protested against putting one on a Jetta so I gave him a bomb. He thinks it's a rocket, I let him think that way. Vince and his shark, I don't know how that worked out. I was just fooling around one day and he saw me draw a car that looked sort of like his Maxima with sharks on it and he liked it. What Coyote likes he gets. Brian's supra had something similar to Leon's car and Mia's Acura has a flying angel on it. I have pictures back at the house somewhere. Mia puts the graphics on."
"How'd you pick your own design on the Silvia?"
"I'm tied to the car and it's pulling me along for the ride with it? I don't really know. It was one of those things that just came to me and I put it on there. Some days I hate it because I feel like the person on the side, being pulled along in Dom's wake on my knees. Then sometimes I feel like I am being pulled along but it's by the power in my engine and how I drive it, not by Dom. I don't know..."
"So change the decals." Rome replied. "If they make you mad sometimes then change them. It's just a car, it shouldn't ever bother you by how it looks just sitting there."
"But it's not just a car." I sighed. How to explain why my car was not 'just a car' to someone who saw cars and racing as a cool pastime and way to get an adrenaline fix. I didn't know if I could explain it to someone who didn't eat, breath, live, and sleep racing. "There is no such thing as just a car where I'm from. I've always been into cars. Ever since I can remember. And I had this little purple toy car that I loved. I always said I was going to own a real version of it someday. Then I got older and reality set in and I realized that someday was likely never going to come. But Dom knew how upset I was and he bought me that car for my 16th birthday and taught me to drive. And he sort of helped me design that one. So I just don't think I can up and change it because some days I feel down about how things are playing out you know."
"Yeah. I guess I get that."
We ordered and ate. We mostly stayed away from deep topics for the rest of lunch. I was glad in one way, because I just wanted to have a good time. But I enjoyed talking to Rome too. He was a heck of a listener and he seemed to know what to say and when to say it to help me clarify things or at least gain some perspective on them.
When we finished our lunch we left and got back into the eclipse.
"So where we going now?" I asked out of curiosity.
"Just for a drive around. I'll show you the sights then I have a surprise planned for after supper."
"So this is going to be the all day tour is it?"
"Yeah. I have a full day of activity for the new to Miami planned."
I leaned back in the seat.
"Ok, I'm the new to Miami so let's get the rest of this show on the road."
Rome chuckled and pulled the car away from the curb.
I woke up the next morning late again. I'd had a horrible night's sleep. It had been filled with nightmares about me and Dom.
About Dom meeting another girl and falling for her while I was gone.
About something happening to him and me not being there for him.
About Dom telling me he didn't love me when I went back.
About me falling for someone else and not wanting to go back.
And worst of all perhaps, about Dom telling me he'd realized he didn't need me anymore when I went back.
It had kept me up half the night thinking about it after I woke up from that dream. I didn't know what to do.
It's like I know I'm missing stuff happening back home and I don't want to. Stuff's changing and I'm not there to see it. Things might never be the same when I go back and I'll have missed all the events that made it happen. I don't want anything to change because I want my old life back. But then my old life wasn't so hot either. But it was familiar. I want Dom to change. But it also scares me that he might change and realize he doesn't want me anymore.
It's one of those you can't have everything situations but that doesn't stop me from wanting everything anyway.
Laying in bed wasn't helping me with any of the things that I feel I have to get done. I hauled my ass out of bed and got dressed and walked out into the kitchen. Brian was no where to be seen but he had left a note on the table for me telling me that he'd gone to the garage and I could head up and see how things went on around there if I wanted to.
I figured I may as well. I was kinda hoping that Rome would remember he'd told me he was going to show me Miami too. But I didn't want to go for a drive with him in shop cloths. I figured if I was just going up to meet people and see how their operation worked I didn't really need to be dressed in work clothes anyway. That meant the tank top and cargos I had on were fine.
I snatched up my keys off the kitchen table and headed up to the garage. The place was huge, bigger then I remembered. All the team's cars that had been in there for safety overnight when Brian had showed me his skyline had been moved out and customer work had been brought in.
"Mornin' Lett. I didn't think you were starting till tomorrow." Brian called out as I walked in the door.
"Doesn't matter. I can start now if you've got something you want me to do but I more or less just came down because I didn't want to sit around the boat alone all day."
"No way girl. You can't get dirty a mere hour before I'm putting you in my convertible." Rome told me from behind my right shoulder which caused me to jump. I hadn't seen him when I walked in and his answer surprised me.
"Oh, are we doing that today?" I asked, pretending I'd forgotten about it.
"Yeah, that's today. I'm taking you out for lunch first though. I hope that's ok?"
"Sure." I answered and dodged a dirty look from Brian. I guess Brian figured it was too 'date-like' for us to have lunch before Rome showed me around the city. Oh Brian, I thought we had this figured out, I mused to myself. I guess Brian is still not thrilled with the idea of me seeing his friend.
"Good. Let's go then." Rome started for the door.
I followed him. I felt Brian's eyes boring into my back as we left, Rome holding the door open for me to precede him out of the garage.
"So I get a guided tour of Miami in a convertible eh? You better make it worth my time." I teased as I got into the car.
"Sounds like a challenge to me."
"Oh, it was." I laughed and Rome joined me.
"So, what did you do for fun in L.A.?"
"Raced mostly. Or, well, watched Dom race. Partied every Saturday after he won. Worked. I worked a lot. What do you do for fun?"
"Hang out at Tej's. Man, it's always a happening party at Tej's. You race awful good for someone who mostly only watches."
"Yeah well, I was taught by the best there is."
"Really? Brian taught you to race?" Rome looked serious. I don't know if he was or not but man, he looked it.
I started to laugh and I couldn't stop. I almost peed on the seat of Rome's precious spyder. He thought there was something Brian could teach me about racing?
He wasn't laughing back. I slowed to a laughing stop.
"You were serious? You thought Chumpy could have taught ME how to race?"
"Brian's the best around here. Don't tell him I said so but he's even just a bit better then I am."
"No way there's anything Bri could teach me about racing. Van taught me to race. Back when I was 16."
"Van?"
"Yeah, Dom's dad. Boy it pissed Dom off when his dad taught me to race. He told me once we were gonna rule the streets but I think he meant he'd rule the streets and I'd be by his side smiling while he did it. Either that or the wanted to be the one to teach me and he just got upset that his dad did it."
"He didn't like it when you learned to race?"
"No. Well, that's not fair. Things changed. He didn't mind at first but then it started to piss him off. At first he got off on the fact that his girlfriend could beat every guy on the streets. But him. I've never beaten Dom in a race."
Why was I telling Rome this stuff? I hardly know him at all. He's just easy to talk to. I some how doubt he asked me out to hear about my boyfriend. Even if said boyfriend is technically somewhere in the grey area between boyfriend and Ex.
"You've tried to race him?"
"Well, hell yeah. He's the best in L.A. I beat everyone else. Our friend Leon can catch me about half the time but Dom gets me every time. I know every detail, every trick and weakness of his car but he still always gets away from me in the end. I mean he has all the same advantages of knowing my car but I still don't know how he does it."
"You know I wonder that about Brian some times. I know he's driving a skyline and that alone makes him hard to keep up with but there's more to it then that. It's in the drive to win I think."
"Well, how do you explain why I can't ever beat Dom then? I have just as much drive as he does."
"Maybe you just think you do."
I shot Rome a dirty look. I was just as driven as Dom.
"Isn't this the guy Brian told me about who looked up to his dad more then anyone in the whole world then his dad was killed in a racing accident?"
"Yeah. That's Dom."
"Then they banned him off the tracks for life and he couldn't follow in his Dad's footsteps like he always just assumed he would."
"Yeah." I thought I knew where Rome was going and I didn't like it one bit. He was about to make me feel sorry for Dom in some capacity.
"So all he ever wanted was to follow in his father's footsteps and then his dad was killed. And that would be bad enough but then in his grief he made a stupid mistake and had the one thing he always figured he'd do, and something his dad no doubt wanted for him, taken from him. So then all he has left for a chance to follow his dad in some capacity is this illegal racing, so he does it so fast and so furious that no one can beat him. It's like he's telling the world and his dad that he's just as good at what he does as he would be on the tracks."
"Um." I answered noncommittally.
"You think I'm wrong?" Rome asked.
"No. I think you're right and it pisses the hell outta me."
"Why's that?"
"Cause I'm still mad at him and I don't want anyone making me feel sorry for him. But you're right of course. He's got more reason to want to be the best then I do. I do sort of forget that. But his dad's been gone a long time. It's time for him to make new goals. No one can street race forever. We all have to stop sometime."
Rome nodded in agreement with me.
"True dat. Hope you like Cuban food. I know the people who own this place and they'll take good care of us." Rome told me as he pulled up to a pretty little restaurant.
The smells coming out of the place were so good. I was more hungry then I'd realized. I hope Rome isn't expecting me to eat like a model cause I don't. I'm a real person and I work up an appetite most days in the garage. I don't have to worry much about my weight because of all the activity I do and so I eat when I'm hungry.
"I'm not fussy. I like most food." I admitted as we got out of the car.
"Well, good. That's how I am too."
We walked into the place and sure enough the older woman manning the counter did rush up to us and hug Rome while chattering at him in somewhat broken English. She showed us to a table in the window and looked me up and down.
"Where did you find the beautiful Senoritia?" She asked Rome in her heavily accented English.
"She found us." Rome answered with a laugh.
"Where are you from?" The lady asked me in Spanish.
I could have pretended not to understand but that didn't seem nice at all. The lady reminded me of what every kid's grandmother should be like.
"My family is Portia Rican but I grew up mostly in L.A." I answered her in Spanish.
"Good!" She answered in Spanish then switched to English for Rome's sake. "I'll get you some menus. Your Senoritia can translate for you this time." She laughed at Rome as she said that then bustled off to get us menus.
"You speak Spanish?" Rome asked, one eyebrow raised.
"Yeah." I admitted somewhat sheepishly.
"Why'd you let the gang think you didn't?" Rome asked, still just looking interested.
"Um...Well..." I didn't really want to answer.
"Oh come on now. There must be a reason."
"Yeah. Brian knows I'm bilingual of course but the reason I didn't let on to everyone was because I think that Suki girl is going to try to use my being a 'Rican who doesn't speak Spanish against me some day and it's going to backfire in her face because, oops, I do speak Spanish after all. I'm sorry if that's mean but ever since she gave me attitude about Brian and I didn't back down from her I've just had this feeling that she's out to get me and I don't know why."
Rome laughed at me. The Cuban lady brought menus and we started to look them over as Rome continued to look at me curiously.
"How'd you figure Suki out so well when you hardly know her? She will likely shoot her mouth off in Spanish someday to try and insult you. And then since you'll get it the fur will really start to fly."
"Maybe but I really don't want to fight with her you know? I just don't let people take advantage of me either."
"I understand. She'll come around. She's always nervous of new people trying to take her place around the garage."
"And what exactly is her place? You can't tell me she's a mechanic."
She'd looked too flimsy. I couldn't see her pulling wrenches or getting greasy. Maybe as a female mechanic I shouldn't feel that way but I do. Some women you can imagine pulling wrenches and some you can't. Suki is one of the ones you can't. Of course she is one of those girls who I could see going to learn mechanics in the hopes that the males in the class will fall over themselves to help her do shit.
"No, she doesn't do mechanics. She designs and paints cars. She's really quite good. She'll either have the designs die cut out of vinyl or she's good with the airbrush too. She did her own car and Tej's and a whole bunch more around Miami. People come to her to have her design their pain jobs and then paint their cars."
"I'm not good with paint so she's got no worries there. I can do designs though. I did the designs for my car and Dom's. Plus, well, hell, I did all the cars on our team. I don't know how Vince ended up with a shark not a coyote but I designed all the team's decals."
"Oh yeah? What do they all have other then Vince and his shark?"
"Dom has a rocket ship, go figure." We laughed. "Leon has a Japanese thunder god with a sword and green eyes. Leon has green eyes." I explained. "Jesse has a person riding a bomb. He wanted a rocket and I protested against putting one on a Jetta so I gave him a bomb. He thinks it's a rocket, I let him think that way. Vince and his shark, I don't know how that worked out. I was just fooling around one day and he saw me draw a car that looked sort of like his Maxima with sharks on it and he liked it. What Coyote likes he gets. Brian's supra had something similar to Leon's car and Mia's Acura has a flying angel on it. I have pictures back at the house somewhere. Mia puts the graphics on."
"How'd you pick your own design on the Silvia?"
"I'm tied to the car and it's pulling me along for the ride with it? I don't really know. It was one of those things that just came to me and I put it on there. Some days I hate it because I feel like the person on the side, being pulled along in Dom's wake on my knees. Then sometimes I feel like I am being pulled along but it's by the power in my engine and how I drive it, not by Dom. I don't know..."
"So change the decals." Rome replied. "If they make you mad sometimes then change them. It's just a car, it shouldn't ever bother you by how it looks just sitting there."
"But it's not just a car." I sighed. How to explain why my car was not 'just a car' to someone who saw cars and racing as a cool pastime and way to get an adrenaline fix. I didn't know if I could explain it to someone who didn't eat, breath, live, and sleep racing. "There is no such thing as just a car where I'm from. I've always been into cars. Ever since I can remember. And I had this little purple toy car that I loved. I always said I was going to own a real version of it someday. Then I got older and reality set in and I realized that someday was likely never going to come. But Dom knew how upset I was and he bought me that car for my 16th birthday and taught me to drive. And he sort of helped me design that one. So I just don't think I can up and change it because some days I feel down about how things are playing out you know."
"Yeah. I guess I get that."
We ordered and ate. We mostly stayed away from deep topics for the rest of lunch. I was glad in one way, because I just wanted to have a good time. But I enjoyed talking to Rome too. He was a heck of a listener and he seemed to know what to say and when to say it to help me clarify things or at least gain some perspective on them.
When we finished our lunch we left and got back into the eclipse.
"So where we going now?" I asked out of curiosity.
"Just for a drive around. I'll show you the sights then I have a surprise planned for after supper."
"So this is going to be the all day tour is it?"
"Yeah. I have a full day of activity for the new to Miami planned."
I leaned back in the seat.
"Ok, I'm the new to Miami so let's get the rest of this show on the road."
Rome chuckled and pulled the car away from the curb.