THE MARK
The bell above the diner door dingled, the morning sun streaming onto the worn floor as the unfamiliar man strode in. He stopped as the door swung shut behind him and scanned the people talking in pairs and groups scattered around the quaint establishment.
“Whose candy-ass catastrophe of a pink car is that out there?”
Everyone looked, but nobody answered. Jenette, behind the counter, turned her attention from the coffee she was pouring for one of the regulars and sized up this intruder. Cocky, macho, looking for a fight… maybe all of those, maybe none. All Jenette knew was that he wasn’t a local. People in this town didn’t announce themselves like that.
The man swaggered over to the counter and took a seat. Jenette finished up with her regulars, then moseyed over to him and slid a menu down in front of him. “Coffee?” she asked.
“Well, hello darlin’. What’s a sweet thing like you doing in this dead-end town?”
Jenette forced a smile, plunked down a napkin and silverware, then walked away. She tended to her other customers for longer than normal, then came back to the man at the counter. “What’ll you have?” she asked, pulling out her order pad.
“Well, whatdya recommend, darlin’?”
“I recommend that you look at the menu and order something that you want to eat.”
“Ooh, such feistiness! I like that in a woman…” He leaned in and read Jenette’s name-tag. “Jenette. My names Mark. Doin’ a surveying job north of town. What time you get off work, sweetie?”
Jenette cocked her head and stared at him blankly. So far all he’d done is throw insults—at her, her car, her town—all he had to do was put down the diner and he’d have the full set.
“Well, i’ll just have a full plate of bacon and eggs, hon, if ya know how to cook ’em right,” he finally said. Jenette spun away and disappeared into the kitchen. Full set achieved.
THE SETUP
Jenette pulled her Jaguar E-type out onto the main road. The run-in with Mark the day before was still flitting through her head. When she’d purchased this car, it was beat up and rusty. She’d poured time and money into it, getting it to run smooth and strong, and when it could reliably roar down the road, she covered up the dinged, cracked, and rusty body with a coat of bright pink, because, why not? “Candy-ass,” she muttered to herself as she thrummed into town.
At the first stop-light, she pulled up next to a mid-70s era Mustang. It was polished and gleaming and Jenette smiled at how nice it looked, until she got up alongside and saw that it was Mark, in sunglasses, nodding his head to the overly loud revs of his engine as he waited for the light to change. The smile faded only slightly, as she thought ahead to what she was about to do.
When you drive through a town enough, you get to know how things work. This traffic light, for instance, took about two seconds from when the cross street went to red before the main drag went to green. Jenette idled the E-type through the opposing yellow, then red, then brought the engine up like the purr of a tiger, popping the clutch at the exact second her light turned green. The E-type shot across the intersection and growled down the street as the Mustang, all screaming yowls and rasping roars, tried to catch up. Jenette hit the brakes and smoothly stopped at the next light. Mark squealed to a stop, nosing into the intersection, then clanked into reverse and lined himself up with the Jag, revving a few more times for emphasis. Jenette smiled sweetly, gave him a nod, then made an unhurried right turn down the side street to the post office, leaving Mark to rev hopelessly while he waited for the light.
As Jenette expected, Mark sauntered into her diner near the end of her shift.
“That wasn’t a fair fight,” he said as she set a menu down in front of him. “You and me should have a rematch.”
“Oh yeah?” said Jenette. “You think you could take my candy-ass car?”
“Damn straight. In a fair race, you’ll see nothin’ but my taillights, honey.”
“What are the stakes?”
“Well how ’bout if i win, which i expect i will, you owe me a date, tomorrow night.” He leaned in and smiled a creepy leer of a smile at Jenette. She kept cool and left the waitress-smile on her face.
“And if i win?”
Mark leaned back. “You pick whatever you want darlin’. I wouldn’t count on winning.”
Jenette looked down at the counter to keep from laughing. She pulled a napkin off of a pile and wrote on it: “Mustang wins – date. Jag wins – better date,” then drew two lines for their signatures. Mark looked at it and reached for the pen, but Jenette pulled it back and added at the bottom “all bets void in case of natural disaster, national emergency, or if either signed party is in jail.” She signed her name and handed the napkin and pen to Mark. He mulled it over, slapped an ostentatious scribble on it, and slid it back to Jenette.
“So where’s this race takin’ place?”
Jenette pocketed the signed napkin. “Thompkins Corners, about six miles west of the center of town. There’s a long straight stretch of Route 404. Nobody’s on it in the morning. We can go side-by-side for about a mile. Eight AM. Sound good?”
“You just pack yer fancy clothes for our date after i win.”
THE STING
Just before eight the next morning, Jenette pulled up to the intersection marked on the map as Thompkins Corners. Mark’s Mustang was parked in front of the abandoned gas station, which was the only piece of civilization left of Thompkins Corners, other than the roads that crossed there. Jenette stopped her Jaguar in the right lane of Route 404, letting it purr. Mark started up the Mustang with a garrumph and jerkily sidled up next to her, wrecking the peace of the morning with his incessant revving. He let off the gas long enough to shout “Go!” then opened up the throttle to a scream as the back tires echoed with their piercing squeals. Jenette punched the pedal and both cars tore down the blacktop.
Jenette and her E-type had the upper hand early as she was practiced in quick-shifting. The Mustang couldn’t compete with its 70s-technology automatic transmission. But Mark kept up and soon blasted his way past the nose of the Jaguar and swerved too soon in front of Jenette. She eased up just enough to let him in front, then drafted for a while before pressing forward and around, shooting by him, keeping an eye for any oncoming traffic.
Jenette kept the pink E-type ahead by a nose, as both cars steadily increased speed down the empty rural road. She felt that she could probably win this race outright, but that wasn’t her plan. She had to wait. The pummeling roar of two old cars speeding down the asphalt reverberated across the farm fields as Jenette watched the familiar scenery pass by. The old billboard, the cornfield, the dirt road down to the creek, then the rusty signpost where the “reduced speed ahead” sign used to be. She eased up slightly—just enough to let Mark creep out in front. Once he was ahead, she slipped in behind him and hit the brakes hard, slowing to 45 MPH in a few seconds, then down to a comfortable 30. She watched as the Mustang tore away ahead of her, into the small town of Ellington, where Sheriff Breeley liked to park by the ice cream stand in the morning.
As Jenette rumbled her bright pink E-type through Ellington that bright summer morning, she saw, up ahead, the flashing red and blue lights of a police car. She slowed to a crawl as she passed Sheriff Breeley. He was kindly asking the man in the smoking Mustang to step out of the car. “Ooh,” thought Jenette to herself. “Over 90 miles per hour in a 30 MPH zone. That’s gonna be a trip right to jail.”
She pulled the signed napkin out of her pocket and waved it at Mark as she passed by, then happily stepped on the gas and enjoyed the sunny morning, putting some quality miles on a quality race car.
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