Slip Angle

Owen Hales is forty three hundredths of a second faster than me, which would be less irritating if he had brought his own car.

The time appears on the display before he reaches grid. 54.08. I look down at the 54.51 in my notebook, then back at the display, as though one of them might have been entered by somebody with a generous attitude toward numbers.

Neither changes.

At autocross we take separate timed runs around a course of cones, so his fastest clean time counts against mine even when both belong to my car.

Our club runs six events across ten summer weeks in southern Ontario. I have paid for all six. This is the first, and already I am reconsidering the company.

He pulls into our space and switches off the engine. Then he punches the air inside the car. His fist catches the sun visor. He brings it down carefully. When he sees me through the open window, some of the smile goes.

Oh, absolutely not.

“Did you hit anything?” I ask.

“Only that.” He points up.

“On the course.”

“No. Clean.”

“Good. Move the seat.”

He unfastens his belt. “You don't want the account of my heroic final sector?”

“I want it with you out of the car.”

He gets out immediately, helmet in one hand, the other still lifted as if there is more celebrating he has misplaced. His hair has flattened on one side and risen on the other. I have known him for almost a year and have yet to see it do anything that looks deliberate.

I put my notebook on the folding chair and peel the magnetic one off the door. Thirty two is my number. A hundred and thirty two is his. Giving him a third of the available door space seemed reasonable when we were looking at the tire invoice.

The Civic was the first thing I bought entirely with money I earned. The invoice was six hundred and sixty dollars. He paid half. I kept the reserve for the gap between my last lab shift and my first salary, and we both got a full summer of events instead of the three I could manage alone. I had budgeted for wear and entry fees. I had even written down what would happen if his car was repaired early. There was no category for standing beside my own hatchback while somebody else used it to win.

“You were better through the last section,” I say.

“Much.”

I slide the one into its envelope.

“Somebody's going to ask me whether it was down to my excellent natural ability,” he adds. “I would appreciate a few minutes before you tell them it was mostly a better exit.”

“It was mostly a better exit.”

“Well, there goes that.”

He is smiling again. I can do more with this version of him. The one who was checking whether I could withstand a person having a good time was going to become a problem.

I take the key from him and crouch beside the front tire. The chalk mark I made this morning has rubbed off at the edge. I check the surface, then straighten. Owen stands clear while I work. He has asked before touching anything all day, which I appreciate even more now that I would enjoy having a legitimate complaint about him.

“Where did you change the line?” I ask.

He points toward the course. “Before that last right. I stayed left longer. Had more room coming out.”

“You were late going in.”

“Yes.”

“On purpose?”

“No. That part was terrible. I thought I'd thrown it away.” He looks back across the asphalt, following something I can only partly see from here. “Then the exit was there and I took it. Don't copy the terrible part.”

I turn the key over in my hand. There is a small crack in the plastic case. My father offered to replace it when I was home last month, having greeted me at the door with a new rear wiper blade. We are a family in which I missed you can come with a part number. I brought him a jar of the jam he likes and asked about the pump at work. Neither of us mentioned that I had been looking forward to the visit all week. He has never come to an event. He asks how much tire life I have left, and I send him a photograph of the tread instead of the results.

“Show me on the video afterward,” I say.

“All of it?”

“Especially the terrible part.”

Deena raises her clipboard at the end of the row. “Thirty two. You're next. Helmet on.”

I pick up my helmet. Owen takes the notebook off the chair before I put a foot through it.

“You have my seat position written down?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“I was going to say I can manage it from memory.”

“Then it will be useful to see whether you're right.”

He laughs, and I look up instead of putting my helmet on. I have said something to annoy him. He seems delighted. I could try that again.

I get in, bring the seat forward, and check that it has latched. Belt. Helmet strap. Camera secure. The water bottle and equipment are already out of the cabin. There is nothing here I haven't touched, checked, paid for, or worried about while lying awake.

Owen bends slightly toward the window.

“Your second slalom cone,” he says. “You gave it a lot of room.”

“I know.”

“Right.”

He steps back. No demonstration with his hands. No explanation of a thing I have just told him I understand. I settle into the seat and take one full breath before starting the engine.

I put my hands on the wheel. My right thumb rests against the worn spot it always finds, and I look toward the start.

Deena sends me forward. At the start, the marshal waits while a course worker returns a fallen cone to its chalk outline. Beyond him the course makes sense: the first right, the slalom, the broad turnaround, then the section where I have been arriving with too little room and too many plans.

There are no scouts. There is no prize money. If I win our class today, I will get points toward the summer championship and a plaque small enough to fit in my bag.

My hands are tight on the wheel for a plaque I could carry in one palm.

I loosen them.

The marshal signals.

At the first turn, I brake where I meant to. The car takes the line and I am already looking ahead, nearer to the next cone than I was last time. Through the slalom I stop making room for a mistake I haven't made. Left, right, left. The seat bolster presses my ribs as the load changes sides. The last cone passes close without moving.

At the turnaround I come off the brake too soon. The front tire chirps and the nose runs wider than I want. I have to wait, and for an instant all I can think is that I know this car, I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway.

There is no time to finish being angry. I straighten, accelerate, and get my eyes onto the next section.

Owen stayed left longer. I stay left, but I am arriving faster than I expected. I turn sooner than he described, leave myself room to open the steering, and take the exit that is actually here. The finish passes. I lift, slow through the marked area, and look at the display.

54.17.

“Yes,” I say, alone in the car.

Then I subtract.

Nine hundredths. I could spend the rest of the afternoon identifying where I lost more than that. None of those places would alter the number.

Owen is waiting beside our space. I park, switch off, and pull off my helmet. His notebook is open in his hand.

“That slalom,” he says. “Leah. That was good.”

I let myself smile. I was there. It was.

“The turnaround wasn't.”

“Didn't look like it from here.”

“I came off too soon. Had to wait.”

He writes something down. The pen barely works, so he shakes it and tries again. I take one of mine from the door pocket and hold it out. His fingers touch mine as he takes it. I leave my hand there until he looks up.

“Nine hundredths,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Your last run could still be very bad.”

He shuts the notebook. “I appreciate your faith.”

“Go on.”

I get out, change the numbers, and give him the key. He moves the seat back, checks the latch, and gets ready without asking whether I mind having finished. I do mind. I am finished anyway.

His final run is faster on the clock, but a cone goes over in the last section. The penalty makes his earlier clean time his best. When the results go up, Owen is first, I am second, and Miles Duvall is third.

Miles studies the sheet beside me.

“You're both coming to the next one?”

“Yes.”

“Same car?”

“Yes.”

He checks the gap between his time and mine. “I'll need to find something, then.”

“You were quicker at the turnaround,” I say.

“You were quicker everywhere else.” He moves aside so Owen can see the sheet. “Good drive.”

Owen shakes his hand. “You too.”

There is a photograph beside the results board. I hold my second place plaque with the printed side out because it is second place, not an infectious disease. The volunteer taking the picture asks us to move closer. Owen steps toward me. His upper arm rests briefly against mine, warm through his shirt, and my attention follows his other hand as he lowers the plaque. I look at the camera before I look at his mouth again.

“Leah,” Deena calls. “Collection crew. Grab a stack.”

I put the plaque in my bag and go collect cones.

By the time the equipment is packed, my forearms are dirty and I have a blister where the rim of a cone caught my finger. Owen has spent twenty minutes taking down the timing equipment. Neither a master's project nor a class win makes us exempt from carrying things.

He brings the pump over in its case. It is his; he lent it this morning. I put my tire gauge away, unclip the camera, and remove the card.

“Copy this tonight?” I ask, holding it out.

“Yes. Original files too?”

“Please.”

He puts it in the little plastic holder and into the zipped pocket of his bag. I watch him do it before stowing the camera. Losing footage to a man's pocket lint would be an exceptionally stupid way to make my project harder.

My phone rings while I am moving the folding chairs. My older sister, Anna.

“You coming Wednesday?” she asks when I answer.

“Yes.”

“I'm bringing the apartment photos. I need you to look at them.”

“Has the bathroom still got the window into the kitchen?”

“Different apartment, Leah. Please keep up.”

“Wednesday. I will look.”

“Properly. Not while thinking about a car.”

I glance at Owen. He is trying to fit both chairs into the hatch without putting them on top of the camera case.

“I can manage that.”

“How'd you do?”

“Second.”

“Nice.”

It is nice. It is also a result I will think about on Wednesday if I don't make an effort.

“Tell me on the way to class,” she says. “I have to go.”

When I put the phone away, Owen is holding one chair above the other.

“Other way up,” I tell him. “Then slide them toward you.”

He tries it. They fit.

“Thursday at six?” he asks.

“I finish in the lab at five. Six is good.”

“I'll have the files. And Ben cleared that shelf for your gear.”

I close the hatch. We arranged to leave the bulky event equipment at the garage where Owen and Ben are repairing his car. My apartment is up two flights of stairs. Ben had asked for a fixed amount of shelf space, which made me like him before we had met properly.

Owen offers me the key. I take it, but neither of us lets go quickly enough. His fingers are rough at the tips. There is a pale line across one knuckle, and I move my thumb without meaning to, just far enough to feel it.

He looks at our hands.

I pull mine back.

“Your pause before the turnaround,” I say. “What were you waiting for?”

He takes a second to answer. “For it to settle. Before I turned back.”

“Did it feel unsettled?”

“Not yet.”

I had seen that pause on the video of his first run and thought he hadn't decided what to do. That is what I had done. It might still have cost him time. It might have saved him some. I need his account before I choose which.

“Show me Thursday.”

“I will.”

I open the driver's door. He stays where he is.

“Are you getting in?” I ask.

“I wasn't sure if you wanted a minute.”

“I had fifty four seconds. Get in.”

He laughs and comes around to the passenger side. I have to move my bag off the seat for him. It takes up more room than it needs, and for the first time today I am pleased to have to make space.