Anytime someone dies, I always wonder, did they have regrets? Did they have unfinished business they didn’t get to do or say?
Did my dad have regrets? Had he wished he would have told me the truth? Maybe he didn’t want me to know in fear it’d hurt me more knowing.
Now I won’t know because he’s gone.
Do I have regrets? I have crushing regrets, but I’ve also had the chance to right them a few times and haven’t, so can I call them regrets? I think at this point, they’d be mistakes.
My eyes drift to the track, the pain in my chest suffocating. I draw in a heavy breath trying to relieve the ache. Being here, back in my hometown for the first time in years, it’s a reminder of the last time I was here, anxious, self-destructive and self-important, pushing limits.
Back then, pushing limits with a girl, only one girl, seemed to be what controlled me.
Why her? It’s really quite simple—loving her was a complicated happiness. Despite knowing she was too good for me, I never let go until I had to. I fell completely, forever, into solid fucking love that swam through my veins.
Back then, I wanted to be the breath in her lungs and the rhythm in her chest that would beat for only me. I wanted to forget, but I wanted to remember moments and memories that consumed my heart for years. I wanted kisses under grandstands and to go back to the night I left, kissing her innocence and the feeling of her soft skin against mine.
And even now, years later, I want to go back to the first time I touched her and remember that feeling and live in that moment. I want to get rid of this ache in my chest and the pure fucking torture of being so close now and not knowing how she’ll react to seeing me after the way I ripped myself from her life.
“I’m glad you decided to come home.”
The words move over me, a voice I haven’t heard in a while. I don’t turn around. I know exactly who it is.
Do you notice that guy standing next to the older guy with the white hair and eating a tomato at six in the morning?
I’m not the one eating the tomato. I actually can’t stand tomatoes and gag at the sight of the red acidic vegetable. But that’s a story for another day. I’m actually the one leaning against the chain-link fence, my arms crossed over my chest.
The guy? That’s Glen. The track maintenance supervisor here at Calistoga Speedway.
I don’t say anything to Glen, but instead, I stare at the track and the grass infield. My eyes move over the billboards, the walls and catch fences.
When I left Calistoga ten years ago, I said I wouldn’t come back here. I never wanted to.
Death changed those plans. And now I find myself back home looking at a track that holds every memory I’ve ever had about the girl I left behind.
My eyes move to Glen, and I think about what he said. He’s glad I decided to come home.
Is he really? After the shit I put him, my dad, her. . . this town, everyone through, why would anyone be happy to see me?
Looking at him, a memory hits my chest, damn near knocking the wind out of me.
“You didn’t tell her, did you?” The vagueness of the question spans greater than the history of this track, but something in the way he regards me tells me he knows.
Glen raises an eyebrow, turning to look at me. “About?”
I bury my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “Any of it?”
“No, that’s your business.”
He’s right. It is my business, but I wonder if she knows why I left. Glen does, but has he told her? It doesn’t sound like he has.
“They’re getting a divorce,” Glen notes, knowing I’ll catch the meaning without him telling me who.
I nod. “I know.”
If you had asked me a month ago what I’d be doing in the fall, I would have told you working construction while teaching camp tours at the natural history museum in Santa Barbara, and barely making rent at my one-bedroom apartment on the beach. I never had any intention of coming back here.
Never would I have guessed I’d be back in my hometown—a place I preferred to never set foot in again—let alone be the owner of the local racetrack that’s definitely seen better days.
Two weeks ago my dad, Mike, passed away after a year battle with lung cancer.
That led me back to my hometown.
Anyone in Calistoga will tell you this town and the surrounding wineries are what drives thousands of tourists here every year, but to me, it holds no resemblance to what I remember. What draws me here is this track and what it means to me. My childhood was here. I was raised on this red clay with four corners and a catch fence. It holds every memory I’ve ever had of my dad and the only girl to hold my heart.
My attention moves to the track’s surface, the ruts, the catch fence that’s seen better days. It seems my dad’s health wasn’t the only thing deteriorating around here. “You let this place go to shit,” I say, distancing myself from him and his tomato. “What were you doing all this time?”
I know as soon as I ask, I shouldn’t have by the death glare I receive and the way Glen’s bushy eyebrows knit together. “Piss off. There’s nothing wrong with this place.”
Unfortunately, I can’t say it’s good to be home, but I did miss Glen and his constant bantering.
Clouded with memories, I stare at the track’s surface and the surrounding fence that looks like it needs to be replaced. “Still looks like shit.” Hooking my hands in the links, I shake the fence. It clings against the concrete barriers securing it to the ground. “This needs replacing before the big money comes to town.”
Glen glances at his watch. “Why are you standing here giving me shit when you’re the one who’s late, Trouble.”
Am I? My eyes move to my watch. Shit. He’s right.
“We’re talking about this when I get back tonight,” I warn, pointing my finger in Glen’s face.
“Uh-huh,” Glen grumbles, shrugging in the process, his dusty boots shifting in the gravel below him. “I’m old enough I won’t remember what we were talking about.”
“That’s the excuse you gave my dad. I know better, old man.”
Glen twists his stance and acts like he’s going to nail me in the shin with his cane, then chuckles. “I might be sixty now, but I can still kick your ass, boy.”
Glen has many nicknames for me. Trouble. Boy. Smartass. The list is endless and mostly accurate, but hardly ever my real name. Though I haven’t seen him in close to ten years, we picked up right where we left off. Him telling me what to do and where to go, and me essentially ignoring him.
In the distance, I watch Glen retreat to his house directly across the street from the track where he lives with his wife, Helena. Since getting into town last night, I’ve been successfully avoiding her. She’s an incredible lady, but she’s too much like a surrogate mother to me, one who’s constantly telling me what to do. My plan was to avoid both her and Glen for as long as possible, but that old man can find me anywhere. Much like he could when I was that smartass little shit causing trouble in this town.
I think most people would agree, because of the ruckus I’ve caused in this city, it would have been in everyone’s best interest for me to stay away. I was actually told to leave. Believe me, I wished I hadn’t returned—for a lot of reasons—but it’s not like I had much of a choice in the matter. Either I came home, or I stood by and let Madalyn Campbell takeover everything my dad had worked for. Over my dead body would I let this track go to her. That fucking bitch doesn’t deserve shit.
My dad, Michael Lucas, owned Calistoga Speedway for the last twenty-five years. Having raced for years himself, he hung up his helmet after a bad wreck in Chico, California and settled down in Calistoga where he bought the track. If he couldn’t race, he was hell-bent on making this work. He was a man of passion and put everything he had into this place. He loved this track more than anything in this world, including his health and in turn, his own life.
For a reason unbeknownst to me, he left it to me.
Two days after he passed away, his lawyer called me with the news that he’d left the track to me. I was shocked. After everything I’d put him through growing up, I only assumed he would leave it to Glen and Helena or even his only brother, my Uncle Vic. He didn’t leave a reason, and the will had been updated three weeks before his death. Maybe I’ll never know why he left it to me, but the final result is the same. He left it all to me.
And I’m still running late. . . so the trip down memory lane is gonna have to wait.
I knew when I decided to come home to sort this mess out, I needed a job. When I told my aunt I was coming back for a while, she hooked me up with a temporary job teaching second grade at the local school, Lake Shore Academy, where she’s the principal. The full-time teacher had been in a car accident over the summer and wouldn’t be back until November.
I had no idea how long all this would take, so I accepted the job. Might as well get use out of that education I’m still paying for.
Since graduating from Southern California University two years ago with a master’s degree, this will be my first full-time teaching job, and I think the only reason I landed it is because my Aunt Katherine has always had a soft spot for her delinquent nephew.
I know what you’re thinking after everything I’ve told you about myself so far. You probably have this assumption I don’t give a shit, and I’ve spent some time in jail. . . maybe even addicted to drugs. Am I right? You’re actually wrong if that’s what you think. I’ve never been arrested. Should have a time or two, but I’m very persuasive when I need to be.
And now you’re asking yourself how someone like me gets a master’s degree?
Well for one, I went to school. Just because I like to push limits and get a rise out of everyone doesn’t mean I’m not smart and capable of graduating. Hell, I graduated high school with a 4.0. So not only am I a delinquent, I’m smart enough not to get caught.
Jogging over to my trailer I parked in the pits of the track, I grab my backpack and helmet before rushing back out the door.
I can still see the track in the distance and remember the day I left this place. I remember every single detail about the events leading up to leaving, why I did and who I left behind. The night I left, I had been with Aly after getting in a fight with Madalyn’s husband at the time. Somehow I found myself in Madalyn’s car, which I stole, with Aly. The girl who holds my heart, even now. I wanted to tell her why I’d been so upset, everything Brooks had said to me and everything my dad hadn’t, but I didn’t tell her any of it. Instead, I left her crying in the rain. After leaving her, I didn’t go home like I should have. I didn’t want to see my dad. I didn’t want to hear him lie. So I convinced a guy to buy me a bottle of tequila, and I stopped worrying about everything.
And then, because listening to tequila is never a good idea, I ran my mother’s car through a building hoping it’d kill Brook’s and destroy my mother’s life.
It didn’t. All it got me was arrested and facing the fact that I could possibly go to jail for it.
“Ridge.” Dad looked at me, his message clear. “You’ve left me no other choice here.”
There was truth to his words, I hadn’t left him much of an option.
The memory of the words sting, even now. He cared. He did. I just didn’t give him a chance to make a difference. I was angry and blamed him for something that was out of his control. If anything, I should have thanked him for constantly sticking up for me when he didn’t have to.
“I can’t believe you did this,” he said, closing his eyes.
“She fucking deserved it!”
“I know you’re mad at your mother, but this wasn’t the answer, Ridge. It wasn’t. I love you, but you’ve gone too far this time. It’s time you go see your uncle for a while.”
I remember closing my eyes, remember the way my stomach burned with pent-up frustration and guilt over the decisions Madalyn, my mother, had made without me in mind. Even then I knew what I’d done was wrong. “If I leave, I’m not coming back here.”
He swallowed, his eyes glossy and indecisive. He didn’t want to send me away. “It’s for the best, son.”
That night, I left Calistoga for Santa Barbara to live with my Uncle Vic.
Throwing a leg over my bike, I steady my feet on the ground and kick start my 1931 Indian Scout motorcycle before giving the track one last look.
Looking to my right as I pull out of the fairgrounds, I glance down Oak street. I know what’s down that way. Her house. Even after ten years, I hadn’t forgotten about her. You don’t forget a girl like Aly.
I knew she was still here in Calistoga. I knew she was married and had two kids. Sure, I’d come home with the intention of signing the rights of the track over to Glen and Helena.
And to see Aly again.
After everything I put her through, does it make me a bad person for wanting to see her again? Probably.
Do I care? Not even one bit.
The moment she sees I’m back in town, it won’t matter. I know this girl, and I know exactly what her reaction is going to be when she sees me.
She wasn’t part of the reason why I’m back. She is the reason. I could have signed over the rights to the track and hired someone to deal with my dad’s estate.
I came back to find Aly.