Stop-and-Go Penalty – A penalty that requires a driver to stop at their team’s pit for a timed penalty before re-entering the race.
“We need a night out, Sway. We just do!” Emma stressed, pulling at her hair as she watched Noah smack his brother in the thigh with a plastic knife. “Noah,” she scolded. “Put down the fucking knife!”
A handful of guests gawked at us.
“If they were my kids, I would agree you need a night out,” I told her, taking another drink of my mocha.
I couldn’t get enough coffee these days. It seemed, like with everything else, our lifestyle was catching up with me, and I turned to coffee. I had this deal with myself that for every cup I had, I had to drink a full glass of water. This just meant I was drinking all the time, and when I wasn’t drinking something, I was peeing.
I was now down to two cups a day because I couldn’t spend my life in the bathroom.
All my habits aside, we did need a break. It was the middle of the season, and the battle for the chase was in full swing. Jameson was riding in the wild card spot and just as hungry for the spot as the other four drivers in line.
With a string of three top twenty finishes, he had dropped from his fifth place position to eleventh in the points and was feeling the pressure. In turn, we all felt the pressure building. Jameson was good about controlling it, but there were the times when he would lash out at his crew or the guys back at the shop for simple mistakes. He couldn’t blame them for everything, as he was struggling on the track. It happened to every driver out there, and they all took it just as personally as Jameson did.
“So, about going out ...” Emma caught my stare at the wall. “I was thinking we could sneak out when the guys are in Atlanta.”
“You know Richmond follows that. With the chase—”
“Sway,” Emma silenced me. “We. Need. A. Night!”
“You need a night. My kids are good.”
Emma looked over at Casten gathering all the sugar packets on the table at Starbucks and then stuffing them in his pocket for later. It explained his sudden bursts of energy late at night.
“You don’t have angels either,” Emma remarked, gesturing to Arie who’d been staring intently at a group of teenagers before she rolled her eyes. It was slightly amusing every time I saw her roll her eyes. Come on, at nearly four years old, wouldn’t any child be cute rolling their eyes?
“Emma, Jameson will never let me go out in Atlanta. It’s out of the question.”
“Okay.” She turned to me. “Just don’t tell him. Say we’re going out to the movies.”
“Yeah, that’s not happening. I don’t lie to Jameson about things like that. He just worries we will get into trouble, and you know us Emma, we get into trouble.”
“We do not.”
“Really? What about the time in Los Angeles when we went shopping and those fans attacked us?”
“They didn’t attack us, Sway.”
“What about the time in Richmond when we went to that restaurant and had to sneak out the back because our kids trashed the place?”
“Our kids won’t be there.”
She had an answer for everything so I pulled quick time and went for the pole.
“What about the time we went to Jacksonville, and we ended up—”
“All right. I get the fucking point,” she glared, leaning back in the seat to drink her iced tea.
Emma didn’t like to be reminded of our trip to Jacksonville last winter when we got so shit faced that Jameson had to carry us back to the hotel, and Emma ended up naked on her balcony singing “Take My Breath Away” to a hobo on the street. After that night, she wasn’t allowed out without adult supervision, and Alley wasn’t enough. You get Alley drinking enough, and all her common sense turned into bullshit.
The sun coming in through the window next to her sparkled her long black waves of hair. I reached out to touch her hair as I always did. It was mesmerizing.
She slapped my hand away. “Stop that.”
“It’s just so pretty.”
“Yeah, well, touch your husband’s hair, not mine.”
Casten, with a bright smile, sensing some opportunity, moved from the chair next to me, having collected enough sugar packets, and joined Arie at the table next to us. With the same curiosity as Arie, Casten and Noah sat quietly watching the teenagers.
“Sway, please. I need to go out, and Andrea is flying in, and Ami said she’d come.”
“Wait a second,” I waved my hand around before grabbing her face between my palms, seeing through her wicked ways. “You’ve already planned this fucking trip, haven’t you?”
Emma nodded.
“This is peer pressure, you know.” I flipped the lid to my mocha and handed it to the barista for a refill. She knew me well and understood when I was here with Emma refills were imperative. Fuck my water theory.
“It is not,” Emma argued, handing the girl her iced tea for a refill. “Peer pressure is for high schoolers.”
Sam—the barista at our local Starbucks—laughed at our argument and our kids destroying the small café.
“No, it’s not,” I told Emma. “Peer pressure is for everyone.”
“Bullshit,” she sighed, reaching for her lotion to lather up. “Just go out with us.”
“One of these days your brother is going to kill you. You know that, right?”
“Whatever. He’d miss me too much.”
“He wouldn’t just forget about you or anything. I think there’d be a grieving period.”
“God,” she huffed and stood to gather her brats. “You two act as though there’s something wrong with me and my kids.”
I watched as Charlie smacked the barista on the ass as they left.
Nothing was wrong with them, my ass.
Mine weren’t any better when Arie sat down beside one of those teenagers and started asking her questions about her piercings. I was surprised the girl didn’t leak when she drank her coffee.
Against my better judgment and sanity, I convinced Jameson to let me go out with the girls Friday night when we were in Atlanta. With the race being on Saturday night, and a few days before Arie’s fourth birthday, we only had Friday night and hoped none of us got into trouble.
Jameson wasn’t pleased and voiced his concern many times. I wasn’t sure what was worse—me going out with the girls, or him keeping an eye on all three of our kids. Even more, Aiden and Spencer thought it’d be cool if they all got together and watched the kids as a team. Somehow they thought with all of them together they could manage eight kids under the age of ten.
I tried to point out they were outnumbered, but it was almost like they took that as some sort of challenge, and it became a mission to make it through the night.
If only Emma shared the mission to make it through the night.
It started soon after the Nationwide race on Friday night when we left our husbands at the suite in downtown Atlanta. We did have a chaperone—Van.
Emma, Alley, Nancy, Andrea, and even Ami joined me on our night out. I couldn’t tell you what bars we stopped at, just that there were so many I couldn’t keep track. I was one drink away from shitfaced most of the night and just kept it up.
Nancy and Andrea, who rarely went out and it was even more rare that they drank, could barely walk—very close to alcohol poisoning—by the third bar. But, no, they kept step and drank us drink-for-drink despite that.
Nancy found entertainment in Jameson’s favorite drink these days, Monster energy drinks mixed with vanilla vodka. I thought that was what kept her going so strong.
Around midnight, we were all going strong, when I got a text from Jameson that said: I found Casten’s diaper and shirt in the bathroom, and he’s missing. Does he have any secret hiding places I should know about? When should I panic?
I replied: Well, when I can’t find him at home I have Axel look for him. For some reason he comes out of hiding when Axel barks like a dog and pretends to run around on all fours. Just do anything that causes a commotion and he’ll come running for the entertainment. He’s just bored so he hides. And, no, don’t panic unless he doesn’t come out.
I didn’t get a reply right away so I tucked my phone inside my purse and went about the night.
“I think I’m done for the night,” I told Emma by the fourth bar, swaying slightly as I held onto the table we were gathered at.
“No,” she said adamantly. “This isn’t a one drink night. This is the type of night that we should drink a fifth of whatever and show up at the bar to see what happens. I’m expecting one of us to get arrested.”
“Emma,” Nancy scolded. “That would not be good.”
“Mom,” she began, setting her lemon drop down on the table, looking like she was about to give a presidential debate.
For some reason, Alley, who’d been pounding beers all night, thought her expression was the funniest thing she’d ever seen and let out a string of laughs followed by snorts and some tears. It wasn’t pretty.
“Listen to me,” Emma started in again when Alley gained control. “For the three times I’ve been arrested in my life, I’ve enjoyed every experience.”
I tried multiple times throughout the night to convince Emma to call it a night—all with no success.
Tommy showed up about one. Emma was pissed that he showed up because this was apparently a girl’s night, but I held some comfort that Tommy was around. Usually I didn’t do stupid shit when he was around. Tommy did.
I’d like to think I’d matured since my days of getting rip-roaring drunk and tattooing myself, but that night turned into stupidity after Tommy arrived. It was a part of the night that I referred to as the point-of-no-return.
Jameson had been sending me all kinds of weird text messages throughout the night, asking how to do simple tasks with the kids I knew he already knew, but I also understood this was his way of silently making sure I was okay.
Found Casten. Spencer lit the toaster on fire and Casten came out of the pantry eating graham crackers. By the way, does Arie usually take off her clothes and run around naked? That’s not normal, right? Do our kids ever run around fully clothed? By the way, she’s nearly 4. We should get clothes on her.
And then after I replied, assuring him that was normal, he sent another text an hour later that said: Got Spencer and Aiden to bed, but the kids won’t stop! How do you get Arie to sleep without her binkie? She’s nearly four. That thing has to go at some point! I’m sure they don’t allow them in kindergarten.
It was something like three, and the bars were closing so I told him I’d be back in a little while to help him out. Boy, was I wrong.
That was when Tommy fucked us all. Not literally, but he did cause a blown tire or two.
We’d lost people before. Actually, we’d lost someone every time we went out, but I had no idea it’d be Nancy. We were walking down the street to the last open bar when we lost her.
Alley freaked out and was about ready to call the police when Tommy piped up with a confession that shocked us all.
“I kind of told her... it’d be cool if she got a tattoo.” All five of us slapped him on the back of the head after his horrifying confession.
We found her about forty-five minutes later with a tramp stamp that read Hit This in bold calligraphy with a red lips at the end.
“I can honestly say I don’t have the tackiest tattoo in the family now,” Emma said between giggles.
It was horrible. I was sure Jimi wouldn’t be pleased, and Tommy would need to join the witness protection program when Spencer and Jameson found out what he convinced their mother to do.
After that, we made it to the last open bar and stayed there until we got kicked out. Alley got a lap dance from a girl wearing barely anything except thigh high red hooker boots. Andrea threw up on the bartender, only to ask for another drink. Ami found that she was a champ at darts—only she wasn’t throwing them at a dartboard and had to explain to the owner of the bar why she broke all their windows.
Alley caught her hair in a fan and chunks had to be sacrificed.
Van had to leave to take Andrea to the hospital when she got in the way of Ami throwing darts. Turned out when they got lodged in your ass it bled a lot when pulled out. She looked like she had hemorrhoids and wasn’t pleased.
Tommy, completely intoxicated, decided he was in charge now and that just resulted in an even worse plan when he convinced Nancy to steal a cop’s horse.
I couldn’t understand where Nancy’s sense of direction went and why she was following Tommy and his shitty advice tonight.
Nancy made the cop pinky swear not to arrest her when she failed the breathalyzer, but as it turned out, walking around in public was considered frowned upon, too. That landed Tommy, Nancy, Emma, and me in jail when we went to her aid with the cop who couldn’t understand that she was a fifty-year-old woman who’d drank too much and branded her lower back.
She clearly wasn’t rational, and he needed to consider that before arresting us. But no, that cop was not friendly.
As we sat in jail, I looked over the string of text messages from Jameson, which I hadn’t noticed while attempting to gain control over my mother in-law. Each one cracked me up. Most were just messages, but there was a few of Spencer and Aiden wearing make-up—no doubt a product of Lexi and Arie. Those two put make-up on everything, including Casten, which was the next picture. My little baby, not so little, was all dolled up in a princess dress, wearing a crown and plastic earring. He looked pretty good as a girl … as did Aiden.
“How do you still have your phone?” Tommy whispered in my ear, glaring at Alley, who’d been giving him the stink eye since we landed ourselves in this shit hole in Atlanta.
By the way, if you’d never been arrested in downtown Atlanta, keep it that way.
What a nightmare.
“I smuggled it in through my bra.”
“Oh, cool. I usually shove mine down my pants.”
“That’s... disgusting, Tommy.”
He shrugged, undeterred by my remark, and made friends with the guy next to us before flirting with the woman next to Emma. I had to remind him where we were, and clearly picking someone up in jail wasn’t the smartest decision he’d ever made. I could have been wrong, though.
“Hey, she’s a step up,” he winked at the girl, and if I was being honest, I wasn’t entirely sure she was a woman, but I wasn’t telling Tommy that. “In college, I once fucked a female body builder. Not cute, and it was like fucking Vin Diesel with a twat. Beastly even.”
I laughed until I nearly pissed myself before he looked at me with a straight face. “I was so disgusted with myself that I only lasted fifteen seconds, and then she proceeded to bench press me. Talk about emasculating.”
“Oh, fire crotch.” I leaned against him, using him as support. “What would I do without you?”
“Probably laugh a lot less.”
“So, what... did you date her after that?”
“Hey, I didn’t say it was a relationship. We fucked, and occasionally I took her to Subway.”
“Some would classify that as a relationship. Not me, but some.” I smiled when he glared. “But it was nice of you... to take her to Subway and all.”
Another half hour passed after Alley called Van to have him come get us, but apparently he couldn’t so he sent Jameson. I was a little worried.
“So, Emma.” I kicked her shin when she fell asleep beside me. “Was this your idea of a good time?”
“Actually,” she burst into tears. “No.”
Oh, Emma. She was just Emma—wanted the best and ended in disaster every time. Look at her kids. Perfect example right there.
Tommy perked up. “Hey look, it’s Jameson.”
We all looked over to my husband, leaning against the cell with a smirk. I burst out laughing at his appearance. The girls had gotten a hold of him—braided his hair, put eye shadow and lipstick on him, and managed to paint his eyelashes and fingernails. He belonged in here with us.
He smiled at me. I frowned.
He laughed. I stuck my tongue out. It became a game until the officer came to release us.
It took a pretty penny to get us out, and Tommy said he’d pay Jameson back.
“Goddamn right you’re paying me back. And you can help explain this to reporters when they ask why my wife and mother were arrested,” Jameson, though amused, wasn’t pleased by this.
Tommy agreed, and Nancy looked at me and Alley standing against the wall outside the jail looking like we’d been gang raped.
“You mean to tell me I got a tattoo?” Nancy’s face was somewhere between complete mortification and humiliation that her son knew what happened.
Tommy put his arm around Nancy. “We oughta party more often.”
“No,” Jameson shoved Tommy away from his mom. “Keep it up, and you’ll be finding yourself another job.”
That shut Tommy up.
On the way up to the suite, Jameson and I stood in the elevator in silence when an older couple on their way to breakfast stepped inside. Though I still looked very gang raped, my husband’s appearance was far more laughable.
Through snorts and gasping, they barely contained themselves and exited a few floors before ours, but what really set me into fit of giggles were the group of college girls who stared Jameson down as we passed on the way to our suite.
“So many judging looks coming your way,” I whispered in his direction, only to have him trip me.
The group of girls snickered at me.
“Now who’s judging who?”
I glared, picking myself up from the floor. It was my only redeemable response. I had nothing left in me after that night.