Counterpoints Read online

  Every journalist must have wanted to ask him about it.

  “What goes on in your mind during a race?” she pressed the button of her recorder and attached it to one of the jacket pockets.

  “Usually nothing. The trick is to think about what you are doing, which buttons you have to press on the wheel, when to brake… very practical things. If you don’t want mistakes, you must stay focused on what you are doing and ignore the rest”

  The cold breeze sent his hair back just then and Isabella took a glance at his green/gray eyes. They were such an intense color and they looked as deep and strong as an ocean during a storm. She sensed his passion for the sport when he spoke about it.

  “And do you always manage to keep your mind off other things?” she was curious to know. For her – and possibly for any woman on the face of the earth- it was hard to concentrate on something when she had a personal problem or something else that bothered her.

  “Yes, I keep my mind on the goal at all times. I don’t let my personal life interfere” he answered straight away. Isabella raised her eyebrows.

  “Racing is everything to me” he added. They came up to a set of standings. They were empty of course, nobody was on the track but them.

  “What about bad days?” she just couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t a machine, like the one he was driving after all. Surely, he had a weak spot, too. The wind started to blow stronger now, so Isabella raised her left hand to pull up her hood.

  “I have bad days, but then I get in the car, I stop thinking and I turn my day around.”

  “Wow. How can you stop thinking?” she wondered. Isabella definitely didn’t know how to do that. Why hadn’t she been informed on how to switch off her brain?

  “I don’t know” he pushed his hood on too. “I just think sometimes thinking too much stops us from living the way we want. And it sounds like a waste of time. We should do whatever we feel like doing, not only what’s best. And the car gives me this freedom, the freedom to just drive and focus on going as fast as possible”

  “Sounds like a therapy” she smiled.

  “I guess you could say that” he smiled back. “That’s where I crashed last year” he indicated a guardrail near a sharp left turn. “I was training, using a car of a previous year, not the one I was using during the championship of course, and my brakes didn’t work properly. So, I turned the wheel, switched gears to try and slow down the car but it was too late, I hit the guardrail nonetheless”

  Isabella looked closely to what he was showing her, expecting to see some signs of the impact but there were none.

  “And were you scared that time?” maybe it was a silly question, she regretted it the minute she spoke the words. Of course, he must have been when something like that happens unexpectedly. Instead he said:

  “No. Things like that can happen at times. They shouldn’t, but they do.”

  “Have you ever been frightened?” she asked as delicately as possible, doing her best not to hit a soft spot.

  “Now that you’ve asked me, I don’t think I’ve ever have” he shrugged a little, with that sexy, innocent look on his face.

  Isabella blinked twice. That was the most insane thing she had heard in years.

  “You are telling me that you have had I don’t know maybe two to ten severe impacts in your life during races and you have never feared for your safety?” they reached the fast part of the track, where there were hardly any curves at all.

  “Does it surprise you?” he smirked.

  “Well, frankly it does. A little.”

  “Are you scared of cycling?” he asked her.

  “Not since I was five” she smiled, knowing where he was going with this.

  “If I were afraid, I wouldn’t be in that car anymore. You can’t race and be scared. Of course it’s not easy to start again after an accident. But I do it anyway, because I love to race and I trust my team of mechanics”

  “And because you are little crazy, too” Isabella said and looked at him briefly while they kept peddling along the track.

  “Of course I am, I drive a bullet, remember?” Christopher looked ahead with a smile on his lips.

  Isabella thought about his words for a moment: it made sense to trust ones team. At the end of the day, the driver was the one who risked his life and no relationship can survive without trust. Not even in sports.

  “What is your emotional state when you race?”

  “I feel hyper. I feel the adrenaline and it makes me feel powerful and content” he spoke with a certain spark in his eyes, that made his answer even more convincing.

  “I want to be number one. At all times. And when that doesn’t happen, I am angry with myself and I channel that anger to make amends next time”

  They were silent for a while as they approached the same spot where they had started their bicycle ride. They stopped but didn’t leave the tarmac.

  “Have you always wanted to be a driver?”

  “Never a doubt. I have been preparing for this since my father put me on a kart for the first time when I was six. I dreamed about racing like him. And here I am.”

  She nodded. It all seemed so perfect, destiny at its best, written in the stars.

  The only thing that was off, was that his father had died a long time ago, doing what he loved the most. Although she was curious to know directly from him, she didn’t dare mention it. It wasn’t the right time. Christopher had made it quite clear he didn’t like to talk about him and his past.

  “We should go back inside” he said looking up at the sky. The wind had brought back some clouds and it looked like it was going to rain again soon.

  Isabella couldn’t believe how the weather changed so quickly. It was impossible to predict what was going to happen half an hour from then.

  “Yes, we should. The weather is so ‘moody’ around here” she said walking side by side with him. They were going towards the entrance where they had taken the bikes.

  “It’s as moody as a woman’s” he teased.

  “Well, I can’t argue about that. You seem to know women quite well.”

  There, she teased him back. Even if he had been dead on bull accurate – Isabella could get quite moody herself – his observation had led to another truth: Christopher was a ladies man, Isabella had to keep it in mind no matter how good it felt to hang out with him, no matter how flattering he was. He was a pro.

  Christopher seemed to be taken aback a little by Isabella’s comment, but didn’t say anything else. He opened the glass, sliding door and let her in first.

  Once inside, Isabella noticed how the gym was now animated with people in MB uniforms. Isabella had no idea who they were, but they all seemed to nod at her or smile or greet her.

  She unzipped the jacket Christopher had given her and she was about to take it off, when she froze in place as a set of hands brushed her shoulders. She jumped a little at his touch. Even if he hadn’t touched her skin, it took her only a second to imagine those fingers on her bare shoulders.

  He gently helped her out of the jacket and took in her sweet scent. Isabella smelled divine, a mixture of vanilla and almond.

  “Thank you” she said to him, turning her head in his direction. “I enjoyed the tour.”

  She held his gaze for a second and then lowered her eyes. His stare was so intense, she felt overwhelmed.

  “Me, too. I love to get my ass kicked by a smart, good looking woman” he teased.

  “My pleasure, anytime really. If all that winning gets to you, let me know when you want someone to beat you” she teased him back.

  It was so easy to play around with him, too easy actually, Isabella felt it was going to bite her big time. Christopher was so intense and exciting at the same time. She like how good he had made her feel on the track earlier. He was such a flirt.

  “I have to go now. I think Hillary and Noah are waiting for me.”

  They had been actually waiting for her for the last –she checked her watch- fifteen minutes.<
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  “I’m late.” She made a oops face that made him smile.

  He raised his shoulders a little. “My bad. Tell them I just couldn’t get enough of your questions.”

  People had started walking around them. He had walked her in the corridor and they were now standing there, looking at each other.

  “I’ll see you around then” he said touching her right shoulder. Isabella’s tightened her grip around her camera and took a picture of him then. She loved those kind of shots, when they were so sudden and the subject of the picture wasn’t able to strike a pose. He blinked after the flash and gave her a sly glance.

  “What If I told you I hated that, would you stop doing it?” he asked jokingly.

  She started walking towards the flight of stairs that would lead her back to the meeting room upstairs and said without even turning around:

  “Nope” And she disappeared from his eye sight, leaving him there for a few seconds, to take in the image of her beautiful body and floating, light brown hair as she walked away.

  Chapter 4

  Interviewing Noah was a completely different experience. When she had made it back to the meeting room, she had found him sitting at the table with Hillary, who was deep into something on her laptop. He had been there, drinking coffee waiting for her. He had smiled as soon as Isabella had entered the room and invited her to sit on his left, since Hillary had been on his right.

  “You guys carry on. I have to make a few phone calls to the web designer who did this fan site. I’ll be back soon” Hillary had left the room shortly after her arrival and so Isabella had started asking him a few questions, just as she had done with Christopher.

  “Do you mind?” she had said, referring to her recorder.

  “No, it’s fine” and he had patiently answered her questions, sitting there without Christopher’s eagerness to move around and do something else while talking to her.

  Isabella didn’t have a plan: she actually had no idea she was going to ask any questions that day. Anyway, after reading their biographies, she had come prepared with general questions for both of them and so Noah’s interview sounded a lot like Christopher’s, a part from Noah’s answers

  Of course both had answered that they were not scared of racing. But Noah couldn’t have been more different from his team mate.

  “Yes, I always knew I would be a driver and make it up to here” he said, without modesty “I’m very competitive. Race drivers usually are. Christopher and I are really different in that: his competitiveness is more towards his father than the rest of us. He’s friends with all the other drivers. I like to separate my friendship from my career”

  That had been his first comment, when she had asked if he always wanted to be a driver. “Maybe it’s because I struggled to become part of this world… I wasn’t born into it and my family didn’t have enough money to support me. So, it was either I exceeded at the sport, and got sponsors to back me up or I had to find something else to do.”

  While he spoke Isabella took a few moments to analyze the person next to her. This was a man who had won a championship as best driver two years ago. From what she had gathered from her research, ninety nine percent of drivers nowadays came from a similar category- like kart racing for instance or other national divisions- and many were sons of previous drivers.

  Noah’s father was a mechanic, his mother a sales assistant. It sounded like a fairytale: normal guy finds happiness, living his dream. The Cinderella of sports, only instead of a shoe, there was a car that fit him perfectly.

  “That’s very impressive” she said referring to his achievements. Isabella had to admit that Noah’s story sounded anything but easy “To who or what do you owe your success?“

  “To nobody. To a series of fortunate events and because I put heart and soul into it” he replied. Noah sipped his coffee very relaxed. Of course he felt so confident in that situation, he was used to answer those sort of questions.

  “You mentioned that most of the other drivers are friends…” he nodded waiting for her to continue. “Aren’t you friends with Christopher?”

  She had seen them laugh the night before and felt there had been a good chemistry between them in the meeting room hours before.

  “We are just team mates, who luckily get along. This year we race on the same team, but we are also going to race against each other. And I am going to prove him who’s the best between us two.”

  Isabella’s eyes widened a little and she raised an eyebrow, stunned by his boldness.

  He sounded very cold and detached from it all. Isabella wondered how much was true and how much was just appearance. To her Noah had seemed very polite and reserved up to then. Now, she couldn’t help but think he was a little full of himself.

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked sensing her uncertainty.

  “Of course, what is there to doubt?” there wasn’t anything to doubt, Isabella thought. She could sense that Noah really meant those words, that he was going to try and be the talk of the championship.

  She could see it in his eyes and read it clearly in his words. Noah knew just how good he was.

  Isabella just happened to misjudge him, he wasn’t reserved and polite. He was cold, maybe a little calculative and presumptuous. First impressions aren’t always right, she reminded herself.

  “I’m loyal to myself and If I want something, I just make it happen. I study the situation and do all it takes. That’s why they call me the ‘calculator’” he added, as if he was trying to justify his behavior. He gave her the same cold, unemotional glance as before, and took another sip from his cup.

  Something was off, he just gave her a weird feeling. Isabella wasn’t the kind of person who trusted her instincts that much, but she had learned that when she felt uncomfortable, it was usually because her mind and body were trying to tell her that she had to get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

  The truth was that Noah’s boldness, cold hearted answers gave her the shivers. Wasn’t he being a little too cynical? Or was she being a little too emotional?

  After a couple of more questions, Isabella rounded up the interview, took a few pictures of Noah and then walked outside the room with him, where they found a very nervous Hillary, still talking on the phone.

  “Are you okay?” she asked Hillary. Her colleague smoothed her skirt down and pushed her hair back before answering.

  “I’m great” she answered quickly, but it was clear she was anything but okay. “If you guys are done, Noah you are wanted for a briefing with your team downstairs. I believe it’s about tomorrow’s presentation of the car. I need to work with Isabella for a while.”

  Then turning to Isabella, she put an arm around her and said “Let’s go get a drink. We have a lot to discuss my dear, we are going online with the website a week from now…” and they started walking to the main entrance. Hillary waved goodbye to Noah and continued her conversation with Isabella.

  She turned to wave to Noah too and saw that he was already walking away.

  Despite the break up and the loss of one of her best friends – Angela- Isabella was grateful for many things. Right now she was particularly grateful for coffee. Yes, coffee sounded like a good idea, any time of the day. In fact, over the last five days she had had enough energy thanks to one drink and one drink only. And that had been coffee. Where would this world be without caffeine?

  How could she describe her week to her family and friends? Busy wasn’t enough, it had been frantic.

  There had been so much to absorb and to get used to, during the photo shoots and the press releases. Anyway, five days in the job, Isabella had started getting the hang of it. What killed her though was that after working long hours during the day- following Noah and Christopher around- there were evening events to attend, too. That’s when she realized how grateful she was towards the man who began to use coffee as an energy drink.

  It was almost six pm, the day before her trip to Valencia. She had made it back to
the hotel, after spending the morning with Christopher on a photo shoot and interview for a local TV and the afternoon with Noah at one of his sponsor’s events. The whole week had revolved around the new MB car and people had been very curious about its performance.

  Isabella was feeling rather tired and all she wanted to do was take a long hot shower and call her sister. And that’s exactly what she did.

  She turned the water on in the large shower cabin and let it run until it was nice and hot. Isabella just couldn’t wait to feel it run down her face. It had been a very long week, a gratifying one nevertheless.

  She had met the drivers and drafted their profiles to post on the fan website and blog. She had discussed the outline of the site with Hillary, who had then taught her how to use the program to post pictures and articles/interviews. Unfortunately, she had also discovered that Mr. Jenkins was a complete bore and that it wasn’t going to be easy to please him. We’ll see about that, she thought, determined to make him sorry he doubted her to begin with.

  Also, she found out Noah wasn’t going to be an easy person to work with. He had been arrogant and dismissive all week. He was never on time for interviews or whatever event he had in his schedule. He hated to speak to his fans –which was why Isabella was surprised he had any fans at all, since all he did was wave to them, without even bothering to look at them. What is more, Noah had this constant expression on his face, a combination of arrogance and boredom.

  Isabella just didn’t like the vibe she got from him.

  At the end of the day, it really didn’t matter. She didn’t have to befriend him, all they needed to do was keep a good, professional relationship, just to make sure work went well. Still, nothing forbid her from seeing him as self-centered big baby.

  Christopher, on the other hand, was a pleasant person to spend time with. He was always available and kind. Of course, he was also always surrounded by good looking women. Isabella sighed at the thought.