FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #9

     It was the thing he'd always loved about her.She could never say no to a race. Hardly anyone knew about Callie Thorton and her drag racing, but maybe it was better that way.

     She lived in Derita, North Carolina; in a small town like Derita, nothing was allowed to change. People still had front porches where they liked to sit pretty on Sunday afternoons, drinking lemonade and gossiping as they gently swayed back and forth in their wicker rocking chairs. It was the kind of town where girls were expected to wear dresses and harbor demeanors as sticky sweet as the peaches they ate on the way home from school. High school boys still had to ask permission to take daddy’s little girl out for ice cream and time always seemed to move too slowly. It was a town of tradition and old money, where every street corner was dripping with southern hospitality.  

     Callie Thorton would never fit in there. She despised sundresses, drove a 1986 pick-up truck, and drank too much Red Bull. She was never meant to be cooped up in Derita. Maybe that was the reason she got into racing; there was nothing small town about drag racing and Callie took refuge in that.  

     Every Friday after school, she and her father would swiftly load up the old truck and head to the track. Bill Thorton, Callie’s father, had a beard and owned a shotgun and those where the only two things the town knew about him. Probably because he was intimidating and strikingly resembled Paul Bunion, and to know him would have meant breaking through his stonewall of a demeanor. No one ever tried, and it was better that way. If anyone were to ever find out about the racing, things would never be the same for Bill and Callie Thorton.

     So, they kept it a secret. Callie didn’t have any friends at school and Bill didn’t have any friends at the bank where he worked as a teller, so the racing mainly stayed a secret because they had no one to share it with. And yet, it was all they thought about. Callie craved the thrill of seeing the flash of that green flag and hurling down the track to win race after race. Bill was just pleased to see his only daughter going after her dream, unlike her coward of a father. He always thought of himself as a coward, ever since he’d been too timid to delve into the drag racing world himself.

     Bill didn’t come from money, and spent most of his teenage years in a trailer park; drag racing simply was not an option when he was a kid. He hadn’t spoken to his family in years, but from time to time he would sit on the front porch, beer in hand and the radio on, and imagine intricate theories about what his family was doing now. He hoped they were doing better than they had when he was a kid. He hoped they were doing better than just getting by.

     The Thorton’s lived a duel life. They were chameleons, morphing and adjusting to their surroundings.  In Derita, they were quiet and reserved, keeping to themselves and never asking any favors of anyone. They were invisible, like fireflies during the sunny hours. But outside of Derita, they were an unstoppable duo. They won races, made friends, and became the people the longed to be out there under the hot lights of the race track.

     Yet, somehow Bill and Callie Thorton were never content. The more races they won, the more they longed to truly fit in with the race track crowd. The more speed records they set, the more they just wanted to be like normal people with picket fences and fried chicken dinners on the back porch on Sundays. Every time they loaded up the truck, they wished they could stop pretending and stop cowering in the corner like children.

     Then, one day, it ended. Callie ended their chameleon lifestyle once and for all. They told the other racers that racing was just too expensive, and they stuck by that lie, but really it was something beyond pay checks and car parts. Callie Thorton stopped racing so she and her father could stop hiding behind their double lives and start living again.

     It was the thing Bill Thorton always loved about her; she always did what was right. Hardly anyone knew about Callie Thorton and her drag racing, but maybe it was better that way.

 

 

 

 

back to Contest #9