Post Season: Break (1/1)

Chapter Theme: Oh Wonder - Ultralife She’s in the paddock for more than an hour celebrating, and when finally she’s led through the ocean of fans and toward the cab and then back to the hotel she’s in the bar for another four hours celebrating with the rest of the team. Even some of the other drivers are there. Standing by the front of the lobby the Ferrari boys give her a thumbs up and over the rim of her vodka and cranberry she gives a thumbs up back and smiles and drinks.‘Is that your first?’ Joy asks. She tries to sit on the stool beside Seulgi and almost falls and has to hold herself up against the counter. ‘Yeah,’ says Seulgi, giggling. ‘I bet that’s not yours, though, is it?’Joy holds up her glass lazily. The look in her eyes is distant and vaguely comical and very much drunk. ‘No,’ she mumbles, trying not to hiccup. ‘I mean…no. It isn’t. I’ve had quite a few. And now it’s your turn, champ. C’mon.’‘No. I’m only having one or two.’‘But you’re the champion!’‘I’m only have one or two,’ Seulgi repeats.‘You’re no fun. Hey! Hey, Wendy!’ She waves Wendy over and says in a slur, ‘Seulgi here says she’s only having one or two drinks.’‘Well,’ Wendy says, and Seulgi has to look at her fully to realise she’s just as drunk, wobbling from side to side and laughing at absolutely nothing, cheeks blushed rose, drink in her hand. ‘That’s not right,’ she burbles.‘I want to be sober. I want to savour this, you know?’‘The drink.’‘The feeling of winning. Of being champion.’‘You’ve got the rest of the year for that. Why can’t you just get drunk?’Seulgi just laughs. She looks down at the vodka and sniffs it and sets it neatly on the counter. Over in the corner some of the mechanics are playing shot roulette very loudly. Down the other end of the bar Yeri’s sat talking to Jennie and they catch her looking over and smile and wave and she smiles and waves back. Thinking for a moment: They look genuinely happy for me. And then thinking: What about Irene? She checks her phone to find more new texts than the little notification button can properly display but none of them from Irene. Nothing since yesterday. She sits there for a while wondering whether that’s a surprise or not. The weight of it seems rather sudden and clear – Irene has lost. Eighteen months of convincing Seulgi that she would be alright in defeat and alright in conceding that she may longer be the best and months of trying to convince herself and now that reality is confirmed and the future is mired and murky and unknown to Seulgi, like a notion of what may occur as seen through bad glass, or underwater. A vague idea of what could be and what it means for them.Wendy stands swaying and smiling like a woman gone mad. The drink in her hand is half full. ‘How many have you had?’ Seulgi says, amused and distracted for a moment. Wendy makes a gesture with her fingers and says, ‘Only this much. I mean, this many.’‘Two?’‘Few more. You should join me. You deserve it.’‘Maybe some other time.’‘Definitely some other time. And you’re gonna pay, since you’re champion and all. It’s what champions do.’‘How do you know?’‘Dunno,’ Wendy says with a shrug. She forces back a hiccup and laughs at the seeming absurdity of it and says, ‘Well done. I always knew you could do it.’‘Thank you. I mean it.’‘Remember that time we went go-karting for your birthday? When you’d just turned seven.’‘Turned eight,’ Seulgi says.‘Oh yeah. Whatever, I’m drunk. And you beat me by, like, two whole laps.’‘I lapped everyone that day.’‘Even those guys that were in the teenage class. Jesus, the look on their faces when you crossed the line in first place. And then you said one day you were going to be racing champion of the world. Said you were going to make it to Formula 1.’‘Yeah.’‘Well.’ Wendy motions around the room. Then at the championship trophy sat neatly next to Seulgi’s stool on the floor. The look in her eyes is distant and glassy and drunk and emotional and strangely hilarious. ‘I’m so proud of you,’ she says, still swaying, impossible to take serious. ‘I love you.’‘I love you too.’‘Soulmates, you and I. In a platonic way, you know?’‘I know.’‘Can’t believe we’re finally here. Finally at the top.’‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’‘Oh, I know,’ Wendy says, and sips again. ‘I was the brains, you were the brawn. Or something. And Reve, too. Reve helped. Do you get to keep her?’‘The chassis,’ says Seulgi. ‘It was written into my contract, yeah. So, part of her. As a memory. And what a memory it is.’‘You can say that again. Where’s Irene?’Seulgi thinks about it for a minute. Then she says truthfully and with a hint of sadness, ‘I don’t know. Maybe in her room.’‘You should go find her.’‘I think she probably needs this time alone. To process it.’‘I think she’s stronger than you believe,’ Wendy says. ‘Maybe. I think you might be right. She did say as much, but that was where this whole issue even came from. Well, for her, at least. For me, it was a lack of confidence in my career. For her, it was the opposite of that, brought about by her total confidence in her career, if that makes any sense.’Wendy just looks at her blankly.‘What I mean is, her entire career has been as the absolute best. Even before she was winning championships with Samsung everybody in the paddock knew she was the most talented driver. It was just a case of getting into the right team environment. And that confidence was something that never wavered for her. Whereas for me, it was always fleeting. One weekend I’d be on it and the next I’d be way off the wagon and then back to ground zero. That’s what I had to learn to fix. To believe in myself. And she had to learn how to come to terms with the fact that racing might not always be her everything. That there might be life outside of it.’‘Wow,’ Wendy says, sipping again. ‘If I was sober, that would be really moving. But I’m not sober, and I wasn’t really listening. Sorry.’‘Maybe some other time,’ Seulgi says with a grin. ‘Wendy.’‘What?’‘Thank you. For everything. I mean it.’‘Hey, I’m always here.’ She holds up her nearly-empty glass and winks at Seulgi and says, ‘Here’s to many more years, and many more championships.’‘Amen,’ says Seulgi.  It’s almost eleven in the evening when she works up the courage to text Irene and ask where she is, slightly tipsy and having had a couple more drinks than she would have liked. She’s still at the bar, a good bit quieter now. Wendy and Joy have gone. Yeri is either asleep or dead on one of the stools at the far end and Jennie is not much better and some of the other mechanics sit under the front windows still drinking and laughing and waving over at her in congratulations.Seulgi finds herself smiling back. She’s been smiling most of the night. The trophy sits where it has sat for hours in between her legs and it catches the dim light in just such a way that has her admiring it all over again and when her phone buzzes five minutes later and she sees that it’s from Irene she’s still smiling. It’s one text. It says:I’m in my room