If either Onpatti or the other favored driver, Buddy Undler, won today, it would eclipse yesterday's defeat since the Talladega 500 was the longer and more important race.
Most major races were on Sunday, and manufacturers of cars, tires, and other equipment acknowledged the dictum: Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
The company box was just as full as yesterday, with Hub Hewitson again in the front row and clearly in good spirits. Kathryn Hewitson, Erica saw, sat alone near the rear, still working on her needlepoint and seldom looking up. Erica settled into a corner of the third row, hoping that despite the crowd she could be, to a degree, alone.
Adam stayed in his seat beside Erica, except for a short period when he left the box to talk outside with Smokey Stephensen.
***
The auto dealer had motioned with his head to Adam just before starting time, while the race preliminaries were in progress. The two of them left the company box by the rear exit, Smokey preceding, then stood outside in the bright, warm sunshine. Though the track was out of sight, they could hear the roar of engines as the pace car and fifty competing cars began to move.
Adam remembered it was on his first visit to Smokey's dealership, near the beginning of the year, that he had met Pierre Flodenhale, then working as a part-time car salesman. He said, "I'm sorry about Pierre."
Smokey rubbed a hand across his beard in the gesture Adam had grown used to. "Kid was like a son to me, some ways. You tell yourself it can always happen, it's part of the game; I knew it in my time, so did he. When it comes, though, don't make it no easier to bear." Smokey blinked, and Adam was aware of a side to the auto dealer's nature, seldom revealed.
As if to offset it, Smokey said roughly, "That was yesterday. This is today. What I want to know is - you talked to Teresa yet?"
"No, I haven't." Adam had been aware that the month's grace he had given Smokey before his sister disposed of her interest in Stephensen Motors would be over soon. But Adam had had not acted to inform Teresa.
Now he said, "I'm not sure I intend to - advise my sister to sell out, I mean."
Smokey Stephensen's eyes searched Adam's face. They were shrewd eyes, and there was little that the dealer missed, as Adam knew. The shrewdness was a reason why Adam had reexamined his convictions about Stephensen Motors over the past two weeks. Many reforms were coming in the auto dealership system, most of them overdue. But Adam believed Smokey would survive such changes because survival was as natural to him as being in his skin. That being so, in terms of an investment, Teresa and her children might find it hard to do better.
"I guess this is a time for the soft sell," Smokey said. "So I won't push; I'll just wait, and hope. One thing I know, though. If you change your mind from what you figured to begin with, it'll be for Teresa and not as any favor to me."
Adam smiled. "You're right about that."
Smokey nodded. "Is your wife all right?"
"I think so," Adam said.
They could hear the tempo of the race increasing, and went back into the company box.
***
Auto races, like wines, have vintage years. For the Talladega 500 this proved to be the best year ever - a fast and thrilling contest from its swift-paced outset to a spectacular down-to-the-wire finish. Through a total of 188 laps - a fraction over 500 miles - the lead switched many times. Wayne Onpatti and Buddy Undler, the favorites of Adam's company, stayed near the front, but were challenged strongly by a half dozen others, among them the previous day's victor, Cutthroat, who was out ahead for a large part of the race. The sizzling pace took its toll of a dozen cars, which quit through mechanical failure, and several others were wrecked, though no major pileup occurred as on the previous day, nor was any driver injured. Yellow caution flags and slowdowns were at a minimum; most of the race was full-out, under green.
Near the end, Cutthroat and Wayne Onpatti vied for the lead, with Onpatti slightly ahead, though moans resounded through the company box when Onpatti swung into the pits, stopping for a late tire change, which cost him half a lap and put Cutthroat solidly out front.
But the tire change proved wise and gave Onpatti what he needed - an extra bite on turns, so that by the backstretch of the final lap he had caught up with Cutthroat, and the two were side by side. Even thundering down the homestretch together with the finish line in sight, the result was still in doubt. Then, foot by foot, Onpatti eased past Cutthroat, finishing a half car length ahead - the victor.
During the final laps, most people in the company box had been on their feet, cheering hysterically for Wayne Onpatti, while Hub Hewitson and others jumped up and down like children, in unrestrained excitement.
When the result was known, for a second there was silence, then pandemonium broke.
Cheers, even louder than before, mingled with victorious shouts and laughter. Beaming executives and guests pummeled one another on backs and shoulders; hands were clasped and wrung; in the aisle, between benches, two staid vice-presidents danced a jig. "Our car won! We won! Echoed around the private box, with other cries. Someone chanted the inevitable,
"Win on Sunday, sell on Monday." With still more shouts and laughter the chant was taken up. Instead of diminishing, the volume grew.
Erica surveyed it all, at first in detachment, then in disbelief. She could understand the pleasure of a share in winning; despite her own aloofness earlier, in the tense, final moments of the race she had felt involved, had craned forward with the rest to watch the photo finish. But this . . . this crazed abandonment of every other thought . . . was something else.
She thought of yesterday: its grief and awful cost; the body of Pierre, at this moment en route for burial. And now, so soon, the quick dismissal
"Win on Sunday, sell on Monday."
Coldly, clearly, and distinctly, Erica said, "That's all you care about!"
The hush was not immediate. But her voice carried over other voices close at hand, so that some paused, and in the partial silence Erica spoke again. "I said, 'That's all you care about!'"
Now, everyone had heard. Inside the box, the noise and other voices stilled. Across the sudden silence someone asked, "What's wrong with that?"
Erica had not expected this. She had spoken suddenly, from impulse, not wanting to be a focus of attention, and now that it was done, her instinct was to back away, to save Adam more embarrassment, and leave.
Then anger surged. Anger at Detroit, its ways - so many of them mirrored in this box; what they had done to Adam and herself. She would not let the system shape her to a mold: a complaisant company wife.
Someone had asked: "What's wrong with that?"
"It's wrong," Erica said, "because you don't live - we don't live - for anything but cars and sales and winning. And if not all the time, then most of it. You forget other things. Such as, yesterday a man died here.
Someone we knew. You're so full of winning: Win on Sunday! . . . He was Saturday . . . You've forgotten him already . . .". Her voice tailed off.
She was conscious of Adam regarding her. To Erica's surprise, the expression on his face was not critical. His mouth was even crinkled at the corners.
Adam, from the beginning, caught every word. Now, as if his hearing were heightened, he was aware of external sounds: the race running down, tail end cars completing final laps, fresh cheers for the new champion, Onpatti, heading for the pits and Victory Lane. Adam was conscious, too, that Hub Hewitson was frowning; others were embarrassed, not knowing where to look.
Adam supposed he ought to care. He thought objectively: Whatever truth there was in what Erica had said, he doubted if she had picked the best time to say it, and Hub Hewitson's displeasure was not to be taken lightly. But he had discovered moments earlier: He didn't give a damn! To hell with them all! He only knew he loved Erica more dearly than at any time since he had known her.
"Adam," a vice-president said, not unkindly, "you'd better get your wife out of here."
Adam nodded. He supposed for Erica's sake - to spare her more - he should.
"Why should he?"
Heads turned - to the rear of the company box, from where the interruption came. Kathryn Hewitson, still holding her needlepoint, had moved into the center aisle and stood facing them all, tight-lipped. She repeated,
"Why should he? Because Erica said what I wanted to say, but lacked the moral courage? Because she put into words what every woman here was thinking until the youngest of us all spoke up?" She surveyed the silent faces before her. "You men!"
Suddenly Erica was aware of other women looking her way, neither embarrassed nor hostile, but - now the barrier was lifted - with eyes which registered approval.
Kathryn Hewitson said firmly, "Hubbard!"
Within the company Hub Hewitson was treated, and at times behaved, like a crown prince. But where his wife was concerned he was a husband - no more, no less - who, at certain moments, knew his obligations and his cues. Nodding, no longer frowning, he stepped to Erica and took both her hands. He said, in a voice which carried through the box, "My dear, sometimes in haste, excitement, or for other reasons we forget some simple things which are important. When we do, we need a person of conviction to remind us of our error. Thank you for being here and doing that."
Then suddenly, all tension gone, they were pouring from the box into the sunshine.
Someone said, "Hey, let's go over, shake hands with Onpatti."