Pit Lane Persephone

Chapter 8: Lauren (Part 2 of 2)

There's a lot to unpack here (including the flat-out lie about the situation with the umbrella girl), but the dis of my helmet design stings the most. It's been my trademark for years, and I'd won many races wearing the bright wings. They've been an unofficial—and not at all secret—tribute to my parents. That last line is unusually cruel. Whoever wrote this crap is officially cancelled. Any journalist who took their job seriously would have at least bothered to do their research.

The photos with the article are also somewhat suspect. At least the one of me running off track looks brutal with all the flying dust and gravel, while the second that shows me talking to the umbrella girl got a good shot of my sponsor patches. The picture of me grimacing with the koala is completely out of context, though. Nowhere does it say that it was taken at the exact moment when freaking two-inch claws dug into my shoulders. And why the hell did they have to include a group selfie with the WAGs straight from Hadley Seaton's Instagram feed?

Throwing my phone on the passenger seat, I turn the key in the ignition. If I weren't already on my way to Vortex Helmet Art to discuss a new custom design, I'd definitely be calling the place now. Celia wants the press to have something more to write about? Well, I sure as hell am ready to give it to them.

The design studio has its offices in a large motorcycle showroom in San Jose. Inside, the walls are lined with shelves holding pre-made originals mixed with printouts of one-off graphics. There's one that mimics the texture of snakeskin and another that gives the illusion of seeing inside the mechanical workings of a robot brain. They're absolutely dope. I can't even imagine the time and skill that went into creating the airbrushed masterpieces.

"So tell me what you had in mind." Josh Alvarez—the go-to guy for most pro-racers in the Bay Area needing special graphics—enters the office, rounds the desk, and motions for me to take a seat in one of the guest chairs.

"I need something new. Something eye-catching. Something that's me, but not in a way that's too girly." I describe my wish list, even though it's hardly enough to go on.

Josh pulls out a large, three-ring binder. "All right. Let's narrow it down a bit." He opens the cover to the photographic collection of his works. "We have geometric and abstract." He flips the pages, showing examples of both, but I shake my head.

I want something that makes at a statement. While 3-D cubes and aesthetically pleasing splashes of color are pretty, they don't have that fierceness I'm going for.

"You said you don't want girly, so I'm guessing pinups, flowers, and anything pink is out of the question." He turns past pictures containing various combinations of all three.

I nod. "Absolutely."

"Anime doesn't seem like your style, and we don't want to do wings after your butterflies." Josh skips a whole section based on the excluded criteria.

"Nope." I lean forward as we near the end of the sample material.

"You could do patriotic." Josh looks up. "Red, white, and blue. The whole Americana thing is always a safe bet."

"True, but it's totally expected." I scrunch my nose at the blah suggestion. "American girl with stars and stripes. They'd eat me alive."

"Who?" He leans back in the chair and crossed his arms. "You can't mean the fans. They love that shit."

I also push away from the desk, slouching in the seat and focusing on my nails. I could do with a manicure. "No, I mean the press," I say.

"So that's what this is about." He gives me a pity smile. "That article was brutal, bruh."

"Wasn't it though?" I sit up straight again and slap the tabletop. "My agent tried to spin it as an 'even bad publicity is good publicity' kind of deal, but come on. They had to make a huge stretch to even make that Persephone analogy."

Josh's eyes widen, and I can almost see the light bulb turning on above his head. He doesn't say a word, but taps his lips with his index finger. It's covered in ink and splashes of paint.

"Oh, no." I shake my head, fearing where this is heading. "I enjoy Hellenic art as much as the next girl, but there's no way you're putting Corinthian columns, togas, or even chariots on my helmet."

He grins and puts one hand on his heart and raises the other in the air. "If I ever try to add anything as cliché as the Temple of Athena on the helmet of a rider with Greek heritage, may god strike me down right then and there. But hear me out, will you?"

Without waiting for my answer, he starts flipping through his portfolio.

"Fine," I relent, scooting to the edge of the chair to get a better look.

"Awesome. Now, Persephone is the one who was abducted by Hades and carried into the underworld, correct?" He glances at me.

I straight up adore this guy. "You know your mythology."

Josh shrugs. "I read Percy Jackson books as a kid."

"Then you may know about Hades' trick with the pomegranate seeds and that she's considered a goddess of spring or a sign of nature's fertility." I list the major takeaways from the Google search I'd done after first reading the article.

Hoping I'd missed the point, I'd wanted to know exactly what a comparison to Persephone really meant, but totally came away feeling like the author's choice was deliberately offensive. If the reporter had wanted to label me a modern-day Greek goddess, Athena—a wise warrior—or Nike—the personification of speed and victory—could have been way more on point. But he—because (shocker of all shockers) the byline was attributed to a man—had chosen the myth of a maiden. A symbol of subservience and weakness, Persephone was forcefully taken by a man to a place she didn't belong in order to fulfill his desires. I may be a product of a substandard American educational system, but if this wasn't a thinly veiled commentary on what this person thinks of my place among male riders in the WRRF, then it's the biggest backfire of an analogy in journalistic history.

"Juicy, red seeds and uteruses. Got it." Josh fixates on the pomegranate part of the story with a smile.

"Oh my god, no!" I shake my head at the mental visuals. "I know you're kidding, but no."

"Okay, but we still don't have much to work with." He scratches his temple while slowly turning the pages in the portfolio. "Hold up. Underworld is hell, and hell is death. What about starting with this concept and expanding on it?" He rotates the binder one hundred eighty degrees so it's right side up for me and taps on a photograph. "I know this has Mexican origins, but that could tie-in to your California connection. If we just switched up the imagery a bit with more Hellenistic designs and specific references to Persephone like the pomegranate, I think we'd have a winner."

I have little doubt he can make it work. As Josh continues to explain his concept, I become even more convinced. When I leave the studio an hour later with a preliminary sketch, I do a happy dance in the parking lot from the excitement. If the world wants a Persephone in the pit lane, I'm going to give her to them. But unlike the original, my goddess means to stick around for more than a few months.