Daniel
Azerbaijan started like any other race week. Michael had split his time between my training and moving to help Maeve during her down time from the garage. She wasn't doing so hot on something based on how much work he was having to put in with her, which was shocking. She had always been naturally fit in all the right ways. If something was wrong, it had to be serious. Part of me wanted to worry that my friend would accidentally sit herself next to Max on the disabled list for working too hard. It was impossible to miss the near 20 hour days she sometimes put in when it came to her work. The team noticed it when she was the one that closed the roller doors at the end of the night because she was the last to leave. I had noticed because I knew what her training regime looked like, mostly the run she went on every morning before the sun was usually up in whatever exotic location we were. I couldn't imagine what would happen if she had to add an injury to her growing list of work obligations that had to be nursed daily.
Thursday morning I was surprised to see that Maeve had press commitments on the daily briefing. Something I hadn't foreseen her adding to her work list. She had been so adamantly against it, if anything for fear of replacing Max, but mostly for the already small amount of personal time she had.
"Maeve is doing the Facebook interview with me and Will?" I asked Charlotte as I looked over the time table in our shared room. It didn't happen often, but when we shared a room I could see whatever the other members of the team were doing through the team schedule.
"Yep. Angela will be leading her over. We are going to be late though if we don't head over now." Charlotte left the suite, expecting me to follow. I was just confused by the entrance of this new player in our game. It took a moment for me to step away from the printed, colored-coded papers on the walls to follow after Charlotte.
"Who is Angela?" Charlotte looked up from her phone at me as we were walking along the edge of the paddock towards the interview area. I had rushed to catch up to her and finally match her stride as we walked.
"Oh, Christian brought in a new team for Maeve finally. Angela is her new Press Officer, she has a new performance coach too that starts in Spain. We're working on getting her a PA too." I tried to keep my face neutral despite the shock of what Charlotte was telling me.
"Oh? Does that mean she's gonna be here for a while?" Charlotte nodded, looking back down at her phone. I heard the clicking of her tongue suddenly as she looked over whatever had been on her phone pertaining to our day.
"Yes...Which means you should probably fix whatever happened between the two of you." I went to protest, but I wouldn't lie to Charlotte. She saw right through it after all these years. Clearly, Maeve and I hadn't been our usual selves, anyone that knew us would've seen that simply by the fact that we hadn't taken every opportunity to be next to each other over the last two weeks. The fact that there had been raised voices and the young girl crying in the hospitality in China? They knew something had happened and they all had me pinned for the crime.
"I'm trying. She's making it pretty difficult by suddenly deciding not to share teams now." There was no point in hiding that something happened or even trying to push the blame from myself.
"It wasn't her call, Christian did it and if you had come back to the factory when asked, you would've known that." She said pointedly. I couldn't help the disbelief that read on my face then. No one had asked me officially to come back to the factory in our one week break from the race. The only commitments I had were for media and they could all be done safely from my own apartment during training.
"What does that have to do with anything? I always come back the week before the race." She sighed as we turned to take the bridge over the track where F2 were currently getting ready to do their qualifying race.
"You were supposed to be there for two weeks because they wanted some dev time to work out whatever is going on in the new engine. You said you wanted to go home and they agreed only because you won in China." I wanted to scream. No one even asked me to go the week before. Not that it matters, I was having an issue seeing why that related to her new team.
"Max won't be back until at the absolute earliest, the US. It takes him completely out of championship contention. Christian has officially extended her stay until the end of the year and felt that she needed her own team. People that could focus on just her so we could focus on just you. You're a handful on your own as is." I scoffed while smoothing out my team polo.
"You love me! Just think of how boring your life would be if I wasn't here." Charlotte cracked a real smile then and I was happy to go follow her to wherever she needed me to go despite the frustrations of the last few weeks.
"Alright, Angela will be here with Maeve in a few minutes. She's not used to this and didn't have the full media training so be careful with her. Nothing too ridiculous even if you will be you two."
"Yes, ma'am." I laughed as we approached the shady area under the trees outside of the track walls. It was ridiculous to think that I wouldn't protect her if something went south in the middle of a live interview.
Maeve was already seated and speaking with Will. Charlotte seemed surprised by this, but had us situated and the interview started pretty quickly. Messing around, I sent Will away and he took it in stride, allowing Maeve and I the time to answer the personal questions the fans certainly wanted to hear about. The "what's it like to be you?" question was the beginning of the end for me though. I tried to give an answer that wouldn't give too much away, but was positive at best. Maeve on the other hand....
"Good, working a lot and meeting my new team soon."
"Oh yeah, I just found out about that today. Excited?" She puffed out her cheeks in an exaggerated way and let her breath leave her lips. I hoped the double edge that I heard in my own words didn't come across as an attempt at an attack on camera. I was obviously still upset given the current predicament, but if she wasn't ready to talk then I wouldn't dare push it. I was happy to play on normal banter if that was what she wanted.
"I guess. This obviously all happened very quickly and I'm just getting the full lay of the land. The team has been incredible, but it's baby steps for me off the track." I chuckled, knowing just how far that really was from the truth.
"No need, you seem to be doing just fine on and off the track." My words were convoluted at best and carried a deeper, more pronounced meaning than I meant for them to have yet again. Clearly, no one had noticed that my own words were confusing in terms of tone versus content.
"No thanks to you, Mr.Monaco over here left me all alone at the factory the week after China." She smirked at me, knowing I hated when people talked about me not being at the factory. It made me feel like I wasn't doing enough when we all know how important reset time is. She clearly had taken my words as a stab at her for what had happened despite me thinking that no one had caught on.
"We all deserve a break every once in a while. Plus, it's still just training time. I can show you my workout journal if you'd like." She shook her head, a knowing smirk on her face. The glint in her eyes was sharp enough to cut steel though, if I wasn't careful she would snap.
"I'm good. I still know I can do more push ups than you so it's not necessary." We both laughed.
I moved on to the next question about Helmut's 75th birthday and she happily stated that our gift would be a 1-2 for him. She asked me about my feelings on Baku, and the 'well done Baku' saying that Max and I had used frequently came up before I could explain my feelings on the track. My want for fun battles was mentioned before we continued on to how we felt about the car this year. She tried to skate around her knowledge of the car and stated some generics about faster corners. Then someone asked if we knew where Azerbaijan was before the F1 race.
"He didn't, I know that for a fact. I was there the day he found out about it being on the calendar and he literally asked me where it was." She laughed, remembering meeting up in LA for a two day hang, only for her to school me as usual. Now the game was on as we were pulling punches at each other.
"Well I'm sorry that all of my teammates apparently grew up with country maps on their walls and their faces in the books. I was the sports guy. School wasn't my thing." She shook her head.
"No, I feel like you should be able to put countries on a map if you travel as much as you do. Like think of how many places we go that people have never ever heard of?" She had me there. I couldn't help but nod to agree at her words.
"That's very true. I will do better to learn what I don't already know, but I can point out most of the countries we go to on a map." She just laughed.
"You don't even know where the US is on a map, Daniel. Don't try to be the smart one." My jaw dropped as she outed me, making everyone around us laugh.
"That's not fair! you are from there. Where's Australia on the map? What about that?" I turned more towards her, picking up the phone to try and change the subject with a different question.
"We need a map challenge next facebook live," She turned to Angela and Charlotte who had been standing with Will," Can we do like an all driver's map challenge? I think Seb or I would win. I don't know much about the other guys. Daniel seems to feel the need to prove himself." They nodded with laughs as I scrolled through the phone.
"Yeah yeah, let's look at the phones for questions. Oh, someone wants to know if Max taught me any Dutch. Has he taught you any? Do you need to know another language?" I asked her with a smile, knowing she also hated me bringing that up. It was hard enough to know one, let alone several like she did.
"Je bent te dom voor Nederlands. Yes, he has."(you're too stupid for Dutch)She was smirking at me and I knew what every she say was surely insulting.
"What did you just call me?" My face fell, me trying to make it realistic that whatever she said was offensive. It probably was, just the safe for work version.
"If you listened when Max and I were talking to you, maybe you would know...." I gave her a sarcastic glare then and I'm sure the camera loved it as she winked back at me.
"Not fair, what do you want to know? We could shoot him a text and he could teach you something." It was nice to be joking with her since we hadn't been talking in the last few weeks. I didn't know if this was just for the camera though. She was very capable of hiding her feelings when needed and she had said plenty of sharp things already.
The rest of the interview was basic questions about the track and how we like it. There were also questions about if she had raced here before and my race last year. They even asked about what music we listen to while getting ready for a race. We're so similar that it was usually almost the same.
"Oh, someone wants to know if you've done a shoey from me. How many have you done?" She laughed.
"Unfortunately, it's more common when you've known him for as long as I have. I think we did shoeys the first day I met you in Parkway Drive's bus." My eyes widened as I laughed, the temperamental fight we were having between words forgotten momentarily.
"We did! We made you do it with mountain dew though." She fake gagged at the memory of drinking the toxic colored drink from my salt water and sweat soaked shoe after we had taken a beach trip.
"You did. It was revolting and it burned. It sucked being the only baby in the bus then and I was 18. Legal like everywhere, but the US." I laughed at her words because it was entirely true.
"We repaid the favor on your 21st birthday. We can talk about that off camera though." She laughed as I winked at the camera.
It was true. Her 21st birthday fell on the summer before she started the last year of her master's degree at MIT. I was home in Monaco and she didn't hesitate to take my invite for a week of partying in the small country. Except, much to Michael's dismay, I took everyone to Amsterdam for one night and we roadtripped back to Monaco on a whim. Rather, we were all so drunk that we had missed our flight and the only reasonable thing to do was to rent a van and drive to the next party town we could find. It was Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris, Geneva, Turin, and then finally back to Monaco over the course of 6 days via trains and taxis. I don't think Maeve was sober for more than ten minutes on the whole trip. It was the first time she met Max, the scrawny and aggressive driver that was now part of my team. The two got on like peanut butter and jelly, spitting insults back and forth as he was barely old enough to drink in most of the countries we were in, if any. He ended up being the DD more times than not, but he didn't argue about it once. Max was happy to enjoy the trip as it went. He was also happy to assist with getting Maeve sober enough to put her on the flight to London where she was supposed to be visiting her future school. Max strode into Milton Keynes without me that day, making up an excuse as to why I would arrive later than expected despite everyone from the same flight as me walking in on time.
No part of me could remember what excuse he made, but it worked to the point that Christian only asked how I was doing when I walked through the glass doors of the factory. There was a smile on my face as Maeve had proudly proclaimed just an hour before that Cambridge was her dream school and she would apply once applications opened in the fall. I had left her at my flat that day to sober up fully and get some rest from the crazy week we had.
"Definitely off camera. who knows though, Maybe I'll start doing shoeys in your honor when I knock you off the podium." I laughed and patted her shoulder.
"In your dreams, Dragon" She rolled her eyes.
"Yeah yeah, one more before we have to head out Ricciardo?" her snappy response and the Italian pronunciation of my name came out too fast for my liking.
She picked one about how the season started to look for us. Will came back and we all said goodbye, but the second the camera was off she changed. The smile was completely gone from her face as Angela called her over and they both stepped to the side to discuss something. It looked like Angela had been taking notes on the live session. Probably to give her feedback as she didn't have the extensive training that we had growing up in the sport. I couldn't help but watch as she nodded along to what her PR said, absorbing the information being given to her as much as possible. She would have to do this again it seemed and she didn't want to come off in any kind of a bad way. It was a sign that I would be around her more and more throughout the season.
"Hey, eyes over here." I blinked as I looked back to Charlotte, we had other things to do and she needed me to move so we could get to the garage again
"Sorry, what's the schedule look like tonight?" I asked her once my focus was brought back to the task at hand.
"Well, you're both going on a little diversion after the engineering meeting. There's going to be a marketing video we're shooting in the volcanoes."
Volcanoes sound bad, but this was a fun trip. They put Angela, Charlotte, Maeve, and me into a van and sent us out on the 45 minute trip into the rural area of Azerbaijan. The first part of the trip was done in utter silence. It was awkward to say the least as Maeve and I had been relegated to the middle row and closer to each other than we had been in awhile. She didn't look at me, nor did she say a word. In fact, she was staring at the headrest of the seat in front of her with an intensity that told me she was trying for everything she was worth not to look at me.
I needed to talk to her though. With how she was avoiding me, I didn't know if the opportunity would arise again. It was delicate though as I didn't want to push her away or make it more awkward before we had to do a video together. It would be painfully obvious if we suddenly hated one another on camera. I racked my brain for a way to start up a conversation that she would want to be a part of. Literally anything I could do to talk to her in a way she wouldn't shy away from or be upset about.
In a moment of desperation and what I can only call stupidity, I asked what was the worst question possible, short of 'why are you avoiding me?' to keep up a conversation.
"So how about them Bills?" Her head turned to me with raised eyebrows and a tight lipped smile.
"Daniel, it's March. Football ended over two months ago...." I pursed my lips.
"Sure, but we didn't get to talk about it when it was happening." Her mouth opened to reply and immediately snapped shut. I watched her turn back to the head rest before pulling out her phone.
I thought it was a failure, but my phone buzzed in my pocket moments later.
Maeve D.
That was the worst attempt at getting me to talk to you ever. I don't even watch football you idiot.
I couldn't help the smile that came to my face. I knew damn well she had no team to follow and could care less about most sports, but here she was testing me.
Daniel R.
I dunno, if you're talking to me right now, I think it worked... 😁😁
She scoffed next to me before furiously typing away at her phone.
Maeve D.
No Daniel, it's not working. You told me to fuck off last week so here I am, not talking to you. We're in a car on the way to a fucking marketing op and you tried to start shit now? You need to get it through your thick skull that I am not in the mood right now, nor will I be probably until summer break.
My face fell then, the extremeness of her words, the finality of them scaring me more than they should. She had no reason to be acting like this over a week after our conversation. Then again, I had crossed a line. It was clear the game was being played on her terms and her terms alone now.
Daniel R.
Maeve, I'm fucking sorry ok? I was mad that I was hearing that my team had no faith in me. What the fuck was I supposed to do? I had every right to be mad.
She didn't even look at her phone when my message lit up her screen. Her gaze had returned to the headrest and all hopes of the conversation going past that had been abandoned. I don't know what I was expecting. Maeve had always been head strong in pointing out an injustice towards herself. It was a terrible habit she developed in the industry she had previously been a part of. Not that I could blame her, sexism in all industries can run deep. She just had the unfortunate luck of experiencing two of the worst ones back to back.
I wasn't surprised when she didn't look at me the entire time we were in the rural areas filming. She was the one to drive in the video and had no issues keeping her eyes on the road. The second we were done, she was back in the van and her gaze remained locked to the headrest again. I didn't try and strike up a conversation again as it wasn't worth pissing her off more than she obviously was. Tomorrow would be a better day, after a good night's sleep, to try again and be more up front and open about it. I hoped that not beating around the bush would get her to open up to me more and tell me what was going on.
When we made it back to the hotel, no longer having any obligations for the day, I went back to my room before my workout. It was only then that I received a reply from her. One that put a cloud over my head, knowing that it's words held an impending storm that I wouldn't be able to control.
Maeve D.
You told me to race you, so I will. There's no more team work here this week. If you want the chance to prove that you're better than me, it's now. I won't go easy and I won't hold any punches. So fucking bring it Daniel, because if you fail this time it's on you...