Day two started
    with the dangerous confidence
    of people who had already
    gotten lost once.

We knew how to get there now.

Mostly.

Which is not the same thing
      as knowing the best way,
      as the very long line
      we absolutely did not need to traverse

      was kind enough to explain.

Lesson learned:

      Follow Lih-sia’s directions.

Always.

No committee.

No improvising.

No heroic little alternate route
   invented by a man
   with just enough information

   to become a problem.

Still, we made it.

And the day opened up
    the way race days do
    when the engines start answering questions

    nobody asked out loud.

More speed.

More noise.

More bodies moving
     in the same excited current.

More of that ridiculous proof
                     that yes,
                 it really is
   what it’s cracked up to be.

Practice had been the first hit.

Day two felt less like discovery
         and more like surrender.

Fine.

We get it.

We are in.

Afterward, back to the Beach Bar,
              because apparently
     Montreal having a Beach Bar

        is now part of the canon.

A quick drink.

A BFF reunion.

And Ron.

New F1 friend.

Alabama.

Added to the crew
      for the only reason
      that ever really matters:

      Why not?

One more member
    of the motley little paddock
    was exactly what the night ordered.

Then dinner at La Capital,
     probably the best taco place
     I’ve been to

     outside of Puerto Vallarta.

And I don’t mean that gently.

This place could live
     in the middle of Cinco de Diciembre

     and compete with any of the best.

Cinco de Chinatown, of course,
       because it is Montreal,
               and apparently
                 the map here
     also enjoys a plot twist.

Tacos in Chinatown.

Formula 1 on an island.

A Beach Bar nowhere near the beach.

The city kept making jokes,
    and somehow every one of them worked.

This time, I was smart.

Or smart enough.

I didn’t sit near Mari.

Disaster averted.

Safety car out.

Not because there was no speed left.

Because there was.

Because five feet
        can be a very long distance
        when the person
        on the other side of it
        is the one person
        you are trying

        _not_

        to reach for in public.

Because restraint
        is easier to admire
        from across the room

        than from the chair right next to her.

So we behaved.

Respectably.

Comfortably.

Mostly.

The company split the way good nights do
    when nobody needs to force one more scene.

The boys went back to the Beach Bar.

The girls went back to the hotel.

No crash.

No drama.

No table turned into a cautionary tale.

Just a clean finish to day two.

And still,
    all the while,

    I missed Mari like crazy.

Which is a ridiculous thing to say
          when she was right there.

Five feet away.

Laughing.

Present.

Untouchable by choice
            and circumstance
            and the little rules

            that keep a weekend from catching fire.

Atlanta is waiting.

That’s the part
I keep circling.

Not Montreal.

Not the track.

Not even the next green flag.

Atlanta.

Where the distance finally gets to close.

Where five feet can become nothing.

Where the safety car
         can pull in,
 and whatever’s been
 held back all weekend…

 can finally go.