ALICE Ch 252

Alice settles on the sofa, profoundly conscious of how sitting down and crossing her legs probably calls to mind giraffes, skeletons, and Daddy Longlegs spiders. The crowd of journalists doesn’t care; they are buzzing with excitement. Patty Dunham plops into place beside her, a bottle of Cherry Coke in her hand. Sara Pattinson sits with a bit more propriety on Patty’s other side. She’s changed her whole look again; her hair is dark and short now, and her skin’s a lot clearer than the last time Alice saw her.

It's like a cartoon: Alice the tall gangly one, Patty the slightly jacked, athletic one, and Sara the normal one. Their colors clash horribly, of course. Alice’s pink and blue is blinding, Patty’s red, white, and blue is painful, and McLaren has shifted back to a more mellow papaya, thankfully. An aggressive orange on the end would be too much.

Not that it matters. Alice hates these more than anything, and that goes double today. This is the first time she’s had to do one of these press conferences when she wasn’t on the podium. It’s one thing when you’re feeling good about doing well. This, though? She’d rather stick her dick in a blender.

It doesn’t help that Patty and Sara are both her victims in the last race. Alice isn’t going to show it, but she does feel guilty.

“ABC Sport here,” one reporter says, and they all reluctantly pick up their mics. “There has been a lot of commentary about safety following the race. What do you have to say on that?”

Sara and Patty exchange a look. Both turn to Alice, who sighs.

“Safety as in, this is a sport at very high speeds where people routinely die, or safety as in I did something especially risky in this race?” Alice replies.

“Your actions specifically.” Annoyingly, the reporter gives no ground. “Do you feel as though you and Mio placed the other drivers in undue danger?”

“Probably,” Alice replies.

There’s silence. Now she is the one who looks expectant. It seems like this reporter and some of the others assumed that she would be defensive.

Alice rolls her eyes and lifts her mic. “I’m a racer, guys. I don’t defend. I attack. I don’t feel great about what happened out there, but I’m paid to drive, not to sit around and finish last. If you want to talk about the value of human life I’m down, but before that, we’re going to have a conversation about this sport’s carbon imprint. Cute batteries in the cars are great, but last I checked all three thousand of us aren’t flying around the world every week in electric planes. You deal with that safety issue, then come talk to me about being a racing driver who has the fucking audacity to drive fast. Prick.”

“Mmm,” Patty says, amused. She claws the air ironically and makes a little hissing noise.

“Dude, if I wanted a guilt trip I’d call my mom,” Alice replies with a shrug.

“I, of course, stand in solidarity with my Diorgasm sis,” Patty says, patting Alice’s leg. “You can pass me any weekend, Alice.”

“Uh, hi?” Sara waves and raises her mic. “That’s very cool, Patty. Uh, Alice? Can you maybe not do that anymore? Because that was not super fun when I thought I was gonna die. Literally thought I was in that Mad Max movie for a sec. Did not enjoy it.”

Alice snorts. “It wouldn’t even be possible to do it again, even if I wanted to. Mio and I aren’t exactly on the same page, remember?”

Sara winces. “Right. You’re still an asshole. She’s an asshole too, I guess. But mainly you.”

“That’s fair,” Alice admits. Patty sits there mildly as the conversation takes place across her. “And I know how mad I’d be if I were you. I get it. Glad we got that taken care of. Let’s talk about how hard it is not to rear lock on turn three and hit the curb. How about that?” She addresses that to reporters. She never thought she’d miss the days of being questioned about her sexy Diorgasm shoots.