Racing hearts

You stare at your blood-red glass, realizing at exactly this moment that you are the only one in this entire biker bar who is drinking wine, and blink back tears. The room is awash in '80s music and laughter. You may as well have morphed back 28 years; this is junior high all over again. And you remain the odd, eggheaded girl on the edge.

The third race weekend coincides with your book tour. You have a hotel suite in downtown San Francisco and a car, all-expenses paid by your publisher. You mention once, trying not to sound needy, that your fianci would be welcome to join you but he simply raises his hands and shrugs. "If it weren't a race weekend..." he says.

So you go alone, enjoy your canopied bed and complimentary champagne. Your cellphone rings on a bright, breezy afternoon in California as you are standing on the bay, gazing out at the fortress of Alcatraz. It is he, calling from the track, his tone heavy, morbid, depressed. There was a rainstorm and a flood, the races were canceled, his entire weekend was ruined.

There is a wedding scheduled for the Saturday of the fourth weekend -- a racer who "messed up" (or so you're told), forgetting to inform his fiancie which dates were off-limits. By the time he figured out the ceremony would conflict with an endurance race, it was too late to change it.

"The race?" you ask hopefully.

Your math geek stares at you. He's decided to keep the scruffy beard and seems suddenly unfamiliar. "No." He speaks patiently, as if to a small child. "The wedding. They tried to switch to another date, but the reception hall had already been booked."

You excuse yourself, get a bottle of water, ponder the fact that he offered to plan and book your own wedding and honeymoon. Then you return and sit down with the man who is on your couch reading "Middlesex," your cat lying across his lap. "Did you schedule our honeymoon around race weekends? Is that why we're rushing to get married?"

He lowers his book, nods calmly. "I thought you understood that."

You stand, and in the only act of violence you've committed since leaving your first husband, throw your water bottle at him.

To his credit, he forgives your violence and is himself contrite. To your bewilderment, he remains singularly focused. He offers to move your wedding, absorb all the cancellation fees, and plan something nice for winter. After the racing season is over.

You go away to brood. You calculate the following things: that he is helping your younger son apply to MIT; that he is coaching your autistic son to find a job; that he once fixed your garage door; that he is kind to your parents; that he took your daughter to school on the back of his bike after she sprained her ankle -- lashing her crutches on with bungee cords and performing a few comic stunts for the waiting crowd.

Moreover, you truly love him. Sexy, dirty, dangerous obsession and all. You will marry him as planned, you decide. Take the bad with the good, the yin with the yang. That's what marriage is all about. In fact, as a gesture of supreme solidarity, you will go up to the track and show support for your man the weekend before your wedding.

You show up on a Saturday at the end of summer. It is a warm, golden day and when you walk into the garage he looks up and breaks out into a huge smile. He is happy to see you even though you don't wear American flag short shorts and a spangled halter top, like 98 percent of the other women at the track. You take this as a sign of true love.

There are races all afternoon and evening. You travel from one to the next on the back of the bike of an onlooker -- an elementary school teacher who tells you he's thinking of taking up the sport. You listen, even as the news of a near-fatal crash is broadcast over the P.A. system. Two riders have been transported to the hospital by helicopter; the track is closed until officials can assemble more ambulances on-site.

After dinner, there is a campfire. Your fianci, freshly showered, sits with your hand in his and jokes with his friends in a desultory way. Racing, politics, science. A weirdly sarcastic reference to concentration camps. You stiffen at this last and pull your hand from his, but he barely notices, so focused is he on the conversation.

Back at the hotel, you cry. Your people died in those camps, 6 million of them. He listens to your latent, useless grief and holds you. Moves in and makes love. But the next morning he awakens agitated, irritable and brusque. At 8 o'clock, he says, "Gotta go, the races are starting." And he hurries away, without a kiss, leaving you to drive blearily 180 miles back home.

The wedding is off, you tell him when he returns. You have a career, three children to raise, a set of hard-won values of which you are proud. He turns meaner than you'd ever imagined he could and rages for a while, then drives off into the night and follows with a frantic series of e-mails. He is worried about you. He is sorry. He is done racing, no matter what you decide.

The next day, he pulls up after work and explains that racing is like cocaine. Expensive, destructive, addictive. He wants to quit, to help raise your children, to have a life with you instead.

Next page: "You should know, my friends are talking about us," he says