Rise Up

Chapter 56: On The Market

Being an adult, apparently, means also trying to find a job. Let's just say that I've never missed being a child this much.

As soon as I came back from the peaceful and relaxing vacation over sea, Suz and I literally spent almost every day trying to find a solution to this big- instead huge- problem upon my head. My apartment in Florence was covered in papers of every kind that my manager printed to keep everything under control- as she kept explaining to me when I tried to make her move a bit from the living room just for a while in order to find back my phone, that was obviously well hidden under all her stuff.

We both sent thousands emails, even texts to the people closer to us, sometimes even letters directed to the headquarters of some of the teams, then we proceeded with tons of long, formal phone calls, where at some point we literally begged our interlocutor to give us the chance to get a meeting with the bosses. In the end we scored a little win, planning a whole week of job interviews with every single team in Formula 1- and not just there.

Although the difficulty of saying it out loud, I must be honest with myself, facing the truth quite evident in front of my eyes: there could be the possibility of moving out of F1.

Last year I got lucky to receive a contract the very last day of work still from the RedBull family and all, but this year would be way more difficult even imagining such a scenario, as rumors were echoing everywhere in the paddock and on social medias about the new talents of their junior academy. So, basically, I had to be clever and above all opened to other possibilities if I wanted to stay at least in the motorsport world.

"Ok girl, so on Thursday you have a meeting with Vasseur in Alfa Romeo and please- shut up your sarcasm or he will kill you- this in the morning. Instead in the early afternoon, probably between a few more random interviews, you'll meet up with Wolff. His assistant insisted with letting me know that this won't be an official colloquy, I think he meant that you must be super discreet over this. All clear?" Suz always liked bossing around, above all she loved bossing me.

"Yes sir. No sarcasm with Freddie and secretive with Toto, copy." I replied to Suz, pulling a hand over my forehead like a little soldier.

"Please Kiara, take it as much seriously as you can." She said while sighing, probably too tired to dealing with my sassy attitude.

"Suz, you know how much I care about my job, I'm just joking. I've spent the last week with you just faking smile over video calls and licking other's people asses only to get an hour of their time to present my curriculum, as if they don't know me at all."

"I have to admit that we made a really good job with your CV."

"And thank goodness! We literally wrote it ten times till it was perfect!"

We both laughed at our back-and-forth, before finally being able to let ourselves fall asleep on the private jet the team offered us to fly to Belgium, for the Spa GP this weekend.

Summer break over- Marketing season on.

***

"Aww, babe! I've missed you so much."

After such long days spent between stupid polite emails and lingering phone calls, being now engulfed in Lando's arms was literally a breath of fresh air, that took me back to the easiness we found on our holiday.

"Uff, you can't even imagine what a shitty week I had." I mumbled with my face pressed in the crook of his neck, breathing in all his fresh scent.

"Did you miss me that much?" He joked, moving his hands up and down my back in a comforting way.

I moved a bit to face him, putting some distance between us. "I did miss you but don't flutter yourself."