Minefield of Mirrors

-8-

While tucking the last piece of paper in her bag, Iris walked out of the garage, somewhere satisfied with how the day had been so far. Even though the financial team was fully man-dominated, they still welcomed Iris with open arms, which wasn't really a surprise if Iris thought back to the amount of paperwork they had to handle with just four people. Fred told her that the rest of the financial team was back at the factory in Milton Keynes to finalize all the numbers, but that these specific four members always travelled along with the team so they could make sure numbers were corrected well when adjustments in the budget came into place. They were the ones who justified all the changes to the rest of the financial team.

Just by talking to them, Iris could already notice that the workload would be way too much for them. The season had yet to start, but the exhaustion was already to be seen all over their faces. They had been crushing the numbers quite hard to make everything right, especially now the pressure of the FIA is there as well with the budget cap. Every little cent of the budget has to be right, which puts pressure on Iris as well. Everyone in the team expected her to make the right changes so that everything would run smoothly and the FIA wouldn't find any mistakes within the numbers.

As soon as she walked through the little hallway that led to the paddock again, she felt how she was leaving the cool air of the air-conditioning behind her and the heat was easily wrapping around her. Already from when she was a kid, she had hated the heat with all her heart. It only got worse when she was a teenager and her body started to change over the years. Every girl around her started to wear tight dresses and shorts, but Iris just couldn't. She kept sticking with the long trousers and wide blouses. As long as she could remember, she had been insecure about her body, which didn't look anything like the ones of the petite girls. Even when her few friends kept telling her that she was beautiful, she could never see it herself. Every time she stood in front of the mirror, all she could see were the flaws. It was something that a little voice in the back of her mind kept on emphasizing as well. She wasn't pretty. She wore a pair of glasses, she had wider hips, and thick upper thighs, and worst of all, she was taller than every average girl. To her, it looked like all the odds were against her.

Yes, she definitely developed a bit of confidence over the past years and during college, but she never seemed to be able to figure it out. Every mirror or every window where she saw her own reflection, was like a bullet of reality that was shot at her. No matter what she would dress like, Iris would never feel like the confident queen all the other girls around her seemed to be like. They would all just throw something around their body and walk so confidently around in it, not giving any fuck what others would think about them because they idolized their own looks. And Iris? She looked ten million times at herself before she even bought a piece of clothing and would even think a million more times about how she would look before she put it actually on and stepped into the world with it. No, she had never been confident.

'Iris?'

She shook her head to get out of her thoughts and looked beside her, where she saw Mick standing.

A smile was on his face and he walked up towards her. 'What are you doing here?'

Iris readjusted her bag on her shoulder and noticed that she was already in the middle of the paddock. Unconsciously, she had moved out of the Red Bull garage and was already heading towards the motorhome to grab the promised coffee with the other girls on the team.

Easily she lifted the paddock pass that was hanging on a cord around her neck and smiled. 'It looks like I work here?'

Mick came closer and took the paddock pass in one of his hands to see to which team she belonged. 'Damn! Red Bull? That's one hell of a team to work for!'