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It was a beautiful day in Malaysia, and a man was getting married to his motorcycle.
Massimo Rivola looked at what he had built, and he found it good. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the cameras were rolling: all was well in Aprilia.
The assembled engineers and mechanics burst into cheers as the man of the hour made his entrance. Bez grinned bashfully as Rubik walked him down the aisle, in a reversal of the usual man-walks-dog relationship. His smile grew infinitely wider when he saw Albarosa, a vision in white, make her own graceful way to the altar.
“Dear friends,” Massimo began. “We are gathered here today…”
The ceremony proceeded briskly. After Bez and Albarosa exchanged “I dos”, it was time to exchange rings, which involved some careful repositioning of Sava and the cameras relative to Albarosa. Finally, when they were ready to continue —
The air suddenly grew chill and a shadow fell over the gathering, which was impressive considering they were outside on a sunny, tropical afternoon. The music stuttered to a stop. A figure wearing a long black robe appeared at the end of the aisle.
“What a touching scene,” said the robed figure, in a voice that sounded like —
“Jorge, is that you?” said Massimo incredulously. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be resting back in Andorra?”
“When I heard what was happening here, I knew I had to be here. I’m just disappointed that I wasn’t invited. Perhaps it was an oversight?”
“But you were invited. Everyone on the team expected you would be at the Sepang tests. We were very surprised when you said you would be absent due to surgery, but of course we respected that your physical health comes first,” said the Aprilia social media admin, who was still annoyed about having to throw out their original carefully-organized content filming schedule on short notice.
“Fine,” said the robed figure that sounded a lot like Jorge Martín. He threw back his hood. “I am the legally distinct LOOMING SPECTER OF JORGE MARTÍN’S INJURIES who you didn’t want to invite. You may call me…. Martínficent.”
(“I didn’t think he had any head injuries,” muttered the social media admin, who was getting increasingly irritated at the disruptions to the second version of their content filming schedule. “Did he get a concussion during the winter break or something?”)
Martínficent stalked closer. “I didn’t bring a wedding present, but I’d still like to give the happy couple my warmest congratulations.”
Rubik stood protectively in front of Bez, who stood protectively in front of Albarosa. Martínficent was not deterred.
“You’ve made a beautiful motorcycle,” he said. “There’s no doubt that Albarosa will do well this year, and all will admire her speed and stability. But before the sun sets on her 16th grand prix, Bez will prick his finger on the spinning wheel —“
“What spinning wheel? … Do you mean Albarosa’s tire?”
Martínficent coughed. “Bez will prick his finger on the motorcycle fork—“
Another round of skeptical looks.
“—on the bike’s aero,” Martínficent said, perhaps getting confused with the English homophone arrow in his quest for sufficiently pointy motorcycle components. “Bez will prick his finger, and then he will —“
But they were doomed never to find out what would happen. Rubik burst forward towards Martínficent, barking so ferociously that nobody could hear the rest of his words, thus fulfilling in his own way the role of the fairy godmother (or in this case, fairy dogfather) who deflected the force of the party-crasher’s curse.
Martínficent tried a few more times to finish pronouncing his accursèd message, but to no avail. Massimo had had enough and was on his phone calling some combination of security, a priest, and/or lawyers to exorcise Martínficent one way or another.
“YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME GO TO HONDA LAST YEAR,” shrieked Martínficent before he finally disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Simultaneously, Bez collapsed.
The Aprilia mechanics and engineers gasped. “The curse!”
“This can’t be a curse,” reasoned Massimo. “Martínficent clearly mentioned Albarosa’s 16th grand prix, and she hasn’t even run her first one yet this year.”
This did not convince the general audience. Rubik stationed himself by Bez’s side, the very picture of a concerned dogtor tending to his patient. Sava followed.
The violinist started playing Nessun dorma, apparently hoping that the aria’s exhortations to “let no one sleep” would help rouse the unconscious Bez.
“I think it’s just heatstroke,” said the jetlagged social media admin. “We’ve been out here rehearsing this shoot for three hours, and poor Bez has been stuck in those black leathers in the sun the whole time. I told you we should have given him more cooling packs.”
Sava unzipped Bez’s leathers with suspiciously practiced ease and fanned him vigorously.
“If this is a curse, there’s an obvious solution,” said Massimo, with a pointed look at Sava.
Sava bent down, cradled Bez in his arms, and kissed him firmly on the mouth.
Nothing happened, possibly because kissing is not a very effective treatment for heatstroke.
Sava shook his head, weeping. “Bez, I wish I could break your curse. I would gladly accompany you on-track and off, and make TikToks with you in Jorge’s sickness and my health, through P1 and P20, until our contracts do us part. But you deserve a teammate who can match you on-track, and Albarosa deserves someone who can give her trophies, and I’m not that person. I wish I could be. It’s my greatest shame that I can’t do this for you.”
“Bez will be fine once he cools off!!” said the social media admin, who was now at the end of their rope. “This heat isn’t doing him any good. We need to get him out of those leathers and into an ice bath as soon as possible.”
The promise of further undressing Bez seemed to snap Sava out of his slump. He walked off with Bez in a princess carry, trailed by Rubik and the social media admin, who was determined to get some usable footage out of the day.
“Well!” said Massimo loudly. “Now that Jorge’s gone, where can I find someone to fill Aprilia’s other seat? Where will I find someone to replace Jorge?”
Everyone turned to one Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia, who, though he could have reasonably expected to attend his dear friend Bez’s wedding, was nonetheless extremely surprised to find himself suddenly present in the audience at an Aprilia event.
“I need to replace my Ducati-reject MotoGP world champion,” said Massimo. “If only there was another one out there… an Italian Ducati-reject MotoGP world champion also in need of a seat, to join an Italian teammate in riding an Italian motorcycle for an Italian MotoGP factory team, the only real Italian factory in MotoGP I might add —”
The violinist helpfully started playing an instrumental rendition of the Italian anthem to really get into the (Italian, if it weren’t clear) mood. Pecco mouthed along automatically like he would if he were standing on a podium: brothers of Italy, Italy has awoken…
Italy might be awake, but Bez still wasn’t. Massimo cleared his throat pointedly.
“Me?” said Pecco. “You invited me to Bez’s wedding because … you want to hire me?”
“It’s too soon to speak of marriage, but I think you and Albarosa should get to know each other more… go on a date or two, maybe…” Massimo winked.
Pecco stared at him.
“We both know you’ll be out at Ducati next cycle. We can’t pay you as much as Yamaha would, but remember, Aprilia won 4 races last year while Yamaha won none. Your talent would be wasted there. You won 11 races in 2024 — wouldn’t you like to get that feeling back?”
The violinist started playing Nessun dorma again. The music seemed to make Pecco more receptive to what Aprilia was offering. As if spellbound, he walked towards Massimo and Albarosa, his mouth moving silently: ed il mio baccio … ti fa mia.
Pecco bent down and kissed the motorcycle as the music reached its peak. “All’alba vincerò,” he said. At dawn, I will win.
On Albarosa, I will win.
Half a world away from Malaysia, the Yamaha-bound Jorge Martín sat bolt upright, sweating profusely.
(Pecco's kiss did what Sava’s did not. “Hey, get your hands off my bike!” said Bez indignantly.)