The Firefighter's Vow

by Amie Denman

  Laura smiled, imagining the scene. She hardly took her eyes off Tony as he stood just four feet in front of her, holding the class’s attention. Gavin jumped in with a detail or story a few times, but Tony held the floor as he walked the class through the book and gave them an understanding of what the next six weeks would entail. She knew many instructors back home, but none of them had commanded her interest and respect as Tony did. He was strong, compassionate and more attractive than she wanted to admit to herself. Finally, he closed his book—dog-eared and with sticky notes spilling over the top like a bad hair day—and glanced at the wall clock, which was fashioned to look like a fire truck. Its hands were miniature fire hoses, telling them almost half the class had gone by. She was amazed, but it also worried her. With only twelve class nights to learn everything she needed to know, it already seemed to be going too fast.

  “Break time,” Tony said. “Feel free to use the restroom and get a soda from the pop machine. Say hello to the guys working tonight and check out the trucks.”

  * * *

  TONY WENT DIRECTLY to his office, closed his door and sat behind his desk, enjoying the silence for a moment. He had gladly signed up for the series of courses that would qualify him as an instructor because he’d been inspired by a great teacher himself. He knew the fire service needed the right people training the next generation of firefighters.

  He just wished he could fast-forward through the classroom lectures and get to the hands-on stuff that would really make the difference between life and death. As he soaked in a few minutes of solitude, he kept an ear tuned to the station beyond his door. He heard a truck door shut. A chirp of a siren. Radio traffic that made up the background music of his life. Conversations. Laughter.

  Gavin’s booming laugh shot through him. Had he been flirting with Laura, or had it been Tony’s imagination? He tried to shut it out, but he imagined Gavin out there, regaling Laura with stories of his own heroism and trying to impress her. As a new member of the department, Gavin had a tendency to take risks to prove himself. He had tried to rush into a house fire without waiting for his partner once, and he’d shown up at an accident scene while off duty and tried to help despite the fact that there were on-duty guys there with protective gear.

  His offenses were the result of trying too hard, too fast, not a lack of integrity or training. Admirable, but dangerous. Young guys like Gavin were the reason older guys with experience were in charge. One of the reasons Tony had selected Gavin to help train the new recruits was to remind him he was relatively new himself and didn’t know everything. But Tony was beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake. Would Gavin’s assistance have the opposite effect on the young hotshot?

  He got up and opened his door.

  “Kennedy,” he barked into the station where Gavin was holding open the door of the firetruck and laughing with whomever was inside. Tony imagined it was Laura, and the thought of Gavin flirting with her irritated him right under the collar of his uniform shirt.

  Gavin turned to face him and the person in the truck slid out. It wasn’t Laura. It was Diane, the older lady in the class. Gavin offered her a hand as she stepped down from the pumper.

  “Need to see me, sir?”

  Tony nodded and gestured into his office. When Gavin entered and took a seat, his face all innocent friendliness, Tony took a moment and closed his office door before sitting down himself.

  “Do you know why I chose you to help me teach this class?” he asked.

  Gavin shrugged, his expression unwavering. “Low seniority?”

  “I have plenty of seniority and I’m here,” Tony said.

  “But you’re the instructor. I’m the guy who hands out books and sets up obstacle courses and ladders. Not that I mind. Gotta pay my dues.”

  Tony blew out a breath and leaned back in his chair.

  “Everyone seems like they have a good reason for being here,” Gavin continued. “I missed the first part, but then I was talking with the two brothers and that older guy while we looked over the trucks. They seem like they’ll be good volunteers.”

  Tony noticed that Gavin didn’t say anything about Laura, and it occurred to him that perhaps he was the one putting too much thought into her presence, not Gavin. He’d been about to lecture Gavin about singling out any of the class members or being too friendly with them, but he checked his words. Just because he found Laura distracting didn’t mean any of the other men on the department would feel the same way. He needed to keep his awareness of her carefully controlled, just like a small flame he didn’t dare let turn into a wall of fire.

  “I wanted to say thank you for helping out,” Tony said. “I think you’re perfect for the job.”

  Gavin grinned. “That’s what you’re paying me for. Can I go out and show them around the rest of the station now?”

  Tony nodded and noted the time. He’d wait at least ten minutes before he reconvened the class. He sorted through a stack of fire reports he’d printed from the previous week. He liked seeing things on paper, so he usually printed the reports filed by the firefighters and paramedics, searching the text to make certain his men had followed protocol, achieved the fastest response time possible and worked for the best resolution of every emergency. He took a pen and flagged a few things he wanted to ask about, runs that he hadn’t been on. Why had the ambulance spent so much time on scene when called to a home for a seizure patient? What had prompted the officer in charge to call for a medical helicopter on standby when they responded to a kitchen fire at a vacation home on the north side of town?

  Tony slept well because he’d grown up with a dad who was a fire chief. When he’d confessed to his father that worrying about the station kept him up at night, his dad sat him down and told him in his blunt way that he’d be no damn good to anyone if he stayed awake all night worrying about what could happen and then was too tired when it did happen.

  Not sympathetic, but undeniably true.

  Tony finished his notes and left them on his desk so he could focus on the training instead of agonizing over the dangers his new volunteers could face under his command and responsibility.

  Gavin had everyone back in the training room and seated when Tony entered. Instead of taking up a position behind the desk, Tony picked a chair at the end of the middle row and sat down with his students.

  “I’m glad to see you all came back,” he said. “And I didn’t bore you to tears or scare you away.”

  A few of the guys laughed politely, and Laura got up and turned her chair so she could face him. She smiled and waited with her book open in her lap and her pen poised over it. Tony wondered if Laura’s students looked at her with anticipation as if she had the secrets of the universe at her command. That was what her expression seemed to convey.

  If Laura believed he knew everything about being a successful firefighter, he couldn’t disappoint her. He owed her and everyone else in the class his very best instruction. It could mean the difference between life and death.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LAURA SPREAD HER mat in a spot between her sister, Nicole, and their friend Jane. Jane was Nicole’s friend and employer, and Laura had been invited warmly into the friendship the previous summer. Going to the gym with them took Laura straight out of her comfort zone.

  “This is not my usual thing,” Laura said as she watched the other women confidently choose weights from the racks and exercise bands from a hanging peg. “Can’t we just go run ten miles?”

  “No,” Nicole said. “You know I can barely run around the block. You got all the running talent in the family. Or insanity. Hard to tell.”

  “I’d probably barf after two miles,” Jane said. “And I’m tired of smelling like barf all the time already. No one tells you that about having a baby. They’re cute, but the smell of old barf on your collar is not even a little adorable.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Nicole tol
d her sister. “Just don’t try to prove anything, go with a lighter weight if you need to, and feign a broken leg if it gets too tough. We’ll back you up by looking very sympathetic and covering you with a sweaty towel.”

  “Thanks.”

  The instructor turned on the music and everyone stopped talking. Nicole and Jane looked like they could teach the cardio sculpt class. They had coordinating tights and tops. They moved a little with the music as if they had no trepidation about what came next.

  “Just follow along,” Nicole said, bobbing her head with the beat and smiling. “You’re allowed to not be good at something.”

  “I’ve been proving that theory for years,” Laura said, and Nicole shook her head and laughed.

  “Start with two weights,” the instructor called out. “We’ll do fifteen reps across the body, fifteen triceps and fifteen side raises.”

  The reps seemed easy at first, and Laura made a quick switch for heavier weights from the stack at her feet. After ten counts, the weights got even heavier, and by fifteen she regretted her bold move.

  “You’re not going to be able to lift your arms to wash your hair tomorrow,” Nicole whispered between sets. “Pick a lighter weight or you’ll have to try dry shampoo. You’d hate it with all your thick hair.”

  Laura tried to think about how strong she was going to be as she kept going through the next murderous set of exercises. She would owe herself chips and salsa while studying later with her new friend Diane.

  “Running is easier,” Laura commented after the group had completed three sets of the arm exercises and the instructor told them to grab a quick drink before they moved on to legs.

  “But running does nothing for your arms. I have to look good in a wedding dress soon, and you made me get the sleeveless one,” Nicole said.

  “It’s a summer beach wedding. Sleeveless was the only choice,” Laura said. “You’ll be gorgeous.”

  “Are you getting ready for a test at the fire station?” Jane asked. “Do you have to carry a fifty-pound bag of kitty litter up a ladder and across a rooftop or something to get on the department?”

  “Actually it’s a fifty-pound bar of chocolate. If you get it up a ladder, through a burning building and down a fire escape before it melts, you get to eat it. Built-in motivation,” Laura said.

  Nicole cocked her head and looked serious. “I wonder if Kevin had to do that.”

  Jane laughed. “Charlie is terrible at resisting temptation of any kind, so he’d probably eat half the chocolate before the test.”

  “Just kidding,” Laura said. “It’s a fifty-foot reel of hose, which weighs a lot more than you’d think. I picked one up at our first night of training last night.”

  “Then you’re in the right place,” Jane said.

  “Unless you come to your senses and start volunteering at the library instead,” Nicole added.

  “Squats,” the instructor said. “You’ll want a heavier weight for this one.”

  “Of course I will,” Laura said.

  Nicole and Jane laughed, and Laura threw herself into mentally counting along with the instructor.

  “You’ll be the strongest one in the new class of volunteers,” Jane said as they changed their shoes in the locker room and toweled off sweat. “That fifty-pound hose won’t know what hit it.”

  “I hope so,” Laura said. “I’ve been running for so long, I forgot I had other muscles.”

  “Let’s get smoothies,” Nicole suggested. “The gym has a little patio out back where you can show up sweaty and no one cares.”

  Laura stuffed her shoes and yoga mat into her gym bag and followed the other women to the promised land of sunshine and smoothies. Despite the fact that she was going to be all kinds of sore the next day, she felt light and happy being with people who were also starting a new phase of their lives. Jane had a baby with her new husband, firefighter Charlie Zimmerman, and Nicole was about to marry Kevin.

  Laura didn’t have a man or a baby, but she had homework. Reading her fire service training books late into the night had made her even more excited about the upcoming second night of class.

  “How do you like your job on the beach?” Jane asked.

  “It’s good. The kids working the beach and the shack are nice, and I love being outside in the sun,” Laura said. She had her challenges with employees like Jason who failed to show up to work, but it was still a terrific way to spend her summer. After only a few weeks, she already wondered if she could go back to the confinement of the classroom with the same four gray walls, hard tile floor, rows of desks and the incessant bell schedule that dictated everything—including when she ate and when she went to the restroom.

  Maybe she wasn’t meant to try to churn out educated kids as if they were on a factory conveyor belt. As she walked through her high school during her free period and heard her colleagues engaging students and demonstrating excellence, she often felt they knew something she didn’t. Had some gift or magic she didn’t have.

  She loved history. Loved reading about people who’d made a difference. The first female reporter. The first man to patent a mechanical breakthrough. The first group of hikers to climb a mountain. The women who’d pioneered chemical science.

  Laura didn’t expect to be on the pages of a book, but she did hope to make a tangible difference in the world.

  “You’re great with teenagers,” Nicole said.

  “I don’t know about that,” Laura said. “If I were such a genius with teenagers, my students wouldn’t be watching the clock and asking really great questions like ‘What time does this class end?’ and ‘Is this on the test?’”

  “At least they’re asking questions,” Jane said. “Maybe it’s part of their process.”

  “They don’t have a process,” Laura said. “They’re required to take American history, but the great state of Indiana doesn’t really care if they learn anything.”

  “You care,” Nicole said.

  Laura shrugged. She didn’t want to ruin her sister’s opinion of her, but she’d begun being honest with herself over the past year. “It gets harder every day. I’m not sure teaching high school is going how I thought it would. I used to watch those movies where high school teachers inspired their students and saved them from a life of crime and drugs. Students stood up to bullies and sang songs and got scholarships to their dream colleges. I loved those movies.”

  “Everyone loves those movies,” Jane said. “Real life is harder.”

  “Maybe,” Laura said. “And maybe I haven’t found my true calling yet.”

  “Are you saying your true calling could be renting surfboards?” Nicole asked.

  Laura put her hand over her heart. “I have seen my future,” she said, grinning. “It’s on a beach surrounded by beautiful vacationers and sweet families with children building castles and getting sand in every crevice of their bodies.”

  Jane clinked her smoothie glass against Laura’s and Nicole’s. “Let’s drink to beautiful vacationers who come to town and give Cape Pursuit a reason to get out of bed in the morning.”

  They all sipped their smoothies, and Laura smiled as she thought of her reason for getting out of bed lately. The fire department and the chance to really give herself to a cause. She visualized herself rescuing someone from flames or resuscitating someone’s loved one. Better than the someday hope of students realizing that the immortal words of the framers of the constitution have impacted their lives, firefighting was a true and present way she could give of herself.

  Had her brother, Adam, known this feeling as he boarded the plane to head west and join his forest-fighting team for the summer? She hoped so. For the first time since his tragic death, Laura felt the leaden weight lift, just knowing he might have felt joy at the prospect of helping others just as she did now. Instead of sending him to his death by showing him that advertisement for fir
efighters, had she given him a chance to do something he loved, even for a brief time?

  * * *

  WEARING A PAIR of surgical gloves and carrying a garbage bag, Tony walked the sidewalks immediately surrounding the fire station. He picked up cigarette butts, a straw and plastic cup from a fast food restaurant, a soggy rolled up newspaper that must have been there since the rain three nights earlier, and a paper that looked like some kid’s math homework.

  “School’s out, kid, so I can’t help you,” he said aloud. He continued down the next section of sidewalk framing the station. A few years earlier, he had led the committee that encouraged business owners and civic groups to adopt a section of town and keep it litter free. It was good for tourism in Cape Pursuit, but the visitors were also the reason why the litter force was needed. Virginia Beach just down the coastline got at least three million visitors a year, and Cape Pursuit got close to half a million with more hotels being built each year.

  Tony wondered if he would need to create a sustainable plan for the increasing tourism. Would he need to add full-time members to his department and include volunteers more? He hoped he never saw the day when the Cape Pursuit Fire Department was understaffed or unable to respond in a life and death emergency.

  Volunteers, like the ones coming in for training on this sunny Sunday morning, would add to the numbers and make a difference in saving someone’s life in a staffing shortage. The many volunteers already on the books at the station were essential members of the department and were called in often during the busy season. Tony looked at his watch and stepped up his pace so he could finish cleaning up the sidewalks and gutters in his block. He wanted to be there when the volunteers showed up so he could assign them to experienced partners on their first day inspecting, stocking and cleaning the fleet of emergency vehicles.

  He would pair up with one of the new trainees to teach the details of a good inspection, and he’d already told the other guys on duty they would have a partner who needed to be shown the ropes.