by Amie Denman
It was better not to think about it. Instead, she planned to put her energy into being an excellent volunteer.
“I wonder if there’s anything I can do to help tonight,” she said aloud to Charlie.
“Could be,” he said. “I’m not exaggerating when I say we’ll be busy. Last year, there was no one to run the radio here and we had to route all our traffic through central dispatch. It works, but it’s a pain.”
Tony came around the end of the truck. “You could come in tonight, if you want to,” he said. “It might give you a taste of how crazy it can get sometimes.”
Charlie grunted. “A bad taste.”
“What time?” Laura asked.
“Whenever you’d like, but dusk is when people in Cape Pursuit seem to decide to cash in their life insurance policies,” Tony said. “And make sure you drive your car tonight instead of riding your bike after dark. Too dangerous.”
Had Tony noticed her bike outside? The fact that he cared made her feel special, but she reminded herself that he noticed everything and cared about everyone.
“I’ll be here,” she said.
Laura sought out her sister at the art gallery, where she and Jane were doing booming business after the parade. The baby slept in a playpen in the back room, and the shop was filled with people looking at Jane’s paintings and Nicole’s photography. Local points of interest including the shoreline, mermaid statue and lighthouse made excellent subjects for art, and tourists had given Sea Jane Paint a very good year so far. Laura was happy for her sister and her friend. They knew what they wanted to do, and they were enjoying hard-won success.
“I have to bow out of our plans for tonight,” Laura said as she stepped behind the register and helped wrap a painting in heavy paper.
Nicole turned a questioning frown on her sister. “Is something wrong?”
“I volunteered to be on hand at the station.”
Nicole opened her mouth and then closed it again as she taped the paper around the frame while Laura held it. Nicole ran the customer’s credit card, completed the sale and smiled at the next person in line who was purchasing a set of hand-painted coasters.
“Sorry,” Laura said quietly as she stood beside her sister. The customer paid cash and Laura slipped her purchase into a paper bag with a string handle.
“We were going to have fun,” Nicole said. They were temporarily alone at the register. “I even had a plan for a picnic basket and some wine.”
“I know, but Charlie was telling me it would be a busy night, and Tony said I could come help if I want. It’s good experience.”
“Experience for what?” Nicole asked. “For risking your life and exposing yourself to all kinds of dangerous, terrible things? You’d rather do that than spend your evening with me when I’m almost the only family you have?”
Laura wanted to reach out and hug her sister, but a woman came up to the register asking about a custom glass piece in the front window.
Nicole went to help the customer, and Laura stayed behind the register. An ache in her chest took the brightness out of the sunny day. Aside from her parents, Nicole was her only family. But the firefighters had begun to feel like her family, too, and she didn’t want to leave them shorthanded. Now that she’d committed to helping at the station, she couldn’t go back on her word.
Although she had broken plans with her sister who already considered Laura’s desire to be a volunteer firefighter a betrayal. She wished there was a way she could be a good sister and also follow her heart.
The store stayed busy until Jane locked the door at five o’clock. “Kevin and Charlie are working at the station,” Nicole told Jane, “and now Laura has decided to go there, too, so it’s just us for the fireworks.”
Jane flashed a tentative smile at Laura, who stood nervously jingling the key to her bike lock. “More food for us, then,” Jane said. “You’ll miss out on the party at the park, but maybe you’ll get lucky and get to ruin someone’s fun by turning a hose on their homemade fireworks.”
“Tony and Charlie didn’t make it sound like fun,” Laura said. She smiled at her sister who still looked angry.
“Just be careful,” Nicole said.
Laura rode her bike back to the house alone. She changed into a pair of jeans but left on the navy blue fire department T-shirt Tony had given her and the other volunteers who were riding in the parade. It was just like the ones the other firefighters had, with a symbol and insignia of the department on the front chest and the large letters CPFD on the back.
She considered grabbing the sweatshirt she’d borrowed from Tony the night of the 5K, but it wasn’t the right time to return it with a station full of people. It hadn’t seemed like the right time the last four training sessions, either. Tony had either forgotten about it, didn’t care because he had five of them or he might think she was keeping it for a reason.
When she arrived at the station, she noticed that one of the ambulances was already out. All the station doors were open, and the missing vehicle left an empty spot.
“You drove,” Tony said. He smiled at her, and Laura wondered if he was pleased she had done as he’d asked or if he was just glad to see her. Or in a holiday mood. “Good. Let me show you how to run the radio in case this year is anything like the last ten. I hate the Fourth of July.”
So, not a holiday mood, Laura decided as she followed Tony into a small office filled with maps and equipment. She had only been in there one other time during a Sunday morning truck inspection, but she remembered thinking it was like command central.
“Can you control the weather from in here?” she asked.
“If I could, I’d make it rain tonight so people would go home, have a nice dinner and watch the fireworks from Washington, DC, on television.”
“That sounds dull.”
“But safe,” he said. He pointed to the detailed street map of Cape Pursuit under a clear plastic desktop. “You might want to study this sometime. It has all the water mains and hydrants marked. Not a bad idea to get an understanding of their pattern so you can plan ahead on the way to a call.”
“In addition to running the siren and not running over tourists and stray animals.”
“You’re never alone,” Tony said, his face serious despite Laura’s attempt to lighten the mood. “You always have a partner, always have backup, always make sure someone knows where you are.” Laura nodded. That camaraderie was one of the major things missing from her life back home. Her parents had their own relationship, both with each other and with their grief. Her colleagues at school had kids and dogs. But Laura had often felt she was the lone swimmer in a giant ocean.
She ran her fingers over the clear plastic and tried to establish a pattern of which sides of the road hydrants were on and which neighborhoods flowed into which. Her sister had questioned her habit of going out driving after dinner several nights a week, but she explained that she was familiarizing herself with the street names and the complex maze of one-way streets in parts of the oceanfront town.
“I heard you backed out of your plans with Nicole and Jane tonight,” Tony said.
Laura glanced up quickly, wondering how Tony knew.
“Charlie told me,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“But you need help here,” she said.
“You can’t drop everything and abandon your family just because we might have a crazy night.”
“That’s what you do,” she said.
Tony bit his lower lip and Laura thought she’d made an excellent point he couldn’t argue with.
“My family is here,” he said. “The name Ruggles is all over the roster board out there.”
Maybe he could argue with her point.
“Well,” she said. “Even if I’m the only Wheeler on the board, I can at least do my part tonight. Maybe I’ll be helpful or I’ll learn somethi
ng. Fireworks are fireworks, and if things end up being quiet around here, I’ll watch them on the television in the break room.”
Tony blew out a breath and looked at Laura as if he was trying to figure her out. Laura didn’t think she was complicated. In fact, she’d been trying to be an open book all summer, telling people exactly what she wanted and explaining why as best she could.
“Our radio is our lifeline,” Tony said, pointing to a series of switches and colored lights. “Of course there’s a 911 dispatcher who sends us out, and we communicate with dispatch when we leave the station and get on scene so there’s a record. We can ask them to call mutual aid for us, too.”
“It’s good to know they’re always listening,” Laura said.
“Yes. But sometimes we need to call back to the station for more manpower or equipment, and it’s nice to have someone here listening.”
She nodded and sat at the desk where a computer display replayed the fire department logo in an endless bouncing screen saver.
“You can look up any address with that system. We know pretty much where everything is in this town, but there are always surprises. That program gives you details you didn’t even know you needed.”
Laura jiggled the mouse and typed in the address of the home she shared with Nicole. The readout stunned her in its detail. “Three bedrooms, two baths, a kitchen and a long narrow hallway. It also describes our back porch, the two-car garage and the gas meter outside the basement window.”
“Like I said, details. Your house is pretty standard, but this information comes in handy when there are hazards like stored gasoline or a hidden cistern on the property. Even a mean dog. We don’t like surprises.”
“This seems personal,” Laura said, looking at the picture of the outside of her house and the description of her gas furnace, central air and narrow attic with no entrance.
“It’s business,” Tony said, leaning over her.
With Tony so close, Laura could see the faint blond stubble on his chin and the fine lines around his eyes from the Cape Pursuit sunshine. He smelled like aftershave and the fire station, just as the sweatshirt that was still on a chair in her bedroom did. She was trying very hard to maintain a line in her heart between her personal feelings for Tony and her passion for becoming a valued member of the fire department.
It wasn’t about her. It was about what she could do for others and finding her place in a world that had been turned upside down and sideways by Adam’s death. No matter how appealing Tony was, caring for him would be a stumbling block she didn’t need.
“Tell me how to operate this,” she said.
Tony rolled a chair over and sat next to her. He reviewed the call letters and customary radio lingo, showed her where the numbers of all the trucks were written down and ran through the procedure for calling in or extending mutual aid with other departments. As usual, his explanation was detailed and supplemented with anecdotes from fire calls in the past. He was an excellent teacher—all the best teachers loved their subjects passionately.
She had once loved history, but seeing the blank interest from high school sophomores had chipped away at her passion for it. Gradually, she’d realized it wasn’t history she loved—it was the idea of making a difference in someone else’s life.
That realization meant she had to walk away from high school and do the one thing that both challenged her painfully and filled her heart.
A sharp tone emanated from the radio and a dispatcher’s voice came on. Laura jumped in her seat and pulled her hands back from the radio.
Tony laughed. “You didn’t do anything.”
They both listened carefully to the dispatcher’s description of the emergency and the location. Tony picked up the mic and confirmed the message with the dispatcher. Laura’s heart was pounding, and Tony was so close she imagined he must be able to hear it.
“Heart attack. And one ambulance is already out,” Tony said. “Looks like it’s going to be one of those nights.”
Laura heard movement and doors slamming out in the bay. Tony hopped up and went out, Laura on his heels.
“Got your fire gear?” Tony asked Charlie and Travis who were in the cab of the ambulance.
They both nodded and Tony gave them the thumbs-up sign.
“Will they need fire gear on this call?” Laura asked.
“No, but they may not make it back here before the next one comes in. Always better to be prepared.”
“So I may be driving the fire truck and meeting them somewhere?” Laura asked, smiling at Tony.
“Not yet,” he said. He crossed the station and went into the bunk room on the other side. Something about the way he said not yet instead of no made Laura feel as if she’d already passed a test. She went back into the radio room, determined to investigate the computer program further and memorize the call numbers of all the trucks. She hoped it would become second nature to her the longer she stuck around.
However long that was going to be.
Laura listened to the radio traffic from the newest ambulance call and recognized Charlie’s voice reporting to dispatch that the ambulance was en route. At the same moment, she heard the backup alarm on the other ambulance as it reversed into the station. With five overhead doors on the front and rear of the station, ten pieces of emergency equipment could face outward at all times and be ready for a quick exit. She could picture exactly where that ambulance was backing in and filling one of the slots.
She wanted to go out and ask what the call had been. Listening to stories about emergencies and asking questions about what the responders had done was a great way to learn. Tony had recommended it to everyone in her class. Listen and ask questions. Excellent advice.
Laura was about to leave the radio room when she heard Charlie say something she didn’t understand. Code fifteen. What was a code fifteen? Had she heard that signal before? She listened more closely as Charlie confirmed the code for the dispatcher and gave the address. Whatever a code fifteen was, Charlie had seen and reported it.
“Dumpster fire,” Tony yelled, his voice echoing in the station. “Outside a vacation rental complex, close to a structure. Charlie called it in.”
Laura heard truck doors slamming and men talking, and then Tony’s voice. “Laura, tell the dispatcher message received.”
She had abandoned the radio to stand in the doorway and watch three firefighters get in the pumper, but she ran back in and did as Tony asked. She hoped her nervous excitement wouldn’t show in her voice. She heard the pumper roar out of the station, its siren switching on a moment later, another truck right behind it.
Silence in the station. How many men had been on duty when she arrived? Two were out but had returned and gone again with Tony on the pumper. Charlie and Travis were out. Was it just her? Laura picked up a portable radio and did a quick sweep of the station.
As she peeked in the empty bunk room, she knew how many men had gone. All of them.
For thirty long minutes, Laura paced and listened as Tony’s voice narrated his arrival on scene, announced the fire was under control and there was no structural damage other than to the dumpster. That was fast. Tony sounded as if putting out a fire was something he did every day, like brushing his teeth or setting his alarm clock. Laura was relieved and reassured to hear his voice.
The bay doors were wide open to the sunset. She kept the radio in hand as she wandered the empty station and breathed a sigh of relief when she heard Charlie tell dispatch his ambulance was returning to the station because the patient had refused transport. Laura wasn’t afraid of being alone, and she wasn’t afraid to face an emergency, but she knew there was very little she could do except call in another department if something happened.
“I phoned in a pizza order on our way back,” Charlie said as soon as he and Travis got out of the ambulance. “I just hope we have time to eat it.”
; “I hope you ordered a lot,” Laura said. “I’ve burned a thousand calories just listening to the radio.”
“We always order a lot,” Travis said.
An hour later, the rest of the crew returned. As they ate lukewarm pizza, Laura got Kevin to tell her all about the dumpster fire. His description made it sound routine, no big deal. They pulled a hose off the pumper, knocked out the fire, wrote a report in conjunction with the police who had been called to that location after earlier reports of fireworks in the parking lot, and left.
“Hardly got our hands dirty,” Kevin said. “But I doubt our luck will hold.”
As he spoke, they all heard fireworks crackling in the night sky. Loud booms and hissing streamers infiltrated the station.
“The city show has begun,” Charlie said.
“It sounds spectacular,” Laura said. “The shows back home often had big gaps between each shell. This one goes on and on.”
Tony sat down across from Laura and cracked open a can of soda. “It sure does. And then people get in fender benders leaving the park or, worse, hurry home and set off their own firecrackers.”
“Maybe this will be the year absolutely nothing bad happens and you’ll sleep like babies,” Laura said.
“Babies don’t actually sleep,” Charlie said. “I know this from experience.”
Signal tones for a call echoed through the station and Tony held up his radio so they could all hear the report from dispatch about a fireworks injury and a fire at a home on the other side of Cape Pursuit. Tony acknowledged the call in motion as he and the other firefighters ran out the door.
Laura watched the ambulance, the pumper and the rescue truck roll out of the station, flashing lights and sirens activated. Over the radio, she heard Tony call out the volunteers and ask them to stand by at the station. She went into the radio room, wishing there was more she could do. Laura watched the second hand tick around the face of the clock, hoping the fire trucks and ambulance would get there soon.