Things You Save in a Fire

by Katherine Center

  I looked at her, so polite and friendly in that goofy calico eye patch.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nothing ever happened with him.”

  She responded slowly, like she somehow knew I was lying. “Oh,” she said. “That’s too bad.”

  “Not really,” I said. “He turned out to be a dick.”

  The language made her blink. “Did he?” she said.

  I thought I was doing a pretty good job of mimicking a normal conversation—until I realized I was shaking. Not trembling, the way your fingers do when it’s cold, but rumbling deep inside my core, as if my emotions were colliding with each other in plate tectonics.

  Could she tell?

  I wasn’t waiting to find out. “I really do have a lot of work to do,” I said then, taking another step up. The stair squeaked.

  She read my expression, and my voice, and my urgency, and I could see her mentally back off. She’d gone too far, she suddenly realized. Tried too hard. Violated the essential rule of human relations that if you chase too hard, everyone eventually runs away. “Of course,” she said, taking a step backwards. “Not tonight. To be continued.”

  “Or not,” I said.

  She saw her mistake. In trying to pull me closer, she’d pushed me away. She met my eyes one last time and gave a sad smile. “Now I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

  I’d already turned away. I paused and looked over. “What work?”

  “Getting you to change your mind about love.”

  I shrugged, like I was sorry to break it to her. “I’ll never change my mind,” I said. “I know too much.”

  “Maybe you don’t know enough.”

  Why wouldn’t she just let me go upstairs? I let the irritation in my voice leak out. “Just look around at the world—at the lonely and the cheated on. The violent. The abandoned. I know exactly what people do to each other. I’ve seen enough ruined lives to last forever.”

  “None of that is what I’m talking about,” she said. “None of that is love.”

  “There’s conquest, and there’s status, and there’s porn. Love is something girls invented so they could feel better about it.”

  I’d shocked her. Good. “If that’s what you truly believe,” she said, “then I feel so sad for you.”

  “I feel sad for all the women out there dragging their boyfriends to Bed Bath & Beyond and making them shop for throw pillows. They want the fantasy more than they want the truth.”

  “What’s the truth?” she challenged.

  “The truth is that love doesn’t exist.”

  I meant for that moment to be my win—I meant it to convey to her that whatever it was she remembered of me, or expected of me, or wanted from me, it wasn’t happening. We weren’t going to watch It’s a Wonderful Life and be besties. We weren’t going to talk about boys or braid each other’s hair or treat this whole long year like a slumber party. That one fierce statement was meant to settle how things were going to be.

  The girl she remembered was gone.

  My mother should have nodded, looked down, and given up. But she didn’t. If anything, the words seemed to spark more resistance in her.

  She stood up a little straighter and looked me over like she was really seeing me for the first time all day. Then she said, “Sounds like you just threw down a challenge to the universe, lady.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “It means,” she said, looking a little triumphant, “that you clearly, obviously, any second now, are just about to fall in love.”

  Eight

  WAY TOO MUCH conversation. I spent the next two days fiercely avoiding my mother.

  No easy feat in a house the size of a shoe box.

  I skipped dinner. I went for runs. I made “visual inspections” of the town of Lillian. I did the grocery shopping and picked up a lavender neck pillow for Diana at the pharmacist.

  When I did interact with her, helping her on the stairs, say, I kept my interactions short, polite, and action oriented. I would not have another conversation like that with her. I hadn’t come here for therapy, or to have my mind changed—about anything. I’d only come here because I had no choice.

  Basically, I was just holding it together until I could start my first shift at work.

  I had already timed the drive from Rockport to Lillian, twice, and scouted the station so I’d know how to get there. I’d been to HR downtown to fill out reams of paperwork, get fingerprinted, and pick up my mask, gear, and uniform—both dress and everyday—and make everything official. I picked up my brass nameplate and my ID badge with my firefighter/paramedic designation.

  Then, the morning of my first day, I set three alarms for four thirty so I’d have no chance of being late.

  I followed Captain Harris’s instructions to the letter: no makeup, no jewelry, no cleavage. I even made an attempt at “no boobs” by clamping mine down with a bra that was part spandex, part corset. I put my hair in a low, decidedly unbouncy bun at the back of my neck. Actually, it wasn’t even a bun; it was more like a wad. I just wrapped the ponytail holder as many times around it as it would stretch. Message: I care about my appearance exactly as little as a guy.

  I even hesitated on the ChapStick because when I took off the cap, the wax looked slightly pink.

  When I left the house at sunrise, Diana was also up, sitting meditation-style out on a bench in the garden, eyes closed, face turned to the breeze riding in from the ocean. She wore a silk kimono, and she had a different eye patch on. This one was red with cherry blossoms. In two days, I’d never once seen her without one.

  I opened the back door, but she didn’t hear me.

  “I’m heading out,” I called.

  She turned and opened that one eye. “At this ungodly hour?”

  “You’re up,” I said.

  “Not by choice.”

  “Insomnia?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Breathing.”

  I squinted at her, like, Um. We’re all breathing.

  “Meditating,” she corrected.

  “Oh,” I said. “That doesn’t sound as good as sleeping.”

  “It has its upsides.”

  “Do you need anything before I go?”

  She gave a little head shake. “I’m good. If I get in a fix, I’ll call Josie next door. Her husband travels for work all the time, so we look out for each other.”

  I couldn’t help but note that there’d been no mention of Josie back when Diana had been pressuring me to move here. But it was fine. Great. Backup. Less to worry about.

  Time to get moving.

  “It’s crochet club again tomorrow night, in case you’d like to come.”

  I gave her a look. “That’s a nope.”

  “See you tomorrow, then,” she said. Then she winked her good eye at me and said, “Have fun.”

  * * *

  I ARRIVED A half hour early and waited in my truck until it was time to go in, not wanting to look overeager.

  At quarter to six, I grabbed my gear and reported to Captain Murphy’s office.

  I’d never walked into a firehouse cold like this before. Every job I’d had, I’d eased into. I’d known some guys who worked there, or I’d been encouraged to join by someone on the crew. It’s one thing to be invited somewhere, but it’s quite another to just show up.

  My stomach felt tight. This was the moment of truth. This was the moment when I’d find out exactly how much I’d given up by moving here—and if I could ever get it back. As strange as it sounds, friends, apartments, and even cities were all replaceable. But the job—this particular job—held something for me that I couldn’t find anywhere else. It gave me access to my favorite part of myself. That calm, centered person who knew exactly what to do.

  I’d endure anything to get back to her.

  Failure was not an option.

  Maybe they didn’t want me here. Maybe they’d resent everything about me. It di
dn’t matter. I needed to secure my place here, however I could.

  If I lost this, I lost the one part of myself I couldn’t do without.

  I’d Googled Captain Murphy already, of course, because I’d Googled them all, and I knew him by sight. Midfifties, stocky, ruddy from a life spent outside—and sporting a spectacular walrus mustache that made him look more like a cartoon of a fireman than a real one.

  Captain Murphy did not seem to be expecting me. “Yes?”

  “I’m Cassie Hanwell,” I said, and when I didn’t see any recognition, I added, “Here for C-shift.”

  Then came the nod. “Got it,” he said. “The rookie beat you. And he brought doughnuts.”

  Had it been a race? “I’m fifteen minutes early,” I said.

  “Our battalion chief always says if you’re fifteen minutes early, you’re half an hour late.”

  I frowned. But I said, “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t be late again.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  He tilted his head back and angled his coffee mug above his mouth so that the dregs ran out in a trickle. Then he clapped the mug back on the desk, scooted his chair back with a honk, and said, “Follow me.”

  I followed him—out the door and down the hallway into another office. He grabbed the PA system mic and flipped it on. “Attention, please. There’s a stripper at the kitchen table. Repeat: Stripper at the kitchen table.”

  He gave me a little wink and headed back into the hallway.

  “You do know I’m not a stripper, right?” I asked, following him.

  He kept walking. “Of course I do.” Then he pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen. “That’s just how we call all our meetings.”

  The guys from C-shift were gathering at the table. Some were already reading the sports page or checking their phones, and some were arriving from other parts of the station. I hung back near the kitchen work area.

  Captain Murphy stood at the head of the table and started talking before everybody was settled. “It’s just another C-shift today, boys, but it’s not just another C-shift. Today, while the Patterson brothers are sunning their flabby Irish asses on a Florida beach, we welcome not one but two new members to the finest crew on the finest shift in all the departments of the great state of Massachusetts.”

  The guys cheered.

  I’d studied them all, the same way I’d studied the territory. I’d learned all their names beforehand: Jerry Murphy, Joe Sullivan, Drew Beniretto, Tom McElroy, Anthony DeStasio. Add me and the rookie, and that was the whole crew, though we were too new to be up on the website. I scanned the group and matched the photos I’d seen with their real-life faces. Quite the contrast from my shift back home, which had been almost universally young, fit, clean-cut, calendar guys. There were seven of us on this shift, and, with maybe two exceptions, nobody fit that description. Even the guys who weren’t middle-aged kind of looked middle-aged. All scrawny and grizzled, with a gray, northeastern paleness to them. Down in Texas, everybody had been robust and tan. Here, they looked like ashtrays. And one, McElroy, was fat. Much fatter than in his photo. Genuinely fat. Heart-attack fat.

  Nobody in the room looked anything like a rookie.

  Captain Murphy went on. “Some of you might be wishing we didn’t have to break in two newbies at once, but I’m here to tell you it’ll be worth it. These are impressive new recruits, and that’s no lie. The first one rose through the ranks of the Austin FD down in Texas like some kind of a comet before moving to our neck of the woods for family reasons. But we’ll save the best for last. First, I want you to meet our new rookie, a fourth-generation Massachusetts firefighter. Some of you may know his father, Big Robby Callaghan out of Ladder 12 in Boston. This kid’s fresh out of the academy, and now it’s our job to make him a man.”

  Captain Murphy paused a second to look around the room. He frowned a little.

  “Guys, where’s the rookie?”

  The guy I recognized as Beniretto cleared his throat. “He might be duct-taped to the basketball pole, Captain.”

  “Already?” The captain shook his head. “Sullivan! DeStasio! Go cut him loose. He’s missing his own introduction.”

  Two guys stood and headed for the bay doors. I recognized Sullivan from his picture, but he was much bigger—at least six-four—than you could tell from the website. The other, DeStasio, was much smaller.

  The captain watched them a second. “Look at that,” he said to the group, like it was a profound life lesson. “The Irish and the Italians working together. Who says we can’t overcome our differences in this country?”

  Again: I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

  But I didn’t have long to wonder, because a second later, the bay doors burst back open and the two came jogging back in—this time, carrying a sideways body.

  The rookie.

  He was sopping wet—clearly, they’d turned the hose on him—and his ankles and wrists were duct-taped together, hands behind his back. Sullivan and DeStasio smiled as they laid him facedown on the dining table.

  “Not sanitary,” one of the guys called out, as the rest broke into applause.

  DeStasio pulled out a utility knife and approached the rookie.

  I should mention that when firefighters work, they work hard—and when they play, they play just as hard. Firehouses are full of guys with too much energy who are stressed-out adrenaline junkies haunted by plenty of tragedy. Goofing around is nothing short of a survival skill.

  Everyone in the room knew that the soaking-wet rookie was just the fun new firehouse toy—but I had a very strange half a second when I caught sight of DeStasio’s face as he moved toward the rookie with that knife, and I realized he wasn’t laughing. He was the only person in the room who wasn’t. Even I—not yet technically in on the prank—was smiling a little.

  But not this guy DeStasio.

  I felt a flash of alarm as he leaned in toward the rookie with that knife, like he might have some kind of psychotic break and just gut him like a fish in front of all of us.

  But that’s not what happened.

  Instead, DeStasio cut the duct tape at the rookie’s boots to free his legs, then cut the tape at his wrists. The rookie flipped himself around to sit up on the table.

  And then something truly, unspeakably horrible happened—far worse than anything DeStasio could have done with that knife.

  The rookie lifted his head.

  He shook out his wet hair like a dog after a bath, and then he gave the rest of the guys a big, goofy grin, just as I froze in place at the sight of his face.

  His stunning, heartbreakingly appealing face.

  Oh, no, I thought. No, no, no.

  Because the second I saw him—laughing, breathing hard, muscles still tense under his wet shirt—and saw his affable, all-American, Norman Rockwell–esque smile, I had all the symptoms of a heart attack.

  I stood there, in a room full of EMTs, silently diagnosing myself with a possible myocardial infarction. It was comforting, in a way, to know that I was standing in a whole room of guys who could save my life if need be.

  But then the rookie met my eyes and smiled at me, and I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t a coronary.

  It was worse.

  It was the rookie himself.

  I was having a reaction to the rookie. A romantic reaction. The dumb kind.

  A full-body reaction, too. Like someone had lit a Fourth of July sparkler inside my chest. It was so terrible. So humiliating. So … girly.

  That kind of thing never happened to me. Not ever.

  It’s worth mentioning that he wasn’t a calendar firefighter. He wouldn’t have stopped traffic or anything. He was just a normal guy. There was no reason at all that the sight of him should have hit me like that.

  But it did.

  I couldn’t turn my eyes away—which was okay, because everybody else was watching him, too. He climbed off the table and stood next to the captain, dripping. Then he took a few bow
s.

  Get a grip, I thought. Pull it together.

  I’d seen a thousand firefighters in my life. Tough ones, handsome ones, ripped ones. Hot firefighters were a dime a dozen. Heck, I’d spent three years working shoulder to shoulder with calendar-cover-guy Hernandez. I’d built up a solid immunity, and the rookie should have been no different.

  What was it? The straight nose? The square jaw? The friendly curve of those eyebrows? What was I seeing in that face that was reverberating through my eyeballs, into my brain, and off to every corner of my body?

  Maybe it was his teeth. They were so—I don’t know: so straight.

  Good God. What was happening to me?

  “Guys, meet the rookie,” Captain Murphy said, and the guys all shouted hellos and welcomes. “He’s a homegrown real deal from a long line of brave heroes.”

  Not helping.

  Time slowed down as I watched the rookie meeting all the guys one by one, stepping forward and reaching out with his wet, muscled forearm to shake hands over and over. Smiling at everyone with those heartbreaking teeth, including whoever had just duct-taped him to the basketball pole and turned the hose on him, with the most agonizingly good-natured crinkles at the edges of his eyes.

  It goes without saying, but this was not good. Not good doesn’t even scratch the surface, in fact. Firefighters don’t feel sparklers for other firefighters—not if they want to keep their jobs.

  Don’t panic, I told myself. It’s physical. He’ll turn out to be dumb, or rude, or narcissistic, or overly fond of fart jokes—and all this weirdness will dissipate. You’ll be fine.

  I’d better be. Because there’s no attraction in a firehouse.

  There’s no longing. There are no goo-goo eyes, or savoring glances, or secret trysts. Firehouses are temples to heroic masculinity, and ladyish things like heart sparklers are the absolute antithesis of everything they stand for—because there is absolutely nothing girlier than falling in love. As I’d just explained, with many eye-rolls, to my mother.

  In fact, one of the reasons I’d always considered myself uniquely qualified to be a female working in a firehouse was that—whether by luck or design—I had always been totally immune to all that nonsense.