We both stood staring at the blanket.
“What do you think the chances are,” the rookie asked, “that the guys’ll come down and move it a little closer?”
“Nonexistent,” I said.
So near, and yet so far.
“I think we should work our way down to a sitting position,” I said, after a while.
I could feel his shoulders shrug. “Okay,” he said, and I felt him bend his knees.
I bent mine, too. Our shoulders pressed and rubbed against each other as we worked our way down the pole, finally getting seated on the concrete down at the base. The cold concrete.
“Are you cold?” I asked when we were settled. Somebody was shivering. I just wasn’t sure which one of us it was.
“Just my butt,” he said.
“I think I can reach the blanket,” I said, stretching my leg out sideways.
I managed to pinch it with my toes.
“You are amazing!” the rookie said, as I pulled it closer.
What we were going to do with the blanket, I didn’t know, since our arms were duct-taped at our sides. I pushed it toward the rookie until he was able to grab a corner of it with his fingers.
“Don’t you want it?” he asked.
“You take it,” I said.
“But you’re the girl.”
“But you’re the person in nothing but underwear.”
“I’m serious,” he said.
“I’m serious,” I said. “You’re way more naked than I am.”
In the silence that followed, I wondered if I could have phrased it better.
Then the rookie had a bizarre question. “Are you wearing a shirt?” he asked.
“What?”
“Like, a T-shirt?”
“What kind of a question is that?”
“Because I’m not. So they duct-taped me right to my skin.”
“That’s going to be a bitch to take off.”
“But I’m thinking you’re probably wearing a shirt of some kind. And maybe the tape is just on your shirt. Which means you might have a better chance at wriggling.”
At wriggling? “There’s no way we’re escaping. If there’s one thing these guys know, it’s duct tape.”
“But you might be able to work your way around to the pole to get closer to me.”
A beat. “Why would I want to do that?”
“For warmth,” the rookie said.
“Are you seriously proposing that we snuggle?”
I could almost see his frown. “I wasn’t going to call it that.”
“On our first night here? Do you realize we would never live that down? Do you have any idea how much crap those guys would give us if they came down in the morning and found us snuggled together?”
It hadn’t occurred to him. “I was just trying to think of ways to keep warm.”
“I’d rather freeze to death,” I said. “And trust me: so would you.”
When I was quiet for a minute, he said, “So, you’re saying no?”
“Let me put it to you this way, rookie,” I said. “Is there anybody else on this shift that you would offer to do that with?”
“Um…”
“Would you snuggle with Tiny? Or the captain? Or up against Case’s big belly?”
Now he was smiling—I could hear it in his voice. “You might be the only one I’d enjoy doing it with…”
“Exactly. That’s your answer, right there.”
“What is?”
“If you wouldn’t do it with DeStasio, you can’t do it with me.”
“Fair enough. Good tip.”
“Just pretend I’m a gross old dude.”
“I will do my best.”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the metal pole. A dog barked. A car honked. We sat in silence for a while, biding our time and doing exactly what I hated doing most—sitting still. Alone with my thoughts was my least favorite place to be. If I had to be alone, I always had the radio going, or a book to read, or something else to distract me. Here, there were no distractions. I couldn’t even fall asleep. I had to just let my own consciousness gather around me like a thickening fog.
“Can I share something else with you?” the rookie asked after a while.
“Only if you have to.”
“I kind of need to pee,” he said.
I shook my head. “Going to be a long night, rookie.”
“It definitely is.”
The crew came out to free us at six thirty with blankets and hot coffee, just as the next crew was arriving for shift. I opened my eyes to a delighted crowd of firefighters standing around us, the captain announcing we’d gotten off easy. “In my day,” he told the crowd, “they stripped you down naked, greased you up with Crisco, and taped you to a backboard out in front of the house for all the neighbors to gawk at.”
“They did that to you, Captain?” Case asked.
“Buck naked,” the captain confirmed with pride. “Except they made a little splint for my johnson with tongue depressors and sterile gauze.”
“Well, that’s a visual you can’t unsee,” Six-Pack said.
“You’re welcome,” the captain said, and—again—I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
The moment they cut us loose, the rookie sprinted to the bushes to pee. I caught an accidental glimpse of his naked back before I looked away.
Too late. Those broad shoulders—and that little butt in those red boxer briefs—were burned permanently into my corneas. I blinked my eyes over and over on the drive home, trying to blot the image from my memory.
I left that first shift completely flummoxed. And it wasn’t the hazing, or the sleeping in the supply closet, or even the mental visual of the captain’s johnson in a splint made of tongue depressors.
It was the rookie.
I’d just spent an entire night with the guy, and he hadn’t done even one annoying thing. He hadn’t farted, or hocked a loogie, or even snored. The worst thing he’d done was try to come up with ways to keep me warm in the cold night air. I already suspected he was easygoing, and then last night he couldn’t seem to stop being considerate, and now, as of first thing in the morning, I knew for certain that he had an adorable butt.
Disaster.
I needed some flaws on this guy, stat.
Otherwise—seriously—I was in trouble.
Eleven
WHEN I GOT back to Diana’s after shift, it was eight in the morning, and I was exhausted. In many different ways.
Diana was having coffee at her kitchen table with a friend—a cute African American lady with poofy hair, maybe ten years older than me. Their cups were full, with steam rising, and they both cradled the mugs in their palms, savoring the warmth. They looked up and smiled when I walked in.
Diana had changed her patch to a blue-and-white gingham.
“Meet my friend Josie,” Diana said. “She owns the yarn shop next door, and she reviews movies on her blog.”
I had the weirdest feeling they’d just been talking about me.
It’s strange to say, but it surprised me for Diana to have a friend. I’d created an idea of her in my head as a lonely old lady, isolated in her house, making pottery all day with her eye patch on. Like, if I’d been mad at her for ten years, the rest of the world must have been, too.
I lifted my hand. “Hello.”
But Josie was already plunking her coffee down on the table and scooting back her chair and launching into an excited jog—almost a prance—to come over to me. She held her arms out and up, and her whole face was a smile. “OMG!” she said. “It’s you!”
Getting a good look at her, I suddenly wondered if she might be a little bit pregnant. Just a hunch. I had a knack for spotting pregnant people. Though, if she was, it was only barely.
I didn’t ask.
Then she was hugging me—tight, and with no hesitation, the way you’d hug a dear friend, even though we’d never met before.
I wasn’t a fan of hugging, but I held still an
d endured it, anyway.
She let go but kept smiling at me. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a hugger.”
“You’re good at it,” I said. “I can see why.”
Then she hugged me again.
I didn’t protest—even mentally. Who could resist all that enthusiasm and warmth? Plus I loved her style. She had a polka-dot bandana and blouse with a Peter Pan collar. Big, bangly bracelets, too.
She was, in a word, adorable.
“I love your shirt,” I said.
Her smile got bigger. “I made it,” she said.
“You made it?” I said. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a piece of homemade clothing.
“She’s very crafty,” Diana said from the table.
Josie was still standing very close to me. On impulse she grabbed my hands and squeezed them. “I’m just so happy to meet you,” she said.
It was off-putting in a way. Growing up with my dad, who was not exactly a talker, life was pretty quiet. We each spoke mostly when spoken to, in a kind of negative feedback loop. He was not a person you’d describe as effusive, unless he was watching sports. In everyday conversation? A minimalist, for sure.
Maybe I’d absorbed too much of his reserve, without ever intending to.
But I already liked Josie.
“Josie’s heard a lot about you,” Diana said, taking a sip of her coffee.
I looked at Josie. “That’s worrying.”
“We’re in crochet club together,” Diana said, “so, as you can imagine, we chat a lot.”
Nope. I could not imagine a crochet club.
“We’re actually the only two people in the crochet club,” Josie added.
“Co-founders and co-presidents,” Diana chimed in.
“Unless you’d like to join,” Josie offered.
“No, thanks,” I said.
Diana went on. “I’ve told her about the time you yanked out your tooth on the playground at school and tried to sell it to another kid in your class.”
Oh God. I’d forgotten that.
“So resourceful,” Josie said.
“And the time you got lost at the zoo and we found you, an hour later, all the way on the other side, at the lion cages. Perfectly happy. No sense at all that we’d shut down the entire zoo to look for you.”
I’d forgotten that, too.
“Adventurous,” Josie added.
“And the time you found that plant with the green berries in the backyard and ate a whole stalk’s worth and then very proudly came inside and announced, ‘Mama! I ate your peas!’”
They looked at each other like they could barely stand the cuteness.
“Had to call poison control for that one,” Diana said.
“Your mom’s very excited you’re here,” Josie said in a pretend whisper.
“It is exciting,” I said, not sure if I sounded sarcastic.
“Come join us. Tell us all about your first shift,” Diana said then, pulling out the chair next to her.
“Can’t,” I said, too fast. “I’m beyond tired. They kept us up all night.”
All of which was true. But that wasn’t why I wouldn’t stay.
I wouldn’t stay because I needed to keep my life in order.
Ever since that night at the banquet, I’d been off-kilter. It was as if seeing Heath Thompson again had cracked some load-bearing wall in my sanity, and now everything I did had to be about shoring it back up. Moving here hadn’t helped, either. Starting over with a new crew, having that weird reaction to the rookie—none of it was helping.
I needed the things I always needed. Running. Working out. Organizing a schedule for my time. Arranging my life so that it was sensible and ordered. I needed quiet, restorative time alone.
I did not need to lounge around in this kitchen with two women I barely knew, cooing over stories about how cute I’d been as a child. I did not need to create emotional bonds that could tug at me. I needed fewer variables—not more. I needed to be alone.
* * *
UP IN THE attic, I forced myself to shower, even though the only thing I wanted to do was flop down on the bed. Then I put on pajamas and climbed between the velvety white sheets. Diana had good taste in linens. I’d give her that.
But then I couldn’t sleep.
Too much to process, I guess.
As far as I could tell, I had three major problems to solve before I could make a life for myself here.
One: The station was in terrible shape. Really terrible. Life-threateningly terrible.
I had suspected that the Lillian station would be different from what I’d known in Austin, but I’d had no idea.
Instead of a spacious, ultramodern concrete-and-chrome building, the Lillian station was a hundred-plus years old and brick. Instead of a plate of fresh-baked vegan brownies, the kitchen table had a box of Twinkies. Instead of stainless gear racks, this place had wooden pegs. No central air, just window units wedged in with foam. No ergonomic Ikea furniture—just sweat-stained La-Z-Boys lined up in front of the TV. No solar panels on the roof, no organic garden out back, no compost heap.
No vent, even, for the diesel fumes from the engine below.
The radios looked at least ten years old, and the light fixtures looked even older. Even the updated ones were fluorescent instead of LED. The kitchen was 1970s orange Formica and stained walnut cabinets.
It gave me the girliest urge to redecorate.
Even the supplies were different. I’d been shocked to see that there were no infrared cameras. Also, no cyanide-antidote kit, which was shocking given how much modern stuff—from furniture to carpet—released hydrogen cyanide when it burned.
So: not just different, but dangerous.
When I’d asked if we had a cyanide antidote, Captain Murphy had burst out laughing.
“Is that a no?” I asked.
The captain was still laughing as he shook his head. “Those are two thousand bucks a pop.”
Two thousand bucks or not, we needed them. It was a real concern. There were all kinds of ways to get cyanide poisoning, from running out of air in your tank to having a bad seal on your mask. Breathing that stuff would kill you. Having an antidote was a no-brainer.
In Austin, we’d had three.
“We should have at least one,” I said.
“Find me two thousand dollars, and we’ll get one,” the captain said, like he’d asked me to find him a pot of leprechaun gold.
It wasn’t an unreasonable request. “It’s crazy we don’t have one,” I said.
“It’s crazy we don’t have a lot of things,” the captain said. “Like radios that work.”
If I’d been taking a sip of something, I would have done a spit take. “Our radios don’t work?”
“Some days are better than others.” Then he shrugged. “Built by the lowest bidder.”
Here was the upside: The captain was joking when he told me to find him two thousand dollars, but I could actually do that. I’d written a bunch of grant proposals for our firehouse in Austin. I’d gotten us a snazzy new gear-drying rack, a top-of-the-line exhaust removal system for the engine bays, and a “community relations” grant to landscape our side yard and install picnic tables made of recycled plastic.
And this station—all due respect—could use a few picnic tables.
To say the least.
I’m not saying I wanted to go crazy. I knew better than to march in as a newbie with flower vases and throw pillows. But working radios? Cyanide kits? Those things weren’t frivolous—they were essential.
I found myself Googling “firefighter grants” on my phone instead of sleeping, for my own safety, if nothing else. But I also started wondering if raising money for the station might be my way of creating a place for myself there. If I could help them get things they needed, maybe that would raise my value.
Off the top of my head, I could list a hundred things this station could use: a fresh coat of paint, new self-contained breathing apparatuses, air masks with radios embedded instea
d of handheld radios, new mattresses, central air, a motorized hose wheel or two, new lockers, a new washer-extractor for bunker gear, and a new hydraulic cutter—or several.
It was a good start.
The second problem keeping me awake was the course out back.
It really was too tall for me. Half the structures there were going to be hard for me to reach—and the other half were going to be impossible. It was set up with two identical runs side by side, and guys had told me they didn’t just “do” the course twice a year, they held massive high-stakes competitions, with full bragging rights going to the winner—and the opposite, I supposed, going to the loser.
I knew one thing for sure. I needed to figure out how to ace that course. Not losing, at the very least—but I wouldn’t say no to winning.
But I couldn’t just grow taller.
I was going to have to get creative.
I started thinking about something the guys used to do back in Austin called parkour. It was a way of running, leaping, climbing, and vaulting through the city as if it were a giant playground. They used to watch videos on techniques around the table in the kitchen.
I Googled it on my phone, and sure enough there were hundreds of videos breaking down techniques.
Like, you really can run up the side of a wall, if you know the right angle to approach and then how to tilt your body. And if you’ve got three surfaces at right angles and you do it right, you can use momentum and positioning to just leapfrog up to a second story.
Watching the videos was mesmerizing, and I stayed awake far too long, watching one clip after another of people doing impossible things with ease—and then showing everybody else how to do them, too.
I could stand to learn a few impossible things.
A new hobby. Not exactly crochet, but it would have to do.
For a morning spent lying in bed, it was remarkably productive.
A way to make myself useful to the crew? Check.
A way to conquer the course? Check.
Then there was my third problem. Which was, of course, the rookie.
And as for the rookie?
I closed my tired eyes. Maybe that answer couldn’t be found on Google. Maybe I’d just have to figure that answer out for myself.
Things You Save in a Fire Page 9