“Of course.”
“Audrey,” she says. “Be honest.”
People who don’t know Grace think she’s a bitch. They’re wrong. She’s resilient—has adapted to our venom-tongued culture—her skin spiky thick for protection. I was there when she cried for the four months of her parents’ short-lived separation, when Marshall cheated on her freshman year, and when she held Quinn’s hand in the halls, only to have her name scribbled in red ink on the bathroom stall with cow and whore and dyke acting as the prefixes.
And she was there for me the night before my audition, and the night after, and when my curves grew in and I wanted to take a knife to my skin but couldn’t find the words to articulate it. She’s here. For years, Grace has urged me to talk louder and cry harder. She puts up a front, but she cares.
“I’m fine. Let’s go.” The words are slippery cool, like limeade on a triple-digit day. “Fire doesn’t wait.”
My skin prickles. Fire doesn’t wait. That’s Brooks’s line. That’s what he said on the trail Thursday night.
19
Taffy
When the sun broke through the fog that late-June Tuesday in Balboa—Brooks’s and my second date—he bought me a hat from a harbor boutique. It was a giant, frumpy thing, black with eyelet lace and flowers pinned to the bow. I posed on the pier, laughing, one hand on the hat and the other on my hip. Brooks took a photo on his phone, saying that only a classic beauty like me could pull off such an atrocious look. I didn’t even roll my eyes at that line. I couldn’t. My heart was too busy rising with the seagulls.
I wore the hat on the Ferris wheel, where Brooks held my hand and I was afraid that he’d kiss me—I didn’t know how to kiss—but he didn’t try. We only lurched up into the air over the harbor and then back down again. At the very top of the wheel, the bench rocked, our legs hanging in the warm breeze. I stared at our hands, my chipped green nail polish and his long fingers marked with the occasional scar. I thought of what everyone had said at school about his temper, his backstory, his markings. It all felt like fantasy.
“I’ve heard a lot of stories,” I said.
“You mean about me?”
“Any of them true?”
He looked out at the water of the bay with a weird smirk, this quiet sigh. And as we swung up the wheel a second time, he answered, “One of them must be, right?”
“How about your eye,” I said. “What happened?”
He touched his brow, as if needing a reminder. “Dog attack,” he said.
“A dog did that?”
“I was seven,” he said, so careful, “out on some bike trail with my brother when this rottweiler ran up.” He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. “I got off my bike like a dumbass, wanted to pet it or something. Then I was down. Cameron tried to beat it off me with a branch.”
“He beat a dog off you with a stick?”
“That’s your takeaway from my traumatic memory?” He laughed. “Cameron and a stick?”
“It’s an intense image.”
“Yeah, well.” He picked at his nails. “He deserves the glory—but the dog—” He showed me the inside of his arms, more pale scars, long jagged threads, some thick, like marks of a boil. “It bit at my legs too. Got a nice chunk of skin and then barely missed my eye. I could have died.”
We were sitting so close, our limbs touching. I’d been afraid to meet his gaze, only letting myself glance up as far as his nose. But, as he shifted closer, I finally looked up and met his eyes, the swampy green, the pale dense snag of a scar beside his left eye.
“Thanks,” he said. “For asking. No one ever asks.”
“Were you afraid?”
He smiled. “I was a tad too preoccupied to be scared.”
“But what happened? Was Cameron able to get it off you?”
“Was a ten-year-old able to beat a rottweiler?” He laughed again, a hand in his hair, talking fast now. “No, he tried though. Hell, I remember him screaming and the owners running up, this younger couple. Some blond chick crying. I went to the emergency room. My dad sued and his partner negotiated a sweet settlement—made the whole ordeal worth it. Best eighteenth-birthday present ever.”
“How much does a sweet settlement entail?”
“Well, it bought the Audi.” Brooks nodded down to the bay, as if to the path of the ferry where we’d crossed over the waves.
“Wait.” I shook my head. “I thought being a pizza-coffee boy bought the Audi.”
His lips pressed into a thin smile. “Well, those jobs helped too.”
“Helped?”
“What?” He raised his hands in defense. “Minimum wage is high in Seattle.”
I clicked my tongue. “And to think that you made me feel bad about my wheezy voice, when all along you’re the liar.” I brimmed with a hot energy—the relief of having something easy to say, a reason to tease him, rather than him teasing me. “So sad,” I said. “Our entire friendship is built on lies.”
“It was not a lie!” His voice pitched, and the Ferris wheel swung to a stop at the bottom, the ride over. He helped me down the platform, nodded at the gate attendant, all the while saying, “I brewed, like, a thousand cups of coffee.” But his excuses were inane. We were both laughing, breathless fools tumbling down the boardwalk. “Cut me a break! I was nervous and didn’t want you to think I was some trust-fund baby.”
“A settlement isn’t a trust fund,” I said.
“I freaked out because I thought you were cute,” he said. “It’s a compliment!”
I whirled around to face him, unable to stop smiling. “You thought?”
“Think.” He grabbed my hand. “Obviously think.”
“Surviving a dog attack is far more impressive than being a pizza-espresso boy.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He glanced around the boardwalk, hands in his pockets, suddenly antsy, and asked, “How do you feel about scoping out a frozen-banana stand?”
* * *
* * *
After the Ferris wheel and the chocolate-dipped frozen banana we shared but he mostly ate, Brooks and I headed from the harbor to the beach. The waves were wicked and the tide was high. I took off my Vans, held them and my new hat as we walked.
With my jeans rolled up, the sand sticking to my feet, my heart was so high, so entranced by the possibilities this boy offered. “So, what made you want to volunteer?” I said. “Want to fight fires?”
Brooks smiled, head tilted back. “It was never really a question.” His thrill was contagious. “Isn’t there something you’re compelled by but can’t explain why?”
A breeze tugged us down to the sand. We sat with an inch between us. I dug out broken seashells with my toes and tried to think of what I was drawn to, what I couldn’t explain. Brooks sat with his legs crossed, shoes still on, his silver Zippo in hand.
“Can I?” I asked.
He passed it over. It was heavier than I expected, the silver cool in my hand. I ran my pinky over the Space Needle sketched into the base. And I thought how I could answer his question, that yes, there is something I was compelled by but couldn’t explain: him. But otherwise, no, not unless you count pointless researching, straight-A grades in school, occasionally thinking about college. I don’t have a thing. I’ve never had one, not really. Ballet never even felt wholly mine. At its peak, it was for Maya and Maya only.
Brooks was watching me with an attentiveness I could feel in my ankles. I flicked the Zippo open, fumbled to bring up the flame, and when I did, heat licked my finger. I dropped it with a sharp breath.
“Hey now,” he said. “You okay?”
When I nodded, he took back the Zippo, striking a bright, high flame—blue, orange, yellow, red. I looked down at my finger. There wasn’t a burn or scar or a mark, but the pain still numbly pulsed. It’d felt good—the scorch—why had it felt good?
&n
bsp; “You haven’t really answered my question,” I said.
“When I was six,” Brooks said, “my family took a road trip down to Oregon, and there was this crazy wildfire. That’s my first memory of fire, it must be. I remember smelling it. Tasting it even. And then seeing what had already burned, on both sides of the highway, a forest of black matchstick trees. All those trees.”
“That must have left an impression.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Cameron wanted to stop and help; he was nine, around nine, and I think that’s when I knew. After that trip, I knew I needed to get my hands on fire.”
“Man,” I said. “Career path decided at six.”
“I really just wanted to be like Cameron,” Brooks said. “That’s what it was, what it is, if I’m being honest—but it stuck, the firefighting dream.” He flicked the Zippo’s flame into the sand. “When we caught up to the fire, it was like driving through a war. The flames nearly consumed us.”
“They didn’t close the road?”
He kicked at the sand, and, his voice clipped, he said, “Cameron said we almost got caught in it. That we almost died. I remember him begging Dad to stop the car—he wanted to help the firefighters.” He shook his head and looked at me. “But can you even imagine? A family in an SUV burning alive?”
“No,” I said. “I can’t.”
A pause—enough time for a wave to crash into the shore—and then Brooks asked, “How’s your Latin?”
“Nonexistent.”
He flicked the Zippo again, this time cupping his hand around the flame, letting it breathe and stay lit. “Fire—the word—it’s derived from the Latin term fascinare. Meaning to enchant, to bewitch.” The flame swayed bright and steady, and I was enchanted, but by him. “Fire is seriously, literally, fascinating.”
I leaned back on my elbows. “I still don’t understand,” I said, though I did. I just wanted him to keep talking.
Brooks closed the Zippo. He looked at me, his expression so soft, hesitant, and then—in a breath—he ran a pinky down the side of my jaw. His touch was better than the almost-burn.
“Don’t you know your clichés?” The skin he’d touched hummed. “Humanity wants to control beauty, control the impossible: fire. It’s, I don’t know, the human condition.”
I looked down. “Beautiful,” I said. “That’s not fire.” The lace on my new hat was already torn. “It kills, destroys homes—” I remembered when I was a kid, watching a wildfire in the foothills from the lake. And I remembered when I was even younger, howling through an evacuation, flames thrashing the hills past my home.
“They’re misunderstood.” Brooks reached for my hand. “Yeah, they’re horrendous when they hit civilization, which is why I want to fight them, to help save lives. But wildfires—they’re part of the ecosystem.” He released my hand, and my palm went numb. “Nature needs to burn. It’s not a fire’s fault people keep building houses in its path.”
“Oh.”
He frowned. “You don’t seem convinced.”
“Well.” I spoke carefully. “You’re talking as if fire were a person.”
Brooks laughed. “Well, if it were a person I’d say it’s a fickle bitch.”
I tried to laugh too. “Is this—is this what you want to do forever? Like, a career?”
“Why, Miss Harper, are you asking me about my future? On our second date?”
“You just graduated high school,” I said. “It’s fair game to ask.”
“Not necessarily out in the field. Maybe fire forensics—investigation—the science of it. I’m doing a year or so of reserve work down here and then going back to Washington or up to Interior Alaska for a degree in fire science.”
“That’s a thing? Fire science?”
“It is absolutely a thing.” Brooks smiled. “I’m not the only one who wants to understand the uncontrollable.”
“You mean you’re not the only pyromaniac?”
He ignored me. “There’s going to be a big one this summer,” he said. “I feel it. This place is prime for a blowup.” Brooks tossed his Zippo in his hands, shaking his head. “It’ll be huge. National coverage, maybe international. I bet we’ll have a fire that at least makes national news.”
I watched the tide, wishing it’d come closer, close enough to wet my toes. “Don’t say that,” I said. “How can you even say that? Just thinking about it—I can’t even think about it.”
He studied me, his euphoria draining. “I’m only hypothesizing. It won’t—” He touched my hand, unable to meet my eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said. “I simply don’t want my home to burn down, even if the land is prime for it. It’s my home.”
He blinked, dropped his head, as if only realizing then the implications of what he’d been saying. “Of course I don’t want that either.”
Brooks was so near. I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move. He tugged me close, wrapped his arm around me and held me to his chest. I was in bloom, my skin licking with light. He leaned his cheek against my head.
“Hey.” He talked into my hair. “I promise to protect you, always. As long as you’ll have me.” His voice swam down my spine.
Warmth consumed me. “Okay,” I whispered, nervous, too nervous. “I’ll have you.”
Brooks was holding me, his lips near my skin. I’d never been so physically close to a person besides Maya, nor had I ever wanted to be. And I didn’t need his protection. But my face felt hot, words stuck to the roof of my mouth: I was happy. His skin was so warm against mine, and he was stiller than he’d ever been, as if holding me was a balm to his frenetic energy. If I could have swallowed him up right then, I would have.
20
10:17 A.M.
Grace and I are stopped several neighborhoods before mine. NO ENTRY. NO EXCEPTIONS. That’s what the sign says. Two police cars block the road. The officers shout to the residents of this not-yet-vacated street, the residents of these expansive designer homes. They shout, Voluntary evacuation, prepare for the worst, please comply.
The wind is far stronger than it was this morning, the sky blacker, and it feels thirty degrees hotter than Grace’s neighborhood fifteen minutes northwest. The fire isn’t visible—all I can see is the tar-like smoke billowing across the sky, masking the mountains and hills and homes planted on higher slopes. The sun is concealed. It could be twilight. Or the apocalypse. That’s what it looks like—the end of the world.
I expected a line of SUVs, residents waiting for answers. I expected to see some of my neighbors. But, for the most part, my little corner of the community has vacated the vicinity. My little corner, tucked away, closest to what grows wild and dry—does it even exist anymore?
I park and we stand by the truck, not yet daring to move closer.
“Oh, Audrey,” Grace says. “This is terrifying.”
I’ve always loved the contrast of it: wild against suburbia. Always loved looking down at my home from the trail—finding patterns in the varying houses and manicured lawns against the roughness of the high desert land, cacti and oaks and hills sweeping out in various shades of gold and brown and gray and pastel green. I always thought I was so lucky.
And I was, I am so lucky, privileged, to have grown up here. But I never considered the implications of a home built on the edge of the wild, a home shared with mountain lions and deer, and the possibility of floods and fires.
“You okay?” Grace asks.
We haven’t yet moved from my truck.
“It’s devastating,” I say.
She squeezes my hand. “It is more than devastating.”
We walk toward the barricade. Aside from the wind and the helicopters above, it’s near silent. And my heart stops, I swear it does, because as we turn a corner, from this new vantage, the blaze is visible on a hillside to the west of my hom
e—bright and beastly against the calm organization of suburbia. It looks so close. Is it as close as it looks? Several pitch-black narrow plumes spin up. Structure fire. Houses on fire.
Homeowners move slowly now, as if the fire has cast a spell. Ash swirls down, sticking to the palm trees, dirtying gurgling fountains. These families not yet evacuated—probably soon to be evacuated—stand at the end of their driveways, as if by doing so, they’ll stop the fire from displacing their lives. They watch the bruising sky, the blockade sign and the cops, the black clouds that flush up above my neighborhood to the south and spiral to the east.
They take pictures and murmur to one another. Others, perhaps the smarter few, lug suitcases and dog crates and framed paintings into their cars. A man with a thick beard rubs his eyes. A girl my age, in a faded sundress, cries beside him. I recognize her from the halls at school. She holds a cat against her chest.
Shadow. I need to find Shadow.
I hold Grace’s hand, and we walk closer.
Breaking the spell, a middle-aged man runs into the street several houses beyond. Grace and I freeze. He’s wearing hiking boots, cargo shorts, and a red T-shirt. He looks at his neighbors and waves his arms.
“We got to get out, everyone needs to get out!” He motions toward the hills, motions in every direction. “The fire is surrounding us—why are you all just standing around? We got to get out!” He stares at the two policemen. “What are you people doing? Do something for our homes!”
A flurry of whispers start up. People move. Turn back to their cars. Rush into their homes. Are they listening or are they hiding? One of the officers moves from the barricade, moving toward the man, telling him to settle down. But the man—he continues to yell. His fear and anger are more stifling than the heat. And then he’s in his Cadillac, a family already buckled up, backing out of his driveway and speeding away, waving a hand out the window.
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