I wasn’t a fan of hugging, but I held still and 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.