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 instead 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.

Twelve

SETTLING IN AT the station was both easier and harder than I’d expected.

Over the next few shifts, I noticed a few important things about the crew.

One: They insisted on treating me like a lady. Sort of. To the extent that they could remember to.

In a way, this was a good thing. It wasn’t the blistering hatred that Captain Harris had led me to expect. It was still a problem, though. They wouldn’t curse in front of me, for example. I’d walk into a room just as Tiny was saying, “What the fuck?” and he’d duck his head, guilty, and change it to “frick.”

“You can say ‘fuck,’ Tiny,” I’d say.

But then he’d scold me. “Watch your mouth.”

“Stop treating me like a girl!”

“You are a girl.”

I couldn’t shift anyone’s thinking. Curse words were not for females. Same for bawdy conversations, bodily functions, and jokes in general. Case wouldn’t even say the word “fart” in front of me. He’d just glance my way and say “toot.” If I was in the room, they held everything back that wasn’t PG. Over and over, I’d walk into the kitchen and watch them all fall silent.

“What?” I’d demand.

“Not for your ears,” Case would say. “Scram.”

I don’t think they were actually trying to exclude me—not consciously, anyway. It was a type of chivalry, I think. They were trying to be polite, and possibly respectful. But their idea of what it meant to be female was off, and I couldn’t seem to recalibrate it.

I was, for example, a huge fan of cursing. The power of it, the rule-breaking shock of it. The year my mother left, I cursed incessantly—in front of my dad, in fact. With my dad. And he was too heartbroken and angry and disoriented to stop me. I’d fix him a drink or two, and fix myself one that was “virgin” (though it wasn’t), and we’d sit at the kitchen table eating Pop-Tarts and complaining about everything we could think of. Especially women.

“Women,” my dad would say scornfully.

“Preaching to the choir, buddy,” I’d say, only half joking. “Women are the worst.”

Later, when my dad married Carol, we both had to stop cursing. She didn’t like it. If we wanted to curse, she sent us to the garage.

So now, being the reason the guys at the house had to use limp substitutes like “frig” and “heck” and “dang” kind of made me feel like my stepmother.

“Guys,” I kept trying to tell them, “I like cursing. It’s one of my favorite hobbies.”

But the captain shook his head. “Not appropriate.”

They also kept making the assumption I was weak, which really struck me as odd. Hadn’t they all watched me do nine one-arm pull-ups on the first day? I’d bet a thousand dollars that Case couldn’t even do one pull-up using both arms and a leg. And yet they opened doors for me. They reached things on high shelves. They’d take heavy equipment from me and say, “I’ve got it.”

In itself, this wasn’t bad. I took it in the spirit it was meant. They were being kind. They were helping. It was more than I’d dared to hope for on my drive up from Texas, when I’d feared they were just going to glare at me all the time.

But there was a downside to it: the assumption that I couldn’t do those things myself. The guys weren’t holding doors for each other, or helping each other carry equipment. If they had to carry the hundred-pound roof saw for me, I was the last person they were going to hand it to when it was time to use it.

It’s easy to fixate on the size difference between men and women, but there are actually plenty of ways that being smaller can benefit you in a fire. You’re lighter. You’re lower to the ground and more nimble. You can squeeze through spots no big guy can navigate.

Remember that valor award I got in Austin for rescuing a school bus full of kids? That bus had slid off an icy road into a ravine and crumpled like an accordion. I’d been the only one small enough to wedge myself in. I was the one who pried all those kids out because I was the only one who could fit.

We all have our different upsides.

But that’s not how the guys saw it.

I didn’t want to reject the kindness when one of the guys tried to carry the hose for me—but I did want to reject the notion that I couldn’t do it myself. I finally settled on a phrase for every time one of the guys started to do something for me: “I’ve got it,” I started saying. “Keeps me strong.”