Things You Save in a Fire(14)

“Thank you.”

“All to say, I made sure he was totally sold on you before I broke the bad news.”

“The bad news?”

I guessed that she was referring to my alarming capability for random violence, but instead she shrugged, like, Duh. “That you’re a female.”

“Oh.” I nodded. That. “What did he say?”

“Honestly,” she said, “that guy Murphy’s accent is so thick, I didn’t catch everything. But I’m pretty sure he told me that women are the worst, and they have no place in the fire service, and that in the hundred and twenty years of the Lillian FD, they’d never hired ‘a lady’ before. Then he added, ‘Not to fight fires, anyway.’”

“Did he really say, ‘Women are the worst’?”

She squinted. “He doesn’t seem to have much of a filter.”

“Did he realize that he was talking to a woman?”

“If he did, he didn’t care.”

“Did he realize he can’t discriminate?”

“If he did, he didn’t care.”

I took all that in. Then I let out a long sigh. My brain flipped through my options. I could sue the Lillian FD for discrimination, I supposed, but that wasn’t going to help me get to Rockport any faster. Plus, I’d never sued anybody in my life—and I was really rooting for fewer lawsuits these days, not more.

I didn’t want to fight for justice. I just wanted to fight fires.

I let out a breath. “Maybe I can look in Boston,” I said next, trying to stay productive. “An hour commute isn’t impossible.”

The captain looked up. “Oh, no. They want you in Lillian.”

I frowned. “They do?”

“Yes. Captain Murphy ended his lecture on how women in the fire service will be the downfall of human civilization by admitting that they actually do really need somebody, and beggars couldn’t be choosers, and at this point, they’d take, quote: ‘Anybody with experience and a pulse—even a lady.’”

I kind of hated that word, “lady.” Made me sound like I had ringlets and a petticoat.

“And the chief agreed,” she added. “So you’re in.”

“So,” I said, summing up, “they don’t want me, but they’re so desperate, they’ll take me anyway.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

I thought for a second. “Well, I’m desperate, too. So I guess we’re a good match.”

“You’re a terrible match,” the captain said. “But your only other option is Boston. And I can’t imagine they want a lady either.”

I nodded.

“So you’ll take the position?”

I nodded again. What choice did I have?

“And what will you do?” she asked.

I wasn’t sure what she meant. I frowned. “I’ll get a map of the city and learn the territory before I get there. I’ll show up on time ready to work, and I’ll work hard—”

The captain cut me off. “That’s not what I mean.” She leaned across her desk to hand me a blank piece of paper.

I took it.

Then she found a pen in a drawer and flung it at me.

I caught it.

“How did you wind up here?” she asked then.

“I was recruited straight out of the academy.”

“Having graduated at the top of your class,” she added, “easily passing both the written and physical tests—and then I handpicked you to come here. And you’ve been a valued asset, a tireless worker, and a rising superstar ever since.”

She waited for me to see her point.

I didn’t, though.

She leaned closer to spell it out. “You have no idea what it’s like to work in a place where you’re not wanted. You’ve been recruited—welcomed—into every job you’ve ever had.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“But all that’s over now,” she said. “The day you walk out of here, all that’s gone.”

“Is it going to be that bad?” I asked.

“It’s going to be worse.”

I looked down at the sheet of paper. “What’s the paper for?”

She leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to give you some hard-won advice. And you’re going to take notes.”

“Okay.” I popped the cap off the pen and waited.

She paused for a second, like it was hard to know where to start. Then she began. “First: Don’t expect them to like you,” she said. “They dislike you already, and they’ve never even met you. These guys will never be your friends.”

She looked at the blank paper under my hand. “Write it down.”

I wrote it down.

She went on. “Don’t wear makeup, perfume, or lady-scented deodorant. ChapStick is okay, but no lip gloss—nothing shiny, no color. Don’t paint your nails. Don’t wear any jewelry, not even earring studs. And cut your hair off—or keep it back. Don’t take it down or shake it out or play with it—ever. Don’t even touch it.”

I wasn’t going to cut my hair off. That was where I drew the line.

“So the idea is to make them think I’m a guy?”