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“What’s that?” Jesse asked as I shut the door.
“What’s what?”
“A ‘no charge’ call.”
Instead of answering her right away, I sighed and grabbed her hand, then led her up the stairs to the bunk rooms. We weren’t supposed to let visitors into that space, but Jesse had been at the fire station a full twenty minutes and had already been subjected to ridicule—twice. Not that Theo meant any harm, but the term “no charge” wasn’t one we came up with out of love and endearment.
Luckily, since I was a lieutenant, there was no one around to tell me no.
“Come sit in here.”
There was my bed and a small stool near my locker. Jesse chose the bed while Max climbed up onto my stool. I knelt in front of him and smiled as I messed up his hair and bounced on my calves with excitement.
“Wanna try on my jacket?”
Max clapped, but didn’t speak, choosing to show his answer with his eyes and smile only.
Jesse took pictures as I worked the heavy jacket around his arms. Even with Max still on the stool, the jacket hung all the way to the ground, and his little arms barely reached the top opening of the sleeves. He wore it more like a cape. It didn’t matter though, because he was happy and pleased with its fit. He didn’t want to take it off, so I grabbed some crayons and a coloring book that the station kept on hand for tours or school visits.
“Want to color a fire truck while I talk to your momma?”
“Yes!” Max yelled as he nodded and grabbed the little packet of crayons.
With my jacket still swallowing him whole, and one of my station hats sitting backward on his head, he slid to the ground and started to color quietly.
“How many questions do you think I can get in before he’s over it?” I whispered as I sat down next to Jesse.
“I thought maybe you forgot about that,” she groaned.
“Forgot? Jesse, I have a binder full of questions typed in Times New Roman, twelve-point font, and double-spaced. No way did I forget.”
“Are all your margins 1 inch?”
“With left-justified positioning and a title page,” I laughed.
“Well then who am I to hinder such astute preparation and diligence?” Her eyes were bright as she watched Max continue to color. “Your distraction may give you fifteen minutes, tops, so I’d open the file up and ask your questions.”
“Let me answer your question first.” Scooting closer to her, I grabbed her hand to get her attention and then tilted my head and smiled. I could tell she was confused, not only at how close I was and how intimate the moment felt as our hands connected, but also about answering her question. “No charge,” I smirked, reminding her she had asked about Theo’s comment.
“Oh, I figured we were skimming right over that.”
“No,” I shook my head to emphasize. “I just wanted us to be in a place where we could talk.”
“Wow, this sounds serious.”Shewas serious. The look on her face told me that she was worried and that whatever the answer I was about to give her would be big enough to bring down theentirejudicial system.
“Not at all,” I assured her. “No charge is just a term we use when we are called to a false alarm. A few years back, we got acall at four in the morning for a fire at the old motel on the north edge of town. An older woman who ran the donut shop across the street had shown up to start her day, getting the donuts ready for the morning rush and had seen the smoke. Naturally, she called and we went. Since that motel is all old wood, and usually had a full house, we rushed over quickly with sirens blazing and command in tow. A much larger presentation than what we came with to your house. Our lieutenant at the time had jumped off the rig first to assess what was happening while the rest of us got to work hooking up hoses. Right as we got done and were about to charge the motel, the lieutenant came running back to us, waving his hands and yelling that it was a false alarm.”
“That was the role you played the other night, right? The lieutenant sent in to see what was going on?”
“Well yeah, and the fact that I knew my brother owned that house but had no idea anyone was living there. Whatever the reason, though, I’m glad I was since it was how I got to meet you.”
Her face pinkened a little but she shook it off and nodded at me to continue with my story.
“Anyway,” I sighed, “It gets pretty cold up here in January and that night, it had gotten down to 29 degrees. The steam from the dryer vents were creating a puff of steam but it certainly looked like smoke. The donut lady realized she had made a mistake which, truthfully, we were glad she had. Just like when Max called and yelled ‘fire truck,’ we would rather come to nothing than not come to something. To make a long story short, the woman came out while we loaded the hoses back up and gave us some donuts. She said, ‘no charge,’ which kind of made us all laugh because ya, damn right there was no charge. As she started to head back to her shop, she shrugged one more time and said“Sorry,” and the lieutenant said, ‘Yeah, yeah, no charge.’ It’s just stuck for false alarm calls.”
Jesse had a disbelieving and humored look on her face, her eyes bouncing between mine, probably wondering if I had just made up that whole story on the fly. But hand-to-God, that was a true story, and I was just about to tell her so when she busted out in a laugh so loud that Max jumped up from the floor to stare at her.
“That’s hilarious,” she cried. “I cannot believe I have joined the ranks of the ‘no charge’ lady. Why didn’t you just say that when I asked? Why be so dramatic?”
