Amie Denman - The Firefighter's Vow

Laura nodded sympathetically, her smile becoming lighter. “When you’re a famous singer someday, you can pour all this suffering into a song.”

Rebecca held a pen as if it were a microphone and belted out a line about killing time at a beach shack in the sun. They both laughed.

“While you’re waiting for your record contract and your throngs of adoring fans to come along, I’ll set up a few fans of the electric cooling kind,” Laura said. She entered the beach hut through a side door and found two big box fans. She plugged them in, then pointed one of them toward Rebecca and the other out the door to draw heat out of the small building. Growing up in a house with no air-conditioning and spending a summer working for a food vendor that traveled to all the county fairs in her home state of Indiana, Laura knew a few tricks for staying cool in the summer heat.

“Do you think I can make it as a singer?” Rebecca asked.

Laura leaned both elbows on the counter next to the teenager. “I think you can do absolutely anything you want to do,” she said. “You just have to believe in yourself and never give up.”

“That’s what my choir teacher said,” Rebecca commented. “But it sounds like something printed on one of those motivational wall calendars with pictures of sunrises and stuff.”

“I like sunrises and stuff,” Laura said as she moved to her small desk and pulled the lifeguard scheduling book toward her. “And teachers are always right when it comes to believing in people.”

Laura had spent the past three years trying to believe she was making a difference as a teacher, and she needed all the sunrises and motivational calendars she could get.

“Jason called off again,” Rebecca said, her scowl suggesting she didn’t like it.

“Did he say why?” Laura asked.

Rebecca snorted. “Something about somebody in his family being sick. Again.”

Laura shrugged. “Maybe somebody really is.”

“I asked for details last time we worked together, but he didn’t have much of a story,” Rebecca said. “I wish I was a lifeguard. I’d take his shift. I could use the extra cash.”

Laura scrolled through her list of lifeguards who might come in on short notice. Jason had disappointed her twice in the past week without much explanation.

“You should hire somebody else to replace him before summer gets really busy,” Rebecca said. “I was here last year and there was zero tolerance for workers who didn’t show up.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Laura said. “But I hate to give up on someone too soon.” She glanced up at Rebecca and smiled. “You never know who might turn out to be a hidden treasure with an incredible future.”

Rebecca shook her head and laughed. “This hidden treasure shows up to work.”

“Why don’t you become a lifeguard?” Laura asked. “I think you’d be great.”

Rebecca sighed. “I just turned fifteen, and even though I told my mom that was the minimum age, she thinks I should wait another year. I tried to get my Aunt Diane to convince her, but she didn’t want to upset my mom.” Rebecca smiled. “Aunt Diane retired last year, and now she’s decided to become a volunteer firefighter here in town. Can you believe that? She starts training next week.”

Laura swallowed back the emotion that always bubbled up when she heard, saw or thought about firefighters. Would the memory of her younger brother, Adam, getting on a plane to go west and fight wildfires always hurt so much?

“Do you think my aunt can be a firefighter?” Rebecca searched Laura’s face, but Laura quickly put on her schoolteacher smile.

“Of course I do. Anyone can be anything.” Laura hoped Rebecca never ran up against a wall she couldn’t climb and never lost her enthusiasm.

A family with two young boys approached the window and asked about renting surfboards. While Rebecca helped them, Laura picked up the phone and called two lifeguards who she knew were anxious for hours and willing to work extra shifts. She left a message for the first one, but got through to the second one and secured a replacement for the missing Jason.

As she worked through her personnel problem, she half listened to Rebecca chatting with the young family. They were from Ohio, and the boys were six and eight. None of them had ever been on a surfboard or even gone in the ocean, and Rebecca was giving them a mini-lesson with lots of hand gestures and description.

Laura hung up and approached the counter. “Why don’t you go out to the beach and help them get started,” she told Rebecca. “I’ll run the counter for a few minutes.”

“That would be great,” the mother of the two young boys said, a hopeful smile on her face. “If you don’t mind.”

“I’m happy to,” Rebecca said. “I love surfing.”

Rebecca let the boys choose from a stack of surfboards and then they bounded across the beach together. Laura leaned on the counter and watched. She breathed deeply of the ocean air, closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the waves and people having fun. A group of young teenagers were laughing and throwing a football back and forth just on the edge of the beach, their feet splashing in the water. A beach volleyball net was set up not far away, and Laura heard the players calling out who had the ball.

A long blast of a whistle forced her eyes open and Laura immediately began scanning the beach area, looking for a sign from the lifeguard who had signaled danger. Although her job was running the business of the rental shack and overseeing summer personnel, Laura knew the basics of lifeguarding. Her experience as a high school teacher and ability to manage teenagers had recommended her for the summer job, and Laura was happy to spend her days on a beach instead of inside a classroom.

But not everything about working on a beach was fun and games. She squinted and saw a lifeguard, Kimberly, waving at someone who was very far out in the water. Were there two people out there? Laura picked up her radio and keyed the microphone. She saw a radio in Kimberly’s hand.

“They’re pretty far out,” Laura said. “Are they okay?”

“Not sure,” Kimberly said. “I don’t think they hear me, and it looks like they’re struggling.”

Kimberly was the lead lifeguard on the beach that day and had five summers under her belt working the Cape Pursuit public beach. She’d shared with Laura her excitement about having only one year of college left as she worked toward her degree in marine biology.

Laura felt her pulse in her throat, and she was glad Kimberly had enough experience to sound calm even in the face of a potential rescue.

“Do what you think you should,” Laura said. “I’ll send you some help.”

Laura keyed her radio again, catching the attention of all the lifeguards. “Activate the rescue sequence for a person too far out in the water.” When activated, the protocol called for other lifeguards to close their sections of beach, get swimmers out of the water and converge on the area in need of help. Rebecca raced back toward the beach shack as soon as she realized what was going on and stopped, breathlessly, in front of the window.

“Where do you want me?” she asked.

“Stay here and listen to the base radio. I’m going out there to see if I can help, and I’ll let you know if you need to call 911.”

Laura had been a dedicated runner for over a decade since she had joined her high school cross-country team as a sophomore. She’d been an assistant coach for the team at the high school where she had worked the past three years, and she knew a lot about controlling her breathing and pace.

None of that mattered as she raced across the beach, radio in hand, unsure what she could do but knowing she had to do something. At the very least, she had to make sure that none of the young people under her supervision got themselves killed.