Loree Lough - The Firefighter's Refrain

The female cadet beside him knocked on her desk. “It’s weirdly,” she said, “not weird.”

For the moment, Sam was more interested in the left-hander than proper grammar.

“Yeah, yeah,” the student said. “I was with the ditzy blonde on Monday.”

Sam had lucked into a slot on Open Mic Night at the Bluebird Café, a lifetime dream made more fantastic when the crowd had stood to cheer the song he’d written and performed. Amid the applause and whistles, a cute woman had climbed onstage and wrapped him in a hug that belied her size...while her wide-eyed date had looked more stunned than Sam felt.

“When the lieutenant straps on a guitar, he turns into a babe magnet.” The student smirked. “My girlfriend says it’s all his fault that she clung to him like a plastic wrap.”

Laughter traveled through the room, and Sam felt the beginnings of a blush creeping into his cheeks.

The young woman piped up. “Wait. You got a standing O at the Bluebird?” She flipped a copper-red braid over her shoulder. “That’s one tough crowd, so...” She frowned slightly. “If you’re that good, why are you here?”

Much as Sam loved the department, he’d trade his badge for a guitar in a heartbeat...if he thought for a minute he could survive on a musician’s salary.

“Somebody’s got to teach you bunch of knuckleheads how to get cats out of trees.”

His students snickered.

“Fair warning—laughing at my bad jokes won’t earn you extra credit, but showing up on time might.” He dropped the pen on to the chalk ledge. “Any questions before we get started?”

“Were you injured putting out a fire?” the redhead wanted to know.

A flash of memory took him back to that night when the ceiling literally caved in on him, and he believed life as he’d known it was over.

“You know, your limp?” she continued when Sam didn’t say anything. “Is that muscle or bone damage?”

She looked a little like Sophie—the only Marshall in generations born with auburn hair and brown eyes. Sam hoped the resemblance was purely physical, because his youngest sister’s questions could drive a Tibetan monk to drink.

“What’s your name, cadet?”

“Jasmine Epps, Captain.” She sat at attention. “If I graduate, I’ll be the first woman in my family to become a firefighter.” She lifted her chin. “And there are a lot of firefighters in the Epps family.”

Anyone who’d ever walked the long hallway down at headquarters recognized the name. But it didn’t matter. For her sake and safety, Sam needed her to understand that her name would not buy preferential treatment, and that included off-track interruptions and distractions.

He straightened to his full six-foot height. “I’m here for the same reason you are,” he said, addressing the entire class. “To whip you into mental and physical shape to become firefighters. And we only have three months to get the job done. You’re all equals in here, so I’m not going to waste time worrying about the balance of male versus female pronouns.” He met Epps’s eyes. “You okay with that, recruit?”

“Yessir, Captain Marshall.” She giggled quietly. “I’m surprised that you’re so well acquainted with parts of speech. I have a degree to teach English, you know, so I’ll have something to fall back on, just in case?”

Was she testing him, to see how much he’d let her get away with?

“That, people,” he announced, pointing at her, “was the second—and last—self-deprecating comment allowed in this room. From this night forward, we operate on the assumption that at the end of this session, everyone becomes a firefighter.” Sam paused, to give the rule time to sink in. “Got it?”

Following the drone of yessirs, he picked up his clipboard and sat on the corner of his desk.

“Now, then, since we already know that Epps here has a closet full of big shoes to fill, let’s find out who the rest of you are and why you’re here.”

While the guy in the far-right corner stated his name, age and marital status, Sam’s cell phone buzzed. It was Mark, owner of The Meetinghouse and founder of the Marks Brothers. Upon arriving in Nashville, Sam had chosen his hotel for the sole reason that it was walking distance from the club, rumored to be a favorite of agents and producers. Although Sam had put everything into his performance there, no contracts materialized. The next best thing happened, though, when Mark asked him to sub for ailing or vacationing band members. And they’d been rock-solid friends ever since.

He made a mental note to return the call after class. Sam went back to focusing on the students, the last of whom had just finished his introduction.

“Look around you, people. These are the guys who’ll have your back until the session ends...and maybe afterward, if you’re assigned to the same house. Match faces with names. Memorize voices. Anyone care to guess why?”

The guy with the ditzy girlfriend said, “Face-mask drills? Might be the only way to tell who’s who.”

Sam was about to agree and elaborate when Epps interrupted. “Your turn, Captain Marshall. What made you become a firefighter?”

He stifled a groan and wondered whether to set her straight now or explain his expectations privately, after class.

Arms crossed over his chest, Sam said, “I was born ’n’ bred on a Colorado ranch, and when I was sixteen, lightning started a brush fire. If not for some determined firefighters, we would have lost livestock, outbuildings, maybe even some ranch hands. I was impressed. Impressed enough that, first chance I got, I signed on with the volunteer fire department.”

One student wanted to know what had brought Sam to town; another asked if the Nashville department had recruited him from Colorado. How would it look if he admitted that dreams of signing a recording contract—not the city’s fire safety—had brought him to Tennessee?

Sam made a V of his first two fingers.

“One,” he began, “starting right now, in the interest of time and efficiency, we’ll do things like we did ’em in school. If you have a question or want to make a comment, raise your hand. Two—to answer your question—another thing that happened when I was sixteen was spending a week in Nashville with the family. I fell in love with the place and always said I’d come back.” He shrugged.

Epps raised her hand, and when Sam gave her the go-ahead, she asked him how he’d become a captain.

In every training session, one student stood out from the rest. The joker. The know-it-all. The always befuddled. And the chronic question-asker. Oh, yeah, he’d have to nip this in the bud, stat.

“I kept my ears open and my mouth shut.” He met every cadet’s eyes. “Same thing each of you will do...if you hope to advance in the ranks.”

Epps held up a forefinger and prepared to fire off another question, but Sam beat her to the punch.

“Pencils up, people. We have a lot of ground to cover, and I talk fast.”

He instructed them to turn to the blank pages at the back of their workbooks, and after an hour of questions and answers regarding the preliminary qualifications for rookie firefighters, he dismissed class early. He erased the whiteboard as they filed out of the room. How many would he lose between now and the last class? One, if he had to guess: Epps. Her attitude made it pretty clear that she believed her family name would buy certain considerations. The minute she figured out how wrong she was...

His phone buzzed again.

“You know where The Right Note is, right?” Mark asked.

“The diner at the corner of 19th and 20th?”

“How soon can you be there?”

“Ten minutes, give or take. Why?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Bring an appetite. Supper’s on me.”