She disappears inside. I stand in the bay and don’t touch anything, even though the engine is right there and it’s beautiful and I want to look at every inch of it.
A woman comes out of the hallway carrying a coffee mug and almost walks into the wall when she sees me standing in the bay. She’s compact and she’s got the slightly startled expression of someone who wasn’t expecting a stranger in her living room.
“Hi,” she says. “Are you lost?”
“No, I’m waiting for Captain Donnelly. I’m Zoe.”
“Walsh.” She takes a sip of coffee. “Are you the cookie girl?”
Word travels fast. “Torres told you?”
“Torres texted the group chat forty-five seconds ago.” Walsh holds up her phone. I can’t read the screen from here but I can see a flurry of messages. “You’re famous.”
“I’m persistent.”
“Same thing around here.” Walsh leans against the wall. She’s studying me, but it’s different from Torres’s assessment. Less strategic, more curious. “You really want to be here that bad?”
“More than anything.”
She nods. Takes another sip of coffee. “Cap’s tough. You know that, right? She’s fair, but she’s tough. She doesn’t bend on things.”
“I know.”
“So what’s your plan? Just keep showing up?”
“Pretty much.”
Walsh almost smiles. “That’s either very brave or very stupid.”
“My grandma used to say those are the same thing.”
Now she does smile. It’s small and quick and she hides it behind her mug, and then Torres is back, walking down the hallway with the Tupperware still under her arm and Cap behind her.
Captain Donnelly looks the same. Tall, bun, scar, coffee. She sees me and her expression does a thing I’m learning to read, which is that it does nothing at all. She has the most controlled face of any human being I’ve ever met. She should play poker. She would destroy people.
“Kimball.”
“Captain.”
“Torres says you brought cookies.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Torres also ate three of them in the time it took her to walk to my office.”
I glance at Torres, who shrugs without apology.
Cap looks at me. That same steady look from last time, the one that feels like being evaluated by someone who’s alreadymade a decision but is too professional to say so in front of people.
“My answer hasn’t changed.”
I nod. She knows I know. That’s not the point.
“Then why are you here?”
Because I can hear your sirens from my bedroom. Because I’ve been walking these streets my whole life and your crew runs them and I want to run them too. Because I looked up Station 24 on Greystone Road and it’s fine, it’s a perfectly fine station with a perfectly fine captain, and I don’t want fine. I want this.
“Because you said I could apply through channels if a spot opens. I’m just making sure you know I’m interested. In case a spot opens.”
