“Captain?”
“Probationary. Three months. Report Monday.” She picks up her coffee. “Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes, ma’am. Yes, I understand. I—”
“Don’t hug me.”
I was absolutely about to hug her. I catch myself with my arms half-raised and bring them back down and stand therevibrating because every cell in my body is trying to explode and I’m holding it together through sheer force of will and the awareness that I’m standing in front of six women who are all watching me not lose it.
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you, Captain. I won’t let you down.”
“You’re welcome. Now go home and tell your parents. I'll handle the higher ups.” She takes a sip of coffee. “And Kimball?”
“Yes?”
“Monday. Six AM. If you’re late, I’ll reassign you myself.”
“I’ll be early.”
“I know you will.” And then, so small I almost miss it, Cap’s mouth does the thing. The tectonic shift. The geological event. Except this time it lasts a full second and I realize it’s a smile, an actual smile, and then it’s gone and she’s drinking her coffee and Iris is grinning at me like she just pulled off a magic trick, which she did.
Torres appears next to me. “Congratulations, probie. I expect cookies on Monday. Double batch.”
“Triple,” I say.
Rivera closes her laptop. “Welcome to 11, Kimball. Don’t touch my locker.”
Walsh picks up her book. “I’d say something profound but Torres already used the good lines. Welcome.”
Hayes sets down her knife. Wipes her hands on a towel. Walks over to me and extends her hand. I shake it. Her grip is firm and steady.
“Six AM Monday,” she says. “Bring clothes you don’t care about. We start with drills.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Kimball?” Hayes holds my hand for an extra beat. “Don’t call me ma’am. Call me Hayes.”
I nod. I can’t speak because if I open my mouth I’m going to cry and I am not going to cry in the Station 11 kitchen on the day I got in. I nod and I squeeze Hayes’s hand and I turn around and I walk out through the hallway with the crew photos and through the bay with my folding chair and onto the sidewalk on Haverford Avenue.
I make it one block before the tears come.
They’re not sad tears. They’re the kind that happen when your body can’t hold what it’s feeling and it has to go somewhere. I’m crying and laughing and walking and my phone is in my hand and I’m not calling my parents and I’m not calling Keely.
I'm going to Teague.
Chapter Fourteen
Teague
I’m restocking the top shelf when the door slams open hard enough to hit the wall.
Saturday afternoon. The bar’s been open for an hour. I’ve got three customers, all regulars, all quiet. Paperback guy in his booth. A woman named Diane who comes in every Saturday at four and drinks two glasses of red wine while doing crossword puzzles. And a kid named Seth who buses tables for me on weekends.
The door slams and Zoe Kimball is standing in it.
She’s glowing. There’s no other word for it. Her whole body is vibrating at a frequency I can feel from across the room, and her face is doing the thing where every emotion she’s ever had is happening simultaneously and she can’t contain any of them. She’s been crying. Her eyes are red and wet and she’s grinning so wide it looks like it hurts.
“I got in,” she says.
