Firefighter's Virgin

There was a pause. “Oh. How come?”

“It just . . . it wasn’t turning out to be the best work environment for me.”

“I’m glad that you’re self-aware enough to know when it’s time to leave a toxic environment.”

“Well . . . thanks,” I said, surprised that she wasn’t going to start giving me a hard time.

“This might be a good time to work on your writing, Daisy,” she said. “I know that you’ve been resisting the idea in the past, but really, that’s what you went to school for, so don’t you think you should put it to some use? There are grants you can apply for. Fellowships. All sorts of programs.”

“Right, but it takes a lot of time to apply and hear back from those things. And they’re all really competitive. And I haven’t really published anything, so I’d probably get looked over.”

“With that kind of attitude, you certainly would. Do you have any money saved?”

“I’ve got a little.”

“I’m not suggesting that you exhaust your savings, but maybe it would be a good idea to look into some grants, take a little time to work on your writing—perhaps while you’re looking for another job—and see what pans out. I have another colleague who runs a well-known blog, and she’s looking to feature some articles written by younger people, you know, someone like yourself. I told her I’d mention it to you. She knows Carl, too. He said he had a very good interview with you, and that you’re a lovely girl, which of course made me proud to hear.”

“Thanks,” I said. “He was nice. And very helpful. What does your colleague want the article to be about?”

“Anything, really. Any relevant topic to someone your age. She’s thinking between eight hundred to fifteen hundred words. And it will pay, too. Honestly, Daisy, you might just want to think about starting a freelance career, and writing articles for people. I’ve read your writing before and I know you’d be very capable of doing that. Plus, you’d be good at meeting deadlines.”

“Maybe,” I said. There was a certain appeal to that sort of thing, but the writing world seemed like it was highly competitive and hard to break into. “I’m just sending out resumes now, and it’s kind of depressing.”

“Don’t get too down on yourself. Are you at home?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you should take your laptop and go to a café. A change of scenery always helps me. Send out a few more resumes, then see if you can get something written for that article. It’d probably be good to get

your mind on something else, too. And if you can’t get it written, that’s fine, but when she mentioned it to me, I immediately thought that it would be something you’d be interested in.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “I’ll at least give it a shot.”

And when we got off the phone, I did take her advice. I packed up my laptop and walked a couple blocks away to Café Paris, where I sat at one of the outside tables, under the awning, and drank iced coffee and sent out some more resumes. I also opened another blank document and stared at the screen for a while, trying to come up with an idea of what to write.

I thought when I graduated from college, I’d have my whole life figured out.

I stared at the sentence for another minute, reading the words over and over in my head. Then I started to type.

By the time I finished typing, it was late, and my article was about three times the length that my mother had said it should be. It would need some serious editing, but I left the café feeling productive, like I had done something right. I walked back home, encouraged that maybe things would work out after all.

There was something happening outside my apartment building; I could see that right as I turned the corner. At first I thought it was a couple of guys just horsing around, maybe they’d had a little too much to drink. But as I got closer, I realized that they weren’t just having fun, and that one of the guys—Noah—was being restrained, by Ben and another guy I assumed was Kevin.

“Daisy!” Noah yelped when he saw me. There was a little trickle of blood coming out of his left nostril, and Kevin was standing behind him, both Noah’s arms pinned behind his back. His eyes were wide, and for the first time, he looked scared. “Daisy, who are these guys?”

“We’re the guys who are around to make sure creeps like you don’t get to do whatever fucked up shit is running through their heads,” Ben said. He looked at me. “Hi, Daisy. Looks like it was a good thing that we were out here. We finally caught him trying to get into your building. He actually snuck in when someone was coming out, and was trying to break into your apartment.”

“I just wanted to leave you those,” Noah said, looking woefully down at the ground where a tattered bouquet of flowers lay. “I was just going to leave them for you on the table and leave.”

“But he couldn’t pick the lock. So that’s how we found him when we got in—standing at your door, trying to jimmy his way in with a bent paper clip.”

“How did you get in, though?” I asked Ben.

The tiniest of smiles appeared on his face. “I picked the lock.” He looked back at Noah. “So. Should we take your ass down to the police station and have them throw you in jail? Bet you didn’t think that’s how your night was going to end.”

“I wasn’t doing anything illegal!” Noah said, looking truly distraught. “I just wanted to leave those for you—I wasn’t going to stay. I knew you’d know who they were from when you saw them.”

“Stalking is a criminal offense, you know,” Kevin said. “You feel like spending a couple years behind bars?”