Page 42 of Second Alarm
Ty
The Watershed on Friday night is operating at full occupancy, which is to say Derek has assumed command, Big Jim has stopped pretending to discourage him, and Harrison's ledger is out.
Harrison's ledger lives in a three-ring binder. Harrison doesn't acknowledge that Harrison keeps a ledger. Harrison will tell you, if you ask, that he's writing down inventory for Station 7. He isn't writing down inventory. Harrison is tracking bets and gossip, same as the rest of us, and he does it in the open because Harrison has decided that the best way to hide something is to do it badly in front of everybody and get the reputation of a man too boring to be hiding anything. It works.
I'm at the bar next to Rivera, in my hoodie, drinking the Mirror Pond Big Jim poured without being asked — because I've been coming here for eight years and he's pared my order down to a single glass of Deschutes. I stopped objecting because objecting is futile and also because he's correct about my taste in beer.
Hanna isn't here. Hanna has decided, the way she decides every other Friday, that she's going to not be at the Watershed tonight. I don't know this for certain. I haven't asked and Ihaven't gone looking. I've been sitting at this bar with my friend next to me and my beer in my hand, trying to have a Friday night that isn't constructed around the absence of a specific woman, and it isn't going well, and Rivera has been not acknowledging that it isn't going well, and I appreciate him for it.
"Okay." Derek climbs on top of his chair. "Gentlemen. And Gemma. And Beck. And Aiden. And — "
"Derek, get off the chair."
"Can everyone hear me?"
"We can all hear you."
"I'm convening a meeting."
"Oh, god," Harrison says.
"I'm convening a meeting of the Station 7 Informal Matchmaking Committee."
"Derek," Harrison says.
"Larsen — our Larsen, the new one, the paramedic one — is over one month in and we've made exactly zero progress. I'm unhappy about this. As chair of the committee — "
"You aren't the chair," Gemma says.
"As self-appointed chair of the committee — "
"Appointing isn't the same as self-appointing, Derek."
"I have tenure on the committee, Gemma. I've run the committee since we were trying to find Aiden a girlfriend — "
"You weren't on that committee."
"I was silently on the committee."
"Derek, sit down."
Derek doesn't sit down. Derek has waited weeks for this particular set piece, and he has, I note, a clipboard, because Derek has arrived to this meeting with a clipboard.
"I have," Derek announces, "candidates."
"Derek — "
"Candidate number one. Mike, my cousin. He owns a Subaru. He has all his teeth. He — "
"No," Rivera says.
Rivera hasn't raised his voice. He said the word into his beer without looking up, and Derek has stopped mid-sentence, because Rivera's no is an established procedure: if Rivera says no, you cross the name off.
"Fine." Derek draws a line through the clipboard. "Candidate number two. Terrence, out of Station 3. Paramedic. Certified in advanced life support. Tall. Great shoulders."
"Terrence still lives with his mother," Beck says, mildly.
"Yes. But — I view this as a pro. It means he's close to his family."
