The Firefighter's Match

Just as she had that novel thought, the old cautions seemed to roar up with twice their strength. You know nothing about him. Clever strangers can seem all too friendly.

She stood there, listening to the music, trying to decide what to do, when she caught her reflection in the darkened window. JJ didn’t like what she saw.

Are you going to go through life like this? On guard? Waiting for trouble? Or are you going to choose to heal?

“I could probably knock him out—or knock him into the water—if he tried anything.” JJ startled herself by addressing her reflection aloud. She really was a little too freaked out at being alone these days.

Well, the music from the dock seemed to say that she should go make some new friends.

* * *

Alex Cushman stared at the path that led down to the dock, willing her to appear.

The goal of coming out here was to find some solitude, to spend time figuring out the new direction his life would take. Last night, that new direction had taken an impulsive detour.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. Impulsive detours were, after all, an Alex Cushman specialty.

Tonight he’d brought a small clay fire pit out on the dock. The temptation of chocolate, graham crackers, two sticks and some marshmallows? Well, that was another classic Cushman impulse. It was one he’d wanted to share with his mystery lady. The anonymity they’d had last night transfixed him somehow. He didn’t know her name, and she didn’t know his. This trip was supposed to let him step out of Alex Cushman’s skin for a while, to lay down the frustrations and complications of who he was so he could figure out who he was supposed to be. Now that he’d met her, he didn’t want to escape alone. Come on, Lord, this had to be Your doing, so bring her back tonight. There’s something about her.

Just as he was finishing the last bars of the Beatles tune and pondering how many s’mores a grown man could eat alone and not look pathetic, Alex heard footsteps. And there she was.

“Rosemary” wasn’t anything like the kind of women who’d caught his eye back in Denver. He doubted most of his friends would call her pretty, but she had this extraordinary strength about her: a hardened, warrior quality. He found himself wondering if she softened her appearance by wearing makeup or jewelry during the day—after all, they had met in the middle of the night. Somehow, he doubted it. He got the sense that appearing soft or approachable was the last thing she wanted.

She was also way too lean—someone ought to hand her a few quarts of ice cream and coax her into gaining some pounds. Maybe that’s where the stupid s’mores idea had come from. “Hungry?” he asked, putting down the ukulele and picking up one of the two small sticks.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “S’mores?”

“It sounded clever when I thought of it.” Alex offered. “Now it’s feeling a bit, well, dumb.” He extended the second stick to her. “The only thing that will feel dumber is if I’m forced to eat these alone.”

“Mr. Crosby,” she said, narrowing one eye but taking another step toward him. “You’re a little odd, you know that?”

“If you were listening, tonight I’m Paul.” Alex tore open the package of graham crackers and began snapping them into squares before she could decline his invitation.

“I’m not going to be John, George or Ringo.” She was trying to make a joke of it, but there was an edge to her voice that let him know she didn’t trust this little game one bit.

“Hey,” he said softly, “you don’t have to be anybody.” Alex skewered a marshmallow and held it over the small fire. “I’m a torch ’em guy myself. I like my marshmallows in flames.”

He’d meant it to be funny, but a darkness flashed over her fair features at his words. It didn’t take a marketing genius to see she was out here to get away from something as much as he was. Something to do with fire—or just danger in general? Maybe. And really, was that so much of a stretch? Why else did people rent tiny cabins out on the river if not to get away from their problems?

For a minute, Alex thought she was going to turn around and leave, and he’d be sitting there, trying to figure out how he’d just insulted a woman with a single marshmallow. She was thinking about it; he could see it in her face. After a long moment, she pulled a marshmallow from the bag and positioned it on the end of her stick with entirely too much precision. “Golden brown,” she said. “No charring, just gooey.”

She sat down, hugging her knees to her chest as she held the stick over the orange embers.

“I’m Alex.” The words jumped out of his mouth of their own accord, shocking even him.

Her eyes flashed up toward him, wide with surprise before they narrowed again. “Alex for real?”

The question held an inexplicable weight. “Alex for real.” He felt exposed for no reason. He stared at her, wondering if she’d share her own name. Any such wondering was squelched when his marshmallow burst into flames, a tiny black torch burning against the darkening sky.

“JJ,” she said as he blew it out. The thing was too burned, even for him, but he knew he’d eat it anyway. Alex wondered if he’d ever know what JJ stood for or why such a thing should matter to him at all.

“You’re not really going to eat that, are you?” Behind her scowl was the barest hint of a smile.

“Blackened. The best kind.” Alex smacked his lips for emphasis as he squished the lavalike confection between the cracker and chocolate. “Savory.” He bit into it, tasting nothing but burned sugar. “And crunchy.”

JJ assembled hers with the attention of a chef. She ate it just as carefully, in strategic bites, whereas he’d just stuffed the whole thing into this mouth in one gooey-black splurge.

“You’re a careful person, aren’t you, JJ?”

She bit another precise corner off with an assessing glance. “You’re not.”

They went on for hours. Talking about little things—ice cream flavors, whether or not barista coffee was really worth the cost—and big things—why nature calmed the soul, what was going to happen to little places like Gordon Falls, why the high school version of who’d they’d be when they grew up had proved to be nothing close to the truth. The subjects seem to go deeper as the last traces of sunlight faded. Without ever speaking of it, they’d come to some sort of no-detail pact between them. No last names, no careers, none of that stuff. Wonderfully, effortlessly mysterious. A dark, luminescent bubble in the middle of nowhere.

“Alex,” JJ began, and he found himself wallowing in how she said his name, “why are you here?”

That could require another six hours of conversation. How do you explain being confounded by success, losing focus when focus was once your stock and trade? Really, what kind of person gets weary of their own supposed genius? Part of him was ready to spill it all, and part of him felt like he’d emptied out half his soul already. “I’m trying to figure out why it doesn’t all fit together anymore and what to do about it.” It was true, but nowhere near the full of it. He was here to figure out if he had to lay down Adventure Gear, the business he’d once loved and now hated. Only he couldn’t tell her that. To speak it out loud would bring that mess here, and he wanted all those problems to stay far away.

He looked at her, pleased to feel so startlingly close to her despite not even knowing her last name—or even what JJ stood for. “Why are you here?”

She sighed and looked out over the water. It was now full dark, and a perfect crescent moon cast sparkles on the water where she swished one foot into the river. “Because I don’t feel like I belong anywhere else. Anywhere at all, actually.”

He laughed softly.

She scowled. “It’s not so funny, you know.”

“No, it’s just that I’ve felt like I belong everywhere for so long, that actually sounds nice. I know it’s not—I mean, not for you—but isn’t it crazy how God skews the world for each of us?”

JJ hugged her knee again and propped her chin up, looking childlike and elegant at the same time. “So you believe in God, huh?”

Alex leaned back on his elbows and took in the glory of the sky. “I’ve seen so many amazing parts of the world that I can’t help but know He’s there. The big, grand creation stuff has always been easy for me to believe in.” He rolled his head to catch JJ’s eye. “It’s the up close and personal stuff that seems to have come unraveled lately. I’m not a guy who does well with questions and doubts.” He was grateful she didn’t ask for an explanation.

After a long pause, JJ offered, “I did, once. Believe, I mean.” Her voice was quiet, almost weary. “At least I thought I did.”

“And then?” He rolled over so that he was on his side facing her. She was fascinating. There wasn’t another word for it. Alex felt like he could stay up and talk out here for weeks.

“And then I saw too many things that made it hard to keep believing.” He knew not to press for anything further, but some part of him was grateful when, after a long pause, she added, “I was in the war.”

It explained so much. Her hard edges, the way her eyes assessed things, the weariness that seemed to inhabit every part of her. Suddenly every response he could think of sounded trite and placating.

“Yep,” she said, twice as wearily as before. “It’s always a fabulous conversation killer.”

“No, it’s just...”

“Please.” JJ held up a hand. “I’m so used to it by now. I’ve heard all the standard required replies and silence is actually a nice change.”

“I don’t know how you come back from something like that.” His own weariness, how globetrotting for adventure had lost its luster seemed downright ridiculous now.

“I suppose that makes two of us.” She got up to leave.