Rescue - By Anita Shreve Page 0,16
the Bullet. They question you, you say you followed orders. Is that understood?”
Webster nodded.
“What was that?” Burrows asked again, this time in a loud voice.
“I got it,” Webster said.
“All we had to do was fucking stay put,” Burrows muttered, shaking his head.
Webster had had patients die on him, and that was hard enough. But to have harmed a patient by not remaining at the scene was brutal.
They drove past the town hall, a brick ranch turned into the seat of government. The library had two stories and a stone facade, but it, too, looked fake, as though it might once have been a feed and grain store. Webster had never been a scholar, but he read at night for pleasure.
The rig passed by Keezer’s Diner, nearly full now at 11:30, every vehicle outside a pickup truck with tools and blue tarps in the back. He wondered if Sheila was working. Mother’s Country Kitchen had gone out of business, but the Quilt Shop was still hanging in there. Webster was familiar with every shop and service in town. Sometimes he liked to cross the border into New York and drive to a place he’d never been before. Explore a town in which he knew no one.
They passed the Maple Leaf Gift Shop, Armand’s Pizzeria, and Roberts Funeral Home. On a lane behind the funeral home was the American Legion Hall, the place where just four years ago his class had held its senior prom. Webster took the next left into Fire Rescue. He parked the Bullet in its spot: facing out, ready to go again. Burrows headed for the building.
Webster walked to the front of the Bullet and stared out into the morning. The snow was still on the trees from the night before, and the sun turned it all into crystals. He had a hankering to go skiing. He wondered if Sheila skied and thought not. He’d looked up Chelsea on a map, and it was a long way from anything with a chairlift.
He moved just outside the garage door opening. He would go to see her as soon as he got out of work.
He longed to get Sheila out of that porch room with the creepy landlords who ate Devil Dogs. He couldn’t imagine what they looked like, and he hoped he’d never have to meet them. But get her out where? He couldn’t bring her to his parents’ house. Out of the question. She didn’t have anything but the earnings from her hustle and maybe a week’s paycheck. He’d like to get on a plane with her and go someplace warm. It would take him months to earn enough money for two plane tickets, without dipping into his savings. Where would they go? Florida? Mexico? The two of them on the beach, he in bathing trunks, she in a bikini, a pair of piña coladas between them.
“Webster!”
Webster turned to the door of the squad room.
“What the hell are you doing, probie?” Burrows asked. “Making snowmen?”
“No, sir,” Webster said.
“You’re still on duty, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
Webster pulled back the curtain. He knew what town he and Sheila were in, but he’d seen it only at night when they’d driven to the B and B, both of them a little drunk, she more than a little. The streets had been dead at eleven, but now the town had action: pedestrians pitched forward against a sharp wind, pickup trucks traveling in both directions, a glare already on the crust of the snow. The B and B was Sheila’s idea. On recent successive Saturdays, they’d gone on day trips, stopping at a bar and a cheap place to eat on each excursion they made farther and farther away from Hartstone. But this time she’d wanted to make a weekend of it. Webster sometimes felt as if he were a rubber band, liable to snap back to Rescue at the first tones from his radio. He’d have to learn to ignore that summons. He was off duty.
He stood in his boxers. The room was overheated, and they had no control over the temperature. When they’d arrived the previous night, the heat had been welcome. Almost three months in Vermont, and still Sheila hadn’t bought a winter jacket or hat or proper boots. Spring’ll be here any minute, she’d say whenever Webster brought up the subject, as if she’d never have to experience winter again. Never another winter in Vermont anyway.
Two weeks after that night under the .9 moon, Webster had been promoted