“Is it going to be that bad?” I asked.

“It’s going to be worse.”

I looked down at the sheet of paper. “What’s the paper for?”

She leaned back in her chair. “I’m going to give you some hard-won advice. And you’re going to take notes.”

“Okay.” I popped the cap off the pen and waited.

She paused for a second, like it was hard to know where to start. Then she began. “First: Don’t expect them to like you,” she said. “They dislike you already, and they’ve never even met you. These guys will never be your friends.”

She looked at the blank paper under my hand. “Write it down.”

I wrote it down.

She went on. “Don’t wear makeup, perfume, or lady-scented deodorant. ChapStick is okay, but no lip gloss—nothing shiny, no color. Don’t paint your nails. Don’t wear any jewelry, not even earring studs. And cut your hair off—or keep it back. Don’t take it down or shake it out or play with it—ever. Don’t even touch it.”

I wasn’t going to cut my hair off. That was where I drew the line.

“So the idea is to make them think I’m a guy?”

“They will know you’re not a guy. The boobs are a dead giveaway.”

I corrected: “To make them less aware I’m a girl?”

She nodded. “Whenever possible.” She went on. “Don’t giggle. And don’t laugh too loud. Don’t touch anybody for any reason. Don’t carry a purse. Don’t use the upper registers of your voice, but don’t allow too much vocal fry, either. Don’t sing, ever. And if you make eye contact, make it straight on, like a predator.”

“Are you joking?”

She raised one eyebrow, like, Do I ever joke?

No. She was not joking. I was going to have to look up the term “vocal fry.”

“Follow your orders,” she went on. “Don’t ask questions. Know the rules. Go above and beyond at every chance. If your captain says to run a mile, run two. If he wants you to dead-lift one fifty, do one seventy-five. How much can you dead-lift?”

“Two hundred.”

“Impressive. How many pull-ups can you do?”

“Twenty.” A lot, even for a guy.

“You need to do thirty, at least—and with ease. Get on that. Forty would be better. And make sure you can do at least a few one-handed.”

I wrote down 40 pull-ups.

“Don’t ever act afraid. Don’t ever hesitate. Don’t ever admit it when you don’t understand.”

“What if I don’t understand, though?”

“Figure it out. Like a man.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I wrote it down, too.

“Don’t back down from a challenge,” she went on, “and if you go up against somebody, make damn sure to win. No fear! If your hands start shaking, sit on them. If you get an injury, ignore it.”

“You always tell us not to ignore injuries.”

“New rules: Never admit to being hurt. Pain is for the weak.”

I wrote down PAIN = for the weak.

“They will ignore you. They will exclude you. They will resent you. Being nice won’t help. Working hard won’t matter. Just by your very presence there, you are attacking them, trying to steal something that’s rightfully theirs, trying to infiltrate and dismantle their brotherhood. You’ll be a hen in a wolf-house, and they will eat you like a snack the first chance they get.”

She paused, and I thought about where all this advice was coming from.

She was trying to help me face my future, but she was clearly talking about her own past, about the path she herself had walked to get where she was. My admiration for her went up another thousand percent—even as my own confidence started to flag.

I tried to regroup. Maybe things had changed. She’d joined up thirty years ago. They’d barely invented the sports bra back then. I thought about the friendly camaraderie I’d always known at our station—what a solid brother- and sisterhood we had.

The captain sounded like she was describing some distant dark ages.

I wondered if it could still really be this bad.

“You can’t let anything bother you,” she went on. “You can’t get offended. You can’t be girly. They will test you and test you before you earn a place among them—and you might still never get one. They’ll tease you relentlessly, and it might be good-natured, or it might be cruel, but it doesn’t matter either way. They will burst in on you while you’re in the bathroom. They will goose you on the butt. They will dump ice water on you while you’re fast asleep in your bunk. And don’t get me started on the duct tape. It is what it is. It’s the life. Don’t get mad. Don’t file reports. Your only choice is to laugh about it.”

I circled the word “laugh.”

“And don’t talk too much, either. Remember: What women think of as sharing, men see as complaining.”

I could feel my shoulders starting to sink.

“Here’s another one: Don’t have feelings.”

“Don’t have feelings?”

“Don’t talk about them, don’t explore them, and for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t cry.”

“I never cry.”

“Good. Keep it that way.”

I wrote the word “feelings,” circled it, and drew a line through the circle. Feelings: bad.

“Last, but not least,” she said, tapping the paper with her finger like she really wanted me to pay attention. “No sex.”

She waited for me to protest, but I didn’t.

“No sex with firefighters,” she went on. “Or friends of firefighters. Or relatives of firefighters. Even acquaintances of firefighters.” She pointed at me. “If they even get a whiff that you’re attracted to somebody anywhere near the station, you’re a goner. That’s the biggest rule, and I saved it for last: Do not sleep with firefighters.”

“So I need to live like a nun.” Not a problem. Tragic celibacy for the win.

“Until you’ve proved yourself, yes. Because there’s no faster way for you to go down in flames than to screw one of the guys.”

“Just hypothetically,” I said then, already knowing the answer, “would the guy go down in flames, too?”

The captain took off her reading glasses and gave me a look like, Please.

“I like you,” she said then. “I’ve always liked you. You’ve had it easy, and now you’re about to get the opposite. Maybe it’ll break you, or maybe it’ll make you. If you play it right, your struggles might even lead you to your strengths.”

I had no idea how to play it right.

Then she said, “My best advice to you? Find one person you can count on. Just one.”

I looked the sheet over. “So, to succeed in my new job, I basically need to be an asexual, androgynous, human robot that’s dead to all physical and emotional sensation.”

She sat back in her chair and nodded, like, Yep. Simple.

I nodded.

“Just be a machine,” she said. “A machine that eats fire.”

Six

THE DRIVE ACROSS the country gave me a lot of time to think things through.