The 6'2'', 200 Lb. Challenge. Vivian Leiber
captured a little bit of the stuff myths are made of. His helmet fell to the ground, revealing cinder-kissed and sweat-soaked blond hair. Sooty smudges highlighted the strong, sure lines of his face.
He cradled within his yellow slicker the little boy who had moments before been given up for dead. As he pulled open his coat to reveal the boy, the building behind him heaved and collapsed.
The picture taken by the photographer from the Milwaukee Herald later would appear in a Time magazine spread on American heroes. And Wisconsin’s governor would even devote part of his next day’s press conference to applauding the actions of the Grace Bay firefighter.
When the clock struck twelve on the night of the blaze, the fire had been brought under control, and hungry firefighters and volunteers crowded into the six booths, three tables and eighteen counter seats of Boris’s Diner.
They weren’t thinking about heroism.
They were thinking about their empty bellies.
With Boris at the grill and only one busboy, Mimi had handled every customer with a smile, quick service and a cup of coffee that she never let run dry.
She had kept an eye out for Gibson then, not knowing that he was being rushed to the community hospital. With the list of injuries Gibson St. James sustained—a shoulder pulled clear of its socket, cracked ribs, bruised lungs, a chipped femur and a sprained wrist—it was a miracle that he had gotten out of the building on his own.
Much less with the miracle baby still breathing.
But for Mimi, the real miracle would be convincing the chief that she could do as good a job as Gibson someday.
When she had gone to see the chief this morning, he hadn’t seemed interested in discussing her future career—only Gibson’s. Grace Bay’s favorite son had apparently checked out of the rehabilitation institute after only a week there, very much against doctor’s orders. He’d insisted that he could get himself home. He didn’t need anyone’s help, he said.
Gary Redmond, the owner and driver of the town’s only taxicab, had dropped Gibson’s resignation letter on the chief’s desk while the weary, injured hero waited outside.
“I told Gary that I wasn’t taking the letter,” the chief said. “But he told me that Gibson had offered him a ten-dollar bonus if he could find someplace, anyplace in my office to put it. I found a place for his resignation letter, all right.”
The chief good-naturedly showed her the paper airplane he had made from Gibson’s curt note. He whizzed it past her head out into the firehouse apparatus room, seemingly unaware of Mimi’s crimson-faced humiliation. But then he finally addressed the subject at hand.
“You failed the exam,” he said bluntly, putting his feet up on his desk. “Most women would. Exam’s too tough for a woman, too tough for most men. But that’s what bein’ a firefighter is all about. I built that obstacle course myself to test the skills a firefighter needs. There’s no shame in saying that a woman can’t do it.”
“But there are women firefighters all over...”
The chief held up a beefy hand to silence her. “I’m a great believer in equal rights for women and all that kind of stuff,” he assured her.
Right, Mimi thought.
“And in big cities, sure, a station house can have a woman or two without affecting the readiness of the station to do its job. And maybe there’s even ways having a woman on the force could be a good thing,” he said, in a tone of voice that made it clear that if she asked him to name one, he would be stumped.
“Physical strength isn’t everything,” Mimi offered.
“Here in Grace Bay, we haven’t got more than five guys on duty at one time. And we got a lot of territory to cover. I can’t hire someone who can’t hoist a two-hundred-pound weight up a ladder and down. I can’t put someone on a crew who can’t carry a charged hose. I can’t make allowances for a guy—or gal—who isn’t strong enough to do the job.”
“But I really want this!”
She hadn’t meant to come right out and say it. But it was true. Boris was a fine boss; his diner was a great place to work at; she had been there so long that she knew everybody; and she made enough in tips to get by comfortably.
But that was just it.
She was getting by. Comfortably.
Any other woman her age—twenty-five— would have had the option of cutting loose and heading for one of the big cities searching for something more than “comfortable.”
Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, even Chicago wasn’t too far away. But Grandma Nona, who had raised her, was sickly and couldn’t do the things for herself that needed to be done. Mimi couldn’t leave because she knew her grandmother regarded a nursing home as the equivalent of death row.
But Mimi wanted more out of life than brewing coffee and serving the day’s specials at the town’s only restaurant.
The ad in the Grace Bay Chronicle for rookie firefighters had been intriguing. She hadn’t admitted to herself that part of her interest had been sparked by the heroics of a fireman she had never met.
“I know you want the job,” the chief said gruffly, swiping a tissue from the box inside his desk drawer.
He held it out to her, but Mimi shook her head, blinking back the tears that threatened to crown the shame of not being able to complete the chiefs obstacle course. The test had included heavy lifting, running with hoses charged with pressurized water, crawling on all fours back and forth on a horizontal ladder. All of this was capped off with chin-ups, pull-ups, push-ups and every other kind of -ups. The test was timed.
She had done the course so slowly that the chief, in a burst of rare compassion, had put away his stopwatch rather than inform her of the excruciating immensity of her failure.
She was the only one taking the test in the apparatus room and she was the only one failing.
At least she had done better on the written exam.
“Look, Mimi, I’ve always had a soft spot for you because you’ve always managed to find me the extra big slice of pie when I come to Boris’s. Especially when there’s lemon-cream.”
“Did you know I make all the meringue pies we sell? I’d be happy to give you your own lemon-cream meringue pie if you’ll let me take the physical exam again.”
“It’s a tempting offer, but I’ve got something in mind that’s a little more complicated,” he replied, rubbing his jowl. “Something just a little more complicated than lemon-cream meringue.”
And he had sent Mimi out the firehouse door with a mission.
She wouldn’t fail him.
She couldn’t fail him.
She knocked on the bungalow door again, rapping it really hard.
“Mr. St. James, I need to talk to you!”
Nothing.
“Mr. St. James, I know you’re in there and if you don’t answer me I’m going to knock this door down.”
An empty threat, to be sure.
“Fine. Open the door,” an irritated reply came from inside.
She turned the knob.
“I wish I had known. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble,” she murmured to herself.
And stepping from the brilliant sunlight of a late-August afternoon, she entered the deepest, darkest recesses of bachelor hell.
Gibson flipped off the remote and leaned back in the armchair so he could get a good look at the blonde standing at the door.
He blinked once, twice, and then he shook his head in disbelief. The sliver