Before You Could Say "Vavoom"
part 2
Before DeSoto could respond to Gage’s suggestion of getting Chet’s food supplies, the captain peeked his head in the doorway.
“John, could I see you in my office for a minute?”
The dark-haired paramedic was surprised, then satisfied. He had a feeling he was going to know what Roy had been referring to a few minutes before.
“Sure, Cap.”
Johnny gave Roy and the others a smug grin as he left the room, Captain Stanley already gone.
Suddenly the conversation Roy’d had with their superior officer came flooding back; at least the part where he’d given the captain the idea that Johnny had an issue of sorts that might need to be addressed.
Well, there was one thing for sure. He was certainly getting a lesson in how quickly a few words could get a guy stuck in the middle of a situation. . .or two.
~*~*~
Johnny stepped into the office where Hank was already seated at his desk.
“Close the door and have a seat,” Hank directed.
Johnny did the first, but declined on the second.
“I just wanted to make sure. . .that is. . .is there something you need to tell me?”
The paramedic pointed to himself, a baffled expression on his face. “Me? I thought you. . .” he stammered as he pointed to the captain. Shifting his weight to one side, he let out a nervous snicker and continued with, “Roy said. . .” again his finger pointed at his own chest. “Uh. . .me?”
The barely discernible response made the superior officer sure he was on the right course with his youngest crewman. Obviously John did have something going on and he’d been caught off guard in it being brought up.
“Yes. You know my door is always open for you guys any time you need to talk. I’ve told you and the others that before. So, that being the case, is there anything you would like to bring up?”
Johnny nodded, though he hadn’t quite recovered. “Yeah. Where. . .where’d this come from, Cap?”
~*~*~
Roy helped Chet make up a quick shopping list for lunch. He then waited for his partner to return. When Johnny did come back, he didn’t appear very happy.
“You ready to go?”
“Sure, sure,” Gage said, sounding rather curt. “Let’s go.”
“You sure?” Roy wasn’t certain if he was asking himself or the other. Maybe now wasn’t the time to get in the truck cab with his partner.
“Yeah, I’m ready.”
The tone had been a little lighter, though not much.
Roy followed him out, then climbed in the driver’s side of the squad. Johnny settled on the passenger side.
Once on the way, Gage turned in his seat to look at the older paramedic.
“Why did you tell Cap I had a problem?”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, he said you did.”
Roy sighed. “Look, he called me into his office, he started out like he was digging for something. I asked if it was concerning you. . .he said ‘no’. . .I thought it was dropped,” he shrugged. “How was I supposed to know he’d read more into it.”
“I guess you wouldn’t if he didn’t say anymore about it.”
“Right. And he didn’t.”
“But why’d ya even hafta bring me up in the first place?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought he’d picked up on something. You know. . .”
“The baby?”
“Exactly.”
Johnny was quiet as he gave it thought.
Roy took a quick glance at him. “So did you tell him?”
“About the baby?”
He nodded.
“It wasn’t the way I wanted to break the news, but yeah. . .I decided he may as well know.”
“And what’d he say?”
“ ‘Wow, Emily’s only eight months old!’ And then he shook my hand and said, ‘Congratulations, John, and good luck. You’re gonna need it.’ ”
Roy had to hide a smile. It was exactly what he’d expect their captain to say.
“Man, I sure hope I get to use Dix’s plan on somebody. It’s a good idea.”
Roy was just glad he had gotten himself out of one possible mess. An irritated John Gage was not easy to be around between rescues. He’d no sooner congratulated himself on the victory when another thought came to mind.
“You didn’t happen to mention to Cap what I told you regarding him . . . did you?”
~*~*~
“King me.”
Mike frowned and resignedly did as requested. Marco had made the final move of the checker game and won, though Stoker had taken quite a few of Marco’s checkers off the board as well.
“You want to play again?” the winner asked.
“Nah, I think I’ll turn on the TV.”
Marco then looked at their shiftmate on the couch.
“You want to play, Chet?”
He’d been lost in thought again and came out of it just enough to hear ‘Chet?’
“What?”
“Checkers. Do you want to play a game of checkers.”
“I thought you and Mike were playing.”
“We were. But the game ended.” Marco shook his head. “What’s with you, Chet? You forget about lunch, you’re sitting right there not doing anything but staring into space and don’t even notice we ended a game.”
Chet eyed Stoker, who was in front of the television at the end wall of the room.
When did Mike get up from the table?
He knew the engineer had to have walked directly in his line of sight.
I really *am* in bad shape!
Chet declined on the offer. He glanced at his watch and wondered how long it would be before they got another run. To anywhere. . .
~*~*~
Hank felt slightly better about his situation. At least he wasn’t going to have two little ones in diapers at the same time. . . .for a year or more. Nope, he wasn’t going to have that nor would he have to listen to the pitter patter of little feet throughout the house. . .
Nope, just the flapping jaws of the bridge club members as they cackled like hens. . .it was a description his dad used years ago to explain how women sounded when they got together for anything. Hank had a lot of respect for women, especially his wife. But when the ladies came over for bridge when it was his wife’s turn to be hostess, the ‘hen’ analogy sure fit.
Suddenly, diapers and tiny footsteps sounded pretty good. He rested his chin on the palm of his hand and sighed, a woeful expression on his face.
Nothing was going to make it seem better.
~*~*~
Johnny shook his head in answer to Roy’s question. “No, man. ‘Sides, you didn’t exactly tell me anything. Not that I could figure out anyway.” The dark-haired paramedic eyed his partner. “So?”
“So what?”
“So, what didn’t you tell me?”
“Nothing.”
Johnny just looked at him a moment, then shifted his gaze to the scenery in front of them outside. He narrowed his eyes in thought. Did Roy just agree he hadn’t really told him anything? Or by ‘nothing’, did he mean there wasn’t much to tell? It had to be the first, Johnny surmised. Once again he turned in his seat to face his partner.
“Look, if ya don’t wanna tell me, why’d ya hafta bring it up again?”
“You know, I’m asking myself that same question right now.” After a brief pause, he added, “I have a feeling Cap’s gonna be calling me into his office next. . .again.” Roy glanced at Johnny. “Really, it’s nothing.”
Gage faced forward again and settled in his seat. After a few moments of consideration he spoke out. “I’ll tell ya what. I’ll let ya off the hook. For now,” he added wryly. “But there is somethin’ else that’s kinda buggin’ me.”
“What’s that?”
“Why would Cap wanna know if Lorraine played bridge?”
That brought a small smile to the driver’s face. He had to give Captain Stanley credit for being persistent. Roy shrugged. No way was he going to make another comment that would quickly get him in trouble all over again.
~*~*~
It wasn’t long before Chet got his wish and the engine crew was on their way to a ‘man down’ call. Of course, he hadn’t been wishing ill fortune on an innocent bystander. The fireman hoped it wouldn’t be anything very serious and more like something ridiculous.
~*~*~
The paramedics had just gotten through the doorway of the grocery store when Dispatch came over the HT with the information for the ‘man down’ response.
They turned and hurried back out to their squad, empty handed except for the HT. They wondered if they’d just be picking up lunch later for themselves and their crewmates at a fast food place.
~*~*~
Johnny and Roy arrived at the scene first. They were immediately led around to a backyard of a two-story home. There was a swing set with a couple of swings and a two-seated glider, a slide attached to the side of the metal frame. A sand box wasn’t far from the out-door play set. Several feet to the right of that was a trampoline. A man in his early thirties clad only in Hawaiian print shorts lay on the ground on his back close to one end of it. He groaned in pain as the paramedics approached.
~*~*~
The men from Engine 51 soon joined Gage and DeSoto, and the medics explained the situation to their crewmates, who likely weren’t going to be needed after all except for a hand with equipment.
The man had been watching his children play on their new trampoline when he decided to try doing a forward flip on it himself.
Before his wife could even shout a warning of, “Look out!”, he had over shot the mat surface. He landed partially on the springs and frame before finally ending up on the ground where he was now.
“We’re gonna need the backboard,” Johnny said.
Captain Stanley turned to his two crew members who’d come with him. “Marco, go get the board from the squad for them. Chet, have Mike make us clear in case we’re needed for another call.”
“Sure, Cap,” the latter acknowledged. He followed behind Lopez, who was already in a trot toward the corner of the house.
~*~*~
Once the victim was secured on the backboard with a c-collar around his neck, and the ambulance was on scene, the captain was ready to return to the station.
“We’ll see you guys back at the barn.”
“Okay, Cap,” Johnny said as he readied himself to help lift the injured man onto the stretcher that was being brought their way.
~*~*~
“I can’t believe. . . how quick things can just happen. . .,” the patient commented to Gage once they were on their way to Rampart. “I mean. . . I was at one end of the trampoline. . . plenty of room for a flip. . .I was sure . . .of it. . .and before I knew it. . . I was laying on the ground. . .looking up at . . .blue sky.” He shifted his eyes toward the paramedic since he couldn’t move his head. “I guess you guys know it. . .better’n the rest of us.”
Johnny gave a brief nod. “You could say that.”
In more ways than one, he thought, as he reflected on how soon he was becoming a father of two. Little did he know some of his shiftmates would agree with him for reasons of their own.
~*~*~
“Chet, you’re just not yourself today,” Marco commented as they rode back to the station.
“Last I checked, I was who I am.”
The Hispanic fire fighter shook his head. “C’mon, there’s something bothering you.”
Chet looked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Marco,” he shrugged.
The other eyed him incredulously. How could he possibly claim that he wasn’t acting like a guy with a lot on his mind? Marco gave it more thought. By the time they’d gotten back to the station, he had decided not to push for an answer, but rather wait for Chet to slip up and reveal something on his own. He was sure it would eventually happen. If not, there was always hope John would be pressing him for more information soon.
~*~*~
The engine crew got back to the station just in time to hear the phone in the dayroom ring. Chet froze in mid-step just outside the doorway.
“Sure you’re yourself,” Marco said as he walked past him.
The curly-haired fireman frowned.
Inside the dayroom, Mike had answered the phone. After a brief conversation that ended with a couple of ‘Okays’ and a ‘Me too’, he placed the receiver back in its cradle and leaned with his left shoulder against the wall.
“You look a little shell shocked,” Captain Stanley said as he approached after getting a cup of coffee.
Mike just gave a nervous grin and nodded slightly.
“Anything I need to know about?”
Marco had come into the room during the brief phone call and wondered if Mike was going to end up like Chet. . .in another ‘world’.
The engineer glanced at the fireman, who had just walked past him to get a cup of coffee as well. He then returned his attention to the captain. Without further delay, he explained what caused his ‘shell-shocked’ appearance.
~*~*~
“Hey, while we’re here, lemme check somethin’,” Gage said as he took off from where he and DeSoto had stopped at the end of an aisle in the grocery store.
The two paramedics had taken their patient to Rampart, and
after leaving him in the care of a doctor, were on their way back to the
station. However, they still needed to get the supplies for Chet’s lunch menu,
thus had gone back to the grocery store along the way.
Roy watched him hurry around the end of a counter into an aisle two rows down.
He then followed behind with a shake of his head as he pushed their cart that
had just one of the things they needed in it.
~*~*~
Chet relaxed with a sigh when no one came out to get him once the phone had stopped ringing. He waited a little while longer for good measure before joining the others in the dayroom.
“I hope John and Roy--”
The fireman abruptly cut off his own words when he overheard part of Mike’s explanation to the captain.
~*~*~
Roy couldn’t believe his eyes when he came around the corner and saw his partner. Johnny was holding two strings in his right hand, each attached to helium filled balloons, one light blue and the other pale pink. He was in the party supply section, eyeing other things, but didn’t seem happy with the selection in front of him.
“You’re really going to go through with this?”
Gage nodded. “Sure. Why not? I think Dix came up with a great idea.”
“So you buy all this party and baby related stuff and what. . .?”
Johnny’s eyes opened wide, his lower jaw slack. “Roy! That’s it!” A grin spread across his face. “That’s it!”
“What?”
“What?”
“That’s what I asked. . .first, anyway.”
“Whataya mean, what?”
“What. That’s what I mean. Actually it depends on which what you’re asking about.”
Johnny dismissed his last comment and stayed focused on what was on his mind.
“It’s just that you got the most brilliant idea yet! That’s what. Dix said I should get some kind of party stuff to break the ice a little; soften the blow; ease into giving my news to the guys, right? I mean, I walk in with the balloons, they ask ‘what’s the occasion?’ and I make the announcement.”
“Yeah. . .” Roy couldn’t hide the wariness in his voice.
Johnny narrowed his eyes. “Well, what if I also get a few baby things. . .you know like a bottle, maybe some of those diaper pins with the plastic bear or elephant heads on ‘em. . .a pacifier. Small stuff . . . Hey, I can tie a pacifier and pin to each balloon string. Whataya think?”
“I don’t know, it sounds like a lot of money to put into an announcement. Especially for you.”
“They don’t cost that much. A coupla bucks all together at the most. You should know that. ‘Sides, Lorraine and I are gonna need more of that stuff soon anyway.”
“That’s true.”
“Well, what’re we waitin’ for? Let’s go to the baby aisle.”
He was on his way, balloons in hand, before Roy could say whether or not he agreed they’d get the stuff right then. The older paramedic hurried to catch up again and reminded his partner, “You know, we’ve still gotta get the rest of the stuff for lunch.”
“This’ll only take a minute, Roy. Just lemme toss a few things in the cart and we’ll be back on track. I promise.”
The pleading expression on Gage’s face was too much. Roy started forward, his destination the baby supplies aisle.
~*~*~
“Wow, that’s big news, Mike,” Hank commented as he took in what he’d just been told.
“I just hope that’s the last big news we hear around here for awhile,” Chet mumbled to himself. But he’d said it loud enough to be heard.
“Why’s that?” Marco wondered.
Chet looked around to see who he was talking to. He hoped it was Mike or Hank. Three sets of eyes on him told him otherwise.
“Um. . .nothing. . .I mean, no reason. Just it might distract us from our duties around the station if we get too involved in all these big announcements,” he shrugged.
“You mean all one of them so far?” Mike asked. He sure wasn’t aware of more than his own.
Marco had other doubts. “What duties, Chet? You mean finding something to do between runs so we don’t drive each other crazy? Because I think you’re already there.”
The captain just wondered how many bridge club games he’d have to go to before he was ready to go crazy.
~*~*~
Johnny kept his promise. He’d only picked up a few small baby items, having added a rattle to his list, then he and Roy had returned to their original purpose for being at the store.
Once they had the groceries they needed, the two headed for the registers at the front of the store, then out to the squad.
Roy set the bag of groceries and baby stuff on the middle of the bench seat. He then climbed in. Johnny was on the passenger side, the helium-filled balloons to his left, over the bag. Roy gave them an annoyed glance.
“Those things better not get in the way.”
“They won’t. I’m holdin’ the strings close to the balloons so they can’t float far.”
The senior paramedic wasn’t completely satisfied with that. They still made the cab crowded. However, he’d put up with it for the nervous-about-his-news father. After all, Johnny’s concern about his own business kept any talk about the captain’s away.
~*~*~
“When are we going to eat?” Marco asked as he looked up from another game of checkers he and Mike were playing. Or at least, he was playing. Mike, he wasn’t so sure. The engineer had too much on his mind and wasn’t really concentrating enough, just going through the motions.
“As soon as John and Roy get back with the stuff I need to fix it,” Chet answered from across the table. He took a sip of coffee and made a face. “Yuck!”
Marco peered at his cup beside him. Not again. . .
“Bad?” Mike asked.
“It’s cold!”
The two checker players exchanged glances, then Marco eyed his cup again. He supposed they were used to drinking it lukewarm at times, he hadn’t paid much attention. Apparently the captain, who'd returned to his office with his without complaint, hadn’t either. Which just proved even more so, that something wasn’t right about Chet at the moment.
~*~*~
A short while after leaving the store’s parking lot, the paramedics noticed a woman standing beside a car which was parked along the curb just past a bridge they’d gone over. She waved as if to signal them for help as they approached.
“I wonder what’s up?” Johnny said.
“Well, we’re about to find out,” Roy commented. He parked just in front of the other vehicle.
The woman was immediately at the driver’s door of the squad.
“Can you please help me? I’ve got a flat and I don’t know anything about changing a tire. I tried to wave over a couple of other cars, but they just kept on going. I guess the drivers were in too big of a hurry to get somewhere.”
Johnny was already out. Roy waited till she stepped away, then climbed out as well. They assured her they would take care of her problem. As the men headed to the car, they saw two small children inside watching through the windshield from where they stood on the front seat.
“Cute kids. Are they twins?”
They sure looked to be the same age, one a boy, the other a girl.
“Yes, they’re three years old. I keep waiting for the terrible twos to end. Maybe by the time they turn four. . .”
Roy smiled at the comment. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her the ‘terrible twos’ could extend till age five or six, it just ended up renamed as time went on.
“Can you open the trunk?” Johnny asked.
She nodded and opened the passenger door. She reached inside the car for her keys that were still in the ignition, then handed them to him.
“There’s no trunk release inside,” she explained, then got her small children out.
Once they had the jack in place and spare tire out of the trunk, the men set to work while the mother tried to keep the boy and girl busy.
“Baallooons!” the little boy said, his right index finger pointed at the blue and pink objects floating in the squad. “Looky, baaallooooons!”
“Mommy, baaalloooons!” the little girl echoed. She jumped up and down in excitement, then started for the truck.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder from where he was helping Roy to get the rear right tire off.
“Honey, those aren’t ours,” the mother tried to explain as she held her daughter back. She had to reach out with her other hand to hold onto her son as well.
“I wan a balloon!” the boy cried.
The little girl was trying to pull their mother forward toward the truck. “Pease, Mommy?”
The dark-haired paramedic looked to his partner, who was now also watching the antics.
“What’ll I do?” Gage wondered.
Roy shrugged. “Unless you want to see a complete meltdown, I’d say give ‘um the balloons.”
“Ah c’mon. They may fuss a little, but I wouldn’t call it a complete meltdown. ‘Sides, kids can be pretty fickle, ya know. They’ll forget all about the balloons and be onto something else as soon as they’re on their way from here.”
“I’m talking about their mother.”
Johnny stared at him a couple of seconds, then glanced back over his shoulder. Roy was right, the more they fussed, the more their mom looked like she could break down in tears at any moment. He guessed having the flat tire and no one to help at first was a part of it.
He pushed up from his squatted position with a sigh. The cross between a scowl and look of disappointment on his face reminded Roy of when Johnny was selling tickets for the Firemen’s Picnic. He had just sold enough to come in second place to win a waterbed he wanted when Doctor Brackett came along with a little girl patient who wanted to go to the picnic. The sale of two more tickets took Gage out of contention for the bed.
The younger paramedic walked up to the squad, and before he could even think the words ‘Man, just my luck’, he found himself handing the balloons to the kids, the blue to the boy, pink to the girl.
“Are you sure they can have them?”
He forced a smile and nodded. “Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s all right. Anything for little. . .”
“Chet and Christy,” she filled in.
Johnny nodded slightly again, then headed back to help Roy finish their task. Somehow, the names didn’t surprise him. Who else would’ve wanted his balloons but kids with the names of two of the at times most annoying people he knew of. . .the only one missing was Brice.
~*~*~
Once the tire was changed, and the woman was on her way with the toddlers and balloons, Johnny and Roy got back into the squad. The dark-haired paramedic looked sadly at the empty air space above the bag between he and his partner.
“We’ve gotta go back to the store.”
“I had a feeling you were going to say that.”
“I need balloons, Roy. I need ‘em for the plan.”
“Okay. . .we’ll go back. But you get to explain to the guys why we’re eating lunch at dinner.”
“Oh, it won’t take us that long. It’s not gonna take long at all.”
Roy wondered if Dixie had any idea what exactly she’d started.
~*~*~
“Stop making noise, I can’t concentrate.”
It was a complaint one rarely heard about Mike Stoker. But Marco directed the words at him.
“I can’t help it. My stomach won’t stop growling.”
The Hispanic fire fighter glanced across the table.
“Can’t you just make something else, Chet? We’re starving here.”
But the curly-haired fireman was apparently too engrossed with staring into the dark brew still in his cup to hear. Marco and Mike exchanged eye rolls and shook their heads.
They wondered if he’d even notice if they keeled over from hunger.
~*~*~
The return trip to the store wasn’t a complete success. The only balloons left were a red one and a yellow one. However, Johnny knew trying to track down another pink and blue one at a different store was out of the question. He was more than ready for lunch himself.
~*~*~
Finally the paramedics made it back to the station. Johnny had spent the last few blocks of their travel tying some of the baby items to the balloon strings, being careful not to intrude on Roy’s space.
Roy had no sooner brought the squad to a stop in the apparatus bay when his partner scrambled out. But the eager younger man stopped in his tracks by the time he’d made it in front of the red truck.
“What’s the matter?” Roy asked. He’d just gotten out with the bag held in the crook of his right arm.
“What if it doesn’t work?” Gage half whispered.
“If it was your idea, I’d have doubts. But this was Dixie’s, remember?”
The first part of the comment was lost on him in his concerned state. “I’m just not so sure about the red and yellow colors, Roy.”
“They’ll be fine,” Roy assured.
“Hey, what’s the occasion?” Hank asked when he opened the door to his office and stepped out.
Johnny shot a glance his way, then to his partner. Roy shrugged and motioned toward the captain, as if to say, ‘see, it worked’.
The worried paramedic visibly relaxed somewhat. After a very brief hushed explanation to their supervisor, he started forward again, the balloons floating back over his right shoulder from the movement. It was time to just get the whole thing over with and behind him.
~*~*~
Mike looked up and did a double take when Gage walked in carrying the balloons. His gaze traveled to the baby items tied to the strings, and his eyes grew wide.
“How’d you know?” he asked.
Marco and Chet both stared at the new arrivals as if they were from another planet.
The youngest paramedic’s only response to Mike’s question was a screwed up face in puzzlement. How wouldn’t he know? Or better yet, what was it he wasn’t supposed to know? Maybe he had his ‘knows’ unknowingly mixed up.
Roy’s gaze shot from Mike to Marco to Chet and finally rested on Johnny. Had he missed something? Did his partner know something he didn’t?
In the meantime, Mike got up from his seat at the table and walked over to the two dumbfounded paramedics.
“Did Cap tell ya?” he asked as he eyed the balloons and their accessories closer. “It’s a little premature, but I really appreciate it, guys.”
He took the two balloons attached to strings out of Gage’s hands, which didn’t move once the strings were gone.
“Thanks!”
Johnny just looked on, his mouth open in baffled silence. What had just happened? For the second time now, he’d lost ownership of his balloons, this time before he could say anything at all.
“I thought this was about your new baby,” Captain Stanley commented to Gage. He’d come in behind the medics.
“His new baby?” Marco wondered.
Johnny was still stuck on the balloons in Mike’s hands. “I had. . .I was . . . ya see, the balloons. . ,” he stammered for a second time that day. “I’m not. . .” he stopped and looked at Roy. “Sure it worked,” he grumbled.
“There seems to be some confusion here,” Hank stated with a slight laugh.
“Are these for Lorraine?” Mike wondered, suddenly feeling kind of bad about assuming they were for him.
Johnny picked up on the change in Mike’s mood and shook his head ‘no’. “Nah, take ‘um.” He reached out with his right hand. “Congratulations,” he said as the two shook hands.
“Thanks, but it’s not exactly confirmed yet. My wife has all the symptoms, but we won’t know for sure until the results come back in a few days. She just got home from seeing the doctor and he thinks she is though.”
“If she has all the symptoms, it’ll come back positive. Trust me. It would come back positive if she didn’t,” he added sarcastically, thinking of his own situation. “Lorraine’s gonna have another baby,” Johnny finally explained. “In about five months. An’ she didn’t have any symptoms at first this time.”
That was it. It was out. The news was out. Not exactly how he planned it or how Dixie suggested it. But nevertheless, it was over with. Now he just had to wait for the endless teasing, primarily from Chet. Johnny expected the first wisecrack at any moment. But much to his surprise, it didn’t come. Instead, Chet appeared to turn pale as he robotically sat on the edge of the table, a look of nausea on his face.
“Chet, what’s wrong?”
What could the curly haired fireman say? He could think of a half dozen or more good lines to rib Johnny about another kid already being on the way, but he didn’t dare use any of them. Because as soon as the dark-haired paramedic got word of his situation, the tables would be turned big time!
Before he could think of a quick fill-in answer to Johnny’s question, the phone rang.
Being closest, Roy shifted the bag of groceries to his left arm and answered it.
“Station 51, Fireman DeSoto speaking.
"Oh, hi," he said with a smile.
“Yes, he‘s here.
“Certainly.”
“It’s for you,” Roy said to Chet, his hand cupped over the mouthpiece of the receiver as he held it out. “It’s your fiancé’ Vanessa.”
Four mouths dropped open.
Chet, who’d turned even paler, ignored the reaction from his shiftmates and slunk to the phone. The call he’d feared had finally come to be.
“I thought they didn’t get engaged.”
Marco looked at Johnny. “They didn’t.”
“Then why is his fiancé’ calling him?” Mike wondered.
“Maybe it’s a different Vanessa.”
Johnny shook his head at the captain’s suggestion. “Nah, Chet wouldn’t give up Miss Triple D.”
Roy had to agree with him. There were a lot of things Chet liked about Vanessa, but two stood out more than the rest.
Literally.
When Chet hung up after a brief conversation that ended in a couple of smooches he tried to cover over, the rest of the crew waited for the explanation.
Chet gave a half-hearted grin. “I’m gettin’ married,” he shrugged.
But Johnny, for one, could tell there was more to the story. “Uh huh. How come all of a sudden? An’ how come ya didn’t tell us sooner?”
“I. . .I . .”
“You seem kind of, uh. . .uneasy,” the captain observed. “Are you sure you’re ready for this, pal?”
Then it dawned on Marco. “So that’s what’s been wrong with you all day.”
Chet didn’t know what to say next. He sure hadn’t expected it to happen quite like this.
In fact, he’d hoped he would find a way out of it before now.
Who am I kidding?
He knew he wouldn’t have gotten out of it. Not unless Vanessa suggested it again first. There was no way he’d risk losing her all together. He did love her, he just wanted to date a little longer.
Maybe till 1990. . .
Now with the baby epidemic at the station, there was even more to be apprehensive about if they got married.
“Is that why you washed the dishes this mornin’?” Gage wondered.
“I knew something wasn’t quite right,” Mike admitted.
“You haven’t answered my question.” The captain waited.
Chet wasn’t sure what or who to answer first. He supposed there was only one way to handle it.
“I don’t know, no, yes, yes, yes, I have now.”
Only one answer mattered most.
“Well, if ya aren’t sure you’re ready for it, why’d ya go an’ propose to Vanessa again? You were a free man, Chet. You were in the clear!”
Chet looked at Johnny. Of all people, how could he tell him? Then again, he did have the experience.
“I didn’t. . .exactly.”
“What exactly happened?” Roy wondered.
“Weeell. . .we were sitting at the intersection where that little white church is. . .you know, the one that’s like a land mark in Carson, it’s so old.”
They waited.
“I was fiddling with the radio and Vanessa said something about how she’d love to have our wedding there someday. I guess I must’ve smiled at her and nodded. . .I mean, it’s a nice little church, ya know? And next thing. . .before I could even say--”.
“Vavoom?” Johnny suggested.
Chet frowned, then sighed. “Before I could say much of anything,” he continued, “she said she couldn’t wait to tell her parents she was engaged, for real. And the way she bounced around with excitement in the seat. . .”
The guys nodded knowingly at that image.
“I just. . .I mean. . .well, does that count as a proposal?”
Johnny stepped over and put an arm around the future groom. “To kinda quote a friend of mine,” he said as he winked at Roy. “Yes, it does. It’s called body language. And I’m pretty sure a judge would hold ya to it.”
Roy grinned. He recalled his words to his partner when Gage had unintentionally proposed to a girl named Barbara via a squeeze of her hand during a wedding scene at a movie. Luckily for Johnny, she’d later changed her mind.
Chet sighed. He waited for the teasing to start. But much to his surprise, no one said a thing other than congratulations.
Johnny had taken his arm off Chet and was helping Roy to get the ingredients they’d bought out of the bag. Mike was securing the balloons to the back of a chair. Marco was picking up the checker game. The captain was about to go out of the room.
“C’mon. Isn’t anyone gonna say anything else?”
“I’m hungry,” Mike offered. “When do we eat?”
Chet shifted his gaze to Johnny, who shook his head. As much as he’d like to, no way was he going to give Chet a hard time. The curly-haired fireman could shoot right back with smart remarks about his situation at any time.
Marco peered into Chet’s cup of coffee still on the table. “Before you tie the knot, be sure she can make good coffee!”
The captain was in the doorway when he asked, “Does she play bridge?”
The question piqued Johnny’s curiosity about that again. He left Roy at the kitchen counter.
“Cap, what is it about you and this sudden interest in who can play bridge?” he asked as he followed the superior officer out of the room. “I’ve been askin’ Roy and. . .”
As his partner’s voice faded from hearing range, Roy smiled. Johnny’s baby news was out. With Mike’s news, Johnny would probably pester him more about baby stuff than Roy. Chet’s news would surely . And most importantly, Hank Stanley had gotten Johnny hooked on his bridge club problem all on his own. Roy was *off * the hook. And he hadn’t had to say a thing. Not a single word.
To sort of quote a friend of his, it had all seemingly fallen into place before he could say ‘vavoom’.
This story is dedicated to a friend of mine who passed away in March 2009 when she lost her battle with Cancer. She loved Emergency! stories about the guys that didn't have *owies*. It is because of Jen B's earlier encouragement that this series has gone beyond the second story. :o)
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