Newton Neighbors (New England Trilogy) (6 page)

Despite the seriousness of the situation and the obvious cost of the exercise, Jessie was amused. From behind, the men in yellow looked a little like
Sesame Street
Big Birds. She wanted to laugh but didn’t.
 

It would have been so much better if there was a decent house fire for them to fight. Then at least the big yellow birds would have had something good to chirp about. Maybe the baby had similar thoughts, because it was around that time that she gave up crying and decided to watch the theatrics.

Another fire engine arrived, adding to the cacophonous cocktail. But after a few hand gestures between them, the fire officers from Unit Two didn’t disembark. A gaggle of neighbors had begun to converge next to the enormous red engine and the police car. As the danger levels subsided, Jessie felt her face burn with embarrassment. Was all of this excitement her fault? Had she miscommunicated the size of the emergency? And would somebody ever switch off that darn house alarm?

Cody pulled Jessie’s sleeve. “The lady on the phone is still talking to you,” he said. Jessie had let her hand drop, but she still held the receiver and, it appeared, the emergency dispatcher.

“Hullo,” she said, feeling a little dazed.
 

“Unit One has informed me they have the situation contained, ma’am. Are you in a position to switch off the fire alarm yet?”

Jessie shook her head. “I still don’t know the code. I could phone the family, but my mobile—I mean my cell phone—is in the house.”

“One moment please.” She stopped talking to Jessie again. “Unit One, she’s just the sitter. Can you get her into the house to get her cell so she can call the parents to get the code?”
 

Jessie heard a man reply through the crackle. “That’s affirmative. I’ll do that now.”

Then she saw one of the firefighters walking over to her. Everything had happened so fast she didn’t know what he had done to assist the containing of the situation, but at least he wasn’t one of the big yellow birds. This guy was in a navy T-shirt and pants. He was maybe a little older than her and was smiling. He didn’t look worried.

“Hi, I’m Dan Walker, and you are?” He reached his hand out to shake hers.

“Jessica, or Jessie, the minder.” She went to shake his hand, but the phone was in it and Alice was keeping her left arm busy.

“Hi, Jessica or Jessie.”

“I’m Jessie.”

He winked and took the phone from her. “Cindy, that you? Yeah. We’re clear here. Yeah.” He listened to her say something and said “yeah” a few more times before hanging up.

“Okay, Jessie, you can call the parents now.” He handed her back the phone.

“I don’t know their cell numbers off the top of my head.”

“I do,” Cody said, looking delighted to be able to help a real firefighter.

He said the number of his father’s cell first, but it went to voice mail. Jessie left a message, and then they tried Maria’s. The same thing happened. Dan shook his head in disbelief.

“There’s no accounting for some folks,” he said with a shrug.

“My, my, what’s all this about?” An elderly lady approached the little group.

“Hi, Mrs. Palmer,” Cody said. “Our toaster went all smoky and it set off the house alarm, and now we have two fire engines and one patrol car. Cool, huh?”

“Very,” she said. Then she looked from Jessie to the firefighter. “I’m Noreen Palmer from next door. Can I help?”

Jessie nodded at the older woman but was more interested in the firefighter’s help. “Can we go back into the house? I’d love to check my cell phone just to see if I have the same contact numbers as the ones Cody here gave us and also to see if they’ve maybe called me.”

“I can take you back in, but it’s real noisy in there.” Then he looked at Noreen. “You live next door?”

“Yes. What can I do?”

“Well, could you maybe hold the baby for a moment while I take this young lady in to get her phone?”

“I’d be delighted. Or better yet, I can take Cody and Alice to my house.” She pointed to the building just next door. “It’s so noisy out here and much quieter inside. Cody knows my kitchen well, as do Todd and Mitch. Alice has been in there with her mom plenty of times, too. We can have cookies and milk, and you can join us in a few minutes if that works for you.”

“Shouldn’t we get Todd and Mitch back to their parents?” Jessie asked.

“I’m Todd’s grandma. I’ll phone his mother now, and I see Mitch’s dad standing over there. They live two doors down from me.”

Jessie looked behind her. Where a few curious people had stood a short while ago, now the entire neighborhood had poured out to have a look. “Oh,” she said and gave a weak wave. She even got a few waves back.

“Let me take Alice, and then you go into the house and get your phone with this nice fireman. Cody, you take Orga with us.”

Jessie wondered if this lady was perhaps a little too elderly to take charge of Alice, but what choice did she have? The baby seemed happy to go with her, and it would only be for a few minutes.

“Thank you so much. What did you say your name was?”

“Noreen.”

“Thanks, Noreen. I really do need the help.”

Then Jessie headed into the blaring house with Dan the fireman to find her phone. He checked the alarm system while she moved back outside with her cell, but there were no new messages. Then she tried both parents with the numbers in her phone but had the same luck as before. She left them each a second voice mail, and then she was all out of ideas.

She went to look for Dan inside but the shrill of the alarm was too loud and they both headed back outside. That’s when Cody reappeared, waving a piece of paper over his head. “Mrs. Palmer thought you might want this. It’s the fire alarm code. Mom gave it to her once.”

Dan grabbed the note and was back in the house playing with the key panel on the wall in seconds. Jessie and Cody were only steps behind. She watched him press the buttons and couldn’t help noticing the tattoo on his muscular forearm. It was a falcon with outstretched wings swooping down, like it was about to attack. Jessie gave an involuntary shiver. His entire body looked strong. All in all, Dan seemed to be in good shape. As he tapped the last digit of the code into the keypad, the shrilling fire alarm subsided. Almost immediately, it started back up again.

“What now?” he yelled in exasperation and read the small LED panel above the keys.

Jessie read it, too. “I don’t believe this. Intruder alert?” She remembered the firefighters opening every window in the house. The phone began to ring again. Jessie ran back outside with Cody just as she’d done a little earlier and answered it.

“Hello, ma’am. This is Newton Emergency Services. We have notification of an intruder alert in your home. Can you appraise me of the situation?”

“It’s okay,” she shouted into the phone. “It was a fire—well, not a fire, just smoke, but all the windows were opened. The house alarm was on at the time, so we’ve tripped that. Can you switch it off?”

“No, ma’am, you have to do that. Do you have the intruder alarm cancellation code?”

“No, I don’t!” she wailed. “I’m just the minder.”

“Very well, ma’am. Sit tight. I’m going to send a unit over.”

Jessie looked at Dan. “Here we go again,” she said, looking miserable.

But he smiled at her with a twinkle in his eye. “Yep,” he said. “Here we go again.”

Chapter Four

A New Flame?

“Never again,” Jessie mumbled to herself as she waved off Rick’s car. If he glanced in his rearview mirror, he would see her smiling even though she was anything but happy. Jessie was shattered and glad to be heading for bed. She pushed open the glass door to her dormitory building and was hit by a blast of welcome warm air.
 

“Who knew so much could go so wrong in just one night?” she said to herself as she pressed the elevator button.
 

A group of students walked past the open doors. “Elevator’s busted,” someone said.

“Just great.” Jessie groaned as she considered the daunting prospect of climbing four flights of stairs with her huge bag of books.

“You can come with us?” A boy from the group winked at her, but she forced a smile and waved him off. There weren’t supposed to be men in the building, but it was crazy late on a Saturday night and not her problem.
 

Feeling utterly shattered, Jessie hauled her bag over her shoulder and headed for the stairwell. Even though she was twenty-three, it was her first time living away from home. She’d commuted to university in England, because living there would’ve cost more money and Jessie’s family didn’t have much of that.
 

Things were different in America. She’d earned an academic scholarship to Wiswall, and part of that package was accommodation on campus. Before coming to the States, Jessie hadn’t realized how many different types of rooms there would be, and because hers was free, she’d taken what she was given. The first shock, however, was she had been placed in an all-girl building. It never occurred to her they’d be segregated from the boys. Okay, separate bathrooms and bedrooms were a good idea, but buildings? What did American guys do that was so naughty they had to be kept in another building?
 

A bigger shock had been the discovery she was in an alcohol-free community. Jessie was in college, damn it, and she was already one degree down and doing a master’s. She was of age and deserved a drink if she wanted one. At first, Wiswall had seemed more like an old Victorian boarding school than a huge, progressive American college. Her alcoholic concerns had dissolved, however, in the first few weeks when she got invited to some of the wildest parties of her life. And even the absence of men in the building had its advantages.
 

For a start, her roomie was the best buddy ever. Ely Briskin came from South Carolina. Like Jessie, she was studying psychology. But unlike Jessie she was rich—very rich. Even though they were the same age, Ely was just starting her degree.

“Welcome,” her new roommate had said as Jessie entered the dorm room for the first time. “I’m Ely. Well, actually I’m Elyse, but I hate that, so call me Ely.” She spoke without getting off the bed she was lying on.
 

Jessie had just flown in from London to Boston and caught a taxi to the college, so she was exhausted. She had two enormous pieces of luggage and was beginning to feel the strain of jet lag combined with leaving her mother for the first time.

“This bed mine?” Jessie asked.

Ely shrugged and nodded, so she fell onto it without any bedding or even a pillow and closed her eyes.

“Come a long way?” Ely asked. “Got any help with your stuff?”

“London and no. I’m alone. Name’s Jessica, but you can call me Jessie.”

This made Ely sit up. “London, England? You’re British? Hey, that’s cool. I didn’t know you were going to be foreign. I like that. It makes us more sophisticated—international.” She got up and pulled Jessie’s second suitcase into the room.
 

The noise made Jessie open her eyes. “Oh, thanks, but don’t worry. I’ll do it. I just needed a minute to catch my breath.”

“I’m not doing it for you, sunshine. I’m doing it for me, so we can close this dang door and share a quick drink to celebrate your arrival.”

That was when Jessie discovered they were in a dry, all-girl dormitory. She didn’t mind too much, especially as Ely was determined to flaunt the rules from the get-go.
 

Ely Briskin was like nobody Jessie had ever met before. Her broad Southern drawl made her sound so laid-back and chilled out, except when she got excited. Then she raised the pitch of her voice so much it sounded almost comical, but Jessie soon discovered Ely was not to be underestimated. She explained to Jessie that she had taken the scenic route to Wiswall College. Jessie learned her roommate had flunked out of three colleges already. That was why she was a little older than the average freshman. Ely said she didn’t like socializing with the younger girls, so she was very happy to be with Jessie and able to hang with the postgrad set.
 

Ely’s dark brown hair was long and straight, and she kept it tied back in a ponytail. Her style was casual, but whether she wore jeans or dresses, she always had her leather cowboy boots on. They were the same color as her hair and suited her Southern accent and self-contained attitude.
 

Ely said her parents had coerced her into coming to college up north because they thought her horizons were too narrow. She loved the South and thought Northerners were stiff and serious. “The partyin’s a case in point,” Ely said on their first night together. “Not enough of it goin’ on up here. What’s with that? We only got one life—we gotta live it.” She spoke with conviction.
 

Jessie hadn’t met anyone from South Carolina before, and she loved the singsong way they spoke. Ely reminded her of an older version of Miley Cyrus before she cut and colored her hair, but she didn’t say it, thinking it would sound gauche.
 

“What is this we’re drinking?” she asked on that very first night together. Jessie took a sip of the clear liquid Ely had given her.
 

“Moonshine. Good shit, huh?”