The alarm clock woke her from her pleasant dream. There she was on the stage and her father pinning her with her shiny, new LA County Firefighter badge. She smiled as she was able to relive one of the happiest days of her life while she slept. It wasn't an easy adventure to earn her badge as she had spent two months without speaking to her disapproving and worrisome father, moved in with a strange man who became her best friend, and dealt with sexual harassment of several firefighter trainees. All of that in addition to the physical training and tests to become certified, which was not an easy feat to complete on their own.
Her arms rose to the ceiling stretching her arms and back as she let out a loud yawn. After reaching as high as she could for a minute, she brought her arms down with her right hand going for the watch sitting on the oak night stand. She grabbed it and placed it on her left wrist. The covers were tossed aside as she got out of the bed. Her hands worked to smooth the white sheet on the bed and then she tossed the black comforter on top. As she walked down the hallway, she noticed that the couch was empty, the blanket was folded and a pillow was placed on top. The smell of bacon sizzling wafted through the air.
"Good morning Firefighter/Paramedic Trainee Desoto. I made you up some breakfast for your first day of class." He sat a plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and bacon down at the breakfast bar. As Jennifer sat down, he poured a mug of coffee for her. It was more of half a mug of coffee and the other half a mixture of sugar and milk. He knew just how she liked it.
A big grin went on her face as David, her best friend and roommate, had used her new work title. "Thank you very much, Firefighter Dixon." The two have been using their titles to address each other the entire weekend and it still was not getting old. Both were equally excited of their achievements of graduating the fire academy on Saturday. Today was the first day of the paramedic training program for Jennifer Desoto and tomorrow would be David's first day as a firefighter at Station 51's B shift under Captain John Gage.
David sat down next to her at the breakfast bar and began devouring the food on his plate. When Jennifer looked at her watch, she gobbled up her food to announce that she only had a few minutes to fix her hair and put her uniform on.
Within ten minutes, she returned to the living room, tucking in her light blue shirt in her pants and pinning her badge to her shirt. She pulled on her belt buckle with fabric bunching around her waist. The struggle to find a pair of pants that fit in the thighs and the waist was real. She had to go up a size to fit the thighs, but she didn't have a chance to take her uniform to the tailors yet so that it could be altered to fit her waist. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun at the top of her head with not a strand touching her collar. She had plenty of practice the past three months getting her hair just right. She heaved her duffle bag over her shoulder which contained her medical kit, books, and a spare uniform and announced that she was leaving.
"Hang on!" David yelled as he went to the kitchen counter to get a Polaroid camera. "I got to get a picture of you before your first day of paramedic school." She chuckled and rolled her eyes. She decided to play along and so she struck a vogue pose. He continued taking several more pictures showing an even bigger smile with each subsequent picture.
"Okay, I really need to go now before I get in trouble on my first day," she began to compose herself as she left.
"Bye. Good luck. Make some friends," he called out to her. He said a silent prayer hoping that there would be someone there that would make her feel welcomed.
Easier said than done, she thought. She was fortunate that she had two friends in the fire academy but she was unsure if she would be able to make friends in the paramedic program.
#### The Fire Academy ####
She reported to the fire academy thirty minutes early as instructed to be assigned a locker for the first month of the program. She took a seat in the auditorium with about ten other men. She had found out that after the first month, she would be assigned to Rampart General with four others. During that time, she would work out of the Emergency Department for most of the time but would also see time in Orthopedics, Psychiatry, and the OB/GYN departments as well. A few days a week she would shadow several of Rampart's squads, which included 110, 51, 59, 95, and 36, then be assigned a squad in which she would work with two paramedics before they sign off on her becoming certified as a paramedic.
This time, there was no assigned seating. She sat down and noticed that most of the men filled on the other side of the room and would only sit closer as they trickled in later and later. There was only one man who was willing to sit next to her, a firefighter of the name Jeffrey Higgins.
"You're Roy's kid, right?" Jeffrey asked as he took the seat next to her.
She nodded and held out her hand "I'm Jennifer Desoto." He shook her hand, not giving any care of catching cooties like the other men had.
"Jeff Higgins. Your old man told me you were in the program. If you're anything like your dad, you'll ace right through it. Your dad and Captain Gage talked me into joining the paramedic program. I'm a firefighter on Captain Gage's crew, well I was, til I decided to do the paramedic program." She realized she was talking to the the person that David had replaced on 51 B's squad. "Man, during the crossover of shifts, they'd bring up some of the crazy stories they had. I like a little bit of mystery to the calls, not the same old fire after fire. Figured paramedic training is right up my ally." Jenny wondered what stories they had. When Roy would come home, he would sugar coat anything that was life threatening, tell them of good saves, but never bad calls. At least, he never shared those with his children.