The adorable wince of embarrassment that followed almost made me smile.
I opened the calendar app on my tablet and found the list the coordinator had emailed me during our drive back. "There's a school visit next week at the elementary school. I'll be reading to the children and talking about community service. The week after that, it looks like there's a charity dinner at the churchbenefiting the food bank—the festival charity drive in August. Then we have the Halloween parade in October where the Lightkeeper and Hearthkeeper hand out candy to the children."
I glanced up.
Ember was staring at the window with a tight jaw and a dazed look on her face.
"Are you getting this?" I asked.
"School visit. Charity dinner. Halloween parade."
She repeated the list back to me, but it felt too mechanical.
Something was bothering her, and though I was a kind enough man to ask, we barely knew each other.
Besides how inappropriate it was for me as her boss to dive into her internal monologue.
So I started ticking off things I knew were too important here at the hospital for me to miss and my eyes weren't seeing any conflicts yet, but that's what I paid her for. "Don't forget the hospital fundraiser and the Deck the Halls event for hospital staff. We need to coordinate…"
I looked up at her again and paused, letting my words trail off.
Ember's breathing had gone shallow.
I watched her chest rise and fall too quickly.
For a moment I thought she'd pass out, and it concerned me.
What had gotten into her?
Sure, I pulled her into that mess, but it was something so simple and meant so much to the community.
I didn't understand her hesitation about it.
And I had promised to get her out of it as soon as possible.
Hadn't I?
So I probed a little on purpose, pushing the button I thought had transformed her into this zombie-like creature to see if that was why she was nonresponsive.
"As Hearthkeeper, you'll need to present a certain image. You'll be expected to dress the part." I set the tablet down on my desk. "The committee will also provide talking points for interviews. We'll have at least a dozen media appearances between now and Christmas."
That snapped her attention back to me. "Media appearances?"
Her reaction helped pinpoint what was really transpiring in her head.
"Of course. The Lightkeeper tradition draws lots of press coverage. Local news, newspapers, a few regional magazines. It's all part of the responsibility."
She blanched and shook her head slightly. "How many cameras?"
"I'm not sure of the exact number, but we'll be photographed at every event. It's expected."
So it wasn't the role of Hearthkeeper or my insistence.
It was the media.
Ember Harrison was camera shy?
"Is there a problem?"
