Chapter one
Chapter One: Lila
As it turns out, the smell of desperation pairs surprisingly well with an almond milk latte.
Or maybe that’s just the dregs of my Maison Margiela perfume, coaxed out from the very bottom of the sample-size bottle and vaporized into a pathetic mist because I simply cannot afford tonotsmell expensive and capable today.
It’s not that times are tough. It’s just that everyone struggles in New York City before they wriggle their way to success. That’s the glamour of it, right?
“Okay, anyway!” I chirp abruptly, startling a nearby tourist when I clap my hands loudly. Beside me, Lou snorts and shakes her head. “Let’s review. First things first: We donotmake dorky jokes about sexy firefighters to the sexy firefighters’ faces.”
“And why are you lecturingmeabout that?” Lou scoffs. “I’m married. To a woman, by the way.”
“Yes, yes, and we all love Gina very much.”
In unison, we carefully sidestep a puddle of mysterious goo that’s coagulated at the edge of the sidewalk—mere moments before a businessman marches right through it. He’s too busy barking on his phone to notice he now has a liquified form of the bubonic plague on the soles of his shoes.
God, I love this city.
Lou throws me a sideways look. “Dude, how much espresso have you had this morning? You’re shaking like a chihuahua.”
I shake my iced latte in her face. “This is only my second latte of the morning,dude.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“Anyway,” I repeat. “Second thing: We will be professional and very serious about this.”
Lou nods. “Super professional. Incredibly serious.”
“I’m talking, like, as serious as a heart attack.”
“For sure, boss.”
I take a sip of my latte, which, unbeknownst to my friend and coworker, I ordered with a triple shot. “They’re fragile right now, these firefighters.”
“And fragility isn’t sexy, like, at all.”
“Lou.”
“Yeah, I get it. They’re a bunch of emotionally delicate heroes who desperately need our help. It’s not a laughing matter.”
I can’t help grinning at the slightly sardonic note in her voice. She’s not wrong, though. For the past week or so, Station 47 has been the punchline of every local morning show and the subject of countless social media thinkpieces about the so-called “questionable devotion”of our public servants.
It all started with a TikTok. An FDNY rookie named Noah Trent concocted an overly dramatized and impressively parodic video of him saving a stray cat from a tree in Bryant Park, wearing nothing but those fireman overalls, his chiseled eight-pack, and a devilish grin.
Personally, I thought it was pretty funny. A fun play on the stereotypical joke of firefighters being summoned for things far below their skillset.
Iunderstood that he was just trying to inject a little bit of joy into people’s lives, but it turns out that I’m one of the few people in New York City with a sense of humor. The thirty-second video, which was posted on the official FDNY TikTok page, caused anuproar from the public about the horror of “overt sexualization” and the “blatant undermining of taxpayer trust.”
PETA also got involved, if you’d believe it, claiming that Trent purposefully hurtled that kitten up into the tree himself just so that he could pretend to save it.
And then came along the modern-day puritans who claimed that children should simplynotbe exposed to shirtless men in such an innocent place as Midtown Manhattan. Especially not the muscular, tattoo-covered chests of former-Marines-turned-firefighters. Thehorror.
Mind you, I witnessed someone doing an impromptu strip tease to Dua Lipa’s “Physical” outside of Macy’s the other day, and that’s not even the weirdest New York thing I’ve seen this week.
Still, in this day and age, people can be very touchy, and now Station 47’s funding is on the chopping block thanks to a boring old mongrel formally known as Councilman Andrew Banks.
It’s a public relations nightmare for them, but it’ll be the perfect opportunity for me to put my struggling, two-person PR firm on the map.
