I feel like she may as well be asking me to juggle flaming torches while walking a tightrope across the Grand Canyon.
“I’m only thetemporaryCommunications Ranger because Becky got that job at Yellowstone!”I say.
Jennifer puts on her jacket, and I can tell that the conversation is almost over.
“Clementine, please?”she says.“You gave a talk to three hundred middle-schoolers last week, this is way less people than that.”
But these are adults who will be looking at me, and thinking about what I’m saying, and noticing how sweaty I am....
My heart is beating out of control, and I have to force myself to keep breathing normally.Jennifer puts one hand on my shoulder and leans in.
“I wouldn’t ask if I thought you wouldn’t do a perfectly great job,” she says, and pushes the plaque in front of my plate.“Just pretend they’re a bunch of kindergarteners and you’ll be fine, I promise.You’ve gotta get over this public speaking thing sooner or later.”
I just nod.My hair is sticking to the sweat on the back of my neck.Jennifer squeezes my shoulder.
“The stakes will never be lower, I promise,” she says.“You’ll be fine.I gotta go trap a raccoon.”
“Good luck,” I say, though my voice sounds far away, even to me.
Jennifer gives me one final pat and then walks away, through the double doors that lead out of the church basement.For a moment or two, I imagine that she’ll come back and sayFalse alarm, I can present the plaque, but she doesn’t.
I look down at it.It’s your standard commemorative plaque, maybe six inches high and ten long, a metal plate on wood.
This plaque presented to the
Canyon Country Hotshot Crew
by the
United States Forest Service
Big Sky National Forest, Copper Creek Ranger Division
With gratitude for your hard work and dedication
in containing the Elkhorn Fire
Fighters for Life
I know perfectly well that this shouldn’t be a big deal.No one in the audience is even going to remember what I say — I’m just the person presenting some plaque, between the performance by Twinkle Toes Tap Dance andAmerica, the Beautifulsung by the high school chorus.
But I can’t help it.The thought of saying two sentences in front of this many adults panics me like nothing else.At least Mrs.Flughorn, across the table from me, is telling someone else where they’re going wrong in disciplining their two-year-old and she’s stopped looking at me.
I don’t eat the rest of my meatballs.After a few minutes, the mayor of Lodgepole, Barry Vashton, steps up to the microphone and starts in with his small-town, folksy act, introducing the sixteen-year-old who’s won an essay contest and is going to read a few pages on “What Service to My Country Means to Me.”
The sixteen-year-old looks considerably less nervous than I feel.He does fine, then walks away from the microphone to polite applause.Barry comes back.There’s a kid reading her poem, a high school student singing a song he wrote himself, a group of little kids presenting their drawings to the firefighters.
It’s all your standard, small-town, thanks-for-saving-our-asses stuff.I’m at the back of the room, so I can’t see the firefighters’ faces, but I imagine they see this sort of thing a lot.Hopefully they still find it charming, at least.
Finally, Barry announces the Twinkle Toes.I feel as if someone’s kneading my stomach like bread dough, but I take a deep breath and rehearse what I’m going to say.
On behalf of the Copper Creek Ranger Division, I’d like to present this plaque...
Does that sound dumb?That definitely sounds dumb.
I hereby present this plaque of thanks to the Canyon Country Hotshot Crew...
Oh my God, that’s worse.The Twinkle Toes are tapping away at the front of the room, seven or eight elementary school kids with enormous smiles plastered on their faces,almostin sync.I take deep breaths and try to concentrate on just watching them, telling myself that the right words will just magically come to mind when it’s time for me to get up there.
