Walk of Shame (6 page)

He had a gift bag with him that
he tucked away at the end of the couch before he sat down. "Do you think
the outfit is funny, or is it me in general?"

I laughed. "The outfit is
throwing me for a loop. I'm wondering if it has more to do with your job than
the subculture?"

He put his head down and smiled.
"I could tell you what I do, but I can almost guarantee you won't like
it."

"Well now I have to
know."

"I study ecology."

"That doesn't sound so
bad."

"I'm a swamp
specialist."

I wrinkled my nose and shifted my
eyes away.

"I told you, you wouldn't like
it," he said with a smile.

No kidding.
I was tempted
to swap his red carnation for a pink one.

"Are you limited to just the
south in your travels, then?"

"No, though swamps do tend
to be in the eastern half of the country. They follow the Gulf, and the
southern half of the east coast. There are more in the north, towards the
Canadian border. Most of the top half of Maine is swamp. And then follow the
Mississippi up through the country and the mouths of the rivers feeding into
it, and you'll find a good amount of swampland."

"That's not as bad as I
thought. I didn't realize the US was so soggy."

He grinned. "That's because
we've either filled it in to settle there, or your attention is pulled towards
some sort of civilization so strongly that you don't notice what lies beyond it,
to see where the marsh begins."

I smiled. "I saw examples of
that down in Charleston, South Carolina."

He nodded. "The coastline
down there keeps changing because they keep filling in swamp to build more
city. And that's why the city is so short. The soft land underneath can't
handle buildings past a certain height."

"Okay. So your job isn't as
bad as it could be."

"Still not your thing?"

"Well, no. But my job is
sitting behind a computer all day, I'm sure that wouldn't be your thing."

"No." He chuckled.
"I have to spend far too much time behind one for business as it is."

"Okay, so we agree that
we'll never be jealous over one another's career and go from there."

"Deal."

Trying to steer the conversation
back into friendlier waters, I asked, "What's in the bag?"

His smile turned genuine now.
"My sister sent you a gift."

"Your sister?"

"Yeah. She thought I should
give you something from the swamp to show you it isn't all muck and
alligators."

"Sounds like a plan. But
it's from her and not you?"

He handed me the bag. "She
makes them and sells them in a gift store for the tourists. She gave me this
one to pass along to you. I can't say it's from me if I didn't pay her for
it."

I opened the bag and inside was a
wooden box with a flower preserved in a dome of clear resin on the top.
"The flower is from the swamp?"

"The wood too. It's a swamp
rose-mallow. They bloom in large groups, they're very pretty."

"Well thank your sister for
me. It's beautiful, and actually does sway my opinion on the swamp a
little."
And she probably just saved your flower from being swapped.
Well, that and your voice/accent combo.

"It's beautiful country if
you give it a chance. It could truly inspire a book or two."

"Well maybe you'll have to
show me sometime."

"I'd love to do that."

"Will you wear the hip
waders for me again?" I asked with a sly smile.

He grinned. "I'll even bring
a pair for you."

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook
my head. "I'll be squealing like a girl the whole time."

"But you'll wade in with
me?"

"As long as you promise to
protect me from the creatures in the murky water, I will trust you enough to
follow you in. But the minute I feel anything slithering around or bumping
against me, all bets are off."

Hey, if I wasn't willing to
experience a different way of life, I really had no business being here. Plus,
if I did start to panic in the water, all he'd have to do is lean down and
start softly talking in my ear. I bet my sensory overload would calm right on
down.

Jared excused himself, and Mack
took his turn. Nothing wrong with him, nothing particularly remarkable about
him, either.

Last up was the army uniform-wearing
hottie.

"Last, but not least?"
I asked.

He gestured at the seat and I
nodded.

"It seemed to work for me
the last time."

"It worked so well we
skipped the names and went straight to the flirtations."

"I figured there was no
point, if you weren't going to remember it anyway. I aimed for leaving an
impression instead."

Obviously, the men had been given
fair warning that I stank with remembering names. I chuckled at the fact that
he still hadn't given me his name. Though it didn't matter at this point, not
when he was wearing a nametag that said his name was Mike. "You said
you've been out of the army for about a year and a half, what are you doing
now?"

"Sitting here with a
beautiful woman."

I smiled. "You do like to
lay it on a little thick, don't you?"

He gave me a sheepish grin.
"I'm trying to come up with something you'll remember me for, once I take
the uniform off."

Images flashed through my head. "Just
walk around in camo pants and your dog tags and I won't forget a thing."

He let out a bark of laughter
that drew a couple looks from the other guys. "You dish it right back out,
don't you?"

"I like to hold my own. But,
seriously, what do you do now?"

"I'm a construction
engineer, bridges, tunnels, road layouts, lookout points, that sort of
thing."

My eyebrows rose. "You've
got some skills. Are you employed by a company, or-"

"The National Park
System."

My eyebrows shot up in surprised
pleasure. "Ah, lookout points, that makes sense. And so you go wherever
they need you?"

"Right. The jobs tend to
last awhile, but then I'm off to somewhere new."

"And do you do new
construction, or repair work?"

"Whatever they need at the
time."

"How close do you keep your
rig to all the loud and noisy construction work?"

He laughed. "It all depends
on the particular park and where the job is in it. The hours can get long, but
there's always something to do in the off hours."

I was liking the sound of the man's
job. I knew from experience that amenities could get a little sparse in some of
the parks, but they were slowly coming around more and more. And, more
importantly to my work, cell phone signals were becoming more the norm in the
camping areas.

"Um... I feel like I should
tell you about something now, and get it out of the way," he told me.
"So you're not shocked later on."

I looked at him and caught a hint
of vulnerability in his eyes. I chewed on the inside of my bottom lip, wondering
what the hell kind of bomb he was about to drop. But then my eyes landed back
on his chest and I felt like I knew where he was headed. "You got some big
nasty scars while earning your purple heart?"

He looked away and back before he
lifted his left pant leg a few inches and revealed a prosthetic leg.

I refused to bat an eyelash.
Instead, I pursed my lips in contemplation for a moment. "Above or below
the knee?"

"Below."

I nodded as though I was rolling
something around in my head. "Well that's good."

He just stared at me. "The
knee would be a deal breaker?"

"No. It's just good that you
have the knee, is all. It might come in handy."

He was lost. "How would my
knee come in handy for you?"

"Well, if you're still
around at the end of all this, it's nice to know that you can have the leg off
and still have leverage when you're up on all fours." And then I gave him
devious little smile.

He went from shock to barking
laughter.

I don't think he was expecting me
to go there. I just smiled at the guys who'd started staring. "Do you have
other attachments for it?" I asked when he'd calmed down.

"I do. I have one for
running, and one for climbing."

"Running and climbing? You
don't let anything keep you down, do you?"

"Nope. Why should I let one
bad day dictate the rest of my life?"

"You shouldn't."
Military
men, they take a licking and just keep on ticking.
And you couldn't ask a
man for much more than that.

"It doesn't bother
you?"

I looked him straight in the eye.
"I can accept your artificial leg, if you can accept that I have five inches
of artificial height."

He narrowed his eyes, and I
thought he was going to tell me I was cracking rude and inappropriate jokes.

"Do you have different
heights for different activities?" he asked with a serious expression.

I almost cracked a smile.
"Of course I do."

He winked. "Then we should
get along just fine."

I like the job, I like the
attitude...

"I should get going so we
can move this show along."

I smiled and nodded, and he stood
to rejoin the others.

Mike descended the stairs and
Troy ascended them one last time.

"Emmaline," he faced
the group of men and held his elbow out for me. "If you're ready, you can
come with me and we'll proceed to the next portion of our evening."

I straightened and stood.

Troy tried to muffle a chuckle
and not break his formal expression. But that backfired and he snorted. Shaking
his head, he gave up the pretense. "Put your shoes back on."

The whole room lost it.

He was still shaking his head
like he was about to explain something simple to a small child. "You can't
be a pretty princess without your five-inch hooker shoes."

The guys laughed harder.

I flushed three shades of red and
shook my head with a smile.

"That's how princesses trip
on their pretty gowns and fall and break their pretty faces," Troy
continued.

"Have we considered," I
asked, "letting the princess wear an already mastered three-inch heel and
adding a two-inch tiara, to create the same illusion?"

Troy shook his head. "See?
Now you're just giving wardrobe ideas. They're already wondering what to do
when they stand you next to that mountain of a man wearing the kilt over there.
Now you'll be wearing the five-inch heels
and
a two-inch tiara, if you
keep him around."

I looked over at Liam and he
winked at me.

I took Troy's elbow, used him to
balance as I slid the first foot into a shoe, and then stepped up to my new
height to slide the other shoe on.

"My God, you grew!" he
exclaimed to keep his small audience entertained. "It's like magic!"
He shook his head at the feat. He got his reaction of chuckles and then paused,
switched to his more formal face, and looked back to me. "If you're ready,
Emmaline. We'll proceed to the next portion of the evening."

I caught that he was repeating
himself so the film editors could cut out my shoe commentary and the transition
between settings would be seamless. I nodded to him. "I'm ready,
Troy."

He led me down the stairs and off
through a doorway in the back of the room. "We'll give them a few moments
to get the men arranged. Let's step over here and do a short interview."
He led me to a small room that was already set up with a couple cameramen in
the right side corners of the room to catch angles, toward the opposite
diagonal corners, of both Troy and I when we sat down in facing chairs.

A makeup artist followed us
inside to do some touchups. It had been a long night already and I was
surprised all the layers of my makeup weren't melting right off my face by now.

"So," Troy asked, once
we were situated. "Who's made an impression on you so far?"

"A lot of them have. I'm
finding that I'm picking certain things from certain ones that I like best. I
keep thinking 'I like this one's voice, this one's style, this one's cologne,
this one's job, and this one's attitude about life'. Now if I could just
conglomerate all those different attributes into one man, we could call it a
day right here and now."

"What were you thinking when
you hit the third limo and the men started coming out in those outfits?"

"I loved it. The third and
fourth limos both impressed me, if for no other reason than they put extra
thought into how to help me understand where they were coming from in
life."

"If someone asked you to
dress for your culture, what would you wear?"

I laughed. "Honestly, I'd be
wearing a t-shirt and jeans. You know, I was having a very interesting
conversation with..." and I drew a blank.

Troy gave a discreet head-nod towards
the wall behind the cameramen.

I looked up and there were
pictures on the wall of each man wearing tonight's outfit and his name on a
card in the corner of each picture. I smiled. "With Ardent. I call myself
a European mutt, with eight different nationalities. I don't have a specific
culture that I grew up in, other than being an American. And living the life
that I do, I can put on an evening dress and say that's just how we do it here,
but I come from the jeans and t-shirt wearing part of the nation. Maybe that's
why being grounded in a culture is appealing to me, it's something I've never
really had."

"What do you believe is the
advantage of that?"

"Because it connects you to
those who came before, and gives you a sense of familial history. Here, we
almost pride ourselves on doing weddings and holidays in our own individual ways.
But I think it would be nice to have some traditions that connect us through
the generations. To know it had been happening for decades before you, and know
that it will continue to happen for decades after you."