“Now, to you.” He began buttoning my suit as we stood eye to eye; me on the ground, him on the stool. “Okay,” he took my shoulders and turned me so my back was to him. “When we are up there in the . . .” his wording drifted off, “the . . . what is that thing called?” he mumbled to himself.
“The plane?” I squeaked out, panic choking me.
“Aw, yes, the plane. I’m so stupid,” he chuckled. “When we are up there, I will come behind you and begin hooking us together.”
“We’re not hooked together before we get on the plane?”
“Oh, no . . .” he laughed haughtily. “That would be awkward. You’re a beautiful lady . . . it would make being a man . . . how you say . . . difficult.”
My mouth popped open, but he continued on, loudly, stopping me from voicing my objection.
“Now, se?ora, I know you say you’re nervous, but I do this many time.”
“How many times?” I asked as I spun around to look at him.
“Oh, so many,” he assured me with a bright smile. “At least twice.”
“What?” I shrieked. That was it. I was done. I could no longer pretend for the sake of not possibly offending him. A bell from the back sounded loudly and Marcello shook his hands.
“You help me down, please?” he asked. “I turn alarm off.”
He wrapped his short arms around my neck and I lifted him off the stool, placing him on his feet on the ground. “You wait here. I be right back.” He scurried down the hall toward the back into a room and a few seconds later the alarm shut off. My chest constricted with anxiety. It’s going to be okay, Clara, I inwardly told myself. I stared straight ahead, fists balled up at my sides, and told myself to just leave. So what if they took the deposit? There was no way I could jump out of a plane with that tiny man. On the count of three. One, two . . .
“I come back for you, se?ora,” Marcello called as he came back down the hall. He lugged something heavy behind him, the weight so much that he stopped every few seconds to adjust his grip. Ah, crap. Finally, he got a good hold on the giant item and came toward me, the thing he was dragging bumping along behind him. When he reached me, he dropped the straps and put his hands on his hips, working hard to catch his breath.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing to the thing he dragged in.
Letting out a long breath, he turned, hands still on his hips, and in his deep accent replied, “That’s the chute.”
My eyes felt like they were about to bulge out of my sockets. I’d had enough. This was over. Frantically, I unzipped my suit and started jerking it off. I couldn’t get it off fast enough. “What’s wrong, se?ora?”
“I’m sorry, but I think I’ll need to come back another day.” I grunted as I fought to get the suit over my sneakers.
“Okay, Marcus,” another voice called, causing me to jerk my head up. “I think you’ve gone far enough.” And there he was. Paul James in the flesh. Looking more handsome in person than he did in his pictures.
“They never make it this long. She’s a real gem,” the man whose name was apparently Marcus chuckled in a very non-accented voice, and his small but manly looking face lit up with a grin. In fact, I recognized his voice. He was the guy that answered the phone the day before. I’d imagined a giant on the other end of the line, certainly not “Marcello,” or Marcus, or whoever the hell he was.
I stared at them blankly, still trying to understand what was happening. I wasn’t an idiot. It appeared the little man had played a joke on me, but that just couldn’t be, right? This was a business, for God’s sake. You don’t do shit like that to your clientele.
Paul looked down at his clipboard and lifted a page, seemingly reading over something, but I could see from where I stood it was only a blank piece of printer paper. “You are . . .”
“Severely unamused,” I answered snidely. “Do you think this is funny?” I asked, looking directly at Marcus.
His head reared back slightly. Was I the first person to confront him over his “jokes”? “Yeah,” he snorted. “Actually, I do.”
Stepping toward him, I looked down, my stare burning into his. “Tell me, little man, do you enjoy using your short stature as a crutch so people can empathize with you? Or has being vertically challenged always given you a free pass to behave like a huge assclown?”
He glared up at me. “Excuse me? Vertically challenged?”
“Oh,” I snorted. “Please understand any empathy or politically correct standards I held myself to a minute ago are long gone. You’re a petty little shit who thinks it’s funny to prank unsuspecting customers who are probably already nervous as hell by making them think they are tandem skydiving with a man too small to do it. What the hell is a matter with you?”
Crossing his arms, he inhaled deeply. “I’ve had a lifetime of jokes played on me, lady. I think you run-of-the-mill folks can handle a few minutes of it.”
“Well, whether those people were average, tall, or short, you’re still an asshole,” I stated bluntly. Looking up to Paul, I said, “And you’re the owner, I presume?”
“That’d be me,” he confirmed.
“You condone this?”