For some context on this next clip: Marc has told off a cocaine colleague who was harassing him about the delivery schedule. He's agreed to fly Maggie to a research station in the rainforest.
Marc was determined
to get in the last word, but was left with nothing to say. “You
don’t own the plane,” he shouted after the driver. “And you
don’t own me!”
Marc pretended not
to be jangled by that statement, but he knew the kinds of things that
happened to those who disappointed the higher-ups. Taking the heat
wasn’t just a figure of speech. He swallowed hard, then as casually
as possible, he pulled out a cigarette and under his breath he
muttered, “Glad we got this cleared up, amigo.”
Marc had felt
compelled to engage in this brief but intense discussion with Mr.
Striped Shirt to clarify who was calling the shots. With that done,
he now felt compelled to break the resulting tension by engaging in a
brief but intense reading session with a Playboy
in the hangar’s lone bathroom. He burst through the office door and
snatched his most recent issue (now five months old). On his way out
he instructed Maggie over his shoulder. “Have your shit loaded in
five minutes.” He glanced at the cover. “Okay, ten minutes, or I
leave without you.”
True to his word,
for once, Marc emerged after ten minutes to check on Maggie’s
progress. “You about done, or what?” he asked, checking the
scratched face of his Rolex.
"It never
occurred to you to help?"
He looked a bit
surprised. "Well…no," he answered honestly.
"It would speed
things up," Maggie offered.
"What all have
you got here anyway?"
She pointed at the
boxes in turn. "That one has reference books, and the one beside
it has equipment for collecting plant specimens. This one has
personal stuff and the suitcase of course-“
"Save it, lady.
I just want to know which is the lightest."
"Take your
chances." Maggie picked up a box and carried it away.
When he caught up to
her, Maggie eyed the Greek letters on the billed cap Marc now wore.
"I remember the
TKE chapter on my campus," she said. "Beer-guzzling
partiers who couldn't be bothered to find their way to class."
"Yeah, that's
us," Marc nodded with fond remembrance. “What about you? You
pledge a sorority way back in your college days?”
“It wasn’t the
stone-age, and yes, I belonged to Pi Nu Delta. It’s actually an
honorary for women in the sciences.”
"Not that I
asked." Marc's cigarette bobbed between clenched lips as he
spoke.
“You see, I
started off in college wanting a career in medicine, but then I also
developed an interest in sales and marketing, and I thought, 'This is
just too crazy to work.' "
"Crazy,"
Marc agreed. He set down the crate of books and leaned against the
plane. Maggie started back for more of her stuff, talking the whole
way, and Marc decided to let her get the last load herself. He tuned
her out and just watched her walking over and back. She might be kind
of cute if she slimmed down just a little - and if she ever stopped
yapping.
Maggie hoisted her
suitcase onto the plane with a huff. "So what's a rotten kid
like you doing in a tropical paradise like this?"
Marc gave a look of
surprise. "I'm not a kid," he informed her. "I'm 21,
legal in all fifty states."
"If you're
still bragging about it, you're still a kid."
"How long since
you were bragging about it?"
Maggie hesitated,
but decided to answer. "Seven years, not that it's any of your
business."
Marc calculated and
concluded that at twenty-eight her bones were not so brittle they
would break if he decided to jump them. He struggled to keep a
straight face. “Given your medical background, are you concerned at
all about catching jungle fever down here?”
“Jungle fever? You
mean malaria? I had all my shots before I left.”
“No," he
answered, practicing his sensuous stare on her as he moved closer. "I
mean that burning feeling in your loins that comes over you when you
get out in the jungle, where it’s hot and wet and wild." A
strand of hair had fallen over her eye, and he gently reached out a
finger to brush it back. He lowered his voice to a whisper, "Don’t
you feel it?"
Maggie slapped his
hand away and gave him a level stare. “You’ve got to be kidding
me.”
Marc shrugged. “That
line has worked before.”
Maggie shook her
head. “Are you seriously trying to make me believe that just being
in the jungle makes people ... makes them ...”
“Horny as hell,
you bet,” Marc informed her, shaking off the sting in his hand. And
in response to her skeptical look, he went on. “Hey, they don’t
call it the torrid zone for nothing. And there ain’t no shot for
that, honey, unless it’s a shot of-”
“I’m sure I’m
immune,” Maggie interrupted. Still, she recalled the travel
brochures she’d read all used words like “sultry” and
“sensuous” and “untamed.”
“Nobody’s
immune, sugar,” he told her. “Nobody."
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