“What do you mean, Knowlton mentioned me?” I asked as Graham stood me on my feet in one swift motion.
“At the Underground Swap Meat, he mentioned your talents.” Amazingly, the sloth still clung to me and was attempting to pull itself higher by grabbing fistfuls of my hair. “Here, let’s get him into this before he creates a bald spot.” Graham pried the lid off the container and began gently tugging on the sloth.
“The what?” I asked.
“The Underground Swap Meat. It’s a semiannual event where taxidermy enthusiasts get together and swap supplies.”
“And by supplies, you mean carcasses?”
“Basically, although sometimes tools and even business supplies get exchanged. I think someone even traded vehicles once.”
“How do you know about this?”
“The state used to hold a roadkill auction before rabies became such a worry and we had to shut it down. When the USM sprang up after the closure, we decided to investigate as a matter of public safety.”
“And everything was aboveboard?”
“It was all very clean. As a matter of fact, after the first time we showed up, the organizers sent us an invitation every year. Taxidermists aren’t fans of disease any more than the rest of us.” Graham held out another stalk of celery toward the sloth.
“That still doesn’t clear things up for me. Why was Knowlton talking about me?”
“Oh, it wasn’t just me he was talking to. He bragged about you to anyone standing still. None of us understood how a guy like that ended up engaged to a woman like he described.”
“Engaged?” I felt my voice climbing the scales more than I heard it. Maybe because it had gone up into dog whistle range.
“Right. He would go on and on about his fiancée’s acrobatic talents and how entertaining that could be under certain circumstances.”
“What sort of circumstances are you talking about?” I was starting to feel a boil in my stomach that spread up into my chest and threatened to pop my eyes straight out of my head.
“I don’t think I know you well enough to go into the details. It might embarrass you to no end. I know it would make me uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t know me well enough to listen either.” Graham kept tugging on the sloth, attempting to pry it off me. I was beginning to think the thing was part octopus the way it stuck to my torso.
“You’ve got me there. It was disrespectful and it was none of my business. For the record, he made it sound very flattering.”
“He made it all up.”
“It did sound like he was exaggerating a bit. After all, how could anyone really manage to . . .” Graham tapered off, turning red and staring at the ground instead of meeting my eyes.
“He wasn’t exaggerating, he was lying.”
“I don’t see how you can be so sure if you weren’t ever there.”
“That’s what I’m saying to you, I wasn’t ever there. And neither was he. Knowlton and I have never been more intimately enmeshed than sharing a seat on the school bus.”
“So you’re one of those old-fashioned girls who’s saving herself for the wedding night?”
“We aren’t engaged either. We never have been.”
“Well, that’s disappointing.”
“What?”
“Knowlton was describing every man’s dream girl, and now you burst my bubble and tell me he made it all up?”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t a dream girl. I just said he had no way of knowing if I was or if I wasn’t.”
“There are going to be a lot of disappointed guys when I tell them Dani Greene isn’t as advertised.”
“What do you mean by a lot?”
“I mean all across the state. Guys came from everywhere to attend the USM. By about the third year I started wondering how many of the men showing up were more interested in hearing the next installment of the Dani escapades than swapping critters.”
“That doesn’t seem flattering.”
“They do love their carcasses, so it might be saying more than you think.”
“Too much has already been said. This has been one of the worst days of my life.”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad.” Graham wrapped one hand around the sloth’s arm right where its wrist would be and managed to detach it from me. For a moment the animal dangled between us like a child swinging from its two parents’ hands while out on a walk.
“It is that bad. My business is headed for ruin and now I find out my reputation has been destroyed for years and I never even knew it.”
“Then that’s not so bad, now is it? If you didn’t know, it didn’t affect you.” Graham tossed the rest of the celery into the box then gently dangled the sloth in after it and snapped on the lid. He hoisted the box into the back of his truck, all set to go.