Three hours later, she decided that she’d spent enough time acting like a sullen teenager. She went looking for companionship and alcohol. She found both almost at once inside a library on the second floor that had been converted to a bar. All of the books and tomes were still in place and along with the rich wooden ceiling and floors added a Victorian element to the presence of the giant screen television playing music videos. She felt Rickrolled the moment she walked in because Rick Astley’s ‘Never Going to Give You Up’ video was playing as she entered. She almost turned around and left, but Munro was drinking a beer from the bottle at a table and waved her over.
Donkey Kong sat at one table with a tablet and what looked like a small glass of claret.
Patterson was also in the room, sitting the furthest away from the door. a bottle of Tequila and a shot glass in front of her.
Preacher’s Daughter was the last person to judge. How someone made it through the day was their own business as long as it didn’t affect the mission. She moseyed on over to the bar and found a wine fridge. She selected an American Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley, filled a wine glass and sat down across from Munro so she could see the other two and still have the video in her line of sight. Although the music was turned down, it was just loud enough to be heard and understood.
She noticed that Munro was drinking an American IPA called Voodoo Ranger.
“Cheers,” she said, as she took a moderate and totally refreshing sip of cold wine.
“Cheers back, mate.” He took a sip himself, leaned back and watched the video.
“American IPA?” she asked.
“It’s an acquired taste, I know. Not as smooth as many of my favorite English beers, but if I’m drinking to think, then I like IPAs. If I’m drinking to get drunk, then give me a pub beer or something from DC Brau like Stone of Arbroath. That’s an IPA from DC using American hops but Scotch beer.”
“I didn’t know there was that much involved,” she said, sipping and watching him.
He glanced at her and rolled his eyes. “If you’ve been in the service for as long as your sheet says, I’m sure you know that’s not true,” his brogue coming out a little bit more with the alcohol. “You know, the more you be by yourself, the better you need to be able to get along.”
She sat back. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“See?” he grinned. “That’s the Preacher’s Daughter we were expecting. Not the ’fraid of her shadow waif who let herself be told to stay in the back.”
She wanted to respond right away, but held back. She drank her glass, got up and poured another, this time bringing the bottle back with her.
“That’s the spirit,” Munro said.
Changing the subject, she asked, “Who is Monroe? Was that a famous Scottish soldier?”
He shook his head. “Munro was never a person.”
“But I know people with that last name in America. It’s not uncommon.”
“We’re talking two different things.”
“Then where does it come from?”
“A m-u-n-r-o,” he began, spelling the word out, “is defined as any Scottish mountain over three thousand feet in height. Scotland has three hundred and thirty-two munros and I have climbed every one of them, including Ben Nevis.”
“Now, that sounds like a person.”
He laughed. “There always is. Ben means mountain, while Nevis means malicious. Malicious Mountain. That used to be my call sign before I retired it. Now I am simply Munro.”
She sipped more of her wine. “I don’t think simply is an adequate word. Why did you retire that call sign?”
He stared at her over his beer for a long moment, then shook his head as if he’d come to a decision. “You’re going to have to ask someone else for that. Changing the subject, Preacher’s Daughter? I take it your father was a preacher?”
She nodded and sipped her Chardonnay. “He was. I grew up being a pretty serious girl. Good in my studies. Every summer we’d go on a mission somewhere and help out when we could.”
“Normally, when a girl is a preacher’s daughter, well, she’s kind of a wild girl,” he said.
“That’s why Boy Scout gave me the call sign as a joke. I was never a wild girl until I went through ROTC and then had to hold my own and show who I was with the guys.”
“So, you’re the way you are in order to fit in,” he said.
She leaned forward and was about to lay into him, when he spoke first.
“Listen, one thing you haven’t figured out yet is that in a team in the UK we are real brothers and sisters and don’t let any feelings get in the way. If you’re going to be American and act as if you get hurt by what we say when all we are doing is telling the truth then you will never fit in. What is it you ’Muricans call it? Tough Love? Here we just call it love and telling it as we see it. So, get mad if you want to, but that’s the way we operate.” He snatched his beer off the table and stood. “Be right back. Going to get another one.”
She noticed that both Donkey Kong and Patterson were staring at her. When they saw her noticing their attention, they both returned to their own business. Was he right? Was she too uptight? Was this an American thing? She did know that she’d been worried about integrating into the new team—now a second new team in six months. She’d been reserved because she wanted to wait and fit in, but it seems now like they’d expected her to be herself from the get go and stake her place on the team. She grabbed her glass and hugged it to her chest as she leaned back and watched Golden Earring perform ‘Twilight Zone’, something she really felt she’d stepped in.
Munro returned with a beer and a bowl of crisps. He began to toss them into his mouth as he sipped his beer. He watched the video, pretty much ignoring her.
When the video ended and switched to Rhianna’s ‘Diamonds’, she finally spoke. “I can only guess how easy it is for a good-looking athletic man to become part of a team. It seems like your place is always reserved and ready to be filled. On the other hand, super smart pretty women like myself don’t often become part of a functioning front line military unit. There’s no rule book how to act. America was founded on Puritan values and most of the time if someone of my sex steps out and tries to act however we want we are called bitch or a slut.” She eyed him stonily. “Of which I am neither.”
“I never thought you were,” he said.
“What you’re saying is if I act the way I want to—basically be unadulterated Preacher’s Daughter—you’ll accept me and not treat me as if I’m trying to be something I shouldn’t?”
“Are you Preacher’s Daughter?”
“Of course.”
“Then you won’t be pretending to be someone you aren’t. Trust me. We can tell.”
“So, everything has been a test.”
He tilted his bottle. “Life is a test, mate. Back to what we were talking about. I drink IPA when I’m contemplative. Like, what the fuck is going on with the world and should I be worried contemplative. Look around. The others are doing the same. If we didn’t care, this would be a free for all and we’d be like a bunch of your frat boys doing keg stands because we deserve that kind of release after all the shit we’ve been in.
“But that’s not the case. Look at Donkey Kong over there. He’s reading Byron, I can guarantee you, because he both wants the poets bedevilry and his humanity. He wants to make sure he has it and understands it and exudes it. Life is getting tough and there are enough leaders from Hollywood who would never work in real life.
“Then there’s Barbie. I know you don’t like the name, but the reason we call her that isn’t what you think. And before you ask, you need to ask her. That’s her business. She’s sitting over there writing notes in her book about how the rest of us operated. She slow drinks tequila because it’s like water to her—never challenge her to drinking tequila—if you do, you’ll wake up in your own vomit and with someone else’s poodle, but that’s another story. My guess is that she even noted your comments and your contributions to today’s adventure.”
Her mind was spinning. She was kicking herself for never really realizing how deep and how professional everyone was. She’d shown up with her own ideas and thought that everything was about her. Clearly, getting used to a new unit was a talent she had no talent for and she was thankful that Munro or Andy MacKenzie or whoever the Malicious Mountain was that he had taken the time to mansplain. She’d spent a good portion of her time thus far tiptoeing around everyone. From now on, she’d be pure and adulterated Preacher’s Daughter, whatever that meant. She’d give them as good as she got and then take as good as they gave. They’d probably appreciate her honesty.
Munro glanced at his watch. “I gotta run. I need to put in at least five miles before bed.”
After mission.
And after beers?
He nodded to her, grabbed her shoulder in a friendly grasp, then left the room.
Prince was on TV now singing about Little Red Corvettes.
When she got done listening to Prince singing code for vaginas and condoms, she glanced over at Patterson who was drinking a shot and also watching Purple Royalty on the big screen. If Preacher’s Daughter was going to make a change, she might as well do it with the toughest person in the room, so she got up, grabbed her half-filled bottle, and sauntered over to where Patterson was sitting.
“This seat taken?” she asked.
“It is now,” Patterson said, trying her best to ignore the other woman. “What do you want?”
“A little respect,” Preacher’s Daughter said. She grabbed the bottle of tequila and tipped it to her mouth and took a hit. The warm white liquor seared her throat and sent fireworks into her brain. She coughed once, which she was proud to do because her entire body wanted to rid itself of the vile liquid.
“Not exactly chardonnay,” Patterson said, a ghost of a grin behind her normal frown.
“No,” Preacher’s Daughter coughed. “Not exactly.”
She watched to see if the other woman was going to open up, but it might as well have been Fort Knox. Instead of speaking, she turned to watch the screen and they both watched Madness singing ‘Our House’. Preacher’s Daughter tried to make sense of it, but it was as nonsensical as the problem at hand. On the surface all of the mundane activities seemed somewhat normal, but the continuous refrain about the middle of the street lent an unneeded confusion.
When the video finished, Preacher’s Daughter turned back to the table and took a sip of her wine. What she really wanted to do was wash her mouth out with gasoline to get the taste of tequila out of it. Tequila had always been an acquired taste and one she’d never acquired. Patterson continued to jot in her notebook, not once looking up.
A dozen questions went through Preacher’s Daughter’s mind which she rejected for being either condescending, ill-informed, or petty or combinations thereof. She wanted to break the ice, but she didn’t know how. Munro had all but said that she was pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Perhaps that was the problem. She’d so closely identified with who she’d been while in Boy Scout’s unit that outside of the organization she still struggled to be herself.
Who was Preacher’s Daughter?
Maybe the best way to see who you were was to look at you through other’s eyes. If that was the case, she didn’t like what she saw. She had too many faults and needed to own them more quickly. She also needed to stop waiting to be heard. From now on, she told herself that she would act and react with her previous speed and efficiency. And if they didn’t like it then she’d find a way to adjust. She had only to make sure she wasn’t allowing complacency and her need to get along to color the way she should be acting.