Chapter 32 Dustin
DUSTIN
Losing hurts. But you know what hurts more than a regular loss?
A loss when you had high hopes. High expectations. It’s not the loss itself that brings you down. If you’re David going against Goliath, you expect to lose.
Anyways, I didn’t expect to lose in the playoffs to the freaking D.C. Cougars.
I also didn’t expect my wife to break up with me.
So on the day after our monumental loss, my heart hurt from a breakup where the second woman to whom I said I love you said it back, then disappeared.
My body hurt from playing an overtime game the day before and playing on the ice to over exhaustion.
And my head hurt—well, that one I took full responsibility for.
Chip, Shane and I did our own special little bar crawl last night.
It was a sorrowful event, and the Chicago fans weren’t even angry with us for losing. They were just sad, like our team.
Our loss featured some incredible comeback hockey by our opponents, at least one incredibly lucky shot, and some questionable non-calls by the refs.
But that was the past, and we weren’t out to lament it. Next year would be different for our team. If I was even playing in Chicago next year. But that was a whole other debate.
The night of bar-hopping was mentally disturbing for me on at least one whole other level, as well. Which was that I had at least four separate girls comfort me, saying how morose I looked, and did I want to come back to their place so they could cheer me up?
After the first few times, I had to bring back my old school assholery, which seemed to have gone slightly into remission while I was with Cat.
I wasn’t going to take off my ring until I at least heard back from her.
I had to get some more of the story from Phoebe, who I was able to contact thanks to her and Chip’s special friendship as they called it. What I was able to ascertain about her abruptly leaving the country was still slightly confusing to me.
Although I knew there was something about an incriminating video and the possibility of prison time, Mr. Winterborne’s office had not returned any of my numerous calls or emails, and Jackie had been elusive over the past three weeks.
As I sat on my patio, looking out into the May sunshine, my head, heart, and gut throbbing from my hangover, I cracked my knuckles and my lips formed into a smile.
This past month, I couldn’t give this problem the full focus it deserved.
I was too involved in the season to do anything but try to call in favors from friends.
Now, it was time to turn my prodigious powers of getting what I want to figuring out why we lost the visa fight.
Mr. Winterborne, Jackie, Old Man Bells, buckle your fucking seatbelts. I wasn’t sure who was responsible, but I am a free agent this year, and I did not give a fuck what bridges I had to burn to find out what happened to Cat.
I had to grin at my luck because after I ate a hearty breakfast, my phone rang with a call from Jackie.
“Well, well.”
“Well then, sir, good morning. Have a fun night last night?”
“Would have been fun if we were winning.”
“Well, you can’t win them all, right?” Was she happy we lost?
“I suppose not,” I said, keeping my cool. “So what did you call for?”
“I just wanted to say, Dustin, I’m glad there are no hard feelings after everything that happened between us this season.”
“Me too,” I lied.
“So, truce?”
“I think this is something we should talk over in person. When can I come over to meet with you and your grandfather?”
“Really? You want to come eat with us?”
“Yes, of course. Talk over the season. Also, we’ll need to start preliminary contract talks since I’m a free agent this year.”
“Fine, on one condition. Don’t bring your agent.”
“Done. When can I come by?”
“I’m sorry to say I’ll be in Cabo starting Monday. But one week from today would be good, next Saturday.”
“Love it. I’ll be over there. Should I bring anything in particular?”
“Just that sexy smile of yours, Dustin.”
Right on.
“Perfect. See you there.”
I hung up, and a plan began to form in my mind about how it could go down, but I needed some more information first.
So I dialed someone I hadn’t talked to in a few weeks. She’d been busy with a budding relationship, though. “This is a surprise,” she said. “Should you be hung over all week after last night?”
“How’d you know?”
“Uh, I saw you at three-thirty A.M. and we talked about it. You don’t remember that?”
“It’s starting to come back to me. But clearly, I was right.”
“So what’s up?”
“I need you. Now.”
“For what?”
“The marriage fraud stuff. Please?”
“Thanks for coming today,” I said as she came into my place carrying her laptop with her.
“Any time I can practice law for free on a Saturday, you know I’m there,” she said sarcastically.
“You know I’ll pay you.”
“You know I won’t accept payment.”
Jenny and I held each other’s gaze for a few moments before I waved her over to the kitchen table, where we set up shop.
I gave her the rundown of where everything was at in general.
“So she’s back in Spain . . . she hasn’t contacted you since your breakup. Do you want my advice for a divorce? Or what are you worried about, exactly?”
“Marriage fraud. It’s five years in prison and a big fine, or something.”
She shrugged. “They’re not going to convict you if she’s back in Spain.”
I felt my gut clench at that reminder. “And if I go back over and bring her back, what are my options?”
She exhaled a deep breath. “Look, I’m going to have to email a friend of mine with some of these questions because they’re very immigration specific.
But if it’s true what Cat said about the video they’ve got with you declaring your Vegas wedding was a ruse, this is an open and shut case, and you’re lucky for not getting prosecuted.
You shot yourself in the foot by making up that story about having met in college. ”
I ruffled my hair in frustration. “I thought you said you could help me.”
She slammed her laptop shut and stood up. “Look, Dustin, if you’re going to be a dick, I’m leaving. I’m not volunteering my time so you can be all condescending.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry. It’s just, I’m hurting a lot right now.”
“I know.”
“I haven’t really talked about the ‘breakup,’ if you could call it that. It didn’t feel like a breakup. It felt like ghosting. And the feeling is all too familiar. It’s like deja vu from that time in college when I met that girl . . .”
“The one-night stand you fell in love with. I was there, remember?”
I blew out a loud exhale and glanced out the window. “You were?”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “Oh. My. God. You don’t remember anything about that weekend, do you?”
“I remember we were hanging out at Michigan State . . .”
“No. It wasn’t Michigan State, it was the University of Michigan. It was the spring, and you had an off day on a Saturday, and I asked if you wanted to tag along for a girl’s weekend.”
I mined the recesses of my memory. College was a hazy time for me, and every year I got older, the memory grew more distant.
It was funny how I could recall vividly a few specific, brilliant highs and lows: the time I scored a goal to win the national college championship.
The curve of the hips of the woman I fell in love with in one night.
The punch in the gut feeling when I woke up the next morning in bed by myself.
The resolution to myself I would never, ever fall in love again.
Swallowing, I looked back at Jenny and I was grateful for the friends I’d brought along in this life, so I didn’t forget moments like this. I noticed the clock, then looked back at her.
“Is quarter after noon too early for wine?”
“It’s Cinco de Mayo. Margaritas?”
“Hell yes.”
The afternoon turned into Margarita and reminisce about college night. Turned out that Jenny needed to be cheered up, too, because Nate had broke things off with her.
“I knew that guy was a dick.”
She didn’t deny it. “I have a problem. I like the dicks.”
I laughed, refilled our pitcher of margaritas, and then put on some music we had played freshman year in our dorm in college. Jenny connected her laptop to my TV and started going through a slideshow of some old pictures she had from various nights we had been out.
For the first time in weeks, I felt light-hearted, like I was just a guy without a care in the world, hanging out with a friend.
And then I remembered the days and nights and fun with Cat and twisted at my ring.
Part of me felt like since she effectively ghosted me, she was sending a clear message she was better off without me in the long run.
Another part of me was ready to board a plane, head to Spain, and figure out the rest of my plan on the fly. I wasn’t sure which side would win out. I wished for a sign, something that would guide me.
Jenny asked me what I was so deep in thought about and I told her I was praying to the God of Margaritaville. So she clicked the album that said, ‘Jimmy Buffet concert weekend.’
It happened to be the trip I had tagged along on to Ann Arbor.
“Yes, that’s what it was. You wanted to see the Jimmy Buffett concert, but you couldn’t get a ticket. And when we met up with you at the bars, later, you had already met your little one-night stand girl.” She wrinkled her forehead and gave me a weird look. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“You’ve had other one-night stands, right?”
“Yes.”
“Why did this one stand out?”
I didn’t even have to think. “It was like the sun and the moon came together. I filled in her holes, and she filled in mine.” Realizing how dirty that sounded, I quickly added. “In our souls. Souls! Like a yin and yang puzzle.”
After she recovered from dying of laughter, she shook her head. “I’d just never seen you so gaga over someone. Kind of like you were with Cat. It was . . . good to see. You were a different person. I wouldn’t say ‘happier.’ But deeper, more driven, and satisfied.”
“To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you what that girl looks like anymore. After she bounced—I pushed her out of my memory. I didn’t want to remember her. I don’t even think she gave me her real name. But it definitely wasn’t Fio. And she didn’t go to Michigan State.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“There were no ‘Fios’ or ‘Fiorellas’ in all the student body that year. I checked.”
“Creepy,” she smirked.
“No, what’s ‘creepy’ is making up a fake name, getting a guy to fall in love with you, having the best sex of your life, then disappearing. Look, let’s move on. The thing I’m thinking about right now is if there’s a sign I should . . .”
Jenny had the pictures set to automatic slideshow, and my jaw dropped at what I saw.
“Wait. Go back a couple,” I said. She clicked back a couple of times, then pressed play on the video.
It was twenty-two year old me in a bar, with my arm wrapped around two of Jenny’s friends. I had clearly been served a few adult beverages. It must have been after the Jimmy Buffet concert.
“Ladies. Gather round,” I was saying in my deep, growly voice. “I just met the girl I’m going to marry.”
They all rolled their eyes. “You always say that,” Jenny said, from behind the camera.
I scoffed. “No, I don’t. I always say there goes my princess of the night. This time, I used the M word.”
I could hear Jenny sigh from behind the camera. “Alright. We’ll humor you. Who’s the unlucky—I mean lucky—girl?”
I turned around and scanned the crowd, left for a moment, then came back with my arm wrapped tightly around a blonde.
My heart damn near stopped when I looked at her.
“Oh. My. God,” Jenny said. Her margarita slipped out of her hand and dropped all over the floor. But neither of us even flinched as the glass shattered. Jenny had paused the video on Fio.
Her hair was dyed blond, but her eyebrows were still brown. She was eight or so years younger, but her hesitant smile still produced those gorgeous dimples. Still, all of those things might not have been definitive evidence of “Fio’s” real identity.
But the slightly dinged up, heart-shaped locket was undeniable.
My skin tingled everywhere, my buzz rolled through me, and I stood up, wondering where my passport was because if I wanted a sign from the universe, there was none clearer than this.
The real name of the one-night stand I had fallen in love with eight years ago was Catarina Vidal.
AKA Catarina LeBlanc.
“Oh my God,” Jenny said, her jaw wide open. “This means…
“This means we didn’t lie in that video! This means our marriage and our story is…”
“Real,” she said. “Holy crap. This is the wildest thing I’ve ever heard.”