A wave of relief came over me, although I couldnotget this guy’s brand of humor. I guess when you had a boring job, you did what you could.
“Oh. It’s a joke! I get it,” Dustin said, forcing a smile.
Dustin caught my eye, and we both laughed, trying hard to sound natural. We didn’t.
“Of course it’s a joke! What do you think, I give visa applicants a hard time based on whether or not you like my team? Preposterous. Although that was a pretty low blow you made on Demarco the other day, wasn’t it?”
I could see Dustin clenching a fist, and I knew he was restraining himself with every iota of his being, so I interjected.
“My husband doesn’t really like talking about hockey when he’s not in the arena. It’s sort of a mental thing. You know what they say! ‘Leave it all on the ice!’”
Never in my life had I heard someone sayleave it all on the ice. B.S. improvisation had officially commenced.
“She knows me so well,” Dustin said, putting his hand on my knee.
“Of course, she would know you well.” Mr. Winterborne stood up and circled around his desk, and then leaned back on it, crossing his arms. “Because you’re married.” Any trace of a grin left his face as he said those three words, and he squinted closely at us. “And that’s exactly my job. To find out just how well you two know each other, and to make sure this isn’t a sham marriage just for the purpose of a green card.” His voice had changed fromhockey jokestoserious interrogation.
I laughed. “People do that? Unbelievable.”
“You would be surprised what people think they could get away with,” Mr. Winterborne said. “It’s like people don’t understand that five years of prison for marriage fraud is a thing! Well, and the two-hundred-fifty thousand dollar fine.”
I cleared my throat, and I was hoping this was another one of the man’s jokes. “Five years of prison?”
“Yes indeed. Five years hard time!” He waved his hand in the air. “I don’t want to bore you with the details. Shoot, you don’t want to end up in prison! Obviously. Although, it would certainly give Washington a better chance at the Stanley Cup!”
Dustin laughed, playing it well. “Oh man, you crack me up, Mr. Winterborne. Anyhow, what do we have to do to get you to finalize these papers?”
Mr. Winterborne took a deep breath and his expression veered toward extremely serious. “I’ll be blunt with you two. I saw the snapchat from Saturday morning. And I received a phone call today from someone indicating that I should take a very deep look into your ... union.”
“Who would that be from?” I asked.
“That’s none of your concern,” Mr. Winterborne answered.
“Now see, due to the public nature of this case, I’m going to be taking a very, very close look at everything.” He leaned in closer. “And when I say everything, I mean it.Everything.Apublic marriage like this that is going to keep a non-citizen in the country is precedent setting.”
We both swallowed hard.
“We would love that,” I said. “It will give us a chance to explore our relationship more deeply.”
“Fantastic,” Mr. Winterborne said. “Then I’ll be conducting your individual interviews in the next few weeks.”
“Did you just say, ‘individual interviews?’” I asked.
“Yes. I’m going to quiz you about each other’s lives, that kind of thing. Easy peasy, you know, like ‘where is Dustin’s father from?’”
“Perfect,” I said.
“No, that’s like a real question,” Mr. Winterborne said. “Where was Dustin’s father from?”
My tell-tale heart beat so loudly, I could only hope he didn’t hear it.
Dustin put a finger up. “She knows I really don’t like talking about this,” he said. “Because I was mostly raised by my grandparents.”
“I see.” Mr. Winterborne still seemed suspicious. “Tell me then, how do you fall in love and get married in Las Vegas ... in one night? That’s quite quick. What ... what did it?”
I wanted to poke him and sayI told you so.
Dustin looked at me and nodded solemnly. “Great question. And it was ...”
