Page 61 of Not Yet Yours

Alan smiles this time, and I can’t help but wonder how many bad idea Vegas weddings he and his team see on a weekly basis.

“I kind of just put the whole thing out of my mind. It didn’t really affect my life on a daily basis, but then I met Harriet here, and I want to marry her. Don’t worry, I plan on keeping seeing her afterward,” I say, and we all laugh. “So obviously now I need a divorce. The problem is, I have no information whatsoever about the bride except for her being nineteen at the same time I was, so she’ll be thirty-four now. And her first name is Becky.”

“So, you got to know her quite well then,” Alan jokes and again, we all laugh.

I have to admit he has managed to put me at ease about this and I’m glad we can laugh about it.

“All marriages become a part of the public record. I asked you to bring the marriage certificate because that can help me look up the details easier with the certificate number,” Alan says.

“Wait,” Harriet interrupts. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier but isn’t Becky’s surname on the marriage certificate?”

“Her signature is,” I say. “But it’s just a squiggle.”

“Don’t worry,” Alan says. “The wedding records should be easy enough to find with the marriage certificate number, the year, the city, and your name. Once I’ve found that, it will give us the details of the bride at the time. Of course, she might have moved, changed her name, or anything, but it’s a place to start. And once we track her down, then the divorce is going to be an easy one in my opinion. I can’t see her having objections after all this time with no contact.”

“Me neither,” I agree. I would have signed divorce papers, no questions asked if Becky had reached out to me. God, I wish she had. That would have made everything easier. I would be divorced and able to marry Harriet without all this fuss and no one in my family would ever have had to know about my embarrassing secret wedding.

Alan is tapping away on the keyboard of his computer.

“Right,” he says. “I’m in the archive for the records of Las Vegas for the right year. Do you have the marriage certificate?”

I nod and hand him the envelope. I hope my sweaty fingers haven’t left wet marks on the envelope. If they have, Alan either doesn’t notice them or is too polite to point them out as he opens the envelope and pulls out the marriage certificate. He looks over it and then he peers at me over the top of it.

“Problem solved,” Alan says, putting the marriage certificate down on his desk. Harriet and I look at each other and then at him, neither of us understanding what he means. Alan nods down at the marriage certificate. “This isn’t real.”

“Sorry, what do you mean it isn’t real?” I say, not sure why that matters really. “Even if it’s a copy, surely it has the same information for you to use to find the real one on your computer.”

“No, I don’t mean it’s a copy, I mean it’s not a real marriage certificate. As in, the so-called marriage wasn’t a real, legally binding marriage,” Alan says. “There are lots of chapels in Las Vegas and the marriages completed in those are very real and very legally binding. The odd hotel has a license for weddings to be done on their premises. But there are also some hotels and casinos that do a sort of ‘for fun’ ceremony. I can’t see the point of it myself, but apparently, it’s a thing for people who want the experience of the shotgun Vegas wedding without the actual marriage that comes after it.”

“But there was a minister and everything,” I say.

“No, there was an actor playing the role of a minister,” Alan says. “And I’m sure you said vows and shit. Maybe even exchanged rings.”

“Jelly rings,” I say. “It was all we had. I mean that should have been a giveaway in hindsight, but it’s Vegas you know.”

Alan nods.

“Some legal venues would likely let you use jelly rings out there. Anyway, did this wedding take place in a casino by any chance?” Alan asks.

“Yes,” I say. “They even gave us a few free chips as a wedding present.”

“Then I guarantee you that this isn’t real. The casino wasn’t licensed and the actor playing the minister isn’t a legal officiant either,” Alan says. “It’s a daft souvenir. Just put it in the trash.”

I can’t quite believe that I’m hearing this. I don’t know whether to take it as a good thing, or a bad thing. I mean it’s good because I don’t have to try and track Becky down after allthese years and get a divorce from her, but that fucking gimmick almost cost me Harriet.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Liam

“They really should make it clearer that the marriage isn’t real,” Harriet says. “I mean it doesn’t look like a fake certificate. It looks real. I get that’s kind of the point, but still.”

“It will have been clear at the time,” Alan says. “They even make people sign a disclaimer to say they understand it’s just for fun and not legally binding. But, of course, if you were drunk…”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to. It’s obvious that I was just too drunk to really take in what was going on around me and I somehow didn’t even think to question the validity of the marriage after the event. My only defense afterward is that I would have had no idea what a real marriage certificate would look like to compare the two.

“Well, I thought the stupidest mistake I would ever make was the Vegas wedding. But apparently, I was wrong because this right here tops it,” I say.

“Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen,” Alan says. He grins. “Except for my bill of course.”

---