Page 13 of Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire)
I smiled some more. “Nah. It won’t work. Pure wishful thinking.”
Hope gave me a shove and said, “Go, then. Come back with a license to marry me.”
Pity that nothing’s ever as easy as it seems.
As it turned out, there was only one person in front of me. He was in his seventies, though, and arguing about his rubbish collection rates, which made up for about three dog licenses.
Finally, though, he was leaving, still shaking his head and muttering under his breath, and it was my turn. I explained my errand, set the documents on the counter, and watched as the comfortably upholstered middle-aged Maori lady on the other side picked them up, scrutinized them one by one, began to type into her computer, and then returned to one of them and studied it again. The one I most wanted her to be done with.
“I don’t think this is in order, love,” she said at last.
“Of course it is,” I said. “It’s ancient history, more than twelve years old, and it’s in order.”
She turned it around to show me.
New Zealand
Decree of Dissolution
the heading read, with all the details beneath.
Completely in order. I ought to know.
“Here,” she said, pointing to the lower right corner. “Should be an embossed seal there, and it’s missing. Most important bit of the paper.”
“So somebody forgot to stamp it,” I said, holding onto my temper. “It must happen. It was done all right and tight.”
“Nobody forgets to stamp it,” she said. “You’re going to have to get a corrected copy before I can issue your license. Sorry, but I can’t. First rule of getting married, love. You can’t already be married to somebody else.”
I wanted to explode, but I didn’t. I took a deep breath and said, “I’m back in the homeland for a couple weeks. My fiancee’s waiting at my Koro’s house with my ring on her finger, ready for me to take her to Auckland to buy her a dress. This…” I pushed the paper back toward her. “It was done and dusted a dozen years ago. It may not have a seal, but it’s real. I should know. I paid for it. So—please. I’ve got a girl waiting, and I need to marry her in front of my whanau, so she’ll believe.”
I couldn’t believe I’d said all that, but I may as well have saved my breath, because she was shaking her head, looking genuinely sorry. “I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t. Here.” She reached for a paper from a rack on the wall and handed it to me. “All you need to do is look it up online. It’ll be recorded. Then you bring the proof in here, and you’ll have your license.”
“Brilliant,” I said. “Could I ask you to look it up for me now?”
She glanced behind me, where a bloke was waiting, shifting from foot to foot and glaring at me.
“Please,” I added. I didn’t beg, and I was doing it anyway.
She said, “I can’t. You need to look up your own info. It’s all spelled out on the paper there.”
It didn’t matter whether I got the license today or tomorrow. The waiting period was three days, and I had six. All the same, I pushed it. “There’s nothing you can do? You sure?” A young mother wheeled a pushchair with a grizzling baby in it up behind the bloke, and the bloke sighed.
The clerk pushed my papers across the counter to me and said, “Sorry, love. I would if I could. Look it up, bring the proof back here to me, and you’ll have it. And congrats. Sounds like she’s a lucky girl.”
I stepped away. I had no choice. I walked out of the library, thought a moment, then turned around and went back inside.
I hadn’t brought my laptop, but libraries had Internet-connected computers, right? All I’d have to do was look it up, pay the money to print out the page, and I could be back in the queue again.
I never panicked at the first setback. That wasn’t me. Time to pull my head in.
A few minutes later, I sat at a long table in front of a computer monitor, consulted the paper, typed in the web address, and began to follow the instructions. I gave a passing thought to online security and shrugged it off. If the elderly fella in the corner reading his newspaper or the somewhat fragrant backpacker reading his email beside me were intent on stealing my identity, I’d have to risk it. I’d be on here for ten minutes, and then I’d be done.
It didn’t take ten minutes. Once I proved my identity and got into the records site itself, it took seconds.
A birth certificate, a certificate of marriage, and nothing else.
Ididn’tswear under my breath. Instead, I controlled my heartbeat and my temper, went back to the previous page, and typed the query in again.
