The Love Bug

by Tara Wimble

  “I got you something.” Jacque’s fingers tap excitedly against the tissue paper of her gift, making an amusing ‘pop, pop, pop’ sound against whatever is inside and it only heightens Bella’s desire to receive her gift.

  For a moment she considers teasing back and forth with Jacque, mostly to play it up for the people standing around them observing the show. But also she doesn’t have the patience to wait any longer so she just holds out her hands.

  “Well, hand it over.” She smiles innocently when Jacque rolls her eyes but acquiesces almost immediately.

  She feels it first because that’s what you’re supposed to do with gifts, at least attempt to figure out what it is in your head. Especially if it’s someone like Sadie giving you the gift so you can figure out if you’ll never be able to show your face again in public.

  It’s triangular, but sort of long, and there’s not really anything that pops to her mind so she mentally says fuck it and tears off the tissue paper. It’s a name plate, a nice one at that, certainly nicer than the standard one that the university gave her to put on her desk. It says ‘Bella Liresch’ inscribed in fancy calligraphy with her job title in smaller print underneath and a red Maple Leaf in the top right corner. It’s gorgeous but for the life of her she doesn’t really get why Jacque’s just gifting her out of the blue.

  And then she sees Jacque’s eager eyes and wide smile and has to reflect that back and at least thank her.

  “It’s beautiful.” The sentiment is real even if there’s still confusion as to why she’s randomly getting a gorgeous gift. It’s not like this is something that Jacque does all the time, spoiling her out of the blue, she’s a great friend but also who even has time for that.

  “Thanks.” Jacque smiles and reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a blue envelope with the word ‘wife’ written in Jacque’s handwriting on the front. “Happy anniversary!”

  Bella’s face blanches and she struggles to match Jacque’s enthusiasm because fuck, she’s the worst fake wife ever.

  And now everybody in the office is really paying attention to them now because it’s their fucking anniversary apparently and Jacque had to go and be better at this than her and Bella’s left floundering for some semblance of solid ground.

  Also a cover, she needs to cover her ass because there’s no way that she can let on she forgot her actual first wedding anniversary. She and Jacque can laugh about it later, or maybe that might not be the best idea actually, but these people they need to believe.

  “You shouldn’t have.” She laces her voice with trickly sweetness and from behind her she hears an ‘aw’ so at least that part was believable. She accepts the card and rips it open immediately. It’s such a Jacque card to pick, it’s not even an anniversary card, it’s a little boys birthday card with cars all over the front. Cars that Jacque has taken the time to label with the make of their cars, and then she’s drawn a road up through the middle with a fake picket sign that says ‘The United States’ on one end of the road and ‘A Better Place’ on the other.

  Of course, and Bella has to scoff at that. Because Jacque totally would.

  “Open it up, there’s something inside.” And now Jacque looks absolutely giddy and Bella’s terrified that whatever is going to pop out is really going to make her look like the worst person for forgetting. It’s then that she resolves, no matter what, she has to do something awesome for Jacque tonight.

  The card opens and another card falls out. Bella drops the original greeting card and focuses on the one that fell. It looks like a drivers license but her eyes well up almost immediately because she knows that it’s not, it’s not that at all.

  “Is this--.” But she can’t even finish the sentence because it is, she knows it is and she can’t even handle this. People have started to go about their business again because they do actually have jobs and also this is an increasingly private moment.

  Jacque smiles. “It came a couple days ago, I stole your mail.” She pauses to tilt her head. “Sorry about that, actually.”

  The picture on the left of the card isn’t the best, she’d been exhausted when she’d taken it all that time ago but the information on the card is all hers and yeah it says Bella Liresch but more importantly in English and in French it says Permanent Resident Card and there’s the Canadian flag and damn if this isn’t the best gift she’s ever gotten.

  “Jacque,” She looks up and sees her friend beaming at her like she knows that she did well. “I’m almost there.”

  And the tears actually start to fall so Jacque hops off the desk, comes around, and pulls her into tight hug.

  “Read the card.” Jacque says into her shoulder so she pulls back, still keeping Jacque in contact with her and reads the words. It just says ‘On your way. Love Jacque’ and Bella’s not sure that there are five other words that have ever made her feel so proud. “Do you like it?” There’s a note of insecurity in Jacque’s voice that absolutely has no place in this moment.

  “I love it, you big idiot.” And that breaks all of the weird tension that had been building between them because Jacque scoffs and pushes her away and Bella can’t help but laugh at her indignation.

  It’s the perfect anniversary gift, hell, the perfect gift in general.

  She looks up at Jacque’s face and she’s obviously proud of herself, as she should be, but Bella sighs because reality comes hitting back and she certainly has her work cut out for her.

  *

  Jacque gets called into one of the first camps of the year, there’s no tournament coming up, just a closed door friendly, but the new coach Caroline Jayce is scouring her full talent pool and her name gets called.

  Bella makes fun of her because the day before she’s supposed to report, it’s a local camp in Toronto so she’s being allowed to commute from home, she’s a nervous wreck. She keeps walking around the house cleaning things and moving them into the perfect place and doing as much busy work as possible.

  “She’s not going to figure out you haven’t played internationally in a few years if everything isn’t straight in our house.” Bella mocks and Jacque resists the urge to throw the pillow she’s straightening at her.

  “What if I suck?” Jacque finally sits down and asks, energy seeping from her once everything is clean. “What if I put on my boots and go out there and I suck? This is my look, my only chance.”

  Bella doesn’t try to argue with her because she knows for Jacque this is really her shot. Jacque’s a retread, a call-in from time gone by, and if she doesn’t impress then it could mean the end for her dream.

  “You won’t suck.” Bella sits and puts an arm around her. “Because you and I have been out there working our asses off, some of us literally--” Jacque looks up and slaps Bella in the arm. “--ow, weird that you would assume I was talking about you. Anyway, you are going to go out there and you’re going to make your mark.”

  “You think so?” Jacque looks up, hating this bout of insecurity.

  “I know so.” Bella hugs her closely, laughing when Jacque claims she’s suffocating her.

  And this time Jacque doesn’t even care how much Bella gloats and runs around and tells her that she ‘told her so’ when, at the end of the camp, Jayce calls her into the office and tells her how impressed she was this week and starts her for the closed friendly.

  She kicks ass and doesn’t even care when Bella throws her an impromptu celebration party with a few of their friends. This isn’t like last time, this seems secure, so she doesn’t mind grabbing a stupid cheap cone hat and being excited like everyone else.

  *

  Jacque starts to feel an extra bounce in her step.

  Riding the high from doing well at camp lasts longer than she thinks it would, and that’s what it really is, a high. Consciously she knows that she should be careful because one good camp doesn’t mean a permanent spot or really any sort of stability. Especially not when it’s a new coach and they’re trying things out.

  Nothing is certain
when it comes to this profession but that’s part of the excitement. That’s what keeps her running lines with Bella in the mornings and coaching in her afternoons. A complete love of the game.

  But the people aren’t half bad either and she was only reminded of that when she finally got to play with them again. She’s at least started on the path towards trying to reassert herself on the national team but Bella’s still stuck working out on her own, or with Jacque, in her free time waiting hopefully for some sort of sign.

  She’s on the phone with Sadie when the first sign of Bella getting noticed occurs. “Hey your wife, she’s got a little Canadian in her now right?”

  “...”

  After Jacque has hung up on her, Sadie calls back.

  “Technically- technically, you ass. I meant as a citizen thing.” Sadie clarifies. “She’s pretty much out of the US system right?”

  *

  It starts with a whisper. While there’s no official announcement or notice given to her by FIFA, the state of her citizenship has changed. If there was ever a chance of the US calling it would have had to have happened in the week long window between Jacque getting asked to come into their February camp and Bella receiving a phone call from the CSA.

  The inquiry is brief on the phone, they ask her to come in to the main office in Ottawa with all of her relevant paperwork.

  It’s a four hour drive and because of the nature of her pending status aka her marriage to Jacque they take the trip together because it couldn’t hurt to have as much backup as possible.

  They take the officials off guard when they arrive together. But it flows more smoothly that way. There’s questions she would have had to defer to Jacque about anyway that get answered immediately because she’s in the office.

  Bella endures a lot of words being passed on to her. FIFA said this, the CSA said that, how long did she play for the USA? The most important detail, that she never put on the shirt for the full national team, is the only one they end up caring about in the end. The obvious deal breaker.

  It’s not completely impossible to get around having been capped once or twice but Bella can tell that they wouldn’t go through the effort it took to cut around all of the red tape.

  But this all, the inquisition, the necessity of a road trip, everything, is an encouraging sign because it means there’s interest. It means that she’s coming close and possibly even being considered for a call up in the near future if she can only clear these hurdles.

  The all clear comes through a few days later. Bella had bounced onto the couch after the call because her nerves had trailed her ever since coming back from Ottawa. The next camp that the national team would take part in was at the end of the month before they’d all be going over to compete in the Cyprus Cup.

  She somehow finds the patience to wait until Jacque comes home to tell her, though the temptation had been to drive like a bat out of hell down to the university practice fields and shout it to her from the top of the bleachers.

  Somehow she refrained and it’s totally worth it.

  There’s an absolute look of pride and then she’s off her feet, Jacque’s picked her up and spinning her around, her feet barely dragging the ground and they’re both laughing because it feels like a win already. Step one, get Bella into camp. Complete.

  On to the next one.

  *

  But there’s one more hurdle to be crossed and it’s the one they thought would be the hardest after all. In all of the sheen of CSA clearing Bella and then her getting called into camp they’d forgotten about one major detail: FIFA.

  Since she was switching her allegiance from one nation to another and it wasn’t via obvious birthright, the call was bound to come sooner or later. Getting called into camp only sped up the process.

  It comes two days after she gets her call into camp and she makes the man repeat himself when he declares himself to be a FIFA investigator, thinking that someone's decided it would be a hilarious joke to mess with her.

  It’s not and Bella doesn’t think she’s endeared herself any by acting like such an idiot. And already she’s sweating bullets because that was the worst way to start the conversation.

  The questions seems fairly routine. First he asks about her background and it sounds like he’s moving down some sort of personal history checklist. It’s clear that he already knows the answers and despite the fact that she actually lived her own life she finds that she’s trying to remember the details of her own life and hoping they match what’s on his sheet.

  It’s a disaster. She sounds like an actual moron. But if the investigator thinks so then he’s not showing his cards just yet.

  And then the really difficult questions start.

  The next ten minutes consist of a rapid fire grilling including everything that could possibly do with how she even knows Jacque in the first place. She feels like she could keep the pace if he slowed down a bit but he rushes through the questions and she struggles to even remember the real details let alone the ones that need to fit into the story. It ends up just coming out a jumbled mess and she already has visions of she and Jacque being led out of their house in handcuffs and it’s almost enough to send her back over the border.

  The questions shift from meeting Jacque to more technical questions about the state of her citizenship status and Bella finds that those are easier to answer. She’s a permanent resident who’s on track to become a dual citizen and she’s married to a Canadian-born citizen.

  In this she feels as though she passes the test because there’s no way to lie about what she can see right in front of her face. She can pull out that permanent resident ID card, hell, she can even pull out Jacque’s birth certificate if she wanted to and that’s on top of all of the paperwork she’s doing for her citizenship.

  A few curt responses later, a couple of belated pleasantries, and she’s off the phone.

  Throughout much of the conversation she felt the hassle, the stress, and everything that Jacque had warned her it would be.

  Wait a second. Had Jacque been grilled in the same way? What if their answers didn’t match up?

  Shit.

  Bella picks her phone back up and immediately calls Jacque who answers on the second ring.

  “Yo.” Jacque answers distractedly.

  There’s no time to waste. “Please say that FIFA hasn’t called you.”

  “FIFA hasn’t called me?” She parrots back.

  Bella breathes a sigh of relief and is able to flop back onto the couch. “Oh thank the lord. I just got grilled by an investigator and then I realized that if you’d already been called then maybe our stories wouldn’t match and we’d be screwed anyway. There were handcuffs in my head, Jacque.”

  “Kinky.” Jacque laughs but stops when she hears the annoyed sigh from Bella. “No, I haven’t gotten any calls yet but I know the story, I got the flashcards remember. Also I’ve lived my life. I’m good.”

  “This is not a drill, Jacque. I repeat, this is not a drill. Be prepared.”

  “Gotcha. Code red, FIFA alert. I’m on it.” There’s a smile that she hears in Jacque’s voice that is equal parts comforting and terrifying. It’s comforting to know that Jacque has such confidence in them passing with flying colors but such overconfidence could screw them over in the end.

  “Just be on your A game today, okay?”

  “You can count on me.” Jacque assures her. “Listen, I have to go I have the girls running lines.”

  Bella hangs up before she says goodbye and she’ll probably feel bad about it later but more so she’s just hoping that Jacque doesn’t carry that cavalier attitude into her own interview.

  The rest of the day is a mixed bag of nerves. On the one hand she starts to feel better and better about her interview but on the other she worries that Jacque might mess it up. It’s not fair because if it wasn’t for Jacque they wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

  She forces herself to take a nap once she’s cleaned the apartment withi
n an inch of her life using all of her pent up anxiety as fuel.

  When she wakes up Jacque is home and she’s set up out on the couch watching the latest iteration of the Biggest Loser.

  “Did you talk to FIFA?” She sneaks up on Jacque who, hilariously, has the initial reaction of reaching for the remote and quickly changing the channel.

  She turns with her hand clutched over her heart. “Thanks Bella, I didn’t want to live to an old age anyway.”

  “I’m always here to help.” Bella rolls her eyes and stands over Jacque. “Did you talk to them?”

  Now it’s Jacque’s turn to look at her in frustration. “I did.”

  “And?”

  Jacque kicks her feet up onto the coffee table, clasping her hands behind her head. “Nailed it.”

  Bella looks at her suspiciously. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well, the fact that he asked if I was going to be proud to have my wife playing with me is a pretty good indicator, I think. Maybe not?” Jacque laughs. “What if I’m getting another Canadian wife? Oh, that would be exciting.”

  Even relaxed as she is Jacque has the reflexes to dodge the pillow that Bella throws at her.

  “We passed?”

  “I think so, yeah.” Jacque responds and glances quickly back at the TV, frowning at the cooking show she’s now watching. “Obviously if our camp schedules and everything come through from CSA and the police don’t come take us away then we’ll know for sure.”

  Bella moves over to the couch and squeezes in between Jacque and the armrest, reaching over and snatching the remote. “Fingers crossed.”

  And when Jacque sarcastically does exactly that Bella resolves to not change back to the Biggest Loser. And to hope that FIFA doesn’t throw up a huge roadblock in her journey.

  *

  They don’t.

  There’s a call from FIFA giving Bella the all clear and she feels like running around the block telling everyone she can find but settles for annoying everyone at work and surprising Jacque with a sandwich from her favorite shop at lunchtime.