Checked flite #. Says u landed OK. Guess ur busy with wrk alredy.
Messages three takes me a good two minutes to decipher:
Pls txt bk when u get this. NO1 posts FB. Do u have aces? Gong 2c Alex 4 2days.
Message four is from yesterday:
No sure if ur still comin 2c me when u get bk?
I send a reply right away, keeping it short and to the point. I pray it goes through with the spotty two-bar reception.
Calling u.
I don’t wait to hear back before I call. It goes to her voicemail the first time, but she picks up right away on my second attempt.
“Hello?”
“Sunny?”
Static crackles on the line. “Miller?”
“Hey, sweets. I missed your voice.”
“How c…from you…week.”
The connection isn’t great. Half of her words are dropped, and she sounds tinny, but at least I can sort of talk to her. It’s way better than trying to figure out her texts.
“We didn’t have reception. We didn’t even have power most of the week. Everything ran on generators. Ricardo’s throwing us a party, and he has this monster satellite dish, so I have two bars. Can you hear me? I can’t hear you real good. I don’t have a lot of battery left.”
She replies, but it’s lost in static. I put her on speakerphone and walk around the house, watching the little dots as they go from two down to one and then up to three.
“Sunny Sunshine? You still there?”
“You’re at a party? I didn’t know… Hockey…Haiti… bunnies…too?”
I may not catch everything she says, but I can tell from her tone she’s not happy. She’s using sarcasm. Bunnies are the biggest problem for me and Sunny—not my involvement with them as much as the fact that they still call me and hound me in bars and want pictures and stuff.
“It’s not that kind of party. It’s a BBQ. A bunny-free zone.”
“Oh. Okay.” There’s a slight pause, along with a soft exhale. “How are things there? Are you having fun?”
“It’s been good. Tiring but good. I’m looking forward to being home. And seeing you. It’s still cool for me to visit?”
She replies, but I can’t hear through the static.
“I missed that.”
Ricardo’s wife, Mira, taps me on the shoulder. “Mr. Miller? You have sticks?”
“Did someone just ask to see your dick?” Sunny asks.
“No. No. Sticks.” Jesus. Bad connections suck almost as much as having no connection at all. “We’ve been teaching the kids how to play hockey. Tonight we’re having a campfire and roasting marshmallows. Did you know most of these kids have never even eaten a marshmallow?”
“Swallow? Swallow what?”
“No. Marshmallow. Not swallow.”
“Miller, this is the first time we’ve talked in ten days and you want to know whether or not I swallow?”
“Oh! Mr. Miller. Is that your wife? She happy to have you home.” Mira grabs the phone from me. “Ms. Miller? You lucky woman! Mr. Miller he love the babies. He teach them the hockey.” She starts speaking in Haitian, going back to broken English after a few seconds. “He good man. So much the help. And, how you say, the heated? The hottie? Yes, yes. The hottie. You have lots baby and make happy.”
She passes back the phone and grabs my hand, looking at my fingers. “No ring?”
“We’re dating.”
She gives me a questioning look.
“Not married.”
“No marry? Why you wait for?”
“We just started dating.”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, then leaves me alone again.
“Who was that?”
“Ricardo’s wife. She doesn’t speak a whole lot of English.”
“I think I got the gist of it.” Sunny sounds more like she’s laughing and less like she’s still mad at me.
I check my battery. It’s dying fast. I’m at three percent. “My phone’s gonna cut out soon. I just wanted to call and make sure you still wanna to see me.”
“I still want to see you.”
“Cool. Awesome. I don’t when my flight gets in ’cause I can’t check my emails, but I’ll call when I have the details.”
“Okay. I should let you—”
The call cuts out. I check the screen to find it’s gone blank. My phone’s officially dead. I’m not worried, though. I get to see Sunny in less than forty-eight hours. Everything just went from good to awesome.
Chapter Two
It Ain’t No Thing, Chicken Wing
THE MOONSHINE I drank last night may be partially at fault for how I’m feeling. But I don’t think it’s the whole reason. My stomach gurgles, and a cold sweat breaks out across my forehead as I wait in the line to get my boarding pass. There’s no special line for NHL players. Not that I expected there to be, but it’s nice when I get VIP treatment, especially when I feel this awful.
I just need to make it through the next hour, and everything will be okay. If I shit my pants before then, they won’t let me on the plane back to Chicago. And I don’t want to receive medical attention here. For one, I don’t speak Haitian. They could take a kidney, and I wouldn’t know until I woke up with stitches. I bet they wouldn’t even use anesthetic, like in one of those horror movies.
I put the lockdown on those thoughts. They don’t help with the nausea.
Before I made the commitment to stand in this line like a chump, I defiled the men’s bathroom. I’m positive I’m going to need another toilet timeout before long. It feels like my insides are trying to escape my body, and they can’t decide whether they want to come out my ass or my mouth. I have a new respect for what Violet goes through when she eats dairy. The punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime if she experiences anything half as bad as this.
Randy claps me on the back. “You all right, man?”
I grunt. I’m saving all my words for the tiny woman checking passports at the desk. Also, if I speak, I might barf, and I’m back to them not letting me on the plane.
“I think I drank too much last night,” Randy mumbles. “It feels like someone’s trying to hammer their way through my skull.”
Again, I make a noise. I have no idea how much he drank, but there were shots of something after all the kids went to sleep in their various tents. I declined those. I didn’t drink half as much as Randy last night, but today I’m feeling much worse than he seems to be.
Maybe it’s the “wings” that are causing my stomach issues more than the booze. I’m having a hard time believing they were from chickens because the wild ones I saw running around were way too scrawny to eat. Whatever we consumed, it’s coming out today in ways nothing ever should.
Thankfully, the line is moving, so I’ll be able to hit the bathroom again soon.
I hand over my passport and flight documents. Randy’s chatting up the much younger, much flirtier chick at the next desk, and she’s giggling like a teenager. The older, less impressed woman helping me flips open my passport and does a triple take.