Chapter 64: North of the Border

July 4, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Steve

“Good move with the Khans,” Kara said when we went up to bed after watching the fireworks from the backyard.

“I don’t think Amir realizes that his wife has been influenced by their time in the UK and their time here, and that what I really did was ensure she and Fatimah would be exposed to our thinking. One thing I’ve noticed about him is that he is completely clueless about what happens when you put all the women together!”

“And what exactly is that, Tiger?” Jessica demanded.

“That they conspire against you!” I chuckled. “I’ve dealt with the plotting and scheming since I was fourteen! But all kidding aside, Fatimah met quite a few other girls and hopefully will find some new friends. Tiffany’s mom is pretty conservative, but not ridiculous, and Allison, Tiffany’s little sister, is a lot like Ashley in how she behaves. They got along really well with Nada and Fatimah.”

“Gentle nudges?” Kara asked.

“Exactly. You’ve done that with Nada.”

“But what happens when they go home?” Jessica asked.

“Then Nada and Fatimah talk to all their female friends and relatives and tell them what it’s like to NOT live under a repressive, androcentric, misogynistic regime.”

“A Saudi subversive cell?” Kara asked.

“Women have broken free from patriarchal systems all over the world. Why not them? Maybe it takes a hundred years. But in the end, like with so many other things, you can’t hide information. The other thing is that Yousef is seeing something very, very different here in the US, and he can see how women are treated. Maybe Amir doesn’t change his mind; but the true seeds are sown with the kids. The other side of the equation is that our friends and the kids’ friends all get to experience a different culture. You know my take on cultural exchange, and you can both wipe those smirks from your faces!”

Kara giggled, “You certainly exchanged a lot of ‘culture’ when you were in Sweden and Russia!”

“Enough ‘culture’ for several cases of Petri dishes!” Jessica teased.

“You both know what I meant! The future is only bright if we know and understand each other. Politicians and religious leaders whip up hatred for their own purposes. I think you can see proof of that with what happened during the Christmas Armistice during World War I.”

“Don’t you think they’ll be driven back under the thumb of the system once they go home?” Kara asked.

“I’m sure the system will try, but keeping with my World War I theme, How Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Paree)?“

“So like you going to Sweden?”

I chuckled, “I didn’t need to go to Sweden, Sweden came to me! But you know full well it was Melanie Spencer who opened my eyes!”

“By opening her thighs!” Kara smirked.

“Do we have time to play and for you to get enough sleep, Jess?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?!” Jessica responded invitingly.

July 5, 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

🎤 Jesse

“Purpose of your visit to Canada?”

“My dad, my friends, and I are going to the Hockey Hall of Fame!” I replied, handing over my passport.

“How long will you be staying?”

“We fly home on Saturday.”

He paged through my passport, stamped it, and handed it back.

“Welcome to Canada, Jesse!”

I moved past his desk and then Nicholas, Andy, Aunt Kara, and my dad each went through, with my friends showing a letter that said my dad could take them to Canada. It took a few minutes, but they all got through, and then we went straight to the exit to catch a taxi to go to the InterContinental Hotel which was close to everything we wanted to see. It took nearly an hour to get to the hotel and get checked in. We had a nice suite, but there were only two beds in our bedroom, so they brought an extra rollaway bed.

“Let’s get some lunch,” Dad said. “And then we’ll visit the CN Tower.”

“Uncle Steve, I looked it up online,” Nicholas said. “Can we go to the SkyPod?”

“Absolutely,” Dad said. “And you can walk on the glass floor on the observation level.”

“Like, you can see the ground beneath you?” Andy asked.

“Yes!” Nicholas exclaimed. “342 meters above the ground! That’s over 1100 feet!”

“Wow!” Andy exclaimed. “How high is the SkyPod?”

“It’s 447 meters, or about 1460 feet!”

“Let’s go!” Andy exclaimed.

“And you thought they were going to be hyped for the Hockey Hall of Fame,” Aunt Kara said to Dad.

“They will,” Dad assured her.

We left the hotel and went to a place called ‘The Loose Moose’ to have lunch. The burgers were awesome, and when we finished, we walked from there to the CN Tower where Dad bought our admission tickets. We had to wait a bit before we got on the glass-walled elevator which took us to the observation level. The view was cool, and the glass floor was even cooler. I saw a kid jumping up and down on it and it looked like his mom was going to have a heart attack as she tried to get him to stop.

“Jesse,” Dad said quietly, “I’d suggest you guys don’t do that. A security man is walking this way.”

Looking down I wondered if that was what it looked like when Dad had jumped out of a plane.

“Can I skydive for my eighteenth birthday?” I asked.

“That’s fine with me,” Dad replied. “You’ll be eighteen so it’ll be up to you. I’ll pay. I’ll pay for Mom One and Mom Two if they want to go along to make sure you’re OK!”

“They’re going to kill you, Steve!” Aunt Kara said, but she was laughing.

“He’ll be eighteen. And if they happen to be too chicken to try it, that’s not MY problem!”

I laughed because I knew exactly how my moms were going to react. When the mom got her kids to stop jumping on the glass floor with the help of the security guard, Nicholas, Andy, and I walked onto it.

“Whoa!” Nicholas gasped. “You can see people on the sidewalk!”

“My mom would probably jump up and down,” Andy said.

“She would!” Dad agreed.

We moved so Dad and Aunt Kara could stand on the glass floor, then we walked around taking in the cool view of Toronto. After about fifteen minutes, we went to the elevator which ran inside the tower and which took us to the SkyPod which was even cooler.

“Look!” Andy exclaimed, pointing. “There’s a small plane flying by and it’s BELOW us!”

“And, if you look way off in the distance over there, you can see Niagara Falls,” Dad said, pointing.

“This is totally awesome!” Nicholas exclaimed. “I think my mom would totally freak out!”

“Stephie and Ashley would have lost it on the glass floor,” I said.

We spent about fifteen minutes checking out the view before we took the elevator back down to the observation level, and then the outside elevator back down to the street level. I looked up and saw the glass floor we’d been standing on and it seemed so much closer than when I had been on it and had been looking down.

“We have enough time to go to Niagara Falls,” Dad offered. “We probably wouldn’t be able to go on the boat ride, but we could see the waterfalls.”

“I vote yes,” I declared. “How would we get there?”

“I put in a reservation for a minivan in case we decided we had enough time today.”

Nicholas and Andy both agreed, so we walked back to the hotel and Dad talked to the concierge. Ninety minutes later we were on an observation platform looking at Horseshoe Falls, which were on the Canadian side of the border. After fifteen minutes, Dad suggested we get something to eat, then come back to see the Falls when they were illuminated. We did that, and the lights were totally cool.

🎤 Steve

“You’d never been to the Falls before?” Kara asked when we climbed into bed late on Thursday evening.

“No,” I replied. “I’ve been in every state now with the exception of Alaska, but I haven’t been to every major attraction. For example, I’ve been to South Dakota, but not to Mount Rushmore. And remember, a lot of that was during the Summer of ‘72 when my parents took us to every state west of the Mississippi, plus Mexico and Canada, in our motorhome. Something you could do when gas cost less than a quarter a gallon!”

“Is there anything you haven’t seen that you want to see?”

“Mount Rushmore, but really, that’s about it.”

“What about overseas?”

“The Great Pyramids, for sure. And the Hagia Sophia, the Taj Mahal, and Jerusalem. Is there someplace you want me to take you?”

“Nirvana!” Kara declared. “And we don’t even have to leave this bed!”

“I can do that, but I was thinking more like sightseeing!”

“Traveling was never really something I thought about doing growing up. You’ve taken me to Sweden and Russia, and now Canada. I really don’t want to go anywhere; I’m happy being with you and the kids.”

“Your daughters were singularly uninterested in the Hockey Hall of Fame!”

“Do you blame them?” Kara asked. “The boys are going to feel like they died and went to hockey heaven! Birgit’s opinion of hockey is ‘stinky boys’!”

“Do you have any plans besides being in the lab when you’re at Stanford?”

“Hitting the beach! And we’ll go into San Francisco for dinners and drinks a few nights each week. And we’ll go to Sonoma and stay at a winery with bed-and-breakfast one weekend.”

“I’m glad you’ll be getting in some relaxation time when you’re there.”

“What about your ‘me’ time?”

“I’ll get some while Jess is in Boston for her conference. Even if I sleep with Suzanne every night, I’ll have time on my own. And honestly, I had every morning while Birgit was gone, except when we were in Hawaii.”

“True; you didn’t fill her time with either of your other daughters.”

“Can you even imagine the reaction if I had?”

“True!”

“So, about nirvana...” Kara asked sexily.

“So long as you don’t lose your head,” I teased, referring to Kurt Cobain.

Kara squealed smacked me on the arm, “That’s just rude!”

“I’ll make it up to you!”

“You better!”

July 6, 2001, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

“Dad! Dad!” Jesse exclaimed. “Can we?”

“You three are free to do whatever you want,” I said. “You have your watch, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then meet us by the Stanley Cup at 11:30am.”

“Thanks, Dad!”

The boys scampered off to find the exhibits that interested them while Kara and I went to the area dedicated to the legends of hockey.

“You made their day by not requiring them to stay with us,” Kara said.

“I’m just doing the opposite of what my mom would have done. We went to DC when I was thirteen, right before eighth grade, and I wasn’t allowed out of her sight, even if we were in a museum. We got to see what she wanted and nothing more. Jesse said he and Larisa are going to the Smithsonian alone.”

“What’s Tatyana’s plan?”

“Unless I miss my guess, she’s going to accept a teaching position at the Kennedy School for the Fall of 2002. She’s likely to get a new assignment sometime early next year, and if it’s not in the US, then she’ll resign. Most likely they’d send her to an Embassy in Europe to be second in command, but Dmitry and Lara love it here.”

About an hour later we ran into the boys in the ‘World of Hockey’ zone, where we checked out the displays and memorabilia from the 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’. I had my own fond memories of that sequence of games, but there certainly wasn’t anything in the display about that!

“Your host sister?” Kara asked quietly, surely seeing the smile on my face.

“Of course!” I chuckled. “The US team wasn’t the only one to score!”

Kara laughed softly, “Can you imagine if those players knew they were getting you laid?”

“They’d be jealous! It’s too bad I haven’t been able to see Suzana and her kids but the timing hasn’t worked out during my trips, and they haven’t come to the US.”

“Is your friend Torbjörn still in Switzerland?”

“Yes. Managing a hotel. His wife is ill, though.”

“She was quite a bit older, right?”

“Almost twenty years, which puts her in her late fifties.”

“That’s really odd.”

“Nobody can predict love,” I replied.

We met the boys at the Stanley Cup as planned, and they were totally hyped. We had lunch, and then split up once again so the boys could see the exhibits they’d missed in the morning, meeting up once again late in the afternoon.

“This was totally awesome, Dad!” Jesse declared. “Thanks!”

“Thanks, Uncle Steve!” Nicholas added.

“Thanks!” Andy chimed in.

“You’re welcome, boys. Let’s get some dinner!”

“Dad?”

“Yes, Jesse?”

“Don’t bother coming to my game on Sunday, it’s going to be a joke like the first three.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Positive.”

July 8, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

As usual for a Sunday when the now-renamed Rap Sessions occurred, Leigh arrived early so that we could make love and then have lunch with the rest of the Inner Circle.

“I invited someone to come today,” Natalie said as steam rose from the rocks of the sauna where the five of us were sitting naked. “Her name is Heidi Thomas and she’ll be a Freshman at UIC in the Fall, majoring in business. She lives next door to us in Oak Park. I think she’d really benefit from the sessions and some mentoring.”

“I’m assuming you at least filled her in on the basics of Cirque du Steve?” Suzanne asked.

Natalie nodded, “I didn’t want her to walk in unawares. She knows about Steve’s trio, his kids, and that there are other ‘unconventional’ relationships like Henry, Trish, and Gabby. She didn’t freak out, though she was surprised.”

“I’d be surprised if she wasn’t surprised!” Jackson observed. “Steve, can we discuss Timothy McVeigh at today’s Club meeting?”

“Sure. You take the lead. What angle?”

“Death penalty, of course. I figure if he’s not a poster child for it, I don’t know who would be.”

“I made that same basic comment about John Wayne Gacy years ago.”

“I think using a ‘textbook’ example is the best way to discuss it. I’m assuming you’ll take the ‘con’ side?”

“Happily. You know Patricia will as well, though she’ll be more focused on just how unjust the entire system is.”

“Which is a separate issue, really - having it versus implementing it.”

“Yes. And you know my take hits both - I don’t think the government should have the power to kill any citizen, and even if we accept that the Constitution does permit it, there’s no way to implement it in a just fashion. But we can save the detailed discussion for the meeting.”

“OK. What’s the plan for Saint Martin? Suzanne let me know we’re flying down in Samantha’s plane.”

“To have fun!” I replied. “We’ll get together as a group for a few hours each day, and do at least one outing just as a group. Otherwise, just have fun. Make sure Holly knows that you’ll be with the group for a significant amount of time.”

“She’s already making plans with Suzanne’s friends. Somehow I think five gorgeous college girls will find something to do in Saint Martin to occupy their time!”

The rest of us laughed and nodded.

“Anyway, the entire point of the trip for us is bonding as a group. The goal will be to take a retreat each year, if we can.”

“Boca, the Hamptons, Lake Lucerne, and Monaco?” Suzanne asked with a smirk.

“That’s where Samantha has houses?” Jackson asked.

“A chalet by Lake Lucerne and partial-ownership of a condo in Monaco,” I replied. “But there are other places we can go as well. Vermont, for example.”

“Your friend Katy’s place?”

“Yes. We can discuss next year’s retreat in Saint Martin.”

“Does the house there have a sauna?” Natalie asked.

“No. There’s a new hot tub that Samantha had installed near the pool, but no sauna. The nice thing is the walls around the pool are high enough that there is complete privacy. And I know of a secluded, out-of-the-way beach, too.”

“Very cool!” Natalie exclaimed.

When we left the sauna, we all showered separately, dressed, and then gathered in the great room to await the arrival of the Club members. They began arriving about fifteen minutes before the start, with Natalie’s friend being one of the first.

“Steve,” Natalie said, “meet Heidi Thomas, who I told you about.”

“Nice to meet you,” I replied to the pretty, slim, blonde girl. “And welcome.”

“Thanks! Natalie said that you run your own company and that you would be a perfect antidote to all the stupid things they’re going to try to teach me about business.”

“True, but more importantly, you’ll learn how to think critically, which is far more important.”

The rest of the Philosophy Club members filtered in over the next fifteen minutes, and as usual, we began promptly at 2:00pm. I’d been in touch with Audrey, but she wasn’t available to participate by phone, so after Natalie introduced her friend, Jackson began the session with the discussion about the death penalty as we’d discussed, using Timothy McVeigh, who had been executed on June 11 for the Oklahoma City bombing, as a starting point. The conversation went pretty much as I’d expected it to, with a wide range of opinions, not just about the morality of the death penalty, but about its efficacy and implementation.

“I’d say it’s totally effective in preventing recidivism!” Ben declared.

“That’s not quite what I was getting at,” I chuckled. “I meant as a deterrent. Life in prison without parole is effective against recidivism as well.”

“Unless they escape!” Cindi exclaimed. “Spurgeon isn’t the only one to break out of prison in Illinois in the past decade.”

“No, but he also wasn’t in maximum security,” I replied. “Of course, there’s also SuperMax, but that borders on torture.”

“Your argument about having relationships being the core of what it means to be human?” Nicole asked.