Chapter 83: Quartet

July 7, 2002, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Birgit

“Who’s performing the ceremony?” Kristin asked when she, Katherine, and I went to hang out in my room late on Sunday morning.

“Jesse and me!” I exclaimed. “It’s not legal, so we don’t have to be able to sign the license or anything. We could only do that if we were eighteen, according to the dumb government!”

“What are you going to do in Sweden?” Katherine asked.

‘Fuck!’ I thought, but I had learned my lesson about saying things like that from Ashley, of all people.

“Spend time with Kjell and his friends. I’m staying in Sweden when Dad, his wives, and Jesse go to Russia.”

“What about Ashley?”

“She’s going to stay with Dad’s friend, Katt. She’ll hang out with Katt’s daughter and Tina’s daughter. I know you guys met Katt, Mikael, and Kristina, but I don’t think you met Tina, Nils, and Anna.”

“I remember Kristina,” Katherine said. “But not Anna. What about Marta?”

“I’m not sure if we’ll see her. Dad didn’t know if she was coming to Stockholm with her mom and stepdad. I think a few other of my dad’s friends will show up besides Karin and her family, but I’m not sure. You guys leave for Yellowstone in a week, right?”

“Ugh,” Katherine said. “Dad wants to see dumb geysers and bubbling mud puddles!”

“It’ll be cool,” Kristin countered.

“Uh-huh,” Katherine objected.

“OK to come in?” Stephie asked from the door. “Chelsea and Ash are with me.”

“Sure!” I agreed, because Stephie wasn’t being nearly as much a bitch as she had been.

“The Ruling Council of the World will now come to order!” Ashley declared.

Everyone giggled.

“I wish!” I exclaimed. “Then everyone would have to do exactly what I wanted!”

“Good luck with that!” Ashley teased.

“Yeah, good luck,” Stephie said, shaking her head.

“What are we doing for the next two hours?” Kristin asked.

“Staying away from boys!” Stephie declared. “Girl power!”

“Girl power!” everyone agreed.

🎤 Steve

“Think they’re plotting against you?” Kara asked as we saw Ashley and Stephie join Kathy’s girls in Birgit’s room.

“Always!” I chuckled. “Let’s go downstairs before the estrogen overload in that room takes hold!”

“And the estrogen overload in OUR room?” Jessica asked.

“Different,” I replied. “Think about all the hormones coursing through those bloodstreams of girls between nine and fifteen!”

“Testosterone in teenage boys is worse!” Kara declared.

“You didn’t object when we were teenagers!” I said with a smirk.

“Who? Me?” Kara asked primly.

“Yes, you!” I declared.

“I have to agree,” Suzanne interjected. “High School boys absolutely suffer from testosterone poisoning!”

“And all that estrogen didn’t cause Stephie to become impossible to be around?” I asked.

“Compared to the ‘hold my beer and watch this’ mentality and the desire to fuck anything and everything in sight?”

“Right,” I chuckled, “Because none of you or the girls in Birgit’s room are interested in boys in any way, shape, or form!”

“He is annoying, isn’t he?” Jessica asked.

“Thank you!” I replied with a grin.

We arrived downstairs and greeted Kurt, Kathy, Eduardo, and Elyse.

“The boys went to Jesse’s house,” Elyse said. “Albert, Nicholas, and Keith went with them.”

“Thus keeping a critical mass from forming upstairs,” Kurt said. “And avoiding the resulting explosion, which kills everyone in a five-block radius!”

“Fighting or sex?” Elyse asked.

“Yes!” Kathy replied with a twinkle in her eye.

“Steve,” Eduardo said, “my travel agent suggested I have a notarized letter from you saying it was OK to take the boys to Spain given I’m not married to Elyse and she doesn’t have sole custody.”

“I’ll do that tomorrow at the office. Bob’s assistant is a notary and I’ll give Elyse the letter. Is this something specific to Spain?”

“No. It’s just something the travel agent recommends so as not to have any trouble with authorities on either end.”

“Jesse and I have never had a problem,” I replied. “And I can’t imagine Sweden or Russia giving us grief about that. And the US has nothing to say about that.”

“You say that, but you know the Border Patrol has insane powers. You’ve had to deal with them.”

“Point taken, but on the way out, only SAS will even see our passports. Would you want to confront Jesse about something like that?”

“I’d confront him before I’d confront Matthew!”

“You mean my son, who was voted most likely to lead a revolution by his class?” I asked with a grin.

“That’s the one!” Eduardo confirmed. “Want to hear a limerick one of my friends from Buenos Aires told me?”

“English or Spanish?” I asked.

“English. But you speak Spanish.”

“Sort of,” I replied. “Jorge used to roll his eyes a lot, but he did give me credit for trying. And nobody else here does. Well, Jess speaks ‘ER Spanish’, which would likely have had Jorge busting a gut laughing.”

“Go on, Eduardo,” Kurt prompted.

Everyone cracked up laughing.

“Wow!” Kurt exclaimed. “That one I have to share, though I don’t think I’ll send it via company email!”

“I don’t think I could get away with sending that through company email and I own the company!”

“You could send it through the hospital system if you were a male Attending,” Jessica groused.

“That BS just has to stop,” I declared. “I know your dad doesn’t support it.”

“Doesn’t support what?” Al asked, coming into the great room.

“Off-color sexist jokes and sexual harassment,” Jessica replied. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Jessica. Now what?”

“Just another Attending who thinks female med students and female doctors are his personal playthings who will never be the same after experiencing his ‘magic member’.”

“Who?” Al asked, his brow furrowed.

“Jameson.”

“The cardio guy?”

“Yes.”

“He hasn’t even been an Attending for two months!” Al groused. “I’ll have a word with Marty. Do you have specifics?”

“Talk to Lydia Gruden.”

“Third Year, right?”

“Yes. Let’s just say he wasn’t taking ‘no’ for an answer until I promised to remove his favorite toy with a used, unsterilized scalpel and without anesthetic!”

“That seems tame for you, Jess,” I teased.

“How so?” she asked, hands on her hips.

“You left off ‘and force him to eat it’!” I replied.

All the guys groaned and winced, but the women all laughed.

“Can I get anyone anything to drink?” Kara asked.

Once she found out what everyone wanted, she and I went to the kitchen to get the drinks.

“I enjoy your ‘magic member’,” Kara declared mirthfully.

“There’s a difference in our approaches.”

“Not from my perspective, Mr. ‘I want to deflower the leader of the Holy Rollers’!”

“Says Miss ‘I want to have my brains fucked out by the school stud’!”

“We both got our wishes!” Kara declared happily.

“That we did!”

We fixed the drinks and took them back to the great room.

“I was surprised your dad went home this morning,” Al said.

“It was a timing thing,” I replied. “For Aimee to meet her schedule, they had to leave at 5:30am. They’re flying to Blue Ash and the plane will only be on the ground long enough to refuel before Aimee, John, and Elizabeth leave for DC.”

We socialized for about ninety minutes before the boys came into the house and Jesse went upstairs to get Birgit.

“Gutsy move going near all that estrogen!” Kathy smirked.

“I don’t think Jesse has ANY problem dealing with it,” I chuckled. “He’s used to it because he lives with Jennifer and Josie!”

“I heard that!” Jennifer declared, coming into the great room.

“So did I!” Josie added, following right behind her.

“I love you both!” I said defensively.

“Ready, Pops?” Jesse asked, coming down the stairs with Birgit, and the other girls following them.

“For roast Duck? Yes!”

“Bring it, Penguin!”

“Boys...” Josie said, shaking her head.

“You can say THAT again!” Stephie declared.

“Shall we get this show on the road before the estrogen and testosterone get out of control?” Kathy asked.

“Too late!” Josie declared. “We have ‘teenager overload’!”

“Not all of them are teenagers ... yet!” Al said with a sly grin. “That is where being ‘grandpa’ has its advantages! I raised my two. You, Steve, are certifiable!”

“As if there was any doubt?” I asked.

“No!” came a chorus from adults and children alike.

“I love you all!” I replied. “We’re set up in the sunroom, and we’ll start as soon as my sister arrives.”

“Ceremony like ours?” Jennifer asked sassily.

“Do I even want to know?” Al asked.

“Sky clad!” Kathy declared.

“No,” Al said flatly.

“Doctors are just no fun!” Jennifer declared.

“I think I’ll have to disagree with you on that one,” I replied.

“You think?!” Jessica asked with feigned outrage. “You think?!”

“I have been known to think on occasion,” I replied.

“Name one time!” Jesse teased.

“When I decided, together with your moms, to make you!” I retorted.

Everyone but Jesse laughed; he groaned.

“He got you!” Josie said gleefully.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jesse replied.

Stephanie and her kids arrived, which meant all our planned guests were now in attendance.

“Shall we go into the sunroom?” Ashley suggested. “Everything is ready for Father Jesse and Sister Birgit!”

“As if I’d ever be a nun?!” Birgit exclaimed.

“What?” Ashley teased. “You don’t want to go through life without sex?”

“What do you think?” Birgit demanded.

“I think that Jesse’s safe,” Ashley smirked, “because his church lets priests get married!”

“No, we ordain married men,” Jesse corrected his sister. “Once you’re ordained, you can’t marry.”

“Whatever!” Ashley retorted. “Shall we?”

All of us went into the sunroom where Ashley and Stephie had prepared a table with a ‘trio’ ring on it for Suzanne, though it would lose some of its direct symbolism as we became a quartet, but the four rings were perfect matches for each other except for size, and that was the symbolism that now truly mattered.

We arranged ourselves so that Jessica was standing to the left of Suzanne, Kara to Suzanne’s right, and me behind Suzanne, symbolizing her incorporation into our trio. I nodded to Jesse to begin the ceremony.

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today...” he said.

“SKIP TO THE END!” Nicholas, Albert, Matthew, and Michael exclaimed in unison.

Everyone laughed at the clearly planned ‘outburst’.

“Dad, Aunt Kara, Aunt Jess, and Suzanne asked for a simple ceremony,” Jesse said. “Would you put your arms around each other and each recite your vow?”

Kara and Jessica slipped their arms around Suzanne’s waist, and I put my hands on Kara’s and Jessica’s hips, and moved forward so my chest was touching Suzanne’s back.

“Suzanne,” I said. “Jessica, Kara, and I hold you in our embrace, yearning for happiness, and I ask you to live with us, as husband and wife and wife and wife. We promise to love you until the ends of our lives, and if it is possible, in the next life as well.”

“Suzanne,” Kara said. “Steve, Jessica, and I hold you in our embrace, yearning for happiness, and I ask you to live with us, as husband and wife and wife and wife. We promise to love you until the ends of our lives, and if it is possible, in the next life as well.”

“Suzanne,” Jessica said. “Steve, Kara, and I hold you in our embrace, yearning for happiness, and I ask you to live with us, as husband and wife and wife and wife. We promise to love you until the ends of our lives, and if it is possible, in the next life as well.”

“Steve, Kara, Jessica,” Suzanne said. “I am held in your embrace, yearning for happiness, and I accept to live with you, as husband and wife and wife and wife. I promise to love each of you until the end of my life, and, if it is possible, in the next life as well.”

“Dad,” Birgit requested, “please put the ring on Suzanne’s finger while our moms hold her hand?”

I moved around to the front, picked up the ring from the table, and Kara and Jessica held Suzanne’s left hand so I could slip the ring onto her finger.

“With this ring, we signify our enduring love and our commitment to each other,” I said.

“Then,” Birgit and Jesse said together, “by the power vested in us by Dad, completely ignoring what the government has to say, we pronounce you husband, wife, wife, and wife!”

“You may now,” Birgit smirked, “‘kiss’ the brides!”

“For definitions of ‘kiss’ from when we were little!” Ashley said sotto voce.

“Right here?” Kara asked invitingly.

“Ewwww!” Stephie responded.

I kissed Suzanne, then Kara and Jessica kissed her, and the ceremony was concluded.

“Thank you all for being here,” I said. “Dinner will be here in about an hour, catered from the Italian place on Hyde Park Avenue. Squirt, will Joel be here?”

“Yes. I never asked, but how public is this?”

“We’re not saying anything specific to anyone who isn’t here other than my dad,” I replied. “Well, Liz knows, and so does Gwen Meyer, because she’s helping with the legal agreements that need to be modified.”

“And helping me with the petition to change my last name to ‘Adams’,” Suzanne added.

“Beyond that,” I said, “it’s our new ‘keep it quiet’ strategy. I had, foolishly, hoped that by this time society would have got its head out of its butt, but that hasn’t happened.”

“It’s further in!” Matthew declared. “We’ll only get our liberty back the old fashioned way!”

“Why don’t you budding revolutionaries go play video games until dinner?” I suggested. “And girls, go plot your domination of the world!”

“Easy peasy!” Ashley smirked. “We have something EVERY boy wants!”

The kids left, leaving the adults in the sunroom.

“She’s eleven?” Al said, shaking his head. “And I thought Birgit was going to be a holy terror!”

“Ten,” Jessica corrected. “She’ll be eleven in August. I won’t tell her you forgot and you might just survive!”

“So sue me if I need a program to remember everything about the circus that is my extended family!”

“You aren’t the only one!” Kurt declared with a grin.

July 8, 2002, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Jesse

“I met the seven Freshmen who are trying out for five spots on the cheer team,” Angelina said as we lay together after fooling around on Monday morning. “There’s also one transfer student who’s going to be Junior, who was on the cheer team at her old school.”

“When are the actual tryouts?” I asked.

“Right before school starts. We’ll all practice together for three weeks starting August 5th, then formal tryouts are August 30th.”

“Do the girls who were on the team last year automatically make it?”

“Almost always, but the cheer coach does have discretion to cut a cheerleader the same way your coach has discretion to cut a player. But it almost never happens. How many new players are you going to have?”

“At least six, but nobody is guaranteed to make the team.”

“Nicholas will try out, right?”

“Yes. He’s a good forward, so I think he’ll make the team quite easily. We have a total of twenty-five players trying out for twenty spots, of which two are goalies.”

“Are there other goalies trying out?”

“Just Pete, as far as I’m aware. There are ten kids from the private school trying out, and there’s some sort of agreement guaranteeing them some number of spots, but I don’t know the details. Dad, Coach, and one of the lawyers worked it out with them.”

“The softball team will have a bunch of new players, too, right?”

“At least six,” I replied. “And like the hockey team, there are no guaranteed slots.”

“Lots of fresh blood for you!” Angelina smirked.

“I don’t think they’ll be doing a team sauna any more than the cheer team will have a V-card contest!”

“We were thinking initiation,” Angelina smirked.

“I hope you see the problem with that,” I said.

“What?”

“There’s no way for there to be actual consent. At least with the V-cards, it was a time and place of the girl’s choosing, and she could simply return the card if that’s what she wanted to do. Sure, there was a bit of peer pressure, but it’s impossible to completely avoid peer pressure, even as an adult. Making it an initiation means compelling the girl, and that’s wrong. I won’t be involved if you guys do something like that.”

“But you would if the girls came to you and asked?”

“That would depend on the circumstances.”

“But the V-card contest is a long tradition, going back six years!”

“I’m not telling you what to do, Angelina, I’m just telling you that I don’t want to be part of something like that. I’m not saying I’m going to be a monk or anything like that, or that I wouldn’t have sex with a cheerleader; I’m saying there’s a difference between the V-card contest and an initiation rite. And that difference is important enough that I decline. My objection to a team sauna is that the school objected, and it created all kinds of drama that I simply don’t need.”

“OK,” Angelina replied. “When will I see you again?”

“Sometime after August 1st. You have cheer practice during the day starting the 5th, so we’ll need to get together in the evening. I’ll call you when I get home from Europe.”

“Once more before lunch?”

“I think I can manage!”

🎤 Steve

“Steve, I have Jacob Goldberg for you,” Kimmy announced over the intercom after lunch on Monday.

I had her put him through and picked up the handset.

“Hi, Jacob.”

“Hi, Steve. The bankruptcy petition was filed this morning. Both Brauns filed for bankruptcy on the 3rd.”

“That’s not unexpected. Now tell me the catch.”

Jacob laughed, “I’m not surprised you guessed it wasn’t going to be straightforward. They listed all the corporate IP — both Knowles and Jackson and legacy Lone Star — as contested assets.”

“Well, they don’t own it, so that’s meaningless, right?”

“We won’t know until they provide the full schedule of assets and debts, and specific claims. Those aren’t due for sixty days. It could be sooner, but it makes no sense for them to file early as the court will grant a motion to use any cash on hand to pay their attorneys.”

“That would be the point, right? To prevent any creditor from attaching any assets they need to pay for their criminal defense?”

“Yes. The courts are reluctant to freeze assets, even those of questionable origin, if they are needed to pay for criminal defense.”

“I take it the Brauns filed in Baltimore and Cincinnati, respectively, and we filed in Delaware?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll be fun. How will that be resolved?”