Chapter 30

Sunday, February 13, 2000

"I have seen more thrilling winter days," Emily said a little nervously from the back seat of the Stratus.

Among them, Vicky, Jason, and the Holsts owned a good number of vehicles. At present, there was a total of six motorcycles, since Vicky still had the Street Hawk and Jason still had the '56. Beyond that, there were two pickup trucks, the Firebird, a minivan and the Stratus. That meant when the four of them wanted to go somewhere in the winter they were pretty well stuck with the last two; the Stratus was more comfortable in the back seat than the minivan, so it got nominated without discussion.

"We could have ridden the bikes," Jason offered from the passenger seat, hearing Emily's nervousness since he shared a little of it, but the decision had been made and he might as well try to be light about it. "That way, when we got there we'd be cold enough we wouldn't care."

"Right," Kevin snorted from the far side of the back seat. "But what would we have done when we headed back?"

Winter -- defined as that time when the leaves are down -- is longer than summer in southern Michigan, and during the depths it can often be gray, cold, and miserable for day upon seemingly endless day, which is what this day was doing. There had been more of their fair share of that the past month, and on several occasions when two or three or all four of them had gotten together there had been discussion that they ought to go somewhere and do something to break the spell a little.

They'd talked about leaving Kayla and J.J. with their grandparents, heading north and renting snowmobiles for a weekend, but that seemed to make the situation worse and not better. Heading north for skiing had the same limitation, and the negatives were increased by the fact that only Kevin had done any skiing and that had been a long time ago. There had been some discussion of heading toward one of the bigger towns around, finding a luxury motel with a nice pool and hot tub, and just spend some time lying around in swimsuits, having a nice dinner and maybe catching a movie or show. That almost came off; Phantom of the Opera was playing at the Stranahan in Toledo, but tickets proved impossible to get. Whatever movie happened to be playing at any of the multiplexes around the town just didn't seem to fill the hole.

Then one evening a few days before, Scott and Sonja had called Emily just to talk for a little and catch up on things. Over the course of the discussion, the Tylers had indicated they wouldn't mind some socialization with a few fresh faces just to break up their own cabin fever. That wouldn't solve the problem but might alleviate it a little, so Emily bounced a quick one off Kevin and he'd accepted. At first, it had been just the Tylers and the Holsts with all their children, but then Scott had suggested that they think about bringing Vicky and Jason; Emily said she couldn't speak for them but suspected they'd be glad to come.

One thing led to another, and after a bit more discussion Scott suggested that they could invite Aaron and Amber. That was starting to make things a little kid-heavy for an afternoon of grownup discussion, so Sonja said she thought they could get their regular babysitter, Brianna, to stay with the Tyler and Heisler kids at the Heislers, if Emily and Kevin could find babysitting for Kayla and J.J. That was no problem; there were two sets of grandparents nearby and both liked doing it. Scott suggested they could fire up the grill; it still worked no matter what the weather, and they wouldn't have to eat outside.

Things were getting pretty well advanced when Sonja made the comment, "Bring some robes. There's nothing that drives away the winter blues like sitting in the hot tub with the water up to your nose and the snow blowing in your face, but it gets a little cold getting from the porch to the tub."

"Sounds like a deal," Emily said -- and then remembered how the Tylers and the Heislers usually dressed in the hot tub, too late to back out gracefully.

Realistically, Jason and Vicky could have backed out of the deal -- they hadn't committed to it, after all -- but after some two- and four-cornered discussion decided to go along anyway. They were having cabin fever just about as bad as Emily and Kevin, and maybe it wouldn't be quite so embarrassing if the crowd was that much bigger. In the end, they'd all brought swimsuits just in case they wouldn't have to go through with it, but each one had agreed that they'd feel pretty embarrassed to be the only odd one out in a crowd of naked flesh.

Jason was the most complacent about the whole thing, and decided to lighten things up a little. "Come on," he said. "Didn't any of you ever get involved in a mixed skinny-dipping party out at the lake when you were kids? When you're, oh, sixteen or seventeen, it's one of the more thrilling things you can do."

"Never did," Emily said.

"Me either," Vicky shook her head. "Well, I did with a guy a couple times, but that was one on one, so it was sort of different." Jason knew she was talking about John Engler. She hadn't told the story right out, but he doubted that Emily, and certainly not Kevin, knew about that.

"My God, you '88s were a bunch of squares," he snorted. "At least I can say I did. And Emily, your mother was part of the group. So was yours, Vicky, and your father."

"You're kidding!" Emily exclaimed. "She never told me about that!"

"Do you tell your kids everything?" Jason teased. "Or, do you plan to tell them when you get old enough?"

"Mom never said anything to me about it, either," Vicky sighed.

"She was pretty sexy naked when she was a kid," Jason teased. "It was after dark, but there was a full moon so you could see quite a bit. Not that I could see a whole hell of a lot, because she spent most of the time in a lip lock with her boyfriend." Who was not Joe, either, Jason thought, but Vicky doesn't need to know that.

"It's just hard to imagine," Vicky said from behind the wheel.

"I've heard it said that every generation thinks it invented sex," Jason grinned. "If anything, you kids backed off a little from what it was like back in the hippy days when I was a kid."

Vicky twisted her head to glance at Emily, and the return glance told her all she needed to know: there was no backing out now.

In the end, it wasn't all that bad. Robes and sandals weren't enough to really protect them from the cold, biting wind that even penetrated the privacy-fenced hot tub area in Scott and Sonja's back yard. There was little time to think about it and an absolute minimum time taken between losing the robe and getting in the hot water. Once immersed, there wasn't much to see in the frothing water, although both Kevin and Jason managed a somewhat longer glance at Sonja and independently agreed without saying anything to each other that she had one hell of a body and that Scott was a lucky man indeed.

The hot tub was just big enough to be comfortable for eight, but cozy enough that there was some bare-skin-to-bare-skin contact. Jason wound up with Vicky on one side and Sonja on the other, and thought that while it was nice to be bare hip to bare hip with such a stunning woman, the one under his right arm was much the more preferable.

"So, are you guys going to Israel again this year?" Emily asked in an effort to get a conversation going and allay the reserve of nervousness she felt.

"It'd be nice," Sonja said. "But we can't go as the four of us. It's getting a little awkward since we've got Sabra in kindergarten now, and Aaron and Amber have Clayton there, too."

"I'd forgotten that," Emily said. "They do grow up on you, don't they? It gets a little more cumbersome than when they're little."

"We've been pretty lucky," Amber added. "It's not that far to run them down to Bradford to stay with their grandparents, but it can't be done while they're in school, so that's going to just get worse. Since we found each other, it's simplified a few things since we can share babysitting, and it's going to let us get a little tricky this year."

"How's that?" Vicky asked.

"Clayton's in school in Mason, while Sabra's here in Okemos," Sonja explained. "They go on spring break different weeks, so we're going to watch each other's kids for a week so we can get a week to go some place separately."

"Where are you going?" Emily wanted to know.

"We're going to Las Vegas," Aaron announced. "Catch some shows, play the slots a little, maybe rent a car for a day or two and do some sightseeing, like Hoover Dam, maybe drive all the way out to the south rim of the Grand Canyon."

"Not taking a run out to see Jennlynn, I bet," Vicky giggled.

"It'd be tempting," Aaron replied. "I haven't discussed it with Amber, but I doubt she'd think much of the idea. I mean, cut-my-heart-out-with-one-of-Jason's-knives-and-feed-it-to-me not think much of the idea."

"Well, you could," Emily said, half teasing. "If you remember the reunion, she said that if anyone felt like checking it out, they have a real good restaurant there. It's open to the general public for breakfast and lunch without the other activities getting involved."

"It's an idea," Amber said dryly. "But I don't think I'd ever want to admit to seeing the inside of a Nevada whorehouse, no matter how innocent it was."

"Maybe we'll have to do it sometime, hon," Kevin teased his wife, taking the heat off of Amber. "It'd make a real neat item for the class newsletter. Or, even better, for the Courier."

"God, you really want Reverend Swift to burn our house down, don't you?" Emily snorted. "Preferably with us in it."

"Freedom of the press, and all that," he grinned, and then to divert another exchange asked, "Scott, I suppose you and Sonja have some interesting and exotic plans."

"Not really," Scott replied. "We're going to fly down to Florida, rent a car, and visit a few friends and relatives. My mother's folks, Sonja's dad's folks. We'll catch a couple of sights, do whatever seems interesting. We haven't nailed it down, but probably we're going to spend a night with John Engler, too."

"What's he up to these days?" Vicky asked, more out of curiosity than anything else, although there were some ties to good days there.

"This medical supply company he bought is supposedly going great guns," Scott replied. "He sure got smart and made the right move at the right time. They sell cardiac monitors and defibrillators to ambulance companies and hospitals, but their old supplier went out of business. The place was going down the tubes, and he bought it for peanuts and then hooked up with a new supplier from Japan. He's rapidly getting into serious big-bucks country. I sure wish I could trip across a deal like that, but I guess you have to be in the right place at the right time."

"I always said it only takes one good idea," Jason commented. "Making knives was mine, but it's not in the same category."

"I guess I always knew you must pick up a few bucks here and there at it," Scott probed lightly.

"I've done all right considering the time I put into it," Jason replied. "Granted, some of the sales are pretty big, but it takes some time to do the job right. I could make more money if I put more time into it, and there's a few shortcuts that could be made to increase the return, but I've always treated it as a hobby. That means if I want to do something else I can go and do it. I couldn't do that if I was trying to make a living at it. That'll change some when I retire in a few years. I'll have more time to throw at it if I want to since I won't have to be working forty hours on top of it."

"It's hard to believe you're thinking about retiring," Aaron commented. "Jeez, it seems so far away for me."

"Doesn't seem all that long from this end," Jason smiled. "In fact, I'm surprised it's here this quickly. It could be as soon as about two years, depending on buyouts and the amount of vacation time and sick leave I have accumulated."

"Got any plans after you retire, other than making knives?" Scott asked.

"Not really," Jason admitted. "Back when my son was hiking the Appalachian Trail last summer the thought crossed my mind once or twice that I was pretty jealous of him for getting to do it. On the other hand," he said, reaching out under the water to grasp Vicky's hand, "I've come to realize that I'm not sure I want to be out of Bradford for that long. But it's two years off and a lot could happen. I'm not old enough to move to Florida and wait to die."

As he felt Vicky give his hand a hard squeeze under the water, Emily said, "It's hard to believe you're as old as you have to be. I mean, I kind of think of you as being a little older than Kevin, but not a lot older. But then on the way up here when you were talking about hanging out with Vicky's mother and my mother and father in school I have to believe you're as old as they are."

"I'm looking at fifty in another year," Jason smiled. "When I was in high school, fifty seemed downright elderly, I mean, ready-for-a-nursing-home elderly. Now that I'm here, it doesn't seem so old at all. I guess you're only as old as you feel, and frankly, a lot of the time I have trouble believing I'm as old as I am. I can accept being just a little older than Kevin, since that's about how I feel."