It’s hard to not notice me approaching, since we’re the only two on the dance floor, such as it was. I saunter up to Kamala, and we start to mouth the lyrics at the same time, the spoken-word part that goes:

“Slap me! No, somebody slap me!
‘Cause I know I’m lookin’ good!
I’m givin’ attitude all over the room!
People are starin’ at me and I just look too good for these people!”

She lets out a laugh. That laugh was infectious.
“Ding Dong! Are you the new butler?” I say to her in a bad British accent. I already knew who Kamala was – she was a mononym just like Madonna or Cher. But did she know who I was?

Side note: In this dream sequence, I am perhaps the nephew of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, or the grandson of the current (in 1987) gouverneure générale du Canada, Jeanne Sauvé. Or perhaps I’m an heir to the Steinberg supermarcheé fortune! Oui, that sounds good to me.

I’m momentarily struck by the very nearness of her, then I remind myself that I’m gay, and that I was sent back in time to make this dream sequence somehow funny or palatable.

Cracking open a Labatt, I extend my hand outward to Kamala. “I’m Etan Steinberg-Bronfman…”

“I know who you are…” she said with a purse-lipped smile. It seemed a bit dismissive. She sizes me up, with my preppy Club Monaco vibe – to her, I look like a clone from the racks of Centre Eaton, some disco dolly traipsing down Rue Ste-Catherine Est.

“I know, I know, ‘Zhuh fay moan Steinberg'”, she replied sarcastically, referring to the phrase everyone and their mother would say to me when they discover that I am the scion of Quebec’s biggest supermarket chain (Je fais mon Steinberg). Her accent is bad for a native, but well above average for an American.

But perhaps she’s perceptive, not dismissive. She already seems to know that I’m gay, and begins to move her wrists a bit more loosely when I start talking, but then she stops – stereotypes are such low-hanging fruit.

She was better than that. She was tired of being asked if she was related to Jodi from Today’s Special.

“Shout it loud and clear, I’m American, eh?” She was used to being reduced to abstractions – and that’s all before she reveals that her mother is actually from India.

“My dad is from Jamaica, and my mother is from India. She’s a research scientist at McGill.” I’m in the midst of a hazy platonic crush on this young woman, who is so refreshingly different.

I don’t know much about India, but I think about little I know about Jamaica, and then I start to say, in my worst reggae accent:

“RING DE ALARM, and not a sound of suffering! WHOA! HEY!”
“You are UPTOWN TOP RANKING!”

Kamala doesn’t seem to know what the hell I’m talking about. Or, maybe she does and she’s just too above the fray to call me out on my Caucasian reductive attempt to relate to her distant Jamaican-ness.

At this point in my fictitious timeline, I have not yet taken over the operations of ‘Steinberg Beaucoup’, the hypermarket concept that recently was ‘piloted’ in Mirabel. Daddy Steinberg told me that I’m not yet ready for the big leagues – first, I have to finish CÉGEP with good marks, then get into McGill, and then after that, maybe an MBA from an American university, and only then I might be ready for beaucoup de responsabilité.

Little do I know at the time, that Steinberg would be tout à fait dépourvu by the mid 1990’s, by which time there would be a female Prime Minister named Kim Campbell (but only for a few sad months). But I don’t get discouraged at this rift in the timeline – it took Leonard Cohen until age 37 to release his first album. I’m in no rush – I have a privileged pedigree, carte blanche if you will, and I don’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone.

I ask her for clarification on the proper way to say her name – “C’est Kamala like cummerbund? Or, is it Kamala like karma chameleon?” I ask.

“Kamala like common law”, she said. She knows the law of the land, even though she’s American – she’s clearly very intelligent. She would impress the once and future exchequers and barristers.

“Ok, so you’re not the new butler, you want go to into… let me guess, the legal profession?” I ask her. She seems so smart and self-assured – in an attempt at flattery, I tell her that someday she could easily become Procureure Générale of a place like Alberta.

“Yeah, I think I probably could see myself doing something like that,” she chuckled. “After CÉGEP, I’m going to university in the United States. I’m originally from Oakland, California. Not from the Oakland Hills, I’m from the flats.”

Being Canadian, and thinking that flats were a reference to the type of espadrille that black people wear in the cisalpine portions of San Francisco, I think to myself, is she referring to ‘these are the breaks?’ I’m at a loss for words. The music has stopped playing, so in my head, I conjure up that dancehall reggae thing once agaain, and think about Sister Nancy:

“THIS WOMAN NEVER TROUBLED NO ONE! I’m a lady, I’m not a man! M.C. is my ambition!” Someday, she would be the M.C. Or maybe an M.P. Or maybe even P.O.T.U.S.

I stare awkwardly at her as she waits for me to say something. Thankfully, the moment is rescued by the next song being played: “Let’s Go All The Way” by Sly Fox. “Zdjhoom Zdjhoom!” I call out to her. This song is a banger, even if the lyrics are inane and silly.

And she knows this song! We’re back to dancing in the basement, just us two. I look at her helmet hair, thinking that’s the look of a confident woman – any woman who wears the trousers, whether it’s k.d. lang or Jane Child, has sported that ‘do at one point in their lives. I can see that this woman is going to go places.

“Let’s go all the way!
Let’s go all the way!
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!
Let’s go all the way!”

“Presidential party! No one wants to dance!”

Like the ghost of Christmas future, or a synchronicity of AIDS-defining hallucinations à la Angels in Alberta, I tell her that she will someday have a presidential party where everyone will want to dance. Because she would one day become the President of the Lower 48. Sometimes the best thing a runner up can do is recognize when greatness is greatness, and politely give way. The men all pause. Kamala would only stop when she was satisfied, which may be never. She will be the first black female president. She thinks I’m a bit crazy, but she smiles – if anyone could become the first female black president, it would be her.

Fast forward to her inauguration ball in 2025. A presidential party where everyone wants to dance. She’s trying her hardest not to tear up as she swings around the dance floor with her husband Doug. Doug is the first gentleman, and the first man who, in the face of her strength, her resolve, her intelligence, only wanted to be a part of that greatness. She was never sure she would end up marrying anyone – she felt like, at times, “Kamala Harris – For the People” meant that she would be only married to her job,. It took her until much later in life to meet someone who was her true partner and biggest advocate. And here he was, dancing in front of hundreds, as his children, their stepchildren, make fun of them from the other side of the room. Stars are stars, and they shine so hard…

She is smiling, but trying hard not to cry. Her entire life, so often she wanted to cry, cry when people would make fun of her unusual name, cry when her parents went their separate ways, cry when she had to leave California for Quebec, cry when she felt like nobody got her, nor cared to understand her. She wanted to cry when she knew in her heart she was the best person for the job, but would be weeded out in a jungle primary. She wanted to cry when she dropped out of the 2020 race, it was her first real loss. In that moment, she held it together.

And in this moment, she holds it together; she’s used to holding it together. What she is not used to is the realization that her dreams actually came true, and that the extent of these dreams would far exceed anyone’s wildest expectations, even those of her mother, who, just like her, was used to blazing trails, taking the path of most journey and not of least resistance. It was why she spent a few years in Quebec of all places. It was the reason she was exactly where she needed to be, then and now.

For the people! As she dances with her Dougie, she thinks about what it might be like to be referenced in a textbook in 50 years, and high school history teachers would say that there was a time in America where a woman had not yet held the highest office in the land, and then before that, a time when women weren’t even allowed to vote. To be the one that makes such a dream go from audacious to a foregone conclusion.

She thinks back to the pivotal moment in the convention when Oprah commanded everyone to vote for her, as if a messenger of God:

“PRESIDENT…KAMALA…HARRIS!!!!” That was surely the moment that she knew was going to win the election. She looks up at someone trying to get her attention, and sees Oprah and Steadman (or possibly Gayle) clinging to the corner of the dance floor like wallflowers. They wave from across the ballroom floor. She tears up just a bit, but only Oprah, and God seem to notice (they are one and the same).

“PRESIDENT…KAMALA…HARRIS!!!!”