Jake looked at his best man and laughed, shaking his head. “I wish I could have seen that,” he said. “Did they want to kill you?”
“I’m sure they did,” Nerdly said, “at least, until they heard the end-results of our interference in their preparations.”
“I would like to think they’ve learned something from the experience,” said Sharon, who had just waddled over to join her husband. She was sipping from a glass of sparkling water.
“I’m sure they have,” Laura said, remembering the endless sound checks they had all endured when rehearsing and recording the first two KVA albums.
Sharon became the first to hug Laura as a married woman. She put her arms around her and pulled her tight, having to twist a bit to keep her pregnant belly out of the way.
“It was such a beautiful ceremony,” she told Laura. “Very simple, very dignified.”
“And very brief,” Jake said, accepting a hug from her as well. “Just what we asked for.”
“And just think,” said Celia brightly, a mischievous look in her eyes. “Now that you two are married, you finally get to have sex.”
Jake, Laura, and Sharon all had a laugh at this. Nerdly only scowled. “I can all but guarantee that Jake and Laura have been engaging in unsanctioned sexual relations almost the entire time they’ve known each other,” he told Celia.
Sharon shook her head and chuckled a little more. “It’s a joke, Bill,” she told him.
He looked at her. “It is?” He thought it over for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
Greg wandered over, glass of Scotch in hand, and shook Jake’s hand warmly. “Good wedding,” he said. “Very short and succinct. I particularly enjoyed the Jewish touch there at the end.”
“I was inspired by the Nerdly wedding,” Jake said.
“You should have followed my example and had us wear Star Trek uniforms as well,” Nerdly said sourly. He had, in fact, made that suggestion several times.
“Naw,” Jake said. “That’s been done. I told you that you and Sharon were free to wear your uniforms here.”
“Sharon’s doesn’t fit her in her current state of uterine protrusion,” he said. “And it’s no fun if I’m the only one doing it.”
“Well ... maybe you can talk G and Neesh into the Star Trek theme,” Jake suggested.
Nerdly brightened at this thought. “Maybe I can,” he said happily. “I’m going to go over and suggest that to him right now.”
Jake smiled as he pondered the thought of the notorious rapper dressed as Captain Picard. “You do that, Nerdly,” he told him.
Now that their drinks were secured, the newlyweds waded into the crowd of guests to make their rounds. Thankfully, it was a small crowd. They started with Jake’s parents and Nerdly’s parents. Mary broke into fresh tears when he hugged her, and Cindy did the same when it was her turn. Even Tom seemed a little choked up.
“I never thought I’d see this day, son,” he told him.
Jake patted him on the back. “It took me a bit of searching around, Dad, but I finally found the right girl.”
“That you did,” Tom agreed. He then took Laura into his arms and gave her a big hug. “You’re a beautiful bride, Laura.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I still can’t believe this is all really happening.”
From the parents, they moved on to Elsa, who was sitting at one of the tables with Gordon, Neesh, Charlie, and Sonya. Gordon didn’t notice their approach because he was looking at Charlie with an expression that was half disgust and half morbid curiosity.
“So, you’re telling me,” Gordon said to the bass player, “that when you accidentally got it on with that tranny that one time, that’s what made you think you were gay?”
“That’s right,” Charlie told him. “I figured it was fate that put Roberto in my path, that it was written in the halls of the universe, or perhaps in my subconscious, that I should pick him when I decided to go get a simple blowjob that night. I thought it was something that was designed to tell me that I really was gay. Happily, as it turns out, I’m not.”
“But you went to MacArthur Park, homey,” Gordon said. “You tryin’ to tell me that you didn’t know that’s where the fuckin’ buffalos roam?”
“Well ... I know that now,” Charlie said. “I didn’t know that then.”
“But what about...” Gordon started.
“Look!” interrupted Elsa, who had an expression of extreme discomfort on her face at the current topic of conversation. “It’s the happy couple!” She practically shot to her feet and opened her arms for a hug.
Jake provided it to her.
“Lovely ceremony, Jake,” she said. She released him and then turned to Laura. “And you! You are an absolutely stunning bride!”
The housekeeper and the new Mrs. Kingsley shared a hug. Gordon and Neesh stood next, the former engaging Jake in a complex handshake, the latter hugging him and kissing him soundly on the cheek.
“I dug the glass-smashing bit,” Gordon told him. “Classy shit, homey.”
“It was a lot of fun,” Jake said. “Did ... uh ... Nerdly come over and offer his suggestion for your own wedding?”
Gordon chuckled. “The Star Trek thing? He was dead-ass serious about that shit.”
“Are you going to do it?” Laura asked him with a smile.
“Yeah ... that’d give my street cred a serious boost, wouldn’t it?” Another chuckle. “I couldn’t bring myself to hurt his feelings though. I told him I’d think about it.”
“And that’s true,” said Neesh. “We’re going to be thinking about that a lot.”
“Anyway, how long you gonna be gone down there in that New Zealand?” Gordon asked.
“Just two weeks,” Jake said.
“That’s what you said the last time you went down there,” Elsa said. “And you didn’t come home for more than six months.”
Jake smiled at her. “The circumstances are a little different this time,” he said. “I actually have commitments in LA. And I don’t have anything to hide from.”
“Thank the Lord for that,” Elsa said.
“Did you update all of your shots?” Charlie asked. “I hear they have some nasty microbes down there south of the equator.”
“Of course, Charlie,” Jake told him. “We’d never cross the equator without updating our shots.”
At the next table, Jill and her parents were sitting with Coop, Pauline, and Obie. Jill was playing with Tabby, bouncing her up and down in her lap and making her giggle, while Coop and the elder Yamashito were having a political discussion.
“So, I figure it’s like this, dude,” Coop was explaining. “If your people would’ve just had some good ganja back in the day, there would’ve been some mellowed-out motherfuckers in the head office instead of those aggressive-ass warlords you had running things. They would’ve been able to get their minds right, you know? Think shit through and see where the path would lead. If you’d have had stoners in charge of things, they would’ve seen that fucking with America and bombing our shit over here in Hawaii was a bad idea. If they wouldn’t have done that shit, we never would’ve had to drop the goddamn bomb on your asses. All of history would’ve been different! Ain’t that some shit?”
“So ... you’re suggesting,” said the elder Yamashito, “that if the ruling class of Japan, back in the early 1940s, would have just smoked some marijuana, all of World War II would have turned out differently?”
“You’re feeling me!” Coop said, delighted.
“And my parents and I and my future wife and her parents ... we never would have ended up in that internment camp?”
“Fuck no,” Coop said. “There would’ve been no reason for that shit!”
“Hmm,” Yamashito said. “An interesting viewpoint on world history, Mr. Cooper.”
“Ain’t it though?” Coop said. He looked and saw Jake and Laura. “Hey, guys! How’s it feel to be married and shit?”