“A couple of things,” he said. “I just got off the phone with Johnny.”
“Oh yeah? About Us and Them?”
“That’s right,” he said. “There have been some ... uh ... developments while we’ve been gone.”
She really didn’t like the look on his face. “Such as?”
“They’ve nailed down the principal photography location,” he said. “Since the story takes place in Chicago, they managed a deal for filming there. They’re even getting a certain amount of cooperation from Chicago PD—use of their patches and logos and even some of their police cars and buildings.”
“Okay,” she said slowly. “So, it’ll be another out-of-town shoot then?”
“Most of it,” he confirmed. “We’ll likely do some scenes here in LA, but I’ll probably be gone quite a bit.”
“Well ... it is what it is, right?”
“Yeah,” he said softly.
“It’s not a big deal, Greg,” she told him. “I think you learned your lesson from what happened in Alaska, didn’t you?”
“I did,” he agreed. “There ... uh ... there is something else though.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, remember when I was telling you about the story in the script. The main character—Frank Haverty—is a burned-out cop that ends up ... you know ... having an affair with a reporter that’s assigned to ride along with him.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I remember. You said there’s going to be a couple of sex scenes with her, right?”
“Right,” he said.
“Is that what you’re worried about?” she scoffed. “That’s just your job, hon. I know you’re not really going to have sex with whoever they get to play her.”
“Uh ... yeah, but ... well ... the thing is, they’ve just casted the part of Lyndsay Brown—the reporter that Frank is going to have the affair with.”
“Yeah? Who’d they get?”
He swallowed and took a deep breath. “Mindy Snow has been cast in that part.”
Chapter 6: Slices of Life
Los Angeles, California
December 8, 1994
The Ohr HaTorah Synagogue was on Venice Boulevard in the west LA neighborhood of Mar Vista, a middle class and working-class section of the city where Sharon Archer, formerly Cohen, had been born and raised. Sharon and Nerdly, along with Rob and Jill, her parents, were all regular attendees of the Saturday morning Shabbat services conducted by Rabbi Levenstein, the man who had donned a Star Trek the Next Generation admiral’s uniform in order to marry the Nerdlys in a Heritage city park on Halloween day of 1989. Nerdly and Sharon were among the top ten most generous philanthropists to Levenstein and his house of worship, particularly these last two years as KVA Records increased their personal income quite nicely.
Rabbi Levenstein was dressed much more traditionally on this day. He wore a neatly pressed three-piece suit and jacket with a pale pink tie. His black and white robe, open in the front, was draped over this. On his head was a yarmulke, as there was one on every male in attendance, be he Jew or Gentile. He recited from the Torah to the assembled group of special guests who had joined him in the main hall of the synagogue this day. The parental Cohens were there, Rob in his own suit, Jill in a very expensive dress that Sharon had bought for her. Stanley and Cynthia Archer were seated near the front row, the two of them looking quite snazzy as well. Greg and Celia were just behind them, Greg having to fight to keep from fussing with his head cover, Celia in a modest blue dress that covered her shoulders and displayed not so much as a millimeter of cleavage. Jake and Laura were seated directly in the front, as they would play a part in the ceremony that was to take place. Jake was wearing his best double-breasted suit and a conservative red tie. Laura was in a pretty green dress she had bought just for the occasion. Pauline and Obie sat just behind the newlyweds. Obie looked quite resplendent in his custom-tailored suit—the likes of which Jake had never seen the country musician wear before. Even the yarmulke looked good on Obie.
And on Jake’s left, sitting together, were Nerdly and Sharon. In Sharon’s arms was the reason for the gathering here today. Born on December 1, at 3:33 PM, forced out of Sharon’s womb by an intravenous oxytocin drip after her doctor got tired of waiting for her to go into labor on her own, was a seven-pound, nine ounce baby boy named Kelvin Stanley Archer, his namesakes the international base scale for temperature measurement in science (this name was selected after a compromise between Nerdly and Sharon—Nerdly’s first choice for a boy name had been Quantum) and his paternal grandfather. He was snoozing contentedly at the moment, dressed in a white gown, a blue head hat, and a disposable size small diaper. He was thankfully quite oblivious to what was about to happen to him. Since, on the day of his birth, he had been evicted from Sharon’s body prior to sunset, today was the day of his brit milah, the Jewish ritualized removal of his foreskin to seal his covenant with God.
The rabbi finished his prayers and blessings, and then introduced Dr. Fredrick Rosenberg, who was not only Kelvin’s pediatrician, but was also a practicing Jew who earned beer money by serving as a mohel for members of the Ohr HaTorah congregation. He was in his mid-fifties, had two children in college, and had performed more than fifteen thousand circumcisions in his career as both a medical and religious provider. He, like every other male except Kelvin, was wearing a suit and tie, but covering his was a robe even more elaborate than Rabbi Levenstein’s. His closed over his stomach area, nearly touched the floor on the bottom, and had a hood that came up over his yarmulke.
Dr. Rosenburg, carrying an old wooden box that contained his instruments, went to a table that had been set up just in front of the rabbi’s podium. He said a brief prayer and then asked that the child be brought to him. This was Jake and Laura’s cue. They were to serve as the kvater, their responsibility to take the child from his mother and give him to the father so he could then be brought to the mohel for the procedure. It was traditional, Nerdly had told them, that a childless couple be chosen for this role as performing it would instill an automatic blessing from God that they themselves would soon be fruitful and multiply.
“Now wait a minute here,” Jake had joked when told about this part. “I’m all about being fruitful, but I’m not sure we’re ready to multiply just yet.”
“I think God will understand that,” Nerdly assured him, “and not override your contraceptive measures.”
“Oh, well I suppose we can do it then,” Jake said. “You know something? Your Jewish God is all right.”
“Yeah,” Nerdly said with a sigh. “I only wish I actually believed in Him.” Thus, was Nerdly’s dilemma. He enjoyed the rituals and covenants of being a Jew, and he deeply respected the message and culture of the world’s oldest monotheist organized religion, but his scientific and logical mind just could not quite make the leap of actually accepting the reality of an invisible, all-powerful superior being.
Jake and Laura stood and walked over to Sharon. Sharon kissed the bundled infant on the forehead and handed him to Laura, who took him in her arms, kissed him herself, and then handed him to Jake. Little Kelvin was now awake and not looking very happy about it. Soon he was going to be a lot less happy. Jake took two steps to the right and then leaned down and kissed the baby on the forehead as well. He handed him off to Nerdly just as he started to cry.
The ceremony was brief, and Jake did not really want to see it. He listened to the prayers by both Levenstein and Rosenburg, watched the doc put some wine in Kelvin’s mouth, watched him take out his instruments, even watched him apply a topical anesthetic to the baby’s little schlong (tradition dictated that no anesthesia should be used, as the ritual was supposed to be painful, but Nerdly and Sharon were not that orthodox), but when he broke out the scalpel, Jake found himself perusing the artwork on the walls and the vault where the holy scrolls were kept.