“That’s right,” Bart said. “And there weren’t that many mixed-race couples back then either, especially not black and Vietnamese. I guess we were trendsetters.”
“We got married in 1967,” Phuong said. “That was the year we both got accepted into our schools. Bart in UCLA’s medical school, me at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. We didn’t plan to have any children until both of us were done with school, residencies, and in practice, but ... things happen in life.”
“A failure of contraception measures,” Nerdly said with a nod. “A common occurrence. There are studies that suggest that up to fifty-eight percent of pregnancies within a legally sanctioned heterosexual relationship are a result of such failures.”
“Uh ... right,” Phuong said slowly. “That is indeed what happened. Early in the morning on New Year’s Day of 1968, we experienced such a failure. Neeshie was born on September 24 that same year.”
“It sounds like it was meant to be,” Sharon said, smiling at the story.
“Since you know the exact date of conception,” said Bill, “I theorize that your method of family planning at the time was the so-called rhythm method, in which you try to only have intercourse during the female’s non-fertile time of her cycle, basing that estimation on the date of the last day of menstruation.”
Both of the Jeffersons nearly choked on their wine.
“Bill,” Sharon chided, “not everyone appreciates your deductive reasoning abilities.”
“I’ve been told that before,” Bill said, perplexed, as always, by this information.
“Wow,” Bart said, shaking his head in wonder, a grin on his face. “I’ve decided I like you, Bill. You have a highly interesting mind and no filter between it and your mouth. Yeah, it was the rhythm method and we guessed wrong. You see, we didn’t get to see each other all that much back in those days since I was living in LA and she was living in Davis, and we’d had a few too many drinks on New Year’s Eve, and we thought we were safe, and, well ... the rest is history. A Neesh was born.”
“I thought as much,” Bill said. “The rhythm method statistically has one of the highest failure rates among standard contraceptive measures. Even higher than coitus interruptus.”
“Yes, so we found out,” Phuong said. She was smiling as well. “Anyway, that’s the story of my little Neeshie; though she’s not so little anymore. And now she’s getting married tomorrow. How fast the time goes.”
“I’m curious,” Bill said. “It is quite evident that your family and the family of Gordon, Neesh’s betrothed, come from quite different sociological and economic backgrounds. Was it hard for you to come to terms with this fundamental difference?”
The two Jeffersons looked at each other for a moment and then back at Bill. “Yes,” Bart said. “It was hard. In fact, when she first told me she was dating a famous rap musician, I almost hit the roof. I thought she was going through some kind of late rebellion.”
“It was even worse than when she told us she was pursuing law instead of medicine,” Phuong said sadly.
“Yet you are here today,” Bill said. “And you, Bart, have rehearsed walking Neesh down the aisle at the ceremony tomorrow. It would seem you have come to some accommodation with your daughter’s choice of marital partner.”
“We have,” Bart said with a nod. “It took us a bit, but after we met Gordon a few times, we came to realize that he is not what we were envisioning. He is actually quite intelligent, has a keen head for business, and, most importantly, he truly loves our daughter and will be able to provide for her.”
“And she truly loves him as well,” Phuong added.
“They do seem to have a long-term biochemical compatibility to them,” Nerdly observed.
“Uh ... yes, they do seem to have that,” Bart agreed.
“Neesh and Gordon remind me a little of Bill and myself,” Sharon said.
“Oh?” Phuong asked.
“My parents are conservative Jews,” she explained. “They’ve always been active members of the Temple; we always did the whole shabbat ritual with the candles and the challah bread every week. They took being Jews seriously. And then I started dating a gentile rock and roll musician who was associated with some fairly wild stories about Satanism and drug use and ... you know ... sexual impropriety...”
“The stories of Mr. Kingsley snorting cocaine from a woman’s buttocks,” Bart said knowingly. “Yes. I can see how that would give them pause.”
“Did he really do that?” asked Phuong.
“Only that one time,” Nerdly said. He then considered for a moment. “Well ... as far as I know, anyway.”
“I see,” said Phuong.
“Anyway,” Sharon went on, “Mom and Dad were not happy at all about me dating Bill. I actually kept the relationship secret for them for quite some time after he and I went from being friends to romantic partners. Eventually though, I had to fess up since I was taking time off school to go on tour with the band in Europe and Asia and Australia. And then, once I came home, I had to break the news to them that Bill had proposed to me in Paris and that I’d said yes. I’m not sure which was worse in their minds; that he wasn’t a Jew or that he was associated with Intemperance and Jake Kingsley. As they got to know him, however, they came around, particularly when he converted to Judaism so he could marry me.”
“You converted to Judaism?” asked Bart.
“Yes, I did,” Bill confirmed. “It is the oldest monotheistic religion in the world, as I’m sure you’re aware. It is rife with traditions and values that should be embraced by other schools of theistic worship. I have never once regretted my decision to convert—not even when Dr. Rosenberg had to make an incision on my penis to symbolize my covenant with God.”
Bart raised his eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”
“I was already circumcised prior to my conversion,” Bill explained. “In order to seal my covenant, however, I had to undergo a ritualistic pseudo-circumcision to finalize the conversion. That is when Dr. Rosenberg, who serves as our Temple’s mohel, used his scalpel right where my foreskin used to be to inflict enough of a wound to draw blood from me.”
Bart winced. “Jesus,” he said and then winced a little more. “Uh ... I mean, wow. I assume he numbed you up first?”
“He did not,” Nerdly said. “The ritual is supposed to be painful to undergo.”
“It sounds painful all right,” Bart said.
“It was,” Bill agreed. “Sharon and I were unable to engage in conventional intercourse for nearly a week after that.”
“Uh ... I can imagine,” Phuong said.
“We were, however, still able to engage in alternative sexual gratification practices such as—”
Sharon’s hand reached up and covered his mouth. “I think they get the idea, Bill,” she said.
“We do,” Bart confirmed, trying to suppress a chuckle.
And while her parents were discussing Neesh with the Nerdlys, the bride-to-be was sitting at another table with Laura and Talia Livnat, her maid of honor. Laura was absolutely fascinated with Neesh’s lifelong best friend.
Tally, as she liked to be called, had been born in Haifa and held dual citizenship in both the United States and Israel. She was the only daughter of a pair of orphaned Italian Jews who had been taken to Palestine as children in 1941 after the Italians, pressured by their Nazi allies, started rounding up the Jews in earnest. As founding citizens of Israel, both had joined the IDF as young adults, had fought in the Suez Crisis in 1956, where they became reacquainted with each other, and in the Six-Day War in 1967, after which they got married and quickly produced Talia, their only child together. By the time the Yom Kippur War of 1973 rolled around, however, the elder Livnats were divorced and Elina, Tally’s mother, had emigrated to Los Angeles where she quickly met and married a partner in a prestigious architecture firm and then made a success of herself in the world of fashion design. Tally grew up in the same upper-class beachfront neighborhood of Santa Monica as Neesh had and they had been friends since elementary school, drawn together as two darker-skinned outsiders in a community dominated by WASPs.