They exited the limo into a barrage of camera clickings and flashbulb strobes. From the bystander area an excited babble erupted. Jake ignored all this and led Helen and his parents inside the secured area (as he thought of it). There, on the steps of the community center, the wedding party, with the notable exception of the groom, was gathering. Coop and Charlie were there, both dressed in their own uniforms. Coop was in the uniform of Data; Charlie was dressed as Geordi, complete with wrap-around eye goggles that, like all the other props, had come directly from the studio. Stan and Cynthia Archer, the father and mother of the groom, were dressed in generic star trek uniforms that could have belonged to anyone (although Stan was sporting an impressive weapons belt complete with phaser and tricorder). A man and a woman Jake did not know were also milling about in this area, dressed in Star Trek uniforms. Their presence, their age, and the fact that the man was wearing a yarmulke on his head, led Jake to the conclusion that these were Helen's parents. He had heard much about them on the international tour but had never actually met them before. Matt, so far, was nowhere to be seen.
"I guess we head inside," Jake's dad said as he spotted the line of more traditionally dressed guests entering the community center by another door.
"Yeah," Jake told him. "According to Nerd... uh... Bill, at this point the guests go inside and wait for the pre-wedding festivities to start. The first thing that will happen is that Bill will sign that contract thing in front of the rabbi and two witnesses — me and Matt."
"You mean the ketuvah?" Jake's mother said with a small smirk.
"Right, the ketuvah," Jake said. "After that, Bill will go see Sharon in her receiving room."
"Do we get to see that?" his mother asked.
"My understanding is that the honored guests — of which you and dad are included — get to see the veiling of the bride," Jake said.
"Groovy," his mom said wistfully, letting a little of her 1960s heyday show.
While his parents headed for the entryway, Jake and Helen walked over to the wedding party gathering and approached Sharon's parents.
"Mr. and Mrs. Cohen?" he asked politely.
"Mr. Kingsley," said the father, his eyes looking Jake up and down appraisingly. "You make a fairly unconvincing Commander Riker, if you don't mind my saying."
"I'll be the first to agree," Jake said. "And call me Jake, if you please. This is my girlfriend, Helen Brody."
"You can call me Helen," Helen said, before they had a chance to address her more formally.
"It's nice to meet you, Helen, you too, Jake," Mr. Cohen said. "I'm Robert, although you can call me Rob, and this is my wife, Jill."
Hands were shaken all around. Jill commented that Helen made a particularly voluptuous Counselor Troi and thanked her for standing next to Sharon at the ceremony.
"I will admit, I was a little surprised to be given the honor at first," Helen said. "Sharon and I grew quite close when we went abroad with Jake and Bill, but I would've thought she had a lifelong friend she would have wanted instead."
"Well... Sharon never made friends all that easily," said Jill with a shrug. "She never seemed to need friends. Always had her nose in a book or her ears in earphones. Quite frankly, we were astounded when she first told us that she was dating Bill. She had never dated anyone before. She didn't even go to her own prom. And then when she told us she was taking a year off from college to go on an international tour with him... well..."
"I can imagine how strange that must've been," Jake said, wondering just how conservative the elder Cohens actually were. They were conservative enough to not want their daughter marrying Nerdly unless he converted, but not so conservative that they weren't willing to don Star Trek outfits for the wedding.
"Strange hell," Rob said, shaking his head in wonder. "I was about ready to kill the son of a bitch at first. My daughter dating a rock and roll musician? And a gentile rock and roll musician at that?"
"It would seem he won you over at some point?" Helen asked.
"Making the conversion to Judaism went a long way toward that," Jill said. "It showed us how committed he actually was to Sharon, that he wasn't just trying to... you know."
"I know," Jake said.
"This whole thing has been a little overwhelming for us," Rob said. "We're a simple middle-class family. I'm an electrician and Jill is a schoolteacher. We never thought our daughter would end up marrying a celebrity. I mean, look at this. There are news cameras and reporters here at the wedding."
"I can totally relate to you there, Rob," Helen said with a laugh.
"Yes, I guess you must be going through the same thing," Rob agreed. "How do you deal with it?"
"Sometimes it's hard," she said, which was about the most she'd ever said on that particular subject. "Sometimes it's almost too much to take."
"We saw in the news about that demented woman who tried to attack you," Jill said. "That was just awful. Horrible."
"Yes," Helen agreed. "It was pretty bad. It kind of threw me for a loop for a little bit, to tell you the truth."
"We worried the same thing might happen to Sharon," Rob said.
"As Jake always tells me," Helen said, "it's all part of the life we choose. There's a lot of good that goes with it, but there's a lot of bad too. You have to make the choice as to whether or not the bad is worth the good. It seems Sharon has made her choice."
"Yes, it would seem she has," Rob agreed. "And to tell you the truth, Bill has grown on me. He's not at all what I thought a rock musician would be like. He's almost eerily smart and he's interested in all the same things that Sharon is. I didn't know what to make of this whole thing at first but now I believe Sharon was right when she told us that Bill was her soulmate."
"They say there's someone for everyone," Jill put in.
"That is what they say," Jake agreed thoughtfully.
Matt arrived a few minutes later, trudging alone out of his limousine and walking slowly to the gathering on the steps. He was dressed in the tan and black uniform of Lieutenant Warf. Though he had no make-up upon his face, he had the usual emblems and rank markings as well as a well-stocked weapons belt around his waist. He entered the secured area and came up the steps, where he stood away from everyone else, not bothering to introduce himself to Sharon's parents or converse in any way with his fellow band members.
After the problems and fighting that had followed in the wake of the Charlie vs. Darren clash, and the Jake vs. Matt clash in regard to music composition, Matt had not planned on attending the wedding at all. He had stated on multiple occasions, in no uncertain terms, that he had no wish to socialize with "any of you fuckin' sell-outs" in any way, shape, or form. It was a declaration he had managed to keep until today. The only place any of them saw Matt was in the rehearsal warehouse, where they'd so painfully composed their songs for the next album, and, these days, the recording studio, where they were now about halfway through the process of putting them down on digitally recorded tracks for later mixing and compilation onto a master recording.
The only reason he was here today, dressed in a Star Trek outfit as part of the wedding party, was because of publicity. Unsurprisingly, word had leaked to the entertainment media that the members of Intemperance, particularly the creative core members Matt, Jake, and Nerdly, were not getting along with each other. The leak had undoubtedly come from some of the recording studio personnel, who had now observed more than a month's worth of nitpicking, petty arguments, threats of violence, and even a few pushing and shoving matches between one or more of the musicians. So far, every Intemperance member, Pauline, and every National Records rep who was accosted by reporters asking for confirmation and elaboration of the feud had responded with some variation of the tried and true "There is no conflict within the band and the next album is coming along quite nicely" response. This did not keep the rumors from flying, however, particularly since they contained a strong grain of truth. It had been reported in American Watcher that Jake and Matt had engaged in a knockdown, drag-out fight over the subject of what order the songs would be recorded in. It was reported that Nerdly had gone home crying one day after Matt had pushed him down in one of the glass-walled recording booths following an argument about sound levels.