IS THIS THE END FOR INTEMPERANCE? read one front page article in the gossip rag.
TISDALE SAYS KINGSLEY IS DESTROYING THEIR MUSIC read another rag's headline.
Yet another read JAKE SAYS MATT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO WORK WITH.
Intricately constructed articles describing the fights in question followed all of these headlines. Though they were always exaggerated in scope, length, and virulence, all of them contained enough exact quotes and graphic descriptions to lend credence to the underlying theme of strife within the ranks. Thus, in order to maintain the crumbling illusion that everything with Intemperance was just peachy, Matt had been pretty much forced to attend the wedding as planned. To do anything less would have been as good as a signed admission that the rumors were true.
Nerdly and/or Sharon had apparently warned Rob and Jill that his relationship with Matt was not the greatest at the moment and that he was at the ceremony under protest. Neither of them made any attempt to go over and introduce themselves. They simply glanced at him a few times — perhaps a little nervously — and then seemed to dismiss him.
"It's almost time for us to go in, Helen," Jill said. "Why don't we start over to the bride's receiving room?"
"Okay," Helen responded. She gave Jake a quick kiss on the mouth. "See you inside," she told him.
"Right," Jake replied, giving her a brief, one-handed hug.
She and Jill headed for the other entrance, leaving Jake and Rob behind. Before Jake could say anything else, Coop came walking over. He had apparently already introduced himself before Jake's arrival, because Rob greeted him by name.
"How long until we go inside?" Coop asked.
"About another two minutes, by my watch," Rob told him.
"Ahhh, cool," Coop said, nodding wisely. He looked like he wanted to discuss something. As it turned out, he did. "So, Rob, dude," he said, "I got this question I wanted to ask, you know?"
"What's that?" Rob asked.
"Is it, like, true that you Jewish people are actually the ones who really control everything? You know, the government and the media and shit like that?"
Jake closed his eyes and shook his head a little. Leave it to Coop, he thought. The man who once asked John Denver to tell him some Vietnam sniper stories.
"It's absolutely true," Rob told him conspiratorially.
"No shit, dude?" Coop asked, wide-eyed.
"No shit," Rob confirmed. "You see, we all know each other and we're all engaged in a vast conspiracy against all non-Jews. Ever since we faked the Holocaust and you dumb gentiles gave us our own country to plot from, our plans have reached epic proportion. Pretty soon — within the next generation according to what they say at the weekly meetings — the entire western Hemisphere and select parts of Australia and New Guinea will be firmly in our hands."
"Whoa," Coop said, and then he started a little. "You're not just fuckin' with me, are you?"
"Of course he's just fucking with you, you moron," Jake told him.
Coop seemed almost disappointed by this revelation. "Aww, man," he said. "That ain't cool."
Jake decided to excuse himself from the conversation. He walked over to Matt, who was standing quietly near one of the brick planters adjacent to the doorway. Matt looked at him as he approached but said nothing.
"How you doing, Matt?" Jake asked him.
"Shitty," Matt said. "I'm back here in this armpit of a city dressed like a geek and attending some fuckin' freakfest instead of out on a fishing boat."
Jake nodded. "That's the way to keep the old spirits up," he said.
"It ain't my job to keep anyone's spirits up," Matt said. "I'm only here so the press won't have anything to report. Once this shit is over with, my ass is gone. I'm on the four o'clock back to LAX and on a charter boat at six tomorrow morning."
Jake nodded. "So I'm to assume you won't be offering a toast after the ceremony?"
"I will if you want me to," Matt said. "But I'm pretty sure no one wants to hear what I have to say about all this."
Jake sighed. "You're probably right," he agreed. "Looks like it's time to head in."
"Let the freakfest begin," Matt said.
They went inside and the male members of the wedding party were led into the main reception hall where the fifty some-odd guests were seated in chairs. Jake looked over the crowd for a moment, seeing his father near the front of the room. Also present were several members of the recording studio staff that Nerdly had befriended over the past few years. All of them looked out of place and uncomfortable in the suits they wore. There were fifteen or twenty people that Jake didn't know out there and he assumed they were the members of the Cohen family or congregation. Speckled throughout the guest seating areas were several recording stars that Nerdly had helped in the studio in the past.
Bigg G was there, resplendent in a three-piece custom-tailored suit. He wore shiny gold earrings and had lots of rings on his fingers. Christian Allen, one of National's most prominent country and western artists, sat with his wife in one of the aisle seats. He was sporting a yarmulke of his own instead of the cowboy hat he usually wore. Gordon Strong, drummer for Earthstone (and the man who had once given the fledgling Intemperance the most important advice they'd ever been given) was sitting next to his third wife. His eyes met Jake's and he gave him a nod. The bizarre glamour rocker Rob Stinson was there with "a friend" that everyone knew was his gay lover.
Rounding out the famous musician list was the caustic, ultra-feminist blues-folk singer Rhiannon George. She was there with her life-partner, Veronica Julius, the once-popular slutty-girl character actress who had co-starred with Mindy Snow in Thinner Than Water, shot down Matt's advances at the same premier party where Jake and Mindy had first met, and had, three years later, publicly come out of the closet when she'd met Rhiannon. Veronica had not had been offered a movie role since, but according to Nerdly, who often socialized with the couple, she was happier than she'd ever been in her life.
Conspicuously absent among the guests was anyone representing National Records' management. Crow, Doolittle, Bailey, and William Casting, the ultra-big guy himself, had not been given invitations, something the entertainment press had either not picked up on or didn't care enough about to report.
The Rabbi Levenstein, looking cool and quite striking in his class-A Starfleet uniform with the rank of admiral showing on his lapels, stood next to a podium, upon which a large, decorative scroll had been unrolled and held in place by sterling silver paperweights. Levenstein was in his early forties and sported a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee. As the male members of the wedding party entered the room he asked for and received the attention of the guests.
"As there are many here who are unfamiliar with the traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, please allow me to explain our first step. Very soon the groom, Mr. William Archer, or, Nerdly as most of you know him, will emerge from the room behind me and will sign the ketuvah here before me, in the presence of his witnesses — Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Tisdale. The ketuvah is a marriage contract, outlining the vows that William promises to his bride during their marriage. Since it is traditional to drink lechaims after the signing of the document, I would ask at this time that everyone please visit the bar and obtain the drink of their choice. Not that I wish to encourage anyone to stray from temperance, as it were, but it is somewhat traditional that a proper lechaim be accompanied by some kind of distilled spirit."