"More! More!" the guests demanded.
"Let's do something else," Cynthia suggested, intoxicated with the applause (and with more than a few lechaim drinks).
"We don't have anything else," Jake reminded her.
"There must be something we can do," Cynthia said. "Some song we all know."
"Yes," Mary said, excited. She looked at her best friend deviously. "Let's get really wild."
"You mean... ?" Cynthia asked.
"That's right," Mary said. "Let's do some Neil Diamond."
"Oooh, yes," Cynthia said, clapping her hands together. "You really know how to rock, Mary!"
"Jake," Mary asked, "do you remember how to do Sweet Caroline?"
"Jesus Christ, Mom," Jake hissed. "Don't ever tell anyone I know how to play Sweet Caroline. I'd never sell another album as long as I live."
"But you used to love that song," she said.
"I was eleven years old, Mom. Besides, I can't perform any copyrighted material here. Not even my own stuff. I can do original, unsubmitted material or folk songs that are so old that no one holds a copyright on them anymore."
"Oh poop!" Cynthia pouted.
"Let's do Molly Malone then," Mary said. "You did that one at Celia Valdez's wedding, didn't you?"
"The rehearsal actually," Jake said.
"Let's do it. You sing and we'll harmonize."
"All right," Jake said. "But don't go making me look bad up here."
They played Molly Malone, much to the delight of the audience, many of whom sang along. The blending of the three instruments was a little on the rough side since they hadn't rehearsed the tune, but no one seemed to mind.
There were more cries for more when it was over, demands even.
"What do we do now?" Mary asked.
"How about What Is This Thing Called Love?" Cynthia suggested.
"Come again?" Jake said.
"What Is This Thing Called Love?" she responded. "It's a very famous love ballad from the World War II era. My mother used to sing it for me when I was a little girl."
"I've never heard of it," Jake said.
"Me either," Mary admitted.
"It's a beautiful song," Cynthia said. "It's about a..."
"Cynthia," Jake said gently, "I can't sing the song if I've never heard it before."
"Oh... yes, I suppose you're right."
"How about Silent Night?" Mary suggested. "I know it's only Halloween and all, but it's still a beautiful..."
"Mom," Jake said. "This is a Jewish wedding, remember? I think that singing about Mother Mary and the baby Jesus at such an event might be considered poor taste."
"Oh... yeah," Mary said, blushing a little.
Meanwhile, the crowd was starting to get a little antsy.
"I have an idea," Jake said. "Let's just jam."
"Jam?" the women said in unison.
"Yeah," Jake said. "Just play for the sheer joy of making music. I'll set the tempo and you two just follow my lead with whatever you think blends in."
"Jake, I've never done anything like that before," Mary said.
"Me either," Cynthia said.
"It's time you learned then," Jake said. "I'll start slow."
"Jake!" his mom hissed at him, but it was too late. Jake had already started to play.
It took the two women a few moments to get into the swing of things. Mary started by just playing single swipes across her strings, Cynthia by one or two keys. Soon, however, as the crowd started to clap to the rhythm Jake was setting, they became more prolific with their playing. As they discovered the absurd ease of mixing their instruments into a predictable rhythm, they lost their hesitancy and began to truly jam in every sense of the word.
Jake slowly brought the tempo up until they were moving at damn near heavy metal speed. Mary's arm pumped frantically on her bow while Cynthia pounded the keyboard like Jerry Lee Lewis on amphetamines.
"All right!" Jake encouraged. "That's the way to do it. Dueling solos now. You go first, Mom!"
"What?" Mary said, alarmed. "Dueling solos? What do you..."
"Hit it!" Jake said and suddenly stopped playing. Cynthia, figuring out what he was talking about, did the same. Mary, once the back rhythm stopped, instinctively launched into a blistering, up-tempo violin solo that would have brought Eddie Van Halen or Jimmy Page to tears had they heard it.
"Yeah, Mom!" Jake yelled. "That's smokin' hot!"
"Play it, baby!" Jake's dad yelled from out in the audience. "Show us what you got!"
Other such comments came drifting up from other members of the crowd.
Mary finished off her solo, ending it with a particularly flaring display of showmanship, and Cynthia immediately picked up the thread, her nimble fingers flying across the keys, her shoulders dipping and swaying. In truth, she wasn't quite as good on the ivories as her son, but only by the thinnest of margins. She swept up and down the keyboard like a woman on fire, bringing the tempo up, back down, and then up again, finally bringing it nicely back around to the original rhythm that Jake had been setting. Recognizing his cue when he heard it, Jake started to play again. Mary chimed right in. The first twenty seconds or so was swallowed in the sound of enthusiastic applause from their audience.
Under Jake's lead they gradually brought the tempo back down to a slow, lazy, gentle melody and brought it to an end, Jake playing out the last ten or fifteen seconds with a finger-picked solo of his own. The applause washed over them once more and they stood together for another bow. This time they did not heed the cries for more and decided to adhere to the cardinal rule of entertaining.
They left the stage area, all of them sweaty and hot from the autumn heat, but it wasn't more than a minute before someone else took the stage. The rabbi and his wife asked for permission to use Jake's guitar and Cynthia's piano to perform a little number of their own. The permission was granted and they took the stage to do a few traditional Jewish folk songs.
Jake, Cynthia, and Mary walked arm and arm back to their table and took a seat, all three of them grabbing glasses of water and drinking them down.
"You guys were great up there," Helen told them. "I've never seen anything like that."
"I can't believe you made us do that, Jake," his mother scolded. Then she smiled. "I'm glad you did though. I don't remember when I had so much fun as a musician."
"You guys rocked," Jake told them. "I knew you had it in you."
"You should do a record with your mother playing violin sometime," Helen suggested.
"Me, play on a rock and roll record?" Mary scoffed. "That'll be the day."
Jake didn't say anything though. He had already had the same idea himself.
The festivities went on for several more hours. There was music and dancing and lots of drinking. By the time things started to wind down there was hardly a sober person in the house.
Finally, it came time for the bride and groom to leave. They climbed into a stretch limousine that had been painted with "Just Married" slogans and had cans tied to the back bumper. The limo pulled away, rattling its way down the street and disappearing. It wasn't going far. The honeymoon suite had been booked for the two of them at the Stovington Suites Hotel on the riverfront — just nine blocks away. A one-night stay there was to be the extent of their honeymoon for now. The wedding had taken place on a Tuesday and the band needed to be back in the recording studio on Thursday morning.
Coop and Charlie both went directly from the wedding to the airport. They had chipped in for a private flight back to Los Angeles. Days off from the rigorous recording schedule were rare and neither wanted to waste their second of two such days hanging around in Heritage.
Pauline, the Levensteins, and Sharon's parents shared a limo back to the Royal Gardens Hotel, where they were all staying for one more day (along with many of the Cohen family and their guests — all at Nerdly's expense). Except for Pauline, who was flying back in Jake's plane with Jake and Helen, they were all booked on the same flight back to Los Angeles the following afternoon.