Chapter 11: The Rehearsal

Half Moon Bay, California

July 14, 1995

The Pillar Point Inn was arguably the nicest hotel and spa in the Half Moon Bay region. It stood six stories tall, with three complete wings, on a vast stretch of lovingly manicured green lawn that sat atop a bluff overlooking the ocean in a town where African-Americans were rarely seen. The staff of the facility, from the manager all the way down to the lowliest housekeeper, were used to dealing with the upper crust of society in their day-to-day operation. They all seemed more than a bit intimidated when the wedding party for the Gordon Paladay/Tanisha Jefferson nuptials rolled in on this Friday afternoon. G’s entire family and the vast majority of his friends were black; most of them lifelong residents of East Palo Alto, which was only thirty minutes away by car but an entirely different universe socio-economically. Half of Neesh’s family were black as well—those on her father’s side—though they were more your upper-middle-class blacks (many of them were intimidated by G’s people as well). The other half of Neesh’s family—those on her mother’s side—were Vietnamese, and they were almost as perplexing to the staff as the blacks were.

Still, the hotel employees remained polite and subservient—probably more out of fear than professionalism—and the wedding rehearsal on the bluff went well. Neesh practiced walking down the aisle with Bartholomew Jefferson, her father. Her group of bridesmaids, which included Laura; and her maid of honor, a beautiful olive-skinned woman named Talia Livnat; practiced taking their positions. Jake and Nerdly, who were the only white groomsmen, practiced their roles in the ceremony while G himself and Ricky, his best man, worked on their own struts to the preacher’s podium. Everyone was dressed casually for the rehearsal, mostly jeans and pullover shirts, and they had time to go over everything twice. From there, the group broke up and headed for the main event center in the hotel, where the rehearsal dinner would now be served.

The food for the rehearsal dinner was catered by the hotel, as they would the reception tomorrow, and it was very good. Filet mignon wrapped in bacon served with sautéed mushrooms, potatoes au gratin, and steamed asparagus. For dessert there was crème brulee. And, naturally, there was an open bar for the enjoyment of the wedding party.

After eating, people broke up into groups and mingled a bit. Laura headed over to where the ladies were congregating, and Jake headed over to where G sat with his parents. Jake had been briefly introduced to them earlier. Their names were Tevin and Ramona. Tevin was a big, burly man with graying hair, powerful looking arms, and a considerable beer belly. Ramona was short, dark skinned, and quite chubby herself. Their last names were not Paladay, as Jake discovered when he sat down with them to mingle.

“I’m not Gordon’s biological daddy,” Tevin explained. “Ramona and I met and started steppin’ out together back when Gordon was fourteen years old.”

“That’s right,” said Ramona. “His real father ain’t been around since Gordie was ‘bout three years old or so. Tyrone Paladay was his name.” She looked at Jake matter-of-factly. “He was a shiftless nigger. Couldn’t hold no job, couldn’t keep his prick in his pants, got into freebasin’ that cocaine. I sent his ass down the road. I heard he ended up in prison at some point.”

“Didn’t stop his ass from comin’ sniffin’ around once Gordon made it big though,” said Tevin. “Didn’t try to make no contact with him all that time and then once he finds out Bigg G got his fuckin’ DNA, he all of a sudden want to get together and ‘make up for lost time’. Shee-it.”

“I told him to take a flying fuck,” Gordon said. He put his arm around Tevin’s shoulder and pulled him close. “This man here is my real pop. Before he came along, I was heading down a bad road. Cuttin’ school more than I was going, playing around with the rock cocaine, hanging out with the local Crips and startin’ to think about joining up officially, not listening to my momma.”

“That’s for sure,” Ramona said, nodding her head.

“And then pop here showed me what it was like to really be a man,” Gordon said. “He kicked my ass for me when I needed it.”

“And you needed it a lot those first few years,” Tevin said with a grin.

“Shore did,” Ramona agreed.

“Yeah, I was gettin’ to be a thug all right,” Gordon said. “But he showed me that a man takes care of his family, that he works hard to do that, that he does what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Because of pop, I got away from the gangs and the drugs, graduated high school, developed my musical talent into something I could sell, and learned the work ethic to stick with it. Hell, I even went to college, if you can believe that shit. That’s why I call this man ‘pop’, Jake. He’s my dad and I’m proud to have him here with me.”

“Amen to that,” Ramona said.

“What kind of work did you do?” Jake asked him.

“Janitor up the hospital in Stanford,” Tevin said. “And I’m still doing it. Been pushin’ a broom and cleaning the floors and toilets there thirty-five years now. Course, they don’t like me callin’ myself a ‘janitor’. They want me to say I’m in ‘environmental services.’ Ain’t that some shit?”

“You’re still working there?” Jake asked, surprised.

“He’s still working there,” Gordon said sourly. “And mama’s still working at the grocery store on Donohoe Street. And they both still livin’ in that little two-bedroom house in East Palo Alto. The one with the chain link all around it and the goddamn crack house next door.”

“No kidding?” Jake asked.

“I’ve offered many times to set them up in a fuckin’ mansion on the hillside in Los Gatos or a bayfront pad in Burlingame and give them a bank account full of dead presidents and credit cards that they don’t have to pay on. They won’t take it.”

“It wouldn’t be right,” Ramona said. “We didn’t earn that money.”

“It ain’t right having the two of you living in the damn ghetto and workin’ forty hours a week at your ages while your boy is a goddamn multi-millionaire,” G countered.

“What would we do in Burlingame or Los Gatos?” Tevin asked. “We’re ghetto blacks. That’s where we lived all of our lives. Do we need a bunch of rich white people glarin’ at us every time we go out? Shee-it, it’s bad enough here at this place, watching people afraid to get into the elevator with us, sitting as far away from us as they can get in the dining room. I even had one woman lock all the doors on her car when I walked by in the parking lot.”

“Amen to that,” Ramona said. “We live in East Palo Alto. That’s our home.”

“You could at least let me pay off the mortgage and pay your bills for you,” Gordon said.

“Not gonna happen,” Tevin said, shaking his head. “Those are our bills and our mortgage. We only got another five years to pay on it. I’m proud that we’re paying that house off ourselves, with our own money that we earned honestly.”

“You got too much pride, pop,” Gordon told him.

“Could be,” Tevin said, nodding wisely. “But that’s better than not havin’ enough, ain’t it?”

Jake had to admit that the man had a point.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hall, Nerdly and Sharon were sitting at a table with Neesh’s parents, Bartholomew and Phuong Jefferson. Bart, as he insisted the Nerdlys call him, was a light skinned black man with short, slightly graying hair. Phuong was a tiny, petite pure-blooded Vietnamese woman who had been born under Japanese occupation in Saigon in 1944. Both of the Jefferson elders were doctors; Bart an anesthesiologist who practiced at Providence Saint John’s Hospital in Santa Monica; Phuong a doctor of veterinary medicine who was a partner in a successful practice that owned and operated three clinics in the Los Angeles area.

“You are an avian veterinary specialist?” asked Nerdly, who had just been told that Phuong’s clinics focused primarily on birds.

“That’s correct,” she said, her English clear and precise, without so much as a hint of accent. “I’ve always loved birds, ever since I was a little girl growing up in Saigon. It was caring for injured and sick birds that inspired me to study veterinary medicine when my family came to America after the French left. As it turns out, avian medicine is quite a lucrative specialty. It took me an additional two years of residency and study, but our clinics are one of only a handful in the Los Angeles area to treat all the pet birds that people have.” She soured a little. “Those that care enough about their birds to actually seek treatment for them, that is.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sharon.

“Most people who buy birds for pets do it on impulse and have no business owning them. They treat them like disposable pets, keep them locked in cages all the time and just want us to euthanize them the first time anything ever goes wrong with them. It’s sad, really. Breaks my heart sometimes because birds can be such wonderful companions if you let them be part of your family.”

“That makes sense,” Nerdly said. “They are flock animals, after all. It would seem intuitive that they would exhibit the best companionship traits if they felt as if they were part of a flock.”

“Exactly!” Phuong said brightly. “Have you owned birds before, Bill?”

“Never,” Nerdly said. “To tell you the truth, I’m quite afraid of them.”

“Don’t ever come over to our house then,” Bart advised. “We have three of them, all of them on the loose whenever we are home. Two cockatiels and a rather foul-mouthed parakeet.”

“Foul-mouthed?” Sharon asked.

“Yes,” Phuong said, casting an evil glare at her husband. “We’re not proliferate users of profanity by any means, but someone likes to let the occasional politically incorrect phrase fly out.”

“You do it too,” Bart said, smiling.

“In any case,” Phuong went on, “little Ding, that’s the parakeet’s name because he likes to ding a bell that hangs above his favorite perch, always seems to pick up those utterances quite well and then repeat them over and over.”

“Just like a baby,” Sharon said, delighted. “Kelvin will be doing that soon.”

“Yes,” Phuong agreed, “but with a baby, they eventually outgrow it, or you can at least get them to stop doing it. Ding is seven years old now and his vocabulary only grows with each outburst.”

“I’d love to meet him sometime,” Sharon said with a laugh.

“He sounds interesting,” said Bill. “But does he bite?”

“Yes,” Bart said without hesitation. “He bites.”

“Not that hard,” Phuong said. “And only when he’s upset.”

“I see,” said Bill, making a vow that he would never set foot in their house as long as those birds lived.

“So...” said Bart, “I understand that you, Bill, were the piano player for Mr. Kingsley back when he played for that rock band of his.”

“That is correct,” Bill said. “Jake and I have known each other all of our lives. Our mothers played in the Heritage Philharmonic together and are best friends. We grew up together and I was always drawn to the piano. When Jake joined Intemperance, he thought I might be a musically complementary addition to the base sound of the group, so I went and played for them. The rest is history.”

“I guess it worked out well for you,” Bart said, nodding. “You sound quite intelligent.”

“I have a tested intelligence quotient of one hundred and thirty-nine on the Wechsler scale,” Bill without so much as hint of pride. He was just stating a fact. “There are, of course, some who suggest that my abnormally high score is inflated to some degree due to my early childhood musical training, which some data suggests may artificially enhance such scores.”

“I see,” said Bart slowly. “I’ve never heard that before.”

“Where did you go to college?” asked Phuong.

“I was accepted to Stanford, Harvard, and the New England Conservatory of Music,” he said. “Alas, I did not actually attend any institute of higher learning. I started playing music with Intemperance shortly after high school and there has been no real need to pursue further studies.”

“Really?” Phuong said, her voice flirting with disbelief. “You’ve only a high school diploma?”

“It has gotten me this far in life,” Bill said. “Sharon, by contrast, is the holder of a master’s degree in Audio Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles.”

“Is that so?” Phuong asked, new respect showing in her eyes. “UCLA is our alma mater, both Bart and myself.”

“It’s a good school,” Sharon agreed. “I learned a lot there. Truth be told, however, I learned much more about my profession by working with Bill.”

“Really?” Bart said, raising his eyebrows a bit.

“Really,” Sharon said. “I have the education, but Bill is a musical genius with a superb ear for sound reproduction. He and I are the most sought-after sound engineering team in the United States right now. We could name our own price if we decided to hire ourselves out. I never would have accomplished that without him. I’d be lucky to be working on television commercials in some basement somewhere if it weren’t for Bill.”

“I think she underestimates herself a small amount,” Bill said.

“Really?” asked Phuong.

“Oh yes,” Bill said. “I think she would at least be working on second rate media fills by this point if I had not made her acquaintance.”

The Jeffersons laughed for a few seconds before realizing that Bill was not kidding.

“So ... anyway,” Sharon said, “you two met in college?”

“That’s right,” Phuong said. “We were undergrads together, both working on our biology degrees back in 1965. We took a lot of the same classes together—chemistry, bio-chem, organic chem, microbiology. Back then, there weren’t a lot of black people attending UCLA—at least not any who weren’t playing on the football or basketball teams. Nor were there a lot of Vietnamese—my family were among the very first able to come to this country before the war over there started to ramp up. Bart and I were both outsiders, as you can probably imagine, and we were drawn to each other. We used to study together in the library and then we started going out to lunch and dinner, and then ... well ... we became a couple.”

“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.

The two girls had been inseparable all throughout grammar school, junior high school, and high school, both graduating with honors in 1986. After that, they strayed from each other as Tally went back to Israel to reconnect with her father and complete her two years of service with the IDF. She spent the majority of her active military service riding a desk and never fired her weapon outside the training range. After discharge in early 1989, she returned to the United States and was accepted at UC Berkley, where she spent the next four years working on a bachelor’s degree in Computer Programming. After graduation, she began working on her master’s degree part-time while bouncing around through various entry-level programming positions in the Silicon Valley. Just a year ago she landed with a small start-up operation called Netscape and was finally making decent enough money in her chosen field. She and Neesh had kept in touch throughout all of this, talking on the phone frequently and, these days, embracing that new phenomenon known as email that was sweeping the nation. They tried to get together when they could, but usually this only meant once a year or so, maybe twice if they were lucky since both were still quite early in their respective careers. Tally’s flight in for the bachelorette party had been the first time the two of them had gotten together in eight months.

Apart from being mentally fascinated by Tally, Laura found herself physically fascinated by her as well. She was quite beautiful, as full-figured as Neesh but not as tall and not quite as well-endowed in the breast department, although her rack (as Jake would have termed it) was still considerably larger than Laura’s. Her skin was olive colored, her hair black, dark, and luxurious, her skin smooth and unblemished. Her body was tight and fit looking, though still quite feminine in appearance. And she had the cutest accent that Laura had ever heard. This fascination kicked up a few notches when Tally, who had told Laura earlier that she had a boyfriend back in Mountain View, made an allusion to an episode of ‘girl-time’ that had taken place during the bachelorette party.

“It was just like the good old days,” Tally said with a licentious smile.

“Maybe even a little better,” Neesh added, a grin of her own. “We’ve both had a little more practice at it since the last time we got together, haven’t we?”

Laura looked from one girl to the other, part of her wondering if they were really just talking about their friendship and not actually ... well... girl-time as Neesh defined it. Surely, they wouldn’t talk about it so blatantly in front of her, would they? Unless, of course, Tally already knew about the girl-time that she and Neesh had engaged in. But that was their secret! Neesh wouldn’t have told Tally about that, would she? Even though she was her best friend?

She would, Laura found out a moment later.

“So,” Tally said, casting her eyes upon Laura, the licentious look still on her face, “Neeshie tells me that you’re one to appreciate a little girl-time on occasion as well.”

Laura cast a startled look at Neesh, who at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed at her friend’s words. “Uh ... well...” she stammered, “if you mean getting together with the girls and ... you know ... going out and doing things ... uh ... yeah, I’m all for that.”

Tally giggled a little. She was, after all, on at least her third glass of white wine. “Doing things,” she said. “You’re right, Neeshie. She is so adorably cute.”

Laura cast her eyes back on the bride-to-be. “Neesh,” she hissed at her. “You didn’t tell her about ... about... that kind of girl-time, did you?”

“Uh ... I might’ve let it slip out,” Neesh admitted with a small giggle. She too was well into the wine.

“Neesh, that was private ... and personal!” Laura said.

“And fuckin’ hot too,” Tally said, licking her lips. “Doesn’t Neeshie have the softest, most suckable titties, Laura?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Laura said, blushing, indignant, angry enough to use a Jake-ism. But she was also starting to feel aroused—more aroused than she always was around Neesh.

“I’m sorry, Teach,” Neesh told her, actually sounding sincere. “I shouldn’t have told Tally about what you and I did, but Tally’s my best friend. We tell each other everything. Always have.”

“That’s right,” Tally said. “I know exactly how big Gordon’s cock is and that he has a bit of a foot fetish.”

“Tally!” Neesh barked. “That was privileged information. Forget she said that, Teach.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Laura said again.

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Neesh said. “Lots of girls are into girl-time. Trust me on this; I know.”

“I have no doubt that’s true,” Laura said, “but I’m Jake Kingsley’s wife. I have paparazzi who stalk me. I have entertainment reporters who dig into every detail of my life. Do you know what would happen if one of them found out that I’ve engaged in girl-time?”

“The same thing that would happen if they found out that I’ve done some girl-time,” Neesh said. “Remember, I’m Bigg G’s fiancé, will be his wife this time tomorrow. There are probably photographers and reporters watching this place right now.”

Laura had not considered that. She looked around nervously, suddenly wondering if one of the waitresses or cocktail girls was actually a reporter in disguise, or if someone had bribed one of the hosts to set up hidden cameras.

“Look, Laura,” said Tally, lowering her voice down. “Girl-time is between girls and it’s private; something that isn’t discussed unless one knows one is dealing with a like mind. I’m not going to tell anyone about you and Neeshie, or about me and Neeshie, or about anything else unless I know that person has as much to lose as I do. What happens between the girls stays between the girls. That’s the rule and neither one of us are going to break it. You think I want my bosses at Netscape to find out I like to suck a little clit on occasion? You think I want my advisor at school to find out? Or my boyfriend?”

“You just told me about G’s foot fetish,” Laura reminded her.

She dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “G’s not a girl,” she said. “That doesn’t count.”

“Uh ... it needs to count,” Neesh said sternly. “G would absolutely kill me if the entertainment press got wind of that.”

“I swear that Laura is the only one I’ve blurted that to,” Tally promised.

“Make sure she’s the last,” Neesh told her.

“You know it, Neeshie,” she promised. She then turned back to Laura. “Anyway, Teach ... can I call you Teach?”

“Sure,” Laura said.

“That’s such a cute nickname,” Tally said. “Anyway ... Neeshie and I have been having girl-time for years, with each other, with other like-minded girls, and we keep the secret. All of us. Girl-time is between the girls who do it and no one else gets to hear even a hint about it.”