“Not gonna catch me getting tied down like that. I just flit from flower to flower like a bee,” Alex said. He’d drunk more than his friends had. Jerry was glad he lived only a few blocks from the strip club.

Tim said, “Hey, you know the bees that do the flitting are females, don’t you? Sterile females, too.”

“What? No way!” Alex looked comically dismayed. He turned to Jerry. “Tell him he’s full of it, man.”

“Sorry. He’s right. Worker bees are females, and they can’t lay eggs.”

“Well, shit. See if I’m gonna make like a bee, then,” Alex said.

“But you’re already buzzed,” Jerry observed, and from then on the night of the bachelor party became The Night Alex Got Buzzed.

Jerry rented a ruffled shirt and a tux. Luckily for him, the black tie that came with the outfit had clips to hold it in place. He could deal with an ordinary necktie, but he’d never tied a bow tie in his life. He discovered the best way to put on a cummerbund was to fasten it in front and then turn it around. Women did that with bras all the time, but men didn’t have to worry about it much.

The wedding went off fine. Everybody who’d stand at the front showed up at the temple hideously early so the photographer could do his thing. Charlie McGowan, Anna’s father, looked less at home in a yarmulke than Tim Ishihara did. He tried his best to be gracious, though. “I hope you kids are as happy as me and Sally,” he said.

“Thanks, Mister McGowan,” Jerry said. He didn’t like the way Anna’s folks shouted at each other, but this seemed the wrong time and place to point that out.

Rabbi Burstein did indeed look like some close relative of the Creator’s. He ran things as if he’d done a million weddings, which of course he had. When Tim put the cloth-covered glass representing the Temple on the platform upside down in front of Jerry, the rabbi unobtrusively knocked it sidewise so Jerry could be sure of breaking it when he stomped it.

After the reception, the new Mr. and Mrs. Stieglitz drove to the Hilton near the airport. They’d leave for Hawaii the next morning. Meanwhile …

Anna let out a little squeal when Jerry picked her up and carried her into the room. A dozen roses in a vase on the nightstand and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket near the bed awaited them. Jerry read the card by the flowers. “Tim did it,” he said.

“That was sweet!” Anna exclaimed. “Shall we drink some?”

“What are you talking about, some?” Jerry paused. “Well, maybe some at first. Can’t get too smashed to make things official.”

“I don’t know what you could mean,” Anna said.