Drives Like a Dream by Porter Shreve Read Free Book Online Page B

dad's not big on religion."
    "Neither are we." Casper stretched his right leg behind him, then the left, bouncing slightly. "So what are we doing at this church, I'd like to ask?"
    "My husband is spectacularly out of it," M.J. said. "We are at this church because your father and our daughter have had a recent rebirth. This is something couples like to do to erase any evidence of a former life. Ellen is celebrating her Scottish heritage—Casper is, after all, about an eighth Scottish." She turned toward Jessica and Davy. "As for your dad, I don't know. But God bless them both, I say. Live and let live—that's the Spivey credo."
    Davy gave Jessica a quick glance. "Well, it's quite a place," he said, as they made their way toward the imposing Gothic church. It had spires and gabled arches, elaborate traceries and stained glass windows, with gargoyles looking down along the parapets. "I'd say it was built in the thirteenth century if it weren't so new and set beside a man-made lake in Bloomfield Hills."
    "Kinda freaky," Jessica said. She'd decided to put a good face on the day, but she did wonder about her father's recent turn toward organized religion. When they were young he'd made a few overtures, insisting on a Sunday service or two beyond the usual obligations of Easter and Christmas, but his devotion never lasted long. She couldn't help feeling it was a shame on such a cloudless day to celebrate a marriage inside this old-fashioned, somber-looking place.
    "I know where we are." M.J. stopped at a plaque on the outside wall. "This is Colonel George's house of worship. Edwin George. He's the lawnmower man."
    "Where would we be without him?" Casper ran his hand along the limestone façade as they approached the partly opened red doors that led to the sanctuary.
    "Up to our ears in grass," M.J. said. "Covered in crickets and beetles, that's where. Pay your respects, my dears. The man who invented the lawnmower also bankrolled this church."
    Ivan appeared at the sanctuary doors and stepped into the sunshine. "So what connection can we make between this wedding and lawnmowers? I think it means that the grass is always greener on the other side of the highway."
    "Ivan," Jessica scolded.
    He turned to the Spiveys. "May I take you in?"
    "With pleasure." M.J. grabbed his arm and they walked into the entryway.
    When he returned from escorting them to the room where Ellen waited with her bridesmaids, Jessica pinched his arm. "Try not to be an ass today," she whispered.
    "Yeah, go easy on those two," Davy said. "Looks like they don't want to be here any more than we do."
    Ivan fiddled with a pocket watch. "See my best man's gift?" He held it out. "Pretty useful, huh?"
    "Let's try to get through this without a scene," Jessica said. "As for me, I'm taking a deep breath." She inhaled the scent of roses on the trellis around the church door. "Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat after me. All dharmas are contained in this mantra:
Om Mani Padme Hum.
"
    "Oh, lordy," Ivan said.
    "The mantra of the Beloved Chenresig radiates the whole Universe!" She raised her hands to the sky, drawing the gaze of a pack of widowers who were making their way up from the parking lot.
    Her mantra was a private mockery of her ex-boyfriend, Blane, known in the family as the ersatz Buddhist. Jessica had gone to Oregon in the first place because of him. How else to explain getting picked up by a stranger at the Royal Oak Starbucks, then two weeks later following him clear across the country? "It's not like you to hitch up with a spiritualist playboy," Lydia had said, in one of their touchier phone calls. "We're not in the sixties anymore. You shouldn't put a lot of faith in someone who lives out of his van." Jessica had slammed down the phone that time, but eight months later, she found herself stuck with a lease and a rowdy German shepherd/collie mix when Blane was called away to a monastery in southern New Mexico:
The water is all wrong, baby. I need to go to