Drowning Barbie by Frederick Ramsay Read Free Book Online Page B

he could have.”
    â€œIf he’d asked you to put on a mock graduation ceremony and award him an honorary degree to help him be elected bishop, would you have done it?”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous. Honorary doctorates are earned by a lifetime of scholarship or…Oh, crap. I get it. Okay, now what do we do?”
    â€œWe have two choices. We can try other churches—Rabbi Shusterman will give us the same lecture, by the way—or we can cowboy up, tell the truth, and throw the town a party.”
    â€œCowboy up?”
    â€œOkay, cowgirl up, bite the bullet, face the music, be the man—”
    â€œI get it. Right. This weekend, we will go up to the A-frame and start writing guest lists. Call your dad and ask if he can delay lunch an hour or so. Sunday, we’ll drive back here at noon, pick up my mother, cow-person up, and bite the music.”
    â€œNicely put. How about some lunch?”
    â€œAs long as you really mean lunch and are not angling for something more physical. I have work to do. The board meets this afternoon and my spies tell me one or two of them have issues.”
    â€œIssues? What kind of issues? And I did mean lunch as in eating food and drinking liquids.”
    â€œGood, find us a place where we can sit, bitch about the sanctimoniousness of The Reverend Fisher, repent of it, eat a sandwich or a salad, and discuss the board’s issues.”
    â€œI know just the place.”
    ***
    Blake Fisher, the object of Ike and Ruth’s annoyance, did not think of himself as particularly sanctimonious nor did he believe he could be fairly described as either rigid or unsympathetic. But he had lately begun to resent and then react to the increasing secularization of society in general and the church in particular. It was one thing to minimize the forms of worship as “seeker churches” did in order to help younger people find a comfortable, if shallow, spirituality. You had to start them off somewhere. But, it was another thing entirely to jettison the substance with the forms in order to be politically correct or make people comfortable in their disbelief. Add to that, this business that Ike and Ruth wanted. Why do people who have no religious grounding or interest think they need a church wedding? Every May he turned away at least four couples who asked to “rent his church.” He really did like Ike and Ruth, respected their position, and he wished them well, but if he bent the rules for them, he’d have to do it for everyone and he did not want to be known as the “Marrying Sam” of the Shenandoah Valley.
    His thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on his door. His secretary poked her head in and said there was a young woman waiting in the church who wanted to speak to him.
    â€œIn the church? Why there and not in the office?”
    â€œShe didn’t say. Shall I call someone…ask the sheriff to come back?”
    â€œAsk the— Why would I need the sheriff?”
    â€œShe looks sort of scruffy. I think she’s a homeless person here to hit you up for money. You know how those people are.”
    â€œNo, Dolores, I don’t know anything of the sort.”
    Dolores Manfred was a temp. Happily so. A church needed a secretary who shared at least some basic Christian qualities, and bigotry wasn’t one of them.
    â€œI’ll talk to her. If she tries to attack me, you’ll be the first to hear me scream.”
    Dolores huffed back to her office.
    Blake’s office gave way to a small room that served as the sacristy and then to the church nave. He stepped through the oak door and glanced around. A figure in a faded hoodie sat slumped over in the front pew. She was only twenty feet away and the hood nearly covered her face, but Blake could see she’d been crying.
    â€œMrs. Manfred said you wanted to see me?”
    The girl started. Blake would have sworn she’d cringed at the sound of his