Drives Like a Dream (7 page)

Everyone in the church now turned to watch Ellen and Casper walk arm in arm down the aisle. She wore a simple white A-line dress with cap sleeves and pearl beading around the neckline. With her fingertip-length veil she looked like another showcase for the relentless bridal juggernaut. At the end of the aisle, Casper kissed his daughter lightly on the cheek and, grabbing the side of the front pew, made his way toward his seat. Cy stepped forward, his clean-shaven face a bloom of scarlet, to claim his bride.

By high school, when most of Jessica's friends' parents were divorced, she would feel a thrill whenever she saw Cy and Lydia sitting together in the stands at her basketball games. Her family did not live in a large house. She and her brothers did not have their own cars. And unlike most families in Jessica's comfortable neighborhood, the Modines were coupon clippers, solidly middle class. But her parents did have a long marriage, and for Jessica, seeing them together, even in their formal, perfunctory way, had made up for other absences. Had they divorced years earlier, she might not have completely re-covered, but now she felt it was too late to raise a protest, when she was supposed to be, at twenty-seven, all grown up.

A choirboy sang "O Perfect Love, All Human Thought Transcending." Gisele followed with a Rilke poem with the words "You, Beloved, who are all / the gardens I have ever gazed at." But instead of celebrating conjugal joy, the poem seemed more about an ethereal kind of love that was always out of reach. Reverend MacPherson followed Gisele's reading with a twenty-minute sermon about Cy and Ellen's commitment to the Kirk in the Hills, a place that before this weekend Jessica had never heard her father mention.

"I confess I did not know the bride and groom well when they began planning this wedding, but in a short time they have made themselves active members of our church community" He was a young minister, probably in his late thirties, with prematurely gray hair and small, accidentally hip glasses, over the top of which he would survey the congregation. In his sermon he attempted to explain the apostle Paul's unraveling of the "great mystery" of marriage:

"If the church is Christ's body and by faith a person is joined to Christ, thus a person becomes one with all believers. Christ is the husband and the church is the bride and conversion is an act of betrothal. Perhaps you're asking yourselves, 'Why wouldn't Christ be jealous of a new husband coming to take his bride?'" The young minister paused and looked up from the pulpit. "Ah, but jealousy is not a factor here, because God created human marriage out of the pattern of Christ's relation to the church, not the other way around." He smiled, as if pleased with himself for solving a riddle. "Husband and wife become one flesh just as Christ and the church become one body."

Jessica's thoughts swam in this eddy of language, as she remembered why she had avoided Christianity all these years.

"Cy and Ellen are one flesh in the church, married together and to Christ. The dedication they have shown to our mission here at the Kirk in the Hills augurs well, indeed, for the devotion they will have to each other from this day forward."

When Reverend MacPherson's oration came to its end, an acolyte brought out a stool and a guitar. To Jessica's surprise, Cy sat on the stool, ducked under the guitar strap, and began to play. This performance had not been discussed at the rehearsal, nor was it in the program, and the look on Ellen's face—a blend of fear, disapproval, and practiced good sportsmanship—suggested that Cy had put up a real fight for his moment onstage. Now he was singing:

Round and round the world I go,
the more I see the more I know.
You'll be traveling by my side,
come on, let's take the ride.

When I weary and times get tough,
you'll be seeing me through the rough.
We'll travel by each other's side,
come along, let's take the ride.

Jessica refused to catch her brothers' reaction, and focused instead on a little boy in the second row who made a face as if he'd tasted something sour. Cy played the guitar better than Jessica had expected, though the song required only three chords and a rudimentary strumming pattern. Her father had a decent voice, but he sang about two octaves higher than his natural baritone.

When the ordeal was finally over and Cy returned to his place for the ring ceremony, Jessica braved a glance at Ivan. Any thoughts of Gisele seemed to have drained from his face, leaving him pale.

Reverend MacPherson took his place between the bride and groom and an elaborate ring ceremony followed, with more prayers, off-the-cuff sermonizing, and the lighting of a unity candle. Jessica fast-forwarded to the moment when the wedding guests would leave the church and the acolyte would blow out that candle. What good was a symbol, she thought, when it was no more permanent than an inch of wax?

"You may now kiss the bride," Reverend MacPherson announced triumphantly, and Cy smushed his lips with Ellen's—a nervous kiss that had about it a slight tinge of embarrassment.

Soon the organist was playing "Let There Be Love Shared Among Us," and Cy and Ellen were walking up the aisle, joined in holy matrimony.

***

Once outside, Jessica squinted in the bright sunshine. The bride and groom were down by the lake, talking to the wedding photographer. Ivan and Davy stood at the bottom of the church steps bending their legs.

"Good Lord," Davy said. "Could that have been any longer?"

"So, what's next?" Jessica asked. "Now that the tribe of Spivey-Modine has been officially launched."

"Pictures," Ivan muttered. "Then you're on Casper and M.J. detail. As for me, I've got to polish up my speech."

"Be nice." Jessica squeezed his shoulder.

Gisele, who walked arm in arm with Casper Spivey, joined them while M.J. trailed behind looking beleaguered.

"Excuse me for a second." Davy pulled a cell phone out of his jacket. "I should probably call Teresa. But don't let them do photos without me."

"So what did you kids think?" Casper asked, as Davy walked off.

"I think it's a good day to break my five o'clock rule." M.J. checked her watch. "A two o'clock Scotch would go down nicely today. Fortunately—" She gestured toward Casper. "I've got my designated driver."

Casper and Jessica laughed.

"Don't you worry about that," Gisele said, sounding patronizing. "We've arranged some drivers for you."

"Oh, thank you, dearest," M.J. replied, and winked at Jessica.

Reverend MacPherson came up to them then, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief, and shook each person's hand. "So happy you could come," he said, with his air of pleasant all-knowingness.

"Can I borrow you two for a moment?" He turned to Ivan and Gisele. "Excuse us, please."

"That minister is a horse's ass, but God bless him." M.J. started toward the lakeside, where people were gathering for pictures. She steered Casper in front of her. "What is it about the clergy, the police, and anyone who wears a uniform? You can't trust their motives."

Jessica followed along. "So, I've been wondering. I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but you don't seem especially thrilled about the wedding."

M.J. stopped and turned so she could look Jessica in the eye. "I admire your asking. But I'm sworn to secrecy, dear." She kissed Jessica on each cheek. "You'll understand sooner than you'd wish why a mother might have mixed feelings on a day like this."

A
N OVERPOWERING SMELL
of rubber and engine oil floated over from Uncle Ed's garage as Lydia stepped out of the Escort. She slammed the door shut, trying to assure herself that the car was fixable. Her focus had always been on the history of automobiles, not the intricacies of their engines.

She walked into the first open bay of the garage, and a crew of mechanics looked up, surprised. Over the loud
tock-tock
of an oil gun counting its measure, she explained how the wheel had tightened up, how the gauge had fallen so quickly.

"Sounds like an alternator problem," offered one guy in a shirt with cut-off sleeves. A toothpick moved in his mouth as he talked.

"Nah, it's the battery," shouted another.

Soon the whole team came outside to look under the hood of the Escort, each giving the engine a cursory once over.

"It may seem like the battery, but that's what happens when the alternator's shot," said the one with the toothpick.

"I'll give you four hundred dollars for it," came a voice from the pit. "The repairs on that thing will be more than it's worth."

The manager had come out to take a look, too. He was someone who looked older than his years, Lydia guessed. His face was leathery, his hair smoothed back. He closed the Escort's hood and said, "Saturdays get busy around here. Not much we can do today. But feel free to use the phone."

In his office, he flipped through the yellow pages and slid his blackened fingers down to the listing of a nearby towing service. "This guy's the quickest in town—your only bet, really, if you want to get that thing on the road today." He left Lydia in the office and went back to the garage.

She began to sit down on a padded stool, but when she put her hand on the chair, her fingers came up smeared with grease. No paper towels or tissue in sight; the whole place teemed with dirt. Frustrated, she wiped her fingers on her gray skirt, leaving two black lines on her hip, like mini tire tracks angling off.

"Of course," Lydia said to herself, as an answering machine picked up at the towing service. She left her name and the number at Uncle Ed's, displayed in large brown type on a sign in front of her. She turned back to the phone book and began calling other towing services. No one had a truck available. The estimated wait was several hours. It was turning out to be, quite possibly, the longest day of her life.

She went outside and leaned against the Escort. The heat of the asphalt mingled with the warm breeze of cars rushing by on Washtenaw Avenue. The digital clock at the Comerica across the street read 1:55. Nearly an hour into the wedding.

There in front of her, almost beckoning across the four-lane road, was an Arby's. She hadn't eaten fast food in years, but on this day she suddenly craved it. She opened the front door of the car, slid her laptop under the passenger seat, and locked up. Then she hurried across Washtenaw, holding up the hem of her skirt.

Once inside, she ordered a large roast beef sandwich, curly fries, and, though it was the last thing she needed right now, a large cup of coffee.

"Do you want the horsey sauce or the Arby's sauce with that?" the pixyish woman behind the counter asked.

"What do you mean 'horsey' sauce?" Lydia pulled a five-dollar bill from her wallet.

"It's like horseradish, ma'am."

"Fine," Lydia said. "I'll have that." And before long she was sitting at a table by the front window, a paper napkin spread out on her lap. She ate some French fries and took a big bite of her roast beef sandwich. In front of the restaurant a cartoonish Arby's cowboy hat stood two stories tall, outlined with lights.

She looked down at her lunch. Her eyes welled up and the tears came. Maybe she
was
a pathetic, lonely person. Maybe Jessica was right: Lydia expected too much of her family; her hopes were absurdly unrealistic. How else to explain how thirty-three years of marriage had ended here, with her eating a sandwich, soggy with horsey sauce, while her children were celebrating their father's new life.

Pull it together,
she thought to herself. She patted her eyes with the stiff napkins and got up to toss out the leftovers. In the bathroom, she splashed cold water on her face, then soaped a paper towel to clean the grease tracks off her skirt. But the stains smeared, of course—the skirt was probably ruined.

Davy had given her his cell phone number this morning, and though she'd promised herself she wouldn't use it, this did qualify as an emergency. She dug in her purse and found the slip of paper. She figured the service would have to be over by now. At the Arby's pay phone, Lydia took a deep breath and dialed.

Davy answered on one ring, his voice cross. "What?"

"There's been a problem," Lydia began.

"Oh, Mom. I'm sorry. I was expecting Teresa. She's been driving me nuts."

"Where are you, honey?"

"You don't want to know," he said. "I'm driving Dad's car to a place in Birmingham called the Casual Cactus. The wedding was interminable, and Dad played a ridiculous song on the guitar."

"He plays guitar?"

"Apparently. And before the reception is over I'm sure he'll wrangle me in for a jam session."

"Where's Jess?"

He hesitated. "Oh, she's in another car. Listen, Mom, how about I call you back? I shouldn't be driving and talking on the cell."

"Actually, I better call you—in about fifteen minutes?"

"Fine," Davy said. "Talk soon."

When Lydia returned to Uncle Ed's, the manager told her that the towing service had called and the guy was available if she buzzed him back within the next fifteen minutes. Lydia thanked him and said she just needed to get something from the glove compartment before calling.

Sitting in the driver's seat of her broken-down Escort, she allowed the minutes to tick by. She wouldn't call the towing service, not until after she had spoken with Davy, she decided. He could save her a lot of money that way. But when Lydia went back to the garage and dialed Davy's cell phone, she got his voice mail. She tried several more times before he finally picked up.

"Hey, Mom. We're just walking in to the reception now. What's going on?" He raised his voice over the noise of a crowd.

This time Lydia did not delay. "My car broke down."

"Jesus. Where are you?"

"Ann Arbor."

"Ann Arbor? What are you doing there?"

"It's a long story." She caught herself. "Research."

"Who is it?" Lydia overheard Jessica asking.

"It's Mom," Davy said, and then Jessica was on the line.

"What's the problem?"

"The car died."

There was a pause, just the din of the party in the background. Then, "Surprise, surprise. How perfect, Mother. What impeccable timing."