Jane Doe(21)

“Dad, this is Jane. We work together. I brought her to check out the church today.”

“Pastor Robert Hepsworth.” He shakes my hand gently and doesn’t ask me to call him Bob. “A pleasure to meet you, Jane.”

“It was a lovely service. Thank you. And it’s such a beautiful church. Everyone is so nice.”

“We started this church when Steven was only six. It was just a little storefront back then. The Lord has blessed us.”

“He truly has,” I gush; then I pull out a prosperity gospel quote for him. “‘Whatever you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive.’”

He lights up. “Oh my, yes. Yes indeed. A very impressive coworker, Steven. Impressive and pretty.”

Even Steven looks surprised that I know my Bible, but his eyes dart up and down my body at his father’s compliment.

I bite my lip and look down. Of course I know my Bible. I grew up in rural Oklahoma and I had to blend in.

“So are you two going out for lunch after this?”

Steven chuckles. “I haven’t asked her yet. You’re stepping on my toes, Dad.”

“She’s a nice churchgoing girl. You can’t take that for granted these days.”

Steven sighs and smiles sheepishly at me.

Pastor Hepsworth slaps his son’s back. “Well, I’m happy to see you make such a pretty new friend. Especially after all that unpleasantness.”

I glance quickly down because I can feel my eyes flash with hatred at his words. Unpleasantness. He’s talking about Meg. Dead Meg. As if she were an unfortunate bout of diarrhea that passed through the family during a road trip.

I’m suddenly filled with the joyful idea of killing Steven’s father as a way to take revenge. Kill him for so callously sweeping Meg and her pain aside. Kill him for being so self-righteous about it.

I could trick Pastor Hepsworth into going to a motel room. Bring condoms and blow. Shoot him up with enough drugs to kill him. Scatter a few sex toys. Then Steven can live with that for the rest of his life.

The fantasy is enough to relax my expression. I glance up at Steven with a question in my eyes, pretending I’m not sure what his dad means by unpleasantness. He shakes his head a little.

“You know, Jane,” the pastor continues, “we’re having a small birthday party for my wife next week. Maybe you’d like to drop by?”

“Dad!” Steven scolds, but he’s laughing again. He adores this man.

“I’m just putting it out there!”

“You’re very kind to offer, Pastor Hepsworth,” I say. “But I’m sure Steven wants his family all to himself. I wouldn’t want to intrude on such an important event.”

“We’ll see,” Steven says with a wink. I guess I’d better be on my best behavior until the party if I want an invitation from Steven. “I need to drive Jane home, but I’ll be back for afternoon Bible study.”

I should ask to stay. I really don’t want to, but I open my mouth and try to force myself to volunteer. “Oh, I wouldn’t mind—”

“It’s a men’s group,” he clarifies. “We thought a dedicated time to focus on men’s spiritual needs would really strengthen our families.”

Ah. Thank God for the scourge of internet porn. I’ll escape Bible study this time.

“Can you hold down the fort without me?” Steven asks his dad, and then they slap each other’s backs again in parting.





CHAPTER 15

There are very few people left in the church by the time we leave, but Steven bids farewell to every straggler we pass. They call him Deacon Hepsworth and seem honored when he knows their names. He loves it.

“Are you hungry?” he asks as we walk across the parking lot toward his car.

“A little, but I’m trying to lose weight, so . . . maybe just coffee?”

He doesn’t argue. “Sure. There’s a Starbucks down the street.”

“Perfect.”

Once we’re pulling out of the parking lot, Steven reaches for my hand. “My dad really liked you.”

“I was so nervous!”

“You were great.”

“That’s really sweet, Steven. Thank you. I just didn’t want to embarrass you. Do you . . . do you bring a lot of girls to church?”

“Only if I’m thinking about dating them. I wouldn’t want to start something with a woman who couldn’t fit into my life.”

“So . . .” I glance at him and then quickly away. “We’re dating?”

His fingers squeeze mine. “Are you leaving it up to me?”

I smile and shrug. In the first years of our friendship, I was fascinated by the way Meg interacted with men. She always made herself smaller, and they always loved it. At first I admired it as manipulation, but I later realized that once she’d established herself as small, she couldn’t make herself bigger again.

With me she was larger-than-life and bursting with goodness. I never understood this other side of her. She would shrug and say she felt shy with men she liked, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t shyness. It was fading. She dimmed her light to make a certain kind of man feel vibrant.

And it worked.

Steven brings my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “If it’s up to me, I’d love to try. Maybe we could have dinner again?”