There are two more uplifting songs to help end the judgment and hypocrisy on a positive note. Baskets make their way around during the music, and I could easily slip a few hundred dollars out as I pass them along. I don’t need the money, but I love a good thrill. I mentally slap my sticky fingers and smile benignly at my neighbor as I hand over the basket. Patience is a virtue.
When the service ends, the place erupts into a low roar of conversation as parishioners stand and make their way to friends. Steven is in a scrum of people near the lectern, shaking hands and slapping backs. He’s a minor celebrity here. Son of the chief. He catches my eye and waves. I wave frantically back, thrilled that he’s bothered to notice me. He doesn’t call me over, so I hang back and try to look uncertain about all these strangers.
His father is in an even larger group of worshippers, but I notice that the woman I’ve pegged as Steven’s stepmother is only talking to a few women. I move closer.
She has a lot of makeup on, but I try to look past it to the woman beneath. Steven’s father looks about sixty, but his wife looks younger than forty. No big surprise, as I already know it’s a second marriage.
The women begin to drift off and I make my move. Keeping my hands clasped uncertainly together, I sidle over. “Hi! I’m Jane. I work with Steven.”
“Hello. I’m Rhonda Hepsworth.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hepsworth. Steven invited me to attend the service, since I’m new in town. It was lovely.”
“Oh, thank you so much!” The bright words and big smile don’t match the coolness in her eyes.
“You must be so proud of this church,” I say. “Your husband is a great man.”
Her stiff smile doesn’t budge. “Thank you.”
“And your stepchildren. Well, I only know Steven, but I’ve heard all about his brother and sister.”
She clears her throat, and I wonder if she’s uncomfortable with the stepmother title. She’s only a few years older than Steven, after all.
After glancing around as if she’d like to escape, she clears her throat again. “Are you . . . ah, are you and Steven dating?”
I drop my head in embarrassment. “I wouldn’t say that. We’re just friends.”
“Well, it was really sweet of you to come to the service. I’d better go check on—”
She’s cut off when Steven approaches. “Jane! Hi!”
“Hi!”
He looks from me to Rhonda but doesn’t introduce us. “What do you think of the church?”
“It’s beautiful! And everyone’s been so nice.”
“I was just saying I’d better go . . .” Rhonda lifts both hands to show that she’s helpless. “But it was lovely meeting you, Jane.”
Once she’s out of earshot, I turn to Steven. “She’s really nice.”
He shrugs.
“What? You don’t like her? She seems like such a great lady.”
“Yeah. Yeah, she’s great.” That’s all he says. His lips twist a little. Boy, am I intrigued. Does he think she’s a gold digger? A social climber? I hope I’ll see her interact with her husband, so I can figure out these dynamics.
“Steven!” the pastor booms from behind us. We both swing around and Steven greets his father warmly, hugging him with a few loud claps on the back as if they haven’t seen each other in weeks.
“Great sermon, Dad.” A little father-son bonding over the failings of women. Touching.
The pastor’s eyes slide to me and widen with curiosity.
“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?”