Jan looked at Jim with a mixture of hurt and anger. She crinkled her eyes a bit, and the rest of her face went blank as she processed it all in. He gulped and tried to take a deep breath but his heart was pounding too fast to take in the air.
Finally, after what felt like minutes, Jan wiped a tear from her eye and weakly smiled. “Why, Jim, I didn’t know you felt that way.” Like clouds lifting after a rainstorm, her face lit up. “I mean, I always kind of suspected, but….”
The blood returned to Jim’s face and he felt like he had just escaped something, like when he ditched Bible Studies to drink beer at Bobby Joe’s house to watch football and managed to convince his parents that he was there to have a private study session. Lady Luck was once again wrapping him in her arms and covering him like a blanket. “So, you forgive me?
Jan’s eyes widened further. “Well, Jesus commands that we must forgive others and as I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I am commanded to forgive you.” As she said it, her face turned from happiness to what Jim could only discern as lust, or as lustful as somebody with a double (triple?) chin and a wide, fleshy, moon-shaped face could look. Jim hoped it wasn’t him that brought out that look but the Waffle House in the distance.
“You know, Jim,” she said with a tone of mischievousness this time, “I always felt the same way about you. Sometimes, late at night, I’d picture us together, and, may the Good Lord forgive me for the thoughts that passed through my mind and for what I did while thinking about it.”
Jim turned bright red. Like beet red. Like the kind of red you get when you choke on a corn dog and somebody has to do a Heimlich maneuver. He had to quickly figure out a way around this, something made even more difficult by the images just placed in his head and the ensuing nausea building from the pit of his stomach. Why does he always have to lie like this? In fact, why did he do any of those things he knew he wasn’t supposed to do. It was like the more he tried to not do it, the more determined he was in doing it. Like all those times he vowed he wasn’t going to visit those kind of porn sites on the web and then ten minutes later, he’d plunk down some more money on his credit card for “HotLesbianSchoolGirlsInWhippingCream.com” or that special online video of Penthouse Pets playing naked touch football. Well, W. says we must stay the course and not cut-and-run and if it’s good enough for Dubya, it’s good enough for Jim. He ain’t no cut-and-runner.
“Oh Jan, you know I’m crazy about you. And like you, at night, while in bed with my wife, I…” and here he trailed off as he couldn’t go any further and his thoughts frantically ran through what little Bible versus he could think of in his brain for just the right passage to say (praying every night was another thing he lied about, except the night before an LSU football game). “Doesn’t it say in Corinithians 5:32 that we must honor the family above all? In fact, doesn’t the Bible tell us that that even lusting after someone in your heart is adultery?”
Jim made yet another silent prayer to the God he had once again forsaken that he came even a little bit close to the correct passage. Or a passage whatsoever.
“Oh, Jim, I couldn’t do that….” said Jan as tears once again started streaming down her face. Damn, Jim thought, that woman sure does cry a lot. She even cries on Doughnut Friday’s. He quickly looked around to see if anybody he knew could possibly be watching and gave her a quick hug in sympathy, trying as hard as possible not to give her any chance of wrapping her huge body around him in return.
“But…you know…” he started meekly “we have to keep this secret. Nobody can know of our love. Not our coworkers. And not my family. Why, it would ruin me. It would ruin us. This will always have to be our thing, a love that will never be. Like that song “I Love You In Your Cowboy Boots But I Ain’t No Cowboy.”
A pause. For Jim, the world stopped at that moment, like in all of those TV shows where the background froze and the only thing that moved were the main characters. Jan looked down at the ground for a second as she started crying again. Finally, she looked at him, straight in the eye. “Why, of course, Jim. I promise. I swear to Jesus Christ himself that I will never tell a soul. For the sake of your children and our souls.”
And with that, she gave him a quick hug. Jim let out a breath of air and vowed yet again to never do something like this again.
As she was leaving, Jan turned around. “One more thing, Jim.”
“Yes…”
“When I get home, the first thing I’m going to do is call your wife.”
Jim’s jaw dropped and he couldn’t take a breath. “But why?” he croaked.
“‘Cause I’m a member of the Liars Club too”
And with that, she went into the Cinnabon, laughing as she went.
