Equal Access (14 page)

Shad was convinced God had a wicked sense of
humor.

His plan to linger involved missing most of
the morning traffic, so it was actually ten minutes after eight
o’clock when Shad stepped through the door of his office into the
reception room. Francine looked up from typing at her computer.

“Flat tire or dead starter?” She asked.

Shad realized Francine was referring to the
only other two times he had arrived after his coworkers, and he had
been late by a much wider margin than this morning.

“Preoccupied driver,” Shad replied.

“I was wondering at what point do I start
worrying about you.” Francine regarded him with a slight frown.
“You didn’t call, so I was starting to think you had a bad
encounter with a deer or a semi.”

“I’m sorry, but I knew I wasn’t gonna be
that
late.”

“Do you know how much insurance paperwork
I’ll have to fill out if you get crunched?”

Shad smiled a little. “It’s nice to know you
missed me.”

“I’m not the only one. You’ve already
received two calls this morning.” Francine glanced down at her
desk.

Shad’s stomach did a couple of rollovers. Did
Wally call here wanting to discover what Shad’s plans were?

“Who are they from?” He asked casually as
Shad stepped closer to her desk.

Francine picked up a couple of message slips.
“One is from a gentleman wanting to discuss lease termination. The
other is from Monica Simms.” Francine’s gaze switched to Shad’s
face. “She says it’s urgent.”

Shad was relieved it wasn’t Wally, but also
disappointed that he was stuck with expecting a call from the man.
Since his home and cellular telephone numbers were unlisted, Shad
knew Wally would be able to reach him only at the office. He
thanked Francine and took the slips into his own work area. Shad
set up his laptop computer, turned it on, and dialed Monica’s
number on his office telephone.

He knew it was probably too early in the
morning for Vic to be there and answer the phone, so Monica was the
one who picked up.

“It’s Charissa,” she replied to Shad’s
inquiry. “You said, and she said, that you wanted to listen to her
whenever she wanted to talk. Well, yesterday after our meeting with
the psychologist, when she was going to bed, she said she wanted to
tell you something.”

“Do you know exactly what about?”

“It’s the darndest thing. She absolutely
refuses to tell me.”

“Will she talk to me on the phone?”

“I’ve already asked her. She said she doesn’t
want me to hear, so no, not on the phone.”

As Shad began pulling up his schedule on the
computer he tried to analyze Charissa’s change in behavior. Was it
a change in strategy?

A definite side effect of being away from the
office for a day was the pileup of work which would always greet
him upon Shad’s return. He also had a court appearance this
afternoon. “I’ve got too much going on today to see her this
morning or afternoon. I suppose if I must, I could come out this
evening.”

Monica didn’t respond for a couple of
seconds. “Lawyers will make house calls?”

“This one does.”

“Well, it’s just that tonight we’d promised
Charissa to take her out to the movies.”

“Don’t break your promise.” Shad pulled up
his schedule for Friday. He knew there would be spillover from
today, which made tomorrow’s itinerary chaotic but doable. His
difficulty was determining when to make time for Charissa.

“I should be able to fit you in tomorrow, but
I’m probably gonna have to grab the first opportunity that pops up,
and I don’t know when that’ll be. I think it would be easiest if I
just make that house call when the chance comes up. I’ll give you a
call when I can head out.”

“That works for me.”

After he hung up the phone, Shad proceeded to
plunge into his work, but the matter about Wally kept infringing on
his thoughts, making Shad almost cringe every time the phone rang.
He was actually glad for the court appearance that helped Shad to
stay focused on matters at hand, but that only lasted for a couple
of hours. When he returned to the office the work load didn’t seem
any lighter, and it was five-thirty before he was able to start
wrapping things up. Then his cell phone rang.

Since the office called him on that line only
when he was out of the building, Shad knew it had to be someone in
the family calling him. When Shad answered it he was pleased to see
that it was Dulsie calling him from their home phone.

“Hiya, toots.” Shad began shutting down his
laptop.

“Hi, Hon. Have you left your office yet?”

“Just getting ready to.”

“Perfect. I need you to run by the store and
get three avocados.”

Shad’s heart sank slightly because he wasn’t
thrilled by the prospect of going into the grocery store. It was a
small sacrifice to help Dulsie, however, besides the fact such an
action would be beneficial to Shad if he was inclined to eat.
“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” Dulsie’s voice took on a tone of
sarcasm. “The ones I bought yesterday have too many black spots in
them to salvage enough for supper.”

“What are we having tonight?”

“Salmon salad sandwiches by the
seashore.”

“Just what I’d expect to hear from somebody
named Dulsie Delaney.”

“Hey – you wouldn’t like me when I’m
angry.”

Shad smirked. “I’ll try to pick out good
avocados.”

“I’d give you some tips on how to do that,
but obviously I wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. Just be sure
they aren’t bright green and hard.”

“Dark and mushy. Got it.”

Shad locked up the office since he was the
last one to leave, and on his way home drove to the supermarket on
the edge of town. He knew the store would be filled with the
typical afternoon crowd of people swinging in after work, so Shad
braced himself to maneuver through the mass of humanity. After
selecting three firm but yielding avocados from the produce
section, Shad went to stand in line at the express checkout
counter. He stood behind a slightly plump woman who looked close to
his age and also looked like she might have three or four more
items in her cart than express checkout customers were supposed to
have. But Shad’s attention was quickly diverted to the little girl
he presumed was the woman’s daughter.

She looked like she was probably around four
years old and was bouncing behind the cart her mother was standing
in front of. Actually the child was bouncing a rubber toy frog back
and forth along the handle. Her body moved in sequence with the
toy, and her blonde, pageboy haircut bounced in unison as well. She
was wearing a summery outfit of a pink cropped blouse, matching
ruffled shorts, and flip flop shoes. As her mother pulled the cart
forward to start unloading groceries on the conveyor belt, the girl
arched her slender body as she made the frog bound over to one side
of the impulse items display.

In a series of rapid hops across the gum and
candy she approached Shad, who was blocking the end of the aisle.
The girl paused for a few seconds and looked up at him before
flashing a grin. Shad smiled back.

With what was apparently a simulation of the
mighty leap her frog was taking, the girl held it as high above her
head as she could reach while swooping toward the other side of the
aisle. She was moving in slow motion to increase the dramatic
effect, her lithe limbs stretched out and her soft belly drawn
taut.

An intrigue Shad hadn’t felt for over seven
years pulsed through him.

Horror immediately followed the first
sensation but didn’t abate it. No, this couldn’t be happening. His
fascination for the girl and her form was inappropriate, but even
as Shad told himself that the jolt of attraction asserted
itself.

The frog landed safely on the other side and
the child looked up at Shad again. His expression probably belied
just enough shock for her to interpret as his being impressed by
the frog’s athletic ability, and she grinned at him again.

As Shad watched her bounce the frog back
toward the cart he momentarily felt as helpless against the force
of this physiological response as he had since this affliction
first surfaced in junior high school. Then Shad remembered how he
learned to fight it in college.

He could see Dulsie as clearly as though this
were that fateful, rainy day eight years ago. They were in his
apartment shortly after she’d started her freshman year. Dulsie
told a joke, but she imitated a little girl as she delivered the
punch line. Her impersonation was so good and the subject of the
joke was perhaps just titillating enough that Shad actually felt a
tremor of attraction toward her.

Shad’s gaze was ripped away from the girl
while he stared at the floor. Yes, it was Dulsie’s emulation of a
child that had stirred him, but she was eighteen at the time. It
was her womanly qualities that he learned to desire and embrace.
And as Shad’s attraction for Dulsie grew, his interest in little
girls diminished.

“Sir!”

Shad looked up. The woman and her daughter
were several feet beyond the register and the cashier was leaning
over the counter and beckoning to him. The sight of the girl
skipping away caused that intrigue to tremble again.

Shad lowered his gaze, stepped forward, and
set the flimsy plastic bag with avocados in front of the cashier.
Never looking up, he wordlessly paid for them and left.

Shad’s attention remained downward as he
walked across the parking lot toward the pickup. Desire still
lingered in his flesh even as his soul was terrified at the
prospect of seeing the girl and again experiencing that offensive
response. When Shad unlocked the truck door and slipped in behind
the steering wheel, he pulled his gaze up only then in order to
drive home.

What was happening?
Why
was this
happening again after all these years? More importantly, why had
this happened again at all? Shad was supposed to be cured. He had
considered himself healed by none other than the Master Physician.
For years he had wrestled with this affliction, vacillating between
acceptance and abhorrence. When Shad resolved to spurn its
influence he utilized both prayer and psychotherapeutic approaches.
He hadn’t even thought about this maladjustment for years ... until
recently. Since Shad’s discovery of Wally he’d recalled his own
instability several times in less than a week. His meeting with
Wally yesterday had been extremely emotional in ways Shad hadn’t
even anticipated. The recent events must have been sufficient
enough a force to uproot his old nemesis.

Uproot? Then that could only mean ... oh, no.
Dear God in heaven,
no
.

That could only mean he was never really
cured, but that the paraphilia had merely gone into latency, where
it could wait for the right conditions in which to resurface.

No wonder Jill never stopped distrusting
him.

Shad felt as though his stomach rolled over
to play dead as he realized those few seconds in the store had
forever changed the rest of his life. Whether he had to fight this
malady again for years or for minutes, even after he subdued it,
Shad would always have to live with the knowledge it could
return.

This wasn’t fair to him or to Dulsie.

And completely unknown to her, Dulsie still
had a crucial role to play. Now she was his wife, not just a
memory, and Shad took great comfort in that fact. His grip
tightened on the steering wheel as Shad determined to drive this
aberration back into the abyss where it belonged. Even under the
threat of its eventual return, he preferred to at least have it
under submission than running amok.

By the time Shad parked the pickup in their
driveway he was over the initial shock of the experience and
instead was nursing a determination to drum this malady back into
hiding. When he walked near Sadie as she sat under an oak tree in
their yard, the dog paused from pulling out shedding hair with her
teeth to wag her tail. Shad absently ruffled the huge canine’s ears
and realized he could hear music coming from the house.

Dulsie enjoyed all kinds of music, and Shad
never knew if she was going to play modern or classical or ethnic
or ethereal. As he approached the porch Shad determined he was
hearing the lead singer of the old group First Edition belt out how
he was just dropping in to see what condition his condition was in.
Dulsie usually listened to rock when she was feeling feisty. Good.
Shad liked it when she was feisty.

He entered the living room, turned the CD
player down a couple of notches, and then met Dulsie in the
kitchen. Because of his frame of mind Shad immediately noticed that
Dulsie was wearing her usual at-home summertime outfit of a tank
top and wispy shorts. Otherwise modest in dress, the scanty raiment
Dulsie now wore was something she would don only when Shad was the
only other one around.

“Hey.” Dulsie smiled at him and stepped away
from the counter where she had been chopping tomatoes to meet Shad
halfway across the room. “So how was your day?”

“Busy.” Shad admired the view. Although he
understood that many people would have called Dulsie “cute” because
of her youthful appearance, she was to Shad the most beautiful
woman in the world. More importantly, it was a beauty that came
from the inside. The temple of flesh that enshrined her soul was a
reflection of the divine mysteries which dwelt within.

“And I thought you napped all day.” Dulsie
tilted her head back and placed her hands on his chest as Shad
stooped to kiss her. He briefly placed his free hand on the small
of her back but was conscientious that the carrying case hanging
from his shoulder didn’t accidentally slide down. Shad wanted to
press her closely to him but he had taught himself long ago not to
rush things.

Dulsie immediately reached for the plastic
bag in his other hand when their lips parted. “Let’s see what we
got here.”