Into the Fire

                                (From Breath of Life, chapter 4)

     Shay looked exhausted when she walked, coat over arm, into the office. Mildred understood nothing was more taxing for Shay than any kind of public display of her work.
     “It wasn’t too bad,” she admitted, conceding by her tone that she always made too big a deal about these events. “I did alright.”
     “I’m sure you did, dear. You always underestimate yourself. You’re absolutely charming, Shay,” she said, her feelings heartfelt.
     A slight smile escaped. “Mildred, you are just so good for me. I wish I could tell you how much I appreciate you.”
     “The feeling’s mutual, dear.”
     She went into her office and plopped down into the soft supporting leather of her chair. She just sat, facing the windows. It had warmed up around 1 PM right about when she sneaked out after the luncheon to the alley and had a few drags from a cigarette. Her thoughts had drifted to Lonnie as they always did when she took her first inhaled breath of smoke. He was so brave. She’d remarked to him how amazing she thought it was that he was unafraid of anything.
     “Shay, I have fear, but I’ve been trained to control it to keep me from making a critical mistake. The more you understand your fears, the more difficult it becomes for them to master you. And since my Savior tells me to ‘fear not’, then I figure He’s got things to the place where it’s pretty pointless for me to be second guessing Him.” She remembered his serious expression breaking into a smile. “What do you think?” And next he’d taken her face in his powerful hands, a few scars apparent, caressed her flaming cheeks with his thumbs and planted a delicious kiss on her waiting lips. A kiss that pleaded to go farther than either of them could even imagine, and just when it seemed like it would, he held back and slowly removed his lips, then his hands. “I want you to know I love you, Shay.”
     The tears came in a rush she hadn’t anticipated. “I love you, too, Lonnie,” she whispered to the windows. Quickly turning away she wiped her eyes and nose with Kleenex from the box on her desk and bent down to unlace her boots. She would work for awhile—there were words battering her brain to get them out on the screen. She better do it.
     After an hour of absorbing herself in her writing, she stood, stretched, and looked down at the Tully’s entrance. There he was—the friendly man in the attractive suit who’d stopped to greet her this morning. Very good looking man, she observed. He had special eyes, blue like a summer sky, but in spite of his sureness, his eyes seemed to betray that confidence—a hesitancy, she guessed, in them. He had put her at ease, though, with his smiled greeting, and that wasn’t an easy thing to do—especially by a stranger. She decided she liked him and thought maybe she might see him more regularly if he often frequented Tully’s. That would be alright.

     It was crazy to be like this. I couldn’t equate it to anything really—in fact, the anticipation of that dance with Linda Sutterman captured the feeling as well as anything, I think. Probably because then I was still excited by something as innocuous as one slow dance with a pretty girl, hoping it might eventually lead to a kiss, and, well, yes, even then, I hoped for more. My innocence was short-lived.

     Fifteen came and went with my escapades into the sexual life of a teenage boy who really knew nothing more than being titillated and quickly satisfied by any good looking girl who was willing to let me push her a little farther and a little more until I got satisfaction. Since I thought the experience was fantastic, surely the girls did, too. I mean back then I thought they resisted because they thought it was proper to do so, not because they really had any desire to hold onto a gift they could never have back. Yeah, I was a real prize. Just for the record, all I got from Linda Sutterman were a few slow dances over the football season and two great kisses. Oh, and one slap across the face when I tried to stretch that second kiss into something more. Linda Sutterman had class. And convictions.
    

     And I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this lady who leaned against the wall across the street from the building where I worked had both, too.

Again and again, Lord, apart from you, I can do nothing. Thank you for it all. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.