A Special Relationship

by Yvonne Thomas

  Carrie’s heart skipped a beat. Could he be toying with her, she wondered. How all of a sudden she got to be his girlfriend? When had he decided that? “I’m not your girlfriend,” she said with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. It would be glorious if it were true. But how could it be true? She wasn’t about to be one of many. Never. Surely he had to know that.

  But apparently he didn’t, because he kept insisting that she was, in fact, his girl. “Yes, you are,” he said, even more certain now.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, Carrie, you are.”

  “Yeah, right, me and how many more?”

  Robert hesitated. Carrie could even see a wave of hurt cross his eyes. “Just you,” he said.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Just you,” he said firmly.

  Carrie looked at him. It seemed too good to be true. “Does Tyler Langley know?”

  Robert looked away from her and across the darkness of his backyard. “Yes. I’ve told her.”

  Carrie stared at Robert. “But you haven’t told all of the others?”

  Robert looked at her. He wanted to say, what others, but he couldn’t play games with Carrie. “Yes, I’ve told them too.”

  “You’ve told them that it was over, done, but yet they continue calling every night? And I mean the same females over and over.”

  “They don’t believe me,” he said. “But they will.”

  “Oh, yeah? When?” Carrie said this and folded her arms. She felt almost defiant. Robert was a player, a hardcore womanizer, and she knew it. But now he wanted her to believe that, just by meeting her, he’d completely changed? In only a month? Even she wasn’t that naive.

  Robert, however, had changed. All Carrie had to do was ask his best friend Bill Johnson, who was as stunned as Carrie now was. All she had to do was ask the jeweler who helped him select the ring. Robert rubbed his forehead and then ran his hand through his slick black hair. The ring. In one month’s time he’d gone from a man who wouldn’t dream of so much as committing his heart to another woman, to a man who desperately wanted to marry another woman. Who wanted to marry Carrie Banks. And he had the ring in his pocket to prove it.

  “Well?” Carrie said. “When are all of these women supposed to believe that you now have this one exclusive lady that won’t be sharing you?”

  Robert placed his hand in his pocket. It was now or never, he decided. “When I,” he began, but looked up as if he was suddenly thunderstruck. It was then that Carrie realized that he wasn’t looking at her, but past her.

  “What is it?” Carrie asked nervously, turning too. What she saw, a young white woman who had apparently just come from around the side of the house, also startled her.

  “Hey, Daddy,” the young woman said and Carrie, astounded, swept her big eyes back at Robert. Daddy? Was this Robert’s child? Did Robert have a daughter? She wanted desperately to ask him. But he was still staring at the young woman.

  He, in fact, couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?” he asked her.

  “Mom would kill me if she knew I came here.”

  “Then why did you?” Robert’s heart was in his shoe, as the memories, the painful memories of that day two years ago, came flooding back.

  Ashley looked from Robert to Carrie and then she looked at Robert again. “Mom’s not doing well and she expects me to help her. But I can’t help her. She needs you. She needs your help.”

  “Paul’s the doctor. Why isn’t he helping her?” Robert still remembered how much in love Paul and Gloria were, how much Gloria loved rubbing it in his face.

  “He’s . . . they aren’t together. After the divorce, mom expected Paul to divorce his wife, too, so they could be married. But he never did.”

  “He what?” Robert was floored.

  “He never did. They only stayed together a few months after you divorced Mom.”

  After she divorced me, Robert wanted to correct her. But he didn’t. He exhaled. “Come and sit down,” he said to the young woman he once thought was his daughter.

  Ashley walked tentatively toward the patio. Carrie, realizing that privacy was what they needed, immediately stood up to leave.

  “You can have this chair,” she said and Ashley took it.

  “I’ll be inside, Robert,” Carrie said as she attempted to briskly move away, but Robert caught her by the arm, stopping her progression.

  “I want you to stay,” he said and, before she could object, he plopped her down on his lap.

  Carrie felt uncomfortable, sitting this intimately in front of Robert’s daughter, but Robert wrapped his arm around her waist and kept her there.

  “Did you come alone?” he asked Ashley. But Ashley was too busy staring at Carrie.

  “Who’s she?” she asked with contempt in her voice.

  “This is Carrie Banks,” Robert said, tightening his grip on her, “she’s my lady. Carrie, this is Ashley.”

  Carrie swallowed hard. “Hello, Ashley,” she said with a forced smile.

  Ashley smiled too, but Carrie could tell it wasn’t a friendly one. She even ignored Carrie and looked at Robert. “I see you’ve gone from classy to native,” she said.

  Robert cut Ashley a hateful look. “This lady is my woman,” he said firmly, “and don’t you forget that.”

  Ashley appeared surprised by Robert’s response, but not as surprised as Carrie was. “You’re right. Sorry,” Ashley said begrudgingly.

  “Did you come here alone?” he asked her again.

  She nodded. “Yeah. I caught a flight out this afternoon. Mom will kill me if she finds out I came here.”

  “I’m sure she will,” Robert said with a tinge of bitterness. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s just been so bitchy, so crazy after Paul left and then she just got even crazier after the accident.”

  Robert stared at the young woman he still mailed a monthly allowance check to, although she never even bothered to return his phone calls. But when he realized what she had just said, he frowned. “After what accident? Gloria was in an accident?”

  “Not a car accident, no,” Ashley said and then she frowned. “About four months after Paul left, Mom fell down the stairs of this house we were living in and badly injured herself. She stayed in the hospital for months.”

  “Is she all right?” Carrie found herself asking, concern in her voice. Robert placed his hand on her stomach and began rubbing her. He loved her even more for caring enough to ask.

  Ashley looked at her, at the way Robert pulled her closer against him, at the way he was touching her, and she rolled her eyes. Then she looked at Robert. “That’s why I’m here,” she said. “She started getting depressed after the accident and started blaming me for Paul leaving and for everything wrong in her life. Then she started talking about you, Daddy, and how good her life was when she was with you and I just, I don’t know. I just thought that I’d come here and see if you could do it.”

  “Do what?” Robert asked her.

  “Come to Silver Springs. And see about Mom.”

  Carrie’s heart tightened, especially when Robert didn’t immediately turn her down. There was so much she didn’t know about this man. There was so much she didn’t know. And when he finally said okay, that he’d go and see about his ex-wife, Carrie felt suddenly queasy.

  But as soon as Ashley had gone, and Robert sat there holding Carrie without bothering to say a word, Carrie couldn’t hold back any longer.

  “I didn’t know you had a daughter,” she said to him.

  “She’s not my daughter,” he said without explanation. Then he tapped her on the hip. “Let me up,” he said and Carrie quickly got off of his lap. “We need to get packed.”

  “We?” Carrie asked, shocked.

  Robert nodded. “You’re coming with me.”

  “Robert, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I do. Go get packed.”

  He said it as if it was not debatable.
And Carrie, confused, filled with more questions than answers, but somehow feeling that maybe Robert needed her now for a change, did not debate it. She went and got packed.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The apartment was in a less desirable neighborhood in Silver Springs, Maryland. The rental car stopped at the curb and Robert and Carrie, seated in the front seat, looked out at the surroundings. Ashley, who was well familiar with the area, stepped out of the car.

  “Your ex-wife lives here?” Carrie asked Robert.

  “Guess so,” Robert said, amazed himself, as he got out of the car, walked around, and opened the door for Carrie.

  Ashley let them into the small apartment and then began calling for her mother. “Excuse me,” she said, and then went down the hall into what appeared to be a bedroom. Carrie looked at Robert. He opened his suit coat, placed his hands into his pants pockets, and began walking around the apartment as if he could not believe it. His former wife living like this? It seemed to disturb him mightily. And when Ashley came back up front, with a woman in a wheelchair, he stopped in his tracks.

  The woman was about Robert’s age, Carrie observed, and it was easy to tell that she used to be very attractive. But now, call it hard times, call it hard living, she looked rough.

  “Robert?” she said, a stunned look on her face. Robert stared at her, as if paralyzed himself, and then he exhaled.

  “Hello, Gloria.”

  “I didn’t expect you,” she said, trying to fluff up her thinning blonde hair. “ I would have fixed myself up if I knew you were coming.” Then she looked at him. “It’s so good to see you again, Robert. You look so well.”

  Robert didn’t return the compliment. Because she looked like hell. Or, at least, like she’d been through it.

  “When Ash told me you were here, that she went all the way to Florida and asked you to come visit me, I didn’t believe it. I still don’t believe it.”

  “Y’all want something to drink?” Ashley asked Robert and Carrie but Carrie quickly shook her head.

  “No, thank-you.”

  Robert couldn’t stop staring at his ex-wife. “You’re in a wheelchair,” he said and Gloria looked down at the chair and then back up at him. She looked almost embarrassed.

  “Yes. I am. I’ve had such a run of bad luck, Robert, you just wouldn’t believe.”

  That night, when she left him, he told her she would. He told her she couldn’t turn her back on God and expect no retribution. But he never dreamed it would be this explicit.

  “Sit down, please,” Gloria said. “You and . . . your assistant. Please.”

  Carrie was a little off-put when Robert didn’t correct his ex-wife, but given the circumstances, given that he seemed too stunned to say anything, she let it slide. And sat down beside him on the small sofa. Gloria pushed her wheelchair near them and also offered them something to drink. Again they declined. Or, at least Carrie did. Robert remained mute.

  “I was going to call you,” Gloria said. “You don’t know how many times I picked up that phone. But I . . . never did.” When Robert didn’t respond, Gloria looked at Carrie.

  “I’m Gloria Kincaid,” she said, extending her hand. Carrie reached over Robert and shook it.

  “Carrie Banks.”

  “Hello, Carrie. I don’t remember you. How long have you been working at Dyson?”

  Carrie glanced at Robert. When he didn’t say anything, she ploughed ahead. “About three weeks now.”

  “Oh, my, you’re very new.”

  “Yes.”

  “You like the work?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s Daddy’s girlfriend,” Ashley said as she sat down in a chair flanking the sofa. Carrie’s heart dropped by this pronouncement and shot her eyes at Gloria. Gloria looked surprised. She even smiled.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said to Ashley. “Why this child is barely older than you.” Then she looked at Robert. Robert exhaled, as if this talk about Carrie had gone on too long already.

  “Ashley said you had wanted to talk to me,” he said, trying his best to keep his emotions in check. He didn’t love Gloria anymore, he knew it the moment Ashley came to Florida and had mentioned her name, but he still cared about her. Deeply. That was the only reason why he had come.

  Gloria seemed taken aback by his bluntness and almost business-like approach to her, but she decided to go for broke. “Yes,” she said. “I do need to talk with you, as a matter of fact.” Then she looked at Carrie and added: “Privately.”

  Before Robert could say a word, Carrie was on her feet. She felt like an intruder as it was. “I’ll wait outside in the car, Robert,” she said before he could object, and hurried for the exit. What hurt her, however, was that he didn’t object.

  She sat out in the car unable to keep a consistent thought. She didn’t know how Robert felt about this woman, she didn’t know if she saw love or just affection, but she saw something in his eyes when he first laid them on his ex-wife. Something intense. And it worried her.

  But what wasn’t ambiguous at all, Carrie believed, was that Gloria Kincaid wanted Robert back. Carrie didn’t see love in Mrs. Kincaid’s eyes when she looked at Robert, but she saw need. Which, to Carrie, was worse.

  She looked out of the car’s window at the neighborhood around her. Robert wasn’t going to allow this. No way was he going to allow any ex-wife of his, no matter how bad the break-up was, to live like this. Carrie knew it the moment they drove onto the street of this working class neighborhood and she glanced over at Robert. He was blown away by this. The woman he once married, the woman he once loved and probably still care for, was living like this? He wasn’t going to allow it. Which meant, Carrie also knew, that everything was about to change, once again, for her.

  It was another hour of sitting and waiting before Robert came out of the apartment. And as soon as Carrie saw him, walking deliberately slow toward their rental car, she could tell that something had already shifted in their relationship. Something dramatic. He got into the car, sat behind the wheel for a full few seconds, and then exhaled.

  “She needs my help,” he finally said. Carrie held her breath.

  “Your help?”

  “Yes. Paul Hathaway, he’s the friend whom she thought she was so in love with when she left me, never did right by her. He wanted her, he’d always wanted her, but he wanted his wife as well. And if you know my ex-wife, you’d know that she could never play second fiddle to anybody.” Then he paused. Exhaled again. Carrie again held her breath. “She wants to come back to Florida,” he said, “until she can get herself back together.” He said this and look at Carrie, his heart ramming against his chest. “And I’ve got to help her.”

  “Of course,” Carrie said quickly, as if that went without saying. But the way Robert kept staring at her, as if he was expecting her to say something more, or something different, unnerved her. “What is it, Robert?” she asked him.

  A sadness came over his gray eyes, which scared Carrie. “She wants to stay at our, at my home, Carrie, while she gets it together.”

  Carrie’s heart dropped. There it is. Change again. “I see.” Then she added: “I’ll have to move.”

  “Yes, but don’t worry about that. I have a condo in town, at the Berkshire. You can stay there until—”

  “No,” Carrie said firmly. No way, she wanted to say. “I’ll be fine.”

  “It’s a very comfortable place, Carrie.”

  She’d bet it was. Probably that bachelor pad downtown Marva had said he used as a sleep over with his various girlfriends. “I’m fine. I was going to get my own place anyway, remember? So this is a perfect time.”

  Robert hated this. He hated that he had to put his life with Carrie on hold for a second to help Gloria, especially after what she had done to him. But it couldn’t be helped now. She was an invalid. And penniless, basically living off of the allowance checks he sent monthly to Ashley. When they divorced she was so proud. She didn’t want anything from him. Not even his name
. Now, today, she was calling herself Kincaid again. Not the maiden name she gladly reclaimed when they divorced, not Mitchell, but Kincaid. His name. As if all of that pain she wrought never occurred.

  “Until you find a place,” he said to Carrie, “you’ll stay at the condo.” His plan was that Gloria will be back on her feet and ready to reenter life long before Carrie could even think about moving away from him.

  Carrie nodded. Anything to change the subject. “Okay,” she said, and it was only after that did Robert start the car.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Mona Banks couldn’t believe it. She opened the door of her apartment and there she was. Her kid sister. With suit case and all.

  “Well if it ain’t the prodigal sister,” she said.

  “Hello, Po, I mean Mona,” Carrie said. “I thought you would be gone to work by now.”

  “I’m late, so what? Maybe you can give me a ride.”

  “No.”

  “No? Why the hell not? What, you ain’t in no limousine?” she asked, looking past her sister out of the door.

  “I came in a cab.”

  “A cab?” She said this and then looked closer at her sister. “Where your millionaire white man sugar daddy at?”

  “He’s not out there,” Carrie said.

  “I know he ain’t out there. I said where is he. Judging by the fact you got a suit case, I’d say he through with you. Got his jollies on and now he done tossed you back to me. Is that it? Is that what’s going on?”

  “No, it’s not, but you won’t believe me anyway. I just need to stay here for a few days until I get my own place. I can’t get a new place and pay for hotel bills too.”

  “So he did kick you out.” She stared at her sister. And then stepped aside. “Come on in,” she said. “You look like a thrown-away rag doll.”

  Carrie entered the apartment she had thought she had seen the last of, and headed for the bedroom that once was hers. She sat her luggage down on the now dusty floor and fought back an urge to cry. She had to remind herself that this was only temporary, that this was only until she could get back on her feet. Then her heart grew faint. Because getting on her feet meant that she had stumbled off of them once again. Just when she thought she was living a dream. Just when she thought there could possibly be some happiness in this world for her, too.