A Special Relationship (17 page)

 
“You know better than that, Ty,” Robert asked as he helped her into her car.
 
She closed the door, cranked up, and pressed down the window.

 
“No, I don’t either,” she said.
 
“I wouldn’t put it past her.
 
She didn’t like the way I was talking to her, so she tried to get even.”
      

 
“Ty, come on.”

 
“It’s the truth.
 
She one of those angry black females who thinks the world owes them a living.
 
I can’t stand people like her!”

 
Robert didn’t say anything, which, Tyler knew, meant that she had said too much.
 
She tried to temper her remarks. “Maybe it wasn’t on purpose,” she admitted, “but I still don’t like her.”

 
“You’d better get on home,” Robert said, more to end any derogatory words against Carrie than to help his old friend.
 
“I’ll talk to you later.”

 
“Why don’t you come over for a nightcap, Robert?”

 
“Not tonight.”

 
“Why not?
 
We haven’t seen each other in two weeks.
 
We haven’t been together even longer than that, Robert, and you know what I mean.”

 
“I’m going straight home tonight, honey.
 
I’ll have to take a rain check.”

 
“You’re always taking rain checks.”

 
“Well then this one shouldn’t be any surprise to you.”

 
“Very cute, Robert,” Tyler said as she looked out across the parking lot.
 
Carrie, to her amazement, was leaving the bus stop where Tyler hadn’t even realized she’d been waiting and was hurrying toward them.
 
“I don’t believe it,” she said.

 
“You don’t believe what?” Robert asked her.

 
“She’s coming this way!”

 
“Who’s coming this way?”

 
“That woman!”
Tyler said and nodded her head in Carrie’s direction.
 
Robert stood erect when he saw Carrie and then he let out a deep sigh of exhaustion.
 
She was still wearing her Jetson’s uniform and had a small purse swinging loosely at her side, as she was walking in a near run toward them.
 

 
“Why is she coming this way?” Tyler asked frightfully.
 

 
“How should I know?” Robert replied, a little annoyed by Tyler’s sudden dramatics.

 
“Good night, Robert,” Tyler said as she began pressing up her window.
 
“I’ll talk to you later!”
 
She slung her stick-shift into gear so fast that her car sputtered with a lurch, then flung ahead.
 

 
Carrie waved her arms, to get Tyler’s attention, but Tyler and her Mustang flew right past her.
 
Carrie then just stood there, disappointed and dumbfounded at the same time, and then she looked at Robert.

 
“She had to leave,” he said, embarrassed by Tyler’s display.

 
“I just wanted to apologize to her,” Carrie said, the anguish on her face unable to be concealed.
 

 
Robert wanted to tell her not to worry, that Tyler wasn’t worthy of her apology, but he didn’t go there with her.
 
“You already have,” he said instead.

 
“I didn’t mean to do it.”

 
Robert stared at Carrie, at the concern all over her.
 
“I know.”

 
“She thinks I did it on purpose, that’s why she reacted the way she did, but I didn’t do that on purpose, Mr. Kincaid.
 
She was reaching for her glass and I was reaching for the menu and it all just happened.
 
I would never in a million years try to mess up somebody’s nice clothes like that.”

 
“You don’t have to convince me, Carrie.”

 
Carrie paused.
 
She didn’t think he’d remembered her.
 
“I just don’t want her to think I’m like that.”

 
Robert frowned.
 
“Stop worrying about what she thinks.
 
You can’t control what people think.
 
You apologized to her, that’s all you can do.”

 
“Alphonso said, he’s my boss, well, my ex-boss, but he said—”

 
“Your ex-boss?”

 
Carrie nodded regrettably, as the reality of her new, unemployed circumstance began to
sank
in.
 

 
“He fired you?”

 
“Yep.”

 
“But why the devil didn’t you tell him it was an accident, Carrie?”
 
He regretted his tone, as if he was scolding her for something that really wasn’t her fault, but when people push, she’d better learn to push back.

 
“I told him it was an accident, I told him over and over, but he didn’t care.
 
He said Jetson’s has a reputation to uphold and he wasn’t letting the likes of me ruin that reputation.”

 
“The likes of you?”
Robert asked angrily.
 
He was fed up with the racism that seemed so pervasive around town.
 
Not a day would go by when he didn’t hear some derogatory racial slur coming from his so-called peers.
 
Even Tyler showed her bias tonight.
 
It was like a cancer, it seemed to Robert.
 

 
Carrie, however, was accustomed to the cancer.
 
She kept going.
 
“He said because of me they’ve got to pay for
damages
I caused and if I didn’t hurry up out of his face he was going to take my paycheck and sue me for the rest.
 
I tried to give him my paycheck, I knew I had to pay for what I did, but he just stood there and stared at me.
 
And he wouldn’t take it.
 
But he fired me anyway.”

 
Robert stared at her too.
 
He knew he was making her uncomfortable, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.
 
Why
didn’t she
just go back to Georgia, he wondered.
 
Why didn’t she go back to that small town living and that boy who wanted to marry her and make babies with her and live happily ever after with her?
 
Why did she have to come here and haunt him?
 
He had enough haunts in his life, enough to last a lifetime.
 
He wasn’t about to take on anymore.

 
The loud motor of a city bus could suddenly be heard on the far street behind them.
 
Carrie turned quickly to the sound.
 
“Oh, no!” she cried as the bus, her ride, flew past.
 
She thought to make a run for it, maybe cut him off on the next street, but she didn’t even bother.
 
Everything that could go wrong was going wrong in her life right now and missing her ride was
,
it seemed to her, exactly what she should have expected.
 

 
“That was my bus,” she said as she turned back to Robert.

 
Robert only nodded, he wasn’t about to get in any deeper, and she knew it.
 
She was a hard luck mess of a
case, that
was all there was to it, and who in their right mind, she wanted to know, would get involved with bad news like her?
 
That was why she didn’t ask him for any favors.
 
That was why she resigned herself to yet another long wait for the next bus to arrive.
 
And that was why she pulled out her paycheck and attempted to hand it to him.

 
“Will you give this to your wife
— ”

 
“She’s not my wife,” Robert said too quickly, which surprised him, but it didn’t seem to even faze Carrie.

 
“Will you give this to your friend then?
 
Please?”

 
Robert looked at the envelope containing the undoubtedly small check this woman had worked so hard to earn,
then
he looked at her.
 
And he saw immediately why Alphonso wouldn’t take it either.
 
“I’ll give her your apology,” he said.
 
“That’s more than she deserves to get from you.”

 
Carrie would have argued with him, she would have insisted.
 
But she couldn’t.
 
That small check was all she had and Mona would have a fit if she didn’t show up with it.
 
She hated being like this, where she couldn’t do what she knew was right because she couldn’t afford to.
 
But she also knew Robert to be a real man.
 
He wasn’t going to take it anyway.

 
“Well,” she said, “goodnight.
 
And please don’t forget to tell her how sorry I am.”

 
Robert didn’t say anything.
 
Carrie, figuring him to be tired of her for certain now, began to walk away from him and back toward the bus stop where she’d come from.
 
Robert watched her, in her little tight-fitting purple uniform and her flat shoes, her beautiful, slick black hair pushed under in a bouncy bob just above her thin neck.
 
He knew he should just get in his ride and hit the road, forgetting about Carrie Banks forever.
 
But he couldn’t.
 
“Carrie,” he said.
 
When she turned and looked at him, he exhaled.
 
What
was he
getting himself into, he wondered.
 
“Come here.”

 
Carrie didn’t hesitate.
 
She walked back up to him quickly, hoping that he wasn’t going to do or say anything that would make her lose faith in him too.
 
“Yes?”

 
Robert could do without the formalities, he got enough of that at work, but such a wall of respect could only help to keep distance between them.
 
“I want you to promise me something.”

 
She nodded, although she had no idea what he wanted.
 
“Okay.”

 
“I want you to promise me that you won’t worry about what happened here tonight.
 
It was an accident, you know it was an accident, and I want you to stop beating yourself up about it.
 
Can you promise me that?”

 
Carrie smiled.
 
“I can try—”

 
“Not try, Carrie.
 
I need you to do it.”

 
She nodded, as his sincerity touched her.
 
“Yes, I will.
 
I’ll do it.”

 
Robert smiled a smile that seemed to transform his face.
 
Carrie didn’t think it was possible, but he looked even better when he smiled.

 
“You need a ride?” he asked her.
 

 
“I could sure use one, yes.”

 
“All right then,” he said, looking down at her uniform for some reason, and he said it in such a way that it seemed to her he was still trying to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.
 
“Let’s go.”