A Special Relationship (35 page)

 
“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.
 

 
But whatever it was, she still believed that the Lord has it all in control.
 
She believed that this was just another setback, another false start on her road to victory.
 
She had to believe that.

 
When she returned to the living room area, Mona was seated in the middle of the sofa smoking a cigarette.
 
And staring at Carrie.
 
It wasn’t until Carrie sat down in the only chair in the room, did she say anything, however.
 
“Well?” she said.

 
“Well, what?”

 
“What happened, you know what.
 
What did that white man do to you?”

 
“He didn’t do anything to me,” Carrie said resentfully.
 
“Why would you say something like that?”

 
“Why you think?
 
You come here looking all dejected and sad, like you done lost your best friend, and you’re telling me it had nothing to do with white boy?”
 
Mona placed her cigarette in her mouth and began putting on a pair of pantyhose. “Don’t even try me like that.”