“Marva Cox is Mr. Kincaid’s secretary. She’ll have me written up if I even thought about disturbing her boss because somebody walks in from the street demanding to see him.”
“He’s here,” the guard said and both Carrie and the receptionist looked toward the elevators. Only it wasn’t Robert Kincaid coming toward them, as she’d hoped, but The FedEx man with a dolly filled with packages. The receptionist and guard both walked from behind the desk and immediately began sorting them, totally forgetting that Carrie was even there. Carrie looked around. The place was crawling with bodies, everybody so certain of where they had to go and how they needed to get there that it was almost impressive. A kind of controlled chaos, she thought. Then, miraculously, she saw him.
He was walking, along with an assistant, across the far back side of the huge reception area. His hands were in the pants pocket of his beautiful black suit and he appeared to be barking out orders to the young lady trailing him as if he expected her to record every word. And she seemed to be doing just that. He was talking nonstop and she was writing feverishly. Carrie reacted as soon as she saw him, forgetting the receptionist, the location, the decorum of the room, as she called out his name.
Robert’s heart slammed against his chest when he heard that voice. That soft, gravelly, sultry voice. He stopped immediately, causing his aide to stumble into him, and he looked toward the direction of the sound. But he was not hearing things. The lady that had haunted his dreams all night long last night was now standing in his building. It was Carrie.
The receptionist was mortified, as she stopped sorting packages and began apologizing profusely for allowing Carrie to disturb him so rudely, but Robert pretty ignored her. He was too busy staring at Carrie.
Carrie was nervous as she moved toward him, her determination now mixed with fear. He looked almost resentful, she thought, as if he wasn’t at all thrilled to see her. And the way he just stood there, in his double-breasted suit, his eyes fixed on her as if he could see straight through her and didn’t think too highly of what he saw, made her feel dejected. Beaten down. Even he wasn’t on her side anymore.
“I know you’re working, Mr. Kincaid,” she said as she approached him, “but I left my purse in your truck last night.”
Robert continued to stare at her. Those odd feelings this young woman was able to evoke in him was beginning to unnerve him. He had tried all night to get her out of his mind, to stop thinking about her and worrying about her, but he couldn’t do it. Not even for a second. She haunted him like a melody all night long, and he couldn’t for the life of him understand why.
The security guard began heading over as if he was more than ready to escort Carrie from the premises, which made Carrie even more ill at ease, but Robert waved him off.
“I tried to phone you,” Carrie said quickly, before she realized the guard had stopped advancing, “but they wouldn’t put any of my calls through to you.”
Robert’s assistant, a beautiful young woman, moved up beside him. “Want me to handle it, sir?” she asked him.
Robert glanced at his watch. And then he looked at Carrie. He exhaled. “No,” he said. “You go on to the meeting. I’ll be there.”
Robert then motioned for Carrie to follow him and they began walking toward the elevator. Carrie wanted to apologize profusely for disturbing him at work, but his demeanor kept her quiet. He seemed to be treating her with contempt, as if this was all some sort of ruse, and she didn’t like it. One thing she was learning if she hadn’t learned anything else: you can’t depend on people, and especially when you needed them most.
On the ride down to the building’s garage, Robert was also mute. He leaned his large body against the side of the elevator and stared unceasingly at Carrie, which didn’t exactly help her uneasiness. She wanted to apologize again for disturbing him. She also wanted to make it clear that this little visit wasn’t planned and she wasn’t trying to play some I left my purse in your truck just to see you again game with him, but people kept getting on and off and creating an atmosphere not at all conducive to that kind of conversation. It wasn’t until they stepped off of the elevator on the ground floor and Robert was opening the door that led to the building’s garage, did their conversation began.
“Robert,” he said.
She looked at him puzzled.
“You called me Mr. Kincaid upstairs. I told you to call me Robert.”
“Oh,” she said, although she didn’t see where that would matter now. “Okay.”
“Did it work out for you?” he asked as he motioned for her to walk ahead of him.
“Did?”
“Your job situation.”
“Oh. Yes. Yes, it did. Thanks for asking. I start tonight.”
“Tonight? That quick?”
“Yep.”
“You’ll be working with your sister, then?” he asked this as they neared his SUV.
“That’s the plan, and hopefully we’ll have the same hours. That’ll make it easier for me.”
“You start tonight but you haven’t found out your hours yet?”
“I haven’t found out anything yet. I don’t even know how to get there on my own yet, to tell you the truth.”
“Maybe I can help you out. What’s the name of the restaurant?” Robert asked this to find out all he could about this new employment of hers, rather than to simply give her directions. Something about this easy-to-get job and that night-shift working sister of hers that just didn’t ring right with him. She seemed so flustered again today, just as she’d seemed the two previous times he’d had contact with her, and he began to wonder just what was going on in her private life. Surely, he thought, it couldn’t possibly be this helter-skelter all of the time.
“It’s not exactly Jetson’s,” Carrie said, still stung by the fact that she had lost that decent job, “but Popena said the tips are really good.”
“What’s the name?”
“Simms,” she said as if it was no big deal at all.
But it was a big deal to Robert. He stopped walking abruptly, grabbed Carrie by the arm, and angrily swung her around to him. “Simms?” he asked as if he couldn’t believe it.
Carrie was confused by his sudden reaction, and by the firmness with which he held her arm. “Yes. Why?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Joking about what?”
“Carrie, Simms is a tit. . . .” He exhaled. “Carrie, Simms is a topless bar.”
Carrie’s heart dropped. Topless? “It’s a nightclub, or a multiplex as Dooney likes to call it. And yes it serves cocktails and has some dancers there, my sister’s one of them, but I’ll be a waitress in the restaurant part.”
Robert frowned. “The restaurant part?”
“Yes. I’ll serve the food.”
Robert shook his head. Why him, he wondered. “Carrie, have you ever been inside a bar, excuse me, nightclub in your life?”
Carrie didn’t like his condescending tone at all. She, in fact, removed her arm from his grasp. “What difference does that make?” she asked him.
“It makes a great deal of difference, young lady, you can’t be that naive!”
Carrie looked at Robert and she didn’t get it. Why would he be so upset with her about something that had nothing to do with him? She was going to work at Simms, so what? She never claimed it was a Jetson’s kind of place. Although she’d never been to Simms, she was willing to bet it was probably a hole in the wall like every place Popena had anything to do with. But for him to be so troubled by her decisions about her life was so baffling and uncalled for that it began to upset her too. Just last night she thought Robert was an angel sent from Heaven, now she wasn’t sure who sent him. He was too controlling for her, just like Dale Mosley was, just like Willie Charles tried to be, and she wasn’t having it anymore. “Will you give me my purse, please?” she said as if the last thing she wanted to hear was any advice from him.
Robert sighed and opened the door of his truck for her. The idea th
at she’d even consider working at a place like Simms was just something he couldn’t abide. “I can put in a word for you here at Dyson,” he said as if he didn’t like the idea at all himself.
Carrie caught the dislike in his voice. “No thanks,” she replied with certainty as she squeezed past him, reached into the truck, and pulled out her purse that she’d remembered placing on the passenger side floor. She immediately began to search it, to make sure her paycheck hadn’t fallen out.
Robert managed a weak smile. “It’s all there, I assure you,” he said.
Carrie, afraid that she’d offended him, quickly looked up ready to explain her actions. But when she saw the smile on his face, a smile that could sooth a savage beast, she relaxed too. “I just wanted to make sure nothing had fallen out.”
Robert nodded. “Understood,” he said.
“And I really didn’t mean to bother you like this, Robert, I know you’re a very busy man.” She extended her hand. “Thank-you for everything.”
Robert looked dead into Carrie’s eyes as he placed his hand in hers. “Will you at least consider my job offer?” he asked her.
“No, but thanks.”
“Why not, Carrie?”
“Because I can’t,” she said with a tinge of out of nowhere emotion. “I just need to do this myself,” she said.
“You sure?” he asked as he rubbed his fingers across her knuckles, his eyes refusing to look away from hers. He’d seduce her into reconsidering, if he had to.
She inhaled quickly when she felt the rub, a feeling so intense that she immediately attempted to remove her hand from his grasp. But he tightened his hold on her and would not release her. “I’m positive,” she said as she literally had to snatch her hand free of his.
“But Simms, Carrie?”
“Yes, Simms. I’ll be just fine.”
“I doubt that.”
“Well I don’t,” Carrie said defensively, realizing that he really didn’t have a vote in this matter. “I’d better get going. Thank-you.” She said this and began walking, hurrying, away from him.
Robert sighed as he watched her leave. Somebody as sweet as Carrie Banks in this dog-eat-dog world, he thought. And now she was taking that who me, pathetic look of hers into Simms of all places. Simms! Who did she think was going to be hanging out in a place like that? The Huxtables? Or maybe George and Weezie Jefferson? Didn’t she know that was the place where the lowest of the low frequented? A place loaded with losers who fantasized nightly about getting their sweaty paws on a sweet, innocent thang like her? He rubbed his forehead as a surge of pain shot across his chest. Because he knew the deal. Because he knew, as sure as he was standing in that tunnel of a parking lot, that somebody like Carrie, even with all of her desire for independence and self-determination, didn’t stand a chance.
FOURTEEN
They were already late when they came out of Mona’s apartment and headed down the stairs, and knowing the way the buses ran they were going to be even later, Mona commented. “Thanks to you,” she added.
“Me?” Carrie said incredulously, walking quickly behind her. “What did I do?”
“You woke me up late, don’t even try that.”
“You didn’t tell me to wake you up at all. I only did it when it looked like you wasn’t going to get up on your own.”
“Yeah, whatever. It’s still your fault.”
As soon as Mona said this, the downstairs door clanged opened and Willie Charles, dressed like a man looking for a good time, entered the building and was about to head up the stairs. Until he saw the Banks sisters. Until he saw Carrie.
Anger overtook Carrie at the mere sight of the man. Mona, however, was overjoyed.
“What you doing out this way, Willie Charles?” Mona asked him, all smiles, knowing that he could very well be that ride to work they desperately needed. She was dressed in a pair of skintight leopard pants, a halter top and heels, looking like the tramp Willie Charles always took her for. Carrie, on the other hand, was dressed in a way Willie Charles had been imagining she’d dress all those nights he’d been dreaming about her. She had on a pair of perfect-fitting jeans, an inside-tucked button down blouse, and loafers. Looking like a green-eyed angel, he thought.
“I was coming to holler at yo’ lil’ butt,” he said to Mona. “But I see you on your way out.”
“What’s up with you?” Mona asked. “Just getting off work?”
“N’all,” Willie Charles said and looked at Carrie. “N’all.” Didn’t she hear the news, he wanted to ask. That kid sister of hers had told Kincaid about their little incident and Kincaid got all over him. Warned him that if he so much as glanced Carrie’s way again he’d live to regret it. Like that white man was going to scare him. But when Kincaid personally called Myers, the brother who owned the cleaning company Willie Charles supervised, and told him that either he get rid of Willie Charles or lose his contract with Dyson, which was the largest contract Myers had, Willie Charles was fired on the spot. And was still unemployed.
“I thought you said you wasn’t working tonight,” he said to Mona.
“I wasn’t. But Dooney been shorthanded all week. Ain’t no off days right now.”
Willie Charles looked at Carrie. Smiled that gap-tooth smile of his. “Hello, Carrie.”
“Let’s go, Popena,” Carrie said as she ignored Willie Charles and moved past her sister on the stairs.
“Popena?” Willie Charles asked. “What’s a popena?”
“Forget it,” Mona replied.
“Where y’all headed?”
“Simms.”
“What, Mo, your sister working at Simms now too?”
“Maybe,” Mona said. “What’s it to you?”
“Ain’t nothing to me. I’m just surprised, that’s all.” Disappointed too, although he’d never admit it publicly. “I guess she ain’t as innocent as she was lettin’ on.”
Mona laughed. “You got that right. Now how about you give us a ride, buddy? We already more late than CP time and you know Dooney.”
Willie Charles looked at Carrie again. She was acting like some virgin around him, now she was heading to work at Simms? He had pegged her wrong big time, he figured, but that was cool too. That just meant his job was going to be easier than he had thought. “Yeah, I can do that,” he said to Mona. “I can give y’all a ride.”
“Alright now!” Mona said smilingly. “And right on time, my brother!”
But Carrie was already shaking her head. “No,” she said. “I’m catching the bus.”
“You must be out of your mind!” Mona said. “We ain’t tuning down no ride.”
“I’m catching the bus, Mona.”
“You catching it by yourself then. Let’s go, Willie Charles.” Mona began walking on down the stairs.
“Ain’t nobody gonna bite you, girl,” Willie Charles said to Carrie when they all made it outside. But Mona frowned.
“Forget her!” she yelled. “She wanna act stupid, let her. Ain’t nobody stuttin’ her. Let’s just get goin’!”
They all began walking down the stoop, but when Willie Charles saw Carrie walking away from his car and toward the bus stop instead, he realized that his very reason for offering the ride in the first place was leaving. He sighed in disappointment. He wasn’t about to waste his gas transporting the likes of Mona Banks around. She could forget that.
“Come on, Willie Charles, what you waitin’ on?” Mona asked him as she stood at the passenger door of his beat-up Buick and he stood on the sidewalk, just beyond a group of loud rappers, staring at Carrie as she walked away.
“I changed my mind,” he said and then turned to Mona.
“You changed your mind? I know better than this!”
“I’m going across the street and eat me some ribs, man. I don’t feel like driving all the way across no town on my off day anyhow.”
“Then why you said you would?”
“I was just talking.”
Mona shook her head, her long, weaved
hair flailing around as she did. “You trifling, Willie Charles, you know that? Trifling!”
“Yeah, right. Just keep your paws off the paint job.”
Mona slapped at the car’s paint job as she began to walk away. She was so angry she could hardly contain herself. “If I wasn’t late I’d beat your cheap behind, Willie Charles!” she yelled.
But Willie Charles wasn’t thinking about her. He was already eyeing a hooker at the end of the block, and that rib joint across the street.
***
Robert was seated on the middle of Tyler Langley’s leather couch unable to stop rubbing his hands. He could not hide his unease. Tyler yanked her long blonde hair out of her face as she stood behind her bar counter pouring drinks, and she couldn’t stop staring at him. He was in her apartment in body, she knew he was physically there, but mentally, she decided, the man she loved was a million miles away. Maybe even a billion, she thought.
Simms, Robert thought as he ran his hand through his soft, black hair. Somebody like Carrie Banks was going to be working at Simms. Her sister worked there, she’d said, and was a dancer to boot, making it an almost certainty that that was exactly what Carrie would end of becoming. An exotic dancer. A stripper for crying out loud! Some two-bit whore every perverted man in that place would try and exploit. And her naive behind was under the impression that she could actually work at Simms as nothing more than a good old-fashioned waitress. As if those hardcore managers over there were going to let a gorgeous woman with a great body like Carrie do nothing but innocently serve food in their strip joint. He shook his head. She’d better be glad she was no kin of his. He’d have her on a bus back to Georgia before midnight tonight.
“Robert?” Tyler said as she stopped what she was doing and shook her head in dismay. She’d never seen him so agitated. “Are you all right?”
Robert suddenly realized that his anxiety was getting the best of him. “I’m fine,” he said. He sat back, and crossed his legs, as if such an action could help slow down his beating heart. Tyler, however, knew better. Robert Kincaid was a lost cause tonight, she knew, and she aimed to find out why.
A Special Relationship Page 11
