A Special Relationship (23 page)

 
“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.

 
She walked over to him with two drinks, handing him one of them.
 
He stood to accept the drink and sat down only after she took a seat in the chair flanking the sofa.

 
“Now,” she said.
 
“Let’s have it.”

 
“Have what?”
 
Robert asked.
 

 
Tyler smiled.
 
He was going to play hard to figure tonight, which was fine by her.
 
She had all night.
 
She just sat there looking at him, the smile on her face a good shield for her concern.
 
Robert looked good, she thought, in his rarely seen dress-down style.
 
He had on a pair of black slacks and a white pull-over V-neck muscle shirt that only magnified his broad shoulders and thick biceps.
 
Aging gorgeously, she thought.

 
“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?” she finally said to him.

 
“Tell you what, Ty?”

 
“Come on, Robert.
 
You’ve been behaving, for lack of a better term, weird all evening.
 
From dinner to now.
 
So let’s have it.
 
What on earth have you behaving this oddly?”

 
Robert took a glance at Tyler and then sipped from his glass of wine.
 
“I’m okay.”

 
“Don’t even try it, Robert.
 
I know you.”

 
Robert, however, wasn’t about to discuss those crazy feelings he had for Carrie with Tyler or anybody else.
 
She’d laugh in his face if he was to tell her that he was worried sick about the waitress that ruined her chenille pantsuit, the woman she literally slapped.
 
Even just remembering that night still brought pangs to Robert’s heart.
 
He knew it was dangerous to put a woman on a pedestal.
 
He knew he was just asking for trouble.
 
But when it came to Carrie, to
Sojourner Caroline Banks
, he couldn’t help himself.

 
And he decided, right then and there, to stop trying.
 
He stood up.
 
No way was he going to just sit back and let her make the biggest mistake of her life.

 
“Robert, what is it?” Tyler asked him.

 
“I’m going to have to take a rain check on spending the night, babe,” he said.

 
“Don’t shut me out, Robert.
 
You always shut me out.
 
Tell me what’s wrong.”

 
“I’ll call you later,” he said as he began heading for the door.

 
“Robert!”

 
“Goodnight, Ty,” he said and did not even think to look back.

FIFTEEN

They made it but they were late, and Dooney Wallace, who sat at the bar going over receipts, was not amused.
 
He even ignored Mona when she tried to explain, everything from waking up late to missing her bus to whatever else because he stopped listening.
 
It wasn’t until she mentioned that Carrie was with her did he even look their way.
 
When he saw Carrie, he smiled.

 
“Well now,” he said and swerved his bar stool around.
 
“This is what I’m talking about.”

 
“Now you see why I’m late?” Mona said, grabbing any excuse she could find.

 
“Yeah, yeah,” Dooney said.
 
“I hear you been tipping out on the sly.
 
Getting some side gigs on your own.”

 
“Don’t believe everything you hear.”

 
“I don’t play that, Mo, and you know it.”

 
“I said don’t believe everything you hear, Dooney, dang.
 
Just because one of these jealous hoochies told you something
don’t
mean you got to act like it’s true.”

 
“Just go get your butt ready for the show.
 
And you better be on your game tonight, Mo.
 
None of that cat woman meowing and playing around crap you tried last night.”

 
“I got this,” Mona said bitterly as she began walking behind the small stage.
 
When she glanced back she could see Dooney’s eyes looking Carrie all over, as if she was a piece of meat to eat.
 
As if Mona was
chicken,
and Carrie was caviar.

 
Carrie, however, wasn’t giving Dooney a second thought.
 
She was looking at the smoke-filled bar, where the music was loud and the conversation animated and the dancers, well, exotic.
 
It was early by nightclub standards, and the crowd was sparse, but the dancers were not hesitating to put on a show.
 
A raunchy, in your face,
topless
show.
 
Carrie felt like throwing up.
 
No way could she work in a place like this, in this literal den of iniquity.
 

 
She didn’t expect much.
 
She had, in fact, expected some hole in the wall establishment no self-respecting female would even venture into.
 
But she didn’t expect this.
 
This was no multiplex as Dooney called it.
 
It was no ordinary nightclub as she tried to convince herself.
 
This was a strip joint.
 
Pure and simple.
 
And she was crushed once again.
 
She wasn’t expecting much, Lord knows she had lowered her standards a long time ago.
 
But this was too low.

 
It was at this point when Robert Kincaid entered the club.
 
She was still staring at the dancers, and Dooney was still staring at her when he walked in and made his way to the far side of the bar counter and sat down completely undetected.
 
He wanted to explode when he saw her in a place like this, looking at those half-naked women, her little Georgia behind undoubtedly stunned by the view.
 
She realized tonight that she wasn’t in Attapulgus anymore, he was willing to bet.