A Special Relationship (33 page)

 
On one level, her womanly level, his chivalrousness was a little disappointing.
 
Perhaps she just wasn’t his type, she decided.
 
Or, she’d think, when she was especially disappointed, his color.
  
Marva even told her that she’d only seen Robert with one black woman in the last two years, and that relationship didn’t last but a few weeks.
 
Carrie had wanted to ask why Marva was always focusing on the last two years only whenever she talked about Robert and his girlfriends, especially since Robert never told her anything about his life, but she didn’t go there.
 
It would seem like cheating.
 
“Maybe the sister didn’t like the idea of sharing her man,” Carrie had said instead.
   
      
Marva, who was coming around to actually like Carrie, and, Carrie felt, seemed to be pulling for her as if she was in some kind of contest, smiled.
 
“You right about that.
 
You know how we black women can be.
 
You got a point about that.”

 
But sometimes Carrie wondered.
 
In her experience some of the most progressive whites in Attapulgus, the waitresses and store clerks
 
and fast food restaurant workers that she’d come into contact with on a daily basis, treated her like a sister when they were on the job, and like a stranger when they were with their friends and saw her on the streets.
  
Maybe Robert was like that, too.
 
Privately he enjoyed your company, but publicly he didn’t know you.
 
She didn’t believe he was that way.
 
But she was cautious about it, just the same.

 
And even all of those thoughts couldn’t spoil the peacefulness of the evening.
 
This was heaven on earth to Carrie, she thought, as she leaned back and watched Robert deal the cards.
 
And even when he had stopped dealing and she picked up her hand to see how many spreads she could make off the bat, she found herself unable to stop smiling, unable to fully believe that this was Carrie Banks of Georgia living this life of Riley.

 
“Did you hear me?” Robert said through her fog and she had to look up at him to realize he was addressing her.

 
“Oh, sorry, what did you say?”

 
“I said you’re glowing.”

 
“Glowing?
 
What an odd thing to say.
 
How does a person glow?”

 
“You seem happy, that’s what I mean.”

 
“I am happy.
 
And grateful.
 
I didn’t think I would stand a chance here in Florida, what with so many setbacks and then with Millie dying, but now the good Lord has really blessed me.
 
I’ve got a place to stay, a job I’m getting better and better at doing, and I’m making more money than I’ve ever made in my life.
 
I’m real happy.”

 
“Good,” he said, as if it pleased him mightily.
 
“Very good.”

 
After a moment of them staring into the other’s eyes, they began to play cards.
 
Carrie’s mind was only half in the
game,
however, as she knew there was a subject she needed to broach.
 
She didn’t want to sound
ungrateful,
or otherwise somebody who didn’t know a good thing when she had one, but she was nobody’s fool.
 
She couldn’t continue living this way with a man like Robert Kincaid.
 
He wasn’t bothering her now, he wasn’t making any demands on her now, but sooner or later, she knew, something would have to give.
 
Paying him rent was out of the question, she knew he wouldn’t take it because she’d already offered it, and just allowing things to remain as they were wasn’t an option, either.
 
She wasn’t living in sin, she and Robert had a completely platonic relationship, but ever since Marva’s friend from Human Resources had spread the word that she was living with Mr. Kincaid, Carrie would never avoid, as the Bible instructed, the appearance of sin.
 
In other words, it wasn’t sin, but it sure looked like it could be.

 
 
“Robert?” she said, deciding to get on with it because of that last point alone.

 
“Yes, honey,” he said, his voice sounding almost soothing, familiar, as if he’d known her all of his life.

 
Carrie hesitated.
 
“I’ve made some decisions,” she finally said.

 
Robert looked at her.
 
“About what?”

 
“My future.”

 
It was Robert’s time to hesitate.
 
He knew this conversation was
coming,
he just didn’t want it to be now.
 
“What about your future?”

 
“Since you’re helping me out, since you’ve been so unbelievably good to me, I thought that I should let you in on what my plans are.”

 
Robert’s heart became queasy.
 
He was beginning to like things just the way they were.
  
“Okay,” he said.

 
“I plan to begin searching for an apartment.”
 
He didn’t say anything.
 
He just stared at her.
 
“And then I plan to save enough money to enroll in college, even if I have to take one class at a time.”

 
“You don’t have to move out to do that, Carrie,” he found himself saying, trying his best not to sound in any way panicky, although he were.
 
Because there was no denying it any longer.
 
He wanted her with him.
 
“You can stay here and I’ll send you to school.”

 
She began shaking her head.

 
“And why not?
 
You’ll get your college education.
 
Isn’t that what you want?”

 
“Yes, but on my own terms.”

 
“What’s that supposed to mean, your own terms?”

 
“You’ve done too much already, Robert.
 
And I know I’m cramping your style.”

 
“What?” Robert asked incredulously.
 
“What style exactly are you cramping?”

 
“You know.”

 
“What?”

 
“Robert, you’re a handsome, very eligible bachelor who spends every one of his evenings at home with me.”

 
He knew where she was going with
this,
he just didn’t want to go there.
 
Not yet.
 
He decided to obfuscate.
 
“I’ve offered to take you out many times, but you refused.”
 

 
“What about your girlfriends,” Carrie said bluntly.

 
Robert had not expected her to be so direct.
 
He dropped his cards on the table and leaned back.
 
“What girlfriends?”

 
“Your girlfriends.”

 
Robert stared at Carrie.
 
Hadn’t she seen the change in him, he wondered.
 
Didn’t she realize what had transformed in him over this past month?
 
“I only have one girlfriend,” he said slowly, “and I’m looking at her.”

 
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.