A Special Relationship (6 page)

 
“If I were you, girly,” he said, “I’d get right back on that bus and go right back where I came from.
 
This ain’t
no
kind of place for somebody like you.”

 
Carrie’s heart was already broken, mainly because Popena’s letters had made Jacksonville sound like paradise, but she managed to smile at the cabby just the same.
 
“Thank-you,” she said, “but I’ll be fine.”

 
The cab driver shook his head, as if he doubted it, and then he got into his cab and drove away.
 
Carrie almost wanted to hail him back down, when she turned toward the stoop and saw some of the young men staring at her.
 
But she didn’t even attempt to.
 
She simply squeezed past them on the stoop, their “
ooh mama you look good
and other obnoxious catcalls turning her stomach, and entered into the heavy glass door that led to an inner sanctum of four apartments downstairs and four up.
 
According to Popena’s letters, she lived in number 6, which was up, and which was where Carrie headed.

 
The urine smell on the walk-up, the sound of loud music from one apartment, a heated argument from another, a baby crying mercilessly from yet another, kept Carrie’s nerves on edge, but she wasn’t about to let a mere carnal environment depress her too severely.
 
She wasn’t going back to
Georgia, that
was for sure, where she’d have to deal with Dale and her mother and all the pressure they would undoubtedly keep putting on her, so she knew this was all she had.
 
And with urine smells, noise and all, she was determined to make it work.

 
“Who is it!” a voice on the other side of apartment 6 said angrily after three rounds of knocks.
 
The door then flew open so violently that it bounced off the back wall and nearly closed back up.
 
Popena Banks, known to everybody in Jacksonville as Mona Banks, was astounded when she saw that the unwelcome intruder was none other than her kid sister.
 

 
Mona looked horrible to Carrie, as those good looks of hers were now faded behind rough-dried skin and long, weaved, uncombed hair, but Carrie still managed to smile.
 
“Hey, Poppy,” she said happily.

 
“Carrie?”

 
“Yeah, it’s me, girl.
 
Ain’t it something?”
 
She dropped her luggage when she said this and immediately fell into her sister’s arms.
 
Mona, who was four years older than Carrie and almost twice as large, still nearly fell back.
 

 
“What are you doing here?” she asked as she pulled back from her sister’s embrace, her anger only slightly lessened by her confusion.
 

 
“I couldn’t deal with Attapulgus anymore,” Carrie said.
 
“Too much mess going on.”

 
“What kind of mess?”

 
“Mama and Dale, child.”

 
“Dale?
 
Dale Mosley?”

 
“Yep.”

 
“What Dale Mosley got to do with it?”

 
“I wrote and told you we were supposed to get married.”

 
This astounded Mona.
 
“Married?”

 
“Yes!
 
Didn’t you get my letters?”

 
“I probably did, but so what?
 
I don’t remember all that.
 
But wait a minute.
 
You’re telling me that you were supposed to marry Dale Mosley?”

 
“Yes.”

 
“THE Dale Mosley?
 
The man whose family owns all that property around Attapulgus and Bainbridge too?”

 
“Yes.
 
Him.”

 
Mona looked at her sister.
 
She was always the chosen one.
 
Always the one who, with just a wink and a smile, could get the best boys in town interested in her, and the best grades, and all of their mother’s affections.
 
Now she had to show up unannounced on Mona’s turf and see for herself that good old Popena was still a failure, still living from hand to mouth, still unable to obtain anything remotely resembling an achievement.
 
All of her letters, she now knew her sister knew, were pure lies.

 
“I don’t know what you coming here for,” she said with more than a tinge of bitterness as she walked away from the door and further into the apartment.
 
“I ain’t got
no
room for nobody else,” she added, without bothering to invite Carrie in.

 
Carrie, however, invited herself in as she grabbed her suitcase and quickly followed Mona, closing the door behind her.
 
She never thought she’d be an imposition.
 
She never dreamed in a million years that her sister wouldn’t welcome her with open arms.
 
“It’ll only be temporary,” she said quickly, the disappointment making her feel as if a sledgehammer was pounding her.
 
“Just until I can get a job.”
 

 
Carrie was looking around her new home as she spoke.
 
And it was yet another letdown.
 
The walls were peeling
paint,
the furniture was sparse and had that cheap, over-used thrift store quality about it.
 
And the smell inside the apartment was even worse than the smells on the stairwell, as the aroma of liquor dominated the room.
 
Carrie felt so nauseated, in fact, that she wanted to ask if they could open a window.
 
Given the grim look on her sister’s face, however, she decided against it.

 
Mona walked into the adjourning kitchen and sat down at the small metal table.
 
On the table were a pack of cigarettes, a plate of day-old food, a near-empty bottle of beer, and a deck of cards.
 
She grabbed the pack of cigarettes and pulled one out, staring bitterly at her sister as she did.

 
Carrie sat down at the small table too, placing her luggage at her feet, and she tried with all she had to present a happy, upbeat front.
 
It was difficult to pull off, however, given the mountain of fears that were trying to weigh her down, but she did it.
 
Even Mona was impressed by her kid sister’s ability to handle what had to be a disappointing reality check, but she’d never let Carrie know of her admiration.
 

 
“Did I wake you?” Carrie asked when it appeared Mona wasn’t interested in saying much herself.

 
“Yes, as a matter of fact you did,” Mona said, as she lit her cigarette, blew a puff of smoke in the air, and then folded her arms defiantly.
 
She still had her shape, Carrie thought, she still had that bordering on plump shapeliness that always kept her in good stead with men, but Carrie couldn’t get over how differently she looked.
 
She ran away from Georgia with a married man, defying their mother and the man’s wife and children and everybody in town who took her to be the worse snake crawling to do something so immoral.
 
But Mona just knew at the time that she was grabbing happiness where she could get it and she didn’t care what anybody else thought.
 
She had found the man of her dreams.
 

 
But now that dream man was gone, long since deserting her (even her letters admitted that), and Carrie could tell that the pain of that rejection, and the unspeakable things she undoubtedly had to endure just to survive in this strange land, showed like cracks in armor all over her once beautiful, but now angry, bitter, harsh-featured face.

 
“I’m sorry I woke you,” Carrie said.
 
“I didn’t think you’d be in bed this early.”

 
Mona blew another puff of smoke.
 
“I work at night,” she said.
 
“I’ll be leaving in a few hours, matter of fact, so I try to take a nap before I go.”

 
“Where do you work?”

 
Mona looked at her sister.
 
“Simms,” she said.

 
“Simms?
 
Is that some kind of restaurant or something?”

 
Mona gave a harsh, one-syllable laugh.
 
“Yeah, you can say that.
 
Now what’s your story?
 
Why didn’t you marry the great Dale Mosley like I’m sure Honey wanted and live out the American dream?”

 
“I decided not to.”

 
“I know you decided not to, don’t get cute with me.
 
Why is the
question.
”

 
Carrie hesitated.
 
She hoped her sister would understand, but somehow she doubted it.
 
“He wanted a sample and I wouldn’t give it to him.”

 
Mona laughed immediately, her entire countenance suddenly lifted on those few words alone.
 
“You’re kidding me.
 
You have got to be kidding me.”

 
“I’m a Christian, Popena.”

 
“Here we go.”

 
“Well I am!
 
And I’m not compromising my faith, my belief, for Dale Mosley or nobody else.”

 
Mona looked at her sister.
 
She always admired that about Carrie, although she’d never tell her so.
 
“I guess Honey’s upset.”

 
“Very.
 
She kicked me out the house and threw my clothes some of everywhere around that porch.
 
I was so embarrassed.”

 
“She was drunk I’m sure.”

 
“Yep.
 
Dale had promised to give her that house she’s staying in free and clear after the wedding and she just thinks I should marry him for that reason alone.”

 
“Pa-lease.
 
She’s got some nerve.
 
You the one got to live with the joker.”

 
Carrie smiled.
 
Her sister was slowly beginning to sound like her old self again.
 
“That’s what I say,” she said.

 
Mona tapped the ash of her cigarette onto the plate of food,
then
she looked at Carrie.
 
“What about Daddy?
 
Was he around?”

 
Carrie shook her head.
 
“We haven’t seen him in months.”

 
“That figures.
 
But that’s Honey for you.
 
Her old man can sleep around with the entire town and she does nothing about it, but as soon as I fall in love with somebody she runs me out on a rail.”

 
“You
was
fooling with a married man, Popena.”

 
“Daddy married.
 
I don’t see her disowning him.
 
And stop calling me that.”

 
Carrie frowned.
 
“Stop calling you what?”

 
“Popena.
 
I hate that name.
 
Sometimes I think Mama named me that out of spite.
 
My name is Mona, okay?”

 
“Mona?”

 
“Yes, Mona.
 
Mona Banks.
 
It’s my stage
name,
it’s like a play on Mona Lisa.
 
Dooney, he’s the manager where I work, just loves it.
 
He was the one who thought it up.”