A Special Relationship Read online

“Willie Charles!” Mona yelled from the other room.

  “What?” Willie Charles yelled back.

  “Why don’t you stop hittin’ on her and help her behind get a job because she sho’ ain’t gonna be livin’ in my house for free!”

  Carrie tried to smile but even Willie Charles, a man not known for his perceptiveness, could see how deeply Mona’s brashness was affecting her. He could also see, however, definite advantages in having a sweet young thang like Carrie around. “You lookin’ for a job, Miss Carrie?”

  “I will be, yes.”

  “Got anything special in mind?”

  “No, nothing special. I’ll take whatever I can find.”

  Willie Charles nodded. Exactly what he wanted to hear. “Okay, good. I may be able to hook you up.”

  Carrie looked at him. “Really?”

  “Yeah, I got a little somethin’ somethin’ going for me. I ain’t like these no class hustlers ‘round here.”

  “How can you help me?” Carrie asked with nervous excitement.

  “I supervise a night shift cleaning crew and we can always use a good worker. You are a good worker, aren’t you, Carrie?”

  Carrie nodded eagerly. “I’ll be the best worker you have.”

  Willie Charles smiled. “Good. I happen to be off tonight, but that’s rare. You gonna have to work steady and hard. But if you’re interested I can try you out tomorrow night.”

  Carrie’s excitement began to soar. “Tomorrow night? Really?”

  “It only pays minimum wage now, and the work ain’t pretty, so don’t be gettin’ your hopes up. We clean mostly office buildings at night. Places like the Dyson Corporate building downtown, a few banks, and a few other smaller office places. But I think I’ll put you at Dyson. That’s our biggest contract and we need an extra hand.”

  “That’ll be wonderful, Mr. Charles. Thank-you.”

  “My name is Willie Charles Payton. But everybody calls me Willie or Willie Charles. No Mister nothing. Okay?”

  Carrie smiled. “Okay.”

  “You got a car? Transportation?”

  “No, but if you tell me where this Dyson place is I can catch the bus.”

  “Most of our workers are what we call temps, so we pick them up on the company van. If you want to you can ride with them to and from work until you can get your own way around.”

  “Oh, that would be great, thank-you.”

  “I’ll put you on the pick-up schedule and the van will be here, let me see, probably right around six tomorrow night. If you be on time, do your work, then you’ll have no problems with me.”

  Carrie smiled greatly. “I’ll be ready, Mister, I mean Willie Charles. And I’ll do my work and then some. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  Willie Charles had a pretty good idea just how much it meant to her, which meant, in his mind, she was ripe for the taking. And that was why he left her room smiling. Mona was just a shorty, somebody he dropped in on when he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Besides, he had to pay to be with Mona. But this girl here, this smiling face country bumpkin with the shockingly beautiful big green eyes and undoubtedly big heart to match, could very well be a keeper. Somebody he could make and mold to his own liking. Somebody he could completely and exclusively control.

  Carrie, however, didn’t see the inherent problems in accepting anything from a man like Willie Charles. All she saw was freedom. All she saw was a chance to get her own place, eventually enroll in college, and then make her own way. That was why she found the Raid, killed as many bugs as she could still find crawling around the dingy room, and, after a whole lot of praying, fell asleep sitting upright on her suitcase. It wasn’t exactly what she had envisioned, it was hellish more than heavenly, but she took it all in stride. God would have the last word on her happiness, and she knew He would make all things work together for her good.

  It was just a matter of time.

  FIVE

  Robert Kincaid handed the keys of his jet black Cadillac Escalade to the impressed parking attendant, buttoned his suit coat, and walked slowly into Jetson’s. Located in downtown Jacksonville on the banks of the picturesque St. John’s River, Jetson’s was a trendy, popular eating place for many upscale professionals in town, including many of the town’s politicians, and by the time Robert arrived it was already crowded. He was there, not of his own choosing, but to meet his girlfriend Tyler Langley for dinner. And he was late on purpose.

  But Tyler had insisted. She needed to talk with him, she said. She was only one of many females Robert kept company with these days; one of many career women in his life who were just as opposed as he to any kind of exclusive commitment. But over the past few months he was beginning to see a change in Tyler. And that, he was certain, was why he was called to Jetson’s on a night when she knew he would have just as soon be left alone.

  “I know you didn’t drive your Harley in that nice suit,” she said smilingly as he leaned his big body over her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Although his kiss was a long way from passionate, Tyler closed her eyes just the same, drinking up his sweet, cologne smell and kind, gentle touch. When she opened her eyes again and saw him now seated at her table, her heart raced. He had a broad, strong face with large gray eyes and enticing, narrow lips. His black hair was now slightly sprinkled with gray, which only made him look more distinguished to her, but what made him so attractive, Tyler felt, wasn’t just his looks but the fact that he exuded a sensuality that was so subtle and unforced that it lured many an unsuspecting female to fall hard for him. Just as she had done the moment they met, nearly a year ago.

  He was dressed to tailored perfection in a rich, dark blue suit with a blue and white tie, colors, she thought, that seemed to bring out even more starkly the beauty of his big, gray eyes. He was the catch of the century and she knew it, and that was why she had agreed to share her catch with other females around town. Having part of him was better than nothing, she thought at the time. And it was an arrangement that worked for both of them. Robert wasn’t about to commit exclusively to anyone, not after the pain his ex-wife had put him through, and she was just getting out of a bad relationship herself. But after a year of spending so much time with Robert, a year where she may not have been his only woman, but was certainly, she believed, his most prized one, she now felt differently.

  “I’m glad you made it,” she said smilingly as she removed her reading glasses and sat down the menu she had been perusing. She slung back her long, blonde hair and tried with all she had to appear upbeat. Robert saw right through it. Her smile was forced, it seemed to him, and her pretty face, though hardly bleak, betrayed her uneasiness. But they would talk about everything but what she really wanted to talk about for nearly thirty minutes more. Robert talked about the many disasters he had to fix at Dyson, and she went on and on about her law practice. It wasn’t until their dinner orders arrived, and they began to eat quietly, that she got to the point. “I’ve decided to join Fletcher and Lowe,” she said nervously and looked at him.

  Robert sipped from his glass of wine and looked, not at his distressed girlfriend, but at the plate of food before him, food he suddenly had no appetite for at all. “Have you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. And then she smiled. “I think it’s about time I do something. I’ll be forty years old in two weeks. It’s about time I start paying closer attention to my career.”

  “I thought your law practice was doing okay.”

  “It’s doing fine, if that’s all you want. It pays the rent. But at Fletcher and Lowe I’ll more than double my take home pay.”

  “But you won’t be your own boss anymore.”

  “Thus the down side,” Tyler said. She hesitated, however, before continuing. “Karl offered me the position,” she said.

  Robert looked at her. “Karl? I thought he left Fletcher to open up his own practice?”

  Tyler nodded. “He did. But they offered him a partnership. So he took it. And he’s a changed man now,
or so he claims. He declares his running around days are far behind him.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet.”

  Tyler looked at Robert. If only he understood, she thought. “He wants us to get back together, Robert. But I told him I couldn’t. I told him I’m not available. Was I correct?”

  Robert hesitated and then looked at his girlfriend. “What are you getting at, Tyler?”

  “You know what I’m getting at.”

  Robert shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Tell me you’re going to marry me,” she said with a forced, painful smile. “Tell me you love me and you’re going to marry me.”

  Robert, however, leaned back in his chair and began twirling around his food with his fork. She must be out of her mind, he thought. After what Gloria put him through he’d look like the biggest idiot this side of living going down that road again. He’d marry a toad before he said ‘I do’ to another female, he didn’t care who she was. And Tyler had to know it.

  “Well?” Tyler said as if she didn’t know a thing. “I need to know, Robert. I’m almost forty years old. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life as somebody’s girlfriend.” She paused again. “Robert?”

  Robert looked at his distressed girlfriend and frowned. “Don’t play this game with me, Tyler.”

  “A game? You think this is a game.”

  “What did I tell you before we ever got together?”

  “I know what you told me.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  Tyler sighed. “You said you wasn’t going to make any long-term commitment to me or anybody else.”

  “And?”

  “Robert—”

  “And?”

  “And if I can’t deal with that then I need to let you know right now because our relationship will never be more than casual and sexual.”

  “And?”

  Tyler looked angrily at Robert. “And no matter how wonderful I think I am I will not be changing your mind.”

  Robert nodded. “Okay,” he said.

  “But—”

  “No buts, Ty. No buts.”

  Tyler shook her head. If only he could feel half of what she felt. “So what you’re saying then, what you’re actually telling me tonight, is that you’ll be willing to let me go back to Karl. That you’ll be willing to lose me?”

  Robert hesitated. He was fond of Tyler, probably more so than any of his other females, she was certainly better in bed than the rest of them, and he really would prefer to keep her around. But if Sadie was riding her that hard to where she was even considering going back to a class A jerk like Karl Stephens, then it would be better if she did go on. “I can’t lose something I never owned,” he said to her.

  “Don’t you think she’s punished you enough, Robert?” Tyler said seemingly out of the blue and Robert gave her a nervous, caught off guard look, as if one of his darkest secrets had just been revealed. “What?” he said to her.

  “Your ex-wife. Hasn’t she done enough damage to you? You’ve got to forget her and move on with your life.”

  “I think that’s none of your business.”

  “It is my business. You’re my business.”

  “Forget about it, Ty, all right?”

  “But look at you, Robert. Marva Cox told me what kind of man you used to be, how open and caring and warm. Now you’re hard as stone.”

  “You need to leave that alone,” he warned. “That is one matter that I am not discussing.”

  “She left you two years ago. Two years ago, Robert. But you still haven’t even tried to get over it.”

  “Didn’t I say I wasn’t discussing that?” He said this in such a harsh tone that others in the restaurant looked at him.

  Tyler stared at him. How dare he talk to her that way. “Fine,” she said, tossing her napkin on the table. “Don’t discuss it.”

  She stood up without hesitation, and then hurriedly left the restaurant. And Robert, so flustered with the unrelenting anguish of this so-called life, left too.

  SIX

  Carrie worked diligently, scrubbing down not only the sinks and toilets, but also the walls of the Dyson Corporation’s executive bathroom. But when she grabbed the mop out of the mobile cleaning cart as if she was about to water down the floor, her co-worker Gail, who hadn’t done anything all night but read a romance novel and complain endlessly that Carrie was doing way too much, stopped her. “Like, what do you think you’re doing?” she asked as if she could not believe what she was seeing.

  Carrie looked at the mop, then looked at Gail. “I thought I’d mop the floor,” she said.

  “Mop the floor?” Gail practically yelled. “Are you out of your country-behind mind? Ain’t no floor moppin’ goin’ on up in here! Slavery over. That ain’t what this about. Willie Charles told us to clean the sinks and the toilets, empty the trash, and go on to the next room. He didn’t say nothin’ about moppin’ no floors and scrubbing down no walls!”

  Carrie was just trying to hold onto her brand new job, a job she decided last night was desperately needed if she ever expected to get away from her sister’s house. Her reunion with Mona hadn’t been anything like she had hoped it would be. She wasn’t about to mess this up too. “You can go on to the next room,” she said smilingly to her co-worker. “I won’t take long.”

  “Uh-uh,” Gail said decisively. “That ain’t happening. I go to the next spot and do all the work while you back here trying to impress the boss? No ma’am. You can forget that. You gonna put that mop back in that cart and come on with me.”

  When Carrie wouldn’t make any kind of move, Gail took control. She snatched the mop from Carrie, who couldn’t exactly fight back since she was nearly four inches shorter and sixty pounds lighter than Gail. Gail then placed the mop in the cart and began pushing the cart, and Carrie, out of the bathroom. As soon as they made it out into the hall, however, they saw Willie Charles.

  “What y’all still doing in there?” he asked angrily, hurrying toward them. “I leave y’all alone for two minutes and y’all messin’ up.”

  “Ain’t no y’all,” Gail quickly pointed out. “It’s Miss Aim To Please here. She scrubbin’ down walls—”

  “Scrubbing down walls?”

  “She scrubbin’ down walls and was about to mop the floor too before I snatched that mop out of her hands.”

  Willie Charles shook his head. “You go on and finish up, Gail. Let me have a little talk with Carrie. She’ll be right behind you.”

  Gail gladly nodded and pushed the cart into the office across the hall.

  Willie Charles motioned for Carrie to follow him back into the bathroom. When the door closed, he forced her back against it and stood in front of her, his hand resting just above her head. “You trying to embarrass your co-worker, girl?” he asked her.

  “Embarrass her?”

  “You trying to show her up?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Willie Charles smiled a crooked, gap-tooth smile, as if he was amused by her distress. “You just like to do a good job, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s all I was trying to do. I wasn’t trying to embarrass anybody.”

  “You was trying to please me.”

  “I just don’t wanna lose my job.”

  Willie Charles nodded. “I can understand that.” He said this as he removed a strand of hair out of Carrie’s face. Carrie was uncomfortable with his touch and closeness, but she wasn’t quite sure how to react to it. But as soon as he took the back of his hand and began to rub her cheek, she figured it out. She tried to slide her body away from the door, but Willie Charles wouldn’t let her. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked, his heavy-lidded gaze unnerving Carrie. “You know you want this.”

  Carrie suddenly couldn’t breathe. She struggled to get away from her boss, insisting that she still had so much work to do, but he grabbed her by the wrists and kept her against the door. He tried to kiss her, to put his foul lips on hers, but
she kept turning her face away. When he removed one of his hands from her wrist to grab hold of her face, to undoubtedly steady her for his kiss, that was when she was able to kick him in the groin and make her getaway. As soon as he bent over in pain, she slung open the door of the bathroom and ran. Although she had on a bulky Myers Cleaning Service sweatshirt and those oversized latex gloves they made her wear, she also had on her jeans and tennis shoes, which gave her great mobility. She tossed off the gloves, to free up her hands, and sprinted as fast as her tennis shoes could take her. Her heart pounded ferociously, however, when the bathroom door swung open and she looked back and saw Willie Charles, cursing bitterly, as he began to run behind her. She was horrified. Everything she had hoped for - a job, a place of her own, college finally - was crumbling before her very eyes. And it was too much. Everything about this promised land called Florida was already becoming way too much.

  But she didn’t have time to worry about that either. All she worried about right now was getting away from Willie Charles, praying that he didn’t catch up to her. She knew the deal. She knew that kicking her boss in the groin almost certainly meant that she was fired.

  She ran around the corner so fast that she skidded across the floor. Then she saw the elevator and made a mad dash for it. To her amazement, and a testament, she felt, to how hard she was praying, the bell of the elevator sounded and the doors miraculously flung open as soon as she approached them. So relieved she could hardly contain herself, she ran full speed ahead onto that elevator just as Robert Kincaid, who happened to be a passenger, was about to step off. Her small body collided violently into his big body, and with such a force that she ended up in his arms as they both hurled backwards against the wall of the shaft.

  She looked up at him, at this strange white man who now cradled her in his arms, and her heart literally pounded against her chest. It was the oddest reaction she’d ever had to anyone, not to mention a stranger. But he was such a kind looking stranger, she thought, as she stared into his sincere gray eyes. He was somebody who didn’t even have to smile to make her feel at ease. Which astounded her.