A Special Relationship by Yvonne Thomas

her eyes, her light green eyes that were as large as her pretty face was small, eyes that looked so pitiful and sad that they suddenly tugged at his heart, he softened.   She was breathing heavily as she stood against him, her sizable breasts lifting up and down as if she’d been running a marathon, and he quickly realized that her demeanor was not indicative of playfulness at all, but terror.  
      The source of that terror, Willie Charles, slid around the corner and up to the elevator too, ready to jump on board and trap her inside.   But as soon as he wedged his body in between the doors as they attempted to close, he stopped where he stood.   And he couldn’t believe his eyes.   The boss himself, the one man in this whole wide world Willie Charles just could not stand, was holding that witch of a woman in his arms.   “ Mr. Kincaid ?” he asked, astonished.
      As soon as Robert heard Willie Charles’ voice, he stopped staring into Carrie’s eyes and released her from his grasp.   Her heart dropped when he released her.   “Hello, Willie,” he said.
      “Good evening, sir,” Willie Charles replied, now smiling.   “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
      “Obviously not,” Robert said as he pulled out a handkerchief and began to wipe his big hands.   That reaction by Robert reminded Willie Charles of just why he hated Kincaid so much. He was always so smug, Willie Charles felt.   He was always looking at him and talking to him and treating him as if he was the scum of the earth.   Willie Charles had seen his kind all his life.   White boys who wore their fancy suits and drove their fancy rides and acted like the world owed them respect.
      “What’s the problem here?” Robert asked him.
      “No problem at all, sir.   None at all.   We was just horsing around.   But it won’t happen again, I promise you that.”
      Robert glanced at the young lady who now stood so close beside him that she was actually brushing against him.   He knew Willie Charles was lying, he knew this girl wasn’t horsing around with anybody.   But Robert also knew that he wasn’t about to get involved.   “See that it doesn’t happen again,” he said sternly and walked off of the elevator.  
      “No, sir, it definitely won’t,” Willie Charles said as he quickly pressed the elevator’s hold button to make sure Carrie didn’t try to make another one of her getaways.   “You know me, Mister K.,” Willie Charles continued, putting on his best phony smile.   “I’m all about getting that work done.   And that’s exactly what we’re gonna do: get that work done.”
      Robert was about to walk away, to just forget about Willie Charles and everything else associated with him, but he looked at Carrie again.   She stood in the elevator looking so confused, as if she didn’t know why she was even there, as if she was fighting back tears with everything she had.   And for some unfathomable reason he couldn’t begin to understand, she tugged at his heart again.   He exhaled.   “You okay?” he asked her.
      The compassion in his eyes made her want to tell him the truth and say no, nothing about her life lately has been okay.   But why should he care?   It was obvious to her by the way he released her, by the way he couldn’t wait to get away from her, by the way he so quickly believed Willie Charles, that the last thing he wanted was to be bothered with her.   He had even wiped his hands, as if touching her had somehow contaminated him .   I’m fine , she wished she was strong enough to say, just to prove to the world that they weren’t about to get the best of her.   But she wasn’t fine, and that was the problem.   “No,” she said to Robert, and Willie Charles shot her a look so terrifying that it made her skin crawl.   He was petrified .    Didn’t she know what she was saying ? he wondered.   Didn’t she realize that she could cause him to lose his job, not to