Mistress

“Plane crash,” I say. If you can’t have a little fun, what’s the point? Oscar Wilde reportedly said on his deathbed, My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go. I don’t know if that’s true, but I like it.

“Oh, this one’s a real joker,” says the woman who doesn’t look like Demi Moore totally, but kind of. “Stay down, Benjamin. Lie flat.”

“I’m…fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’re concussed and hypersomething blah, blah, blah.”

And then there’s a light in my face, and they’re poking and prodding me in a bed and…and…

“…pain medication, Mr. Casper.”

“…someone you’d like us to call, Mr. Casper?”

“…reporters want to speak with you, Mr. Casper.”

“…with the National Transportation Safety Board, Mr. Casper.”

“…ask you a couple questions, Mr. Casper?”

“Casper the friendly ghost, Mr. Casper.”

“The friendliest ghost you know, Mr. Casper.”

Demi Moore in Ghost made every red-blooded male want to take up pottery. No, Mr. NTSB investigator, I have no idea how jet fuel got in my tank, and yes, I’m going through some tough times right now, but no, I’m not suicidal. If I were suicidal I wouldn’t have landed the fucking plane, and I don’t care what anyone says, I’ll take Demi Moore on her worst day, even in G.I. Jane.

“Morning, Benjamin.” A woman’s authoritative voice.

I open my eyes slowly, like a garage door lifting. “What time is it?”

“Oh-five hundred,” she says. A nurse, heavyset, with a warm face.

Five in the morning? I slept for almost eighteen hours. I touch my face. There’s a thick bandage on my forehead.

“What happened?” I ask.

“You don’t remember what happened?”

“I mean, am I hurt?”

“You suffered a concussion and you went into shock. But no broken bones, by some miracle. How do you feel?”

I shake myself fully awake and let reality reintroduce itself. But it doesn’t shake my hand. It goes straight for my balls.

Someone killed Diana and then tried to kill me.

“I have to go,” I say.

“Well, you might be ready for release. But I know the guys from the NTSB want to come back. You weren’t able to answer their questions last night.”

I wasn’t? I thought I told them all they needed to know about Demi Moore’s film career. They want to come back to talk about her time on General Hospital?

I shake my head. I can’t stay here. I’m a sitting duck if they’re looking for me. And after surviving a free fall from nine thousand feet, it would be a crying shame if someone just walked in and shot me.

“I’m leaving,” I say.

Chapter 18

I take a cab to Watertown’s airport and charter a flight back to Potomac. I know, I know, but I figure my odds of crashing in a plane twice in forty-eight hours are fairly remote, and I’m way too stubborn to let my fear ground me. The guy who flies me is a young Asian guy who keeps asking what it’s like to crash-land a plane until I offer to show him. The whole time I’m thinking, if we crash and end up in some remote mountains and get to the point where we’re starving to death, like in Alive, I hope this guy doesn’t eat me.

When I land at Potomac, my fear reawakens. I can’t go home. I make a snap decision and drive my Triumph ninety miles south to my lake cabin in Virginia. Anyone wishing to do me harm wouldn’t be expecting this move. Only problem is, I wasn’t, either, so I don’t have my keys. I have to break into my own cabin.

The place has log siding and a stone chimney and sits on four acres of waterfront property on Lake Anna. The land’s been in my father’s family for three generations, but the lake, in its current form, wasn’t created until the early ’70s as a cooling mechanism for Virginia Electric and Power’s nuclear reactors. My grandfather built the original log cabin on this land, but within a month of his death, in 1983, Father knocked it down and built a two-story, four-bedroom, two-bath structure. Father wasn’t exactly the sentimental type. He didn’t keep a single picture from his childhood and never talked about his parents. My grandfather worked in trade shows. I think that meant he brought shows in and took a commission from the convention center or something like that. He made millions and invested exceptionally well, ergo my trust fund. That’s all I know about Grandpa. Never met the guy and never heard a single intimate detail about him except from Aunt Grace at Father’s funeral, who said that Father hated his dad. So we Caspers are keeping a pretty consistent generational theme going.

I stop and gaze a moment at the serene lake, breathe in the clean air. Down by the water there is a long, L-shaped dock and boathouse. No boat, though. It’s stored in town and I’ve been too busy this summer to get it out. No matter. Just being here instills a sense of calm. This place is good for the soul.