Mistress

Chapter 17

The aftermath is like a dream, like I’m floating. After a couple of minutes on my feet, my legs buckle, ink blots flash and disappear before my eyes, and I collapse to the ground. The first responders ask me if I’m all right, and I’m thinking-I don’t know if I say this out loud, but I’m thinking-if I could survive a fall of nine thousand feet, I can probably survive a fall of six feet and one inch. An ambulance is there a few minutes later and they rush me off before the media arrives. They transport me to Watertown Regional Medical Center, or at least that’s what they tell me. I’m weaving in and out of consciousness, picking up a few words here and there, blood volume and saline and cyanosis. A nice paramedic who looks like Demi Moore, but blond, and with a different eye color-okay, maybe she doesn’t look totally like Demi-

“God must have been with you today, Benjamin,” she says.

“Was He the one…who put the jet fuel in…my plane?”

I’m leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again. But I’m still here. I’m still standing, yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate that song. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little better. But she didn’t love me. She would have, someday. Diana would have-

“My…mother loved me,” I say.

“Your mother loves you?” It seems like she’s trying to keep me talking. She looks kind of like Demi Moore.

“She…died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was that just recently?”

“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.