C.A.K.E novel Chapter 12

Casper retrieves his keys from the valet and sits in his vehicle's leather interior for a moment. He stares at the entrance to Arden's building, tempted to rush back inside. To put his arms around her, and reclaim his kiss that was interrupted by the twins' arrival.

Humph, reclaim.

As if he has any right to Ardi. But when has that ever stopped a man from having what he wanted? And damn, if he doesn't want her.

He scratches at the neat hairs outlining his chiseled chin. There's another itch that's begging to be scratched. But that's the thing with scratching. The itch spreads, calling out to be scratched harder and deeper.

Once you start, you can't stop. No matter what lies he tells himself, he knows that one kiss won't be enough for him. Not with her.

His frenzied thoughts are interrupted by a pale knuckle rapping on his passenger window. He hits a button and the window slides down so that a young man with brunette curls can speak to him.

“Are you all right, sir?” The valet eyes him with concern.

Most people tend to drive away once their car is returned to them. But Casper has been sitting in his Bentley, engine running, for almost five minutes. And since he is one of the rare visitors who offered a tip, which the man had to refuse due to building policy, he's a bit invested in Casper's current state of mind.

He considers the gentleman's question. “As a matter of fact, I'm not ...” He glances up at the top two floors of the high rise and shakes his head. "Not at all."

“Can I get you something?”

“What I need, not even God could bring me,” Casper says with a dreamy gleam in his eyes.

“I'm sorry, sir?”

Casper smiles and waves at the valet. “Nothing, thanks. I'm fine.”

“Okay. Have a good day, sir.” The man tips his cap to Casper.

He wishes the gentleman the same, before pulling away from the curb. Casper sails through the network of one-way streets and congested intersections on autopilot. His mind is still with Arden.

Casper's route back to the office leads him through the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The university is not cut from the traditional college cloth. The campus is situated in the middle of the city, with the main artery of Birmingham's Southside running through it.

University Boulevard, formerly known as Eighth Avenue, is hazardous to navigate when one is coherent. But someone in a distracted state like Casper's could plow through a sea of students crossing the busy street without even noticing.

Casper is a skilled multi-tasker, but she's demanding all of his attention. He gets caught by a red light across the street from Heritage Hall. Classes must have just ended because young men and women are flooding out of the building and onto the sidewalk.

Casper's imagining Arden's lips on his when something captures his attention in the crowd of students. He does a double-take, and blinks his eyes over and over. His mind must be playing tricks on him.

But he swears he sees Arden crossing the street right in front of his car, her hair blowing in the humid breeze.

Then he sees her standing on the concrete steps of the building, glowing and magnificent in that fitted white skirt. Then she's standing on the corner, her nose in a book, headphones on, completely absorbed in whatever melody is issuing from her iPod.

When he glances over at the passenger seat, there she is. She's staring out the window at the traffic whipping by his car.

She turns to smile at him. Everything starts to move in slow motion around him. Nothing exists outside this space.

An agitated orchestra of car horns sounds behind him. Of course, he doesn't hear the cacophony of irritated drivers that surrounds him.

Who could think about anything else, when a vision of beauty manifests before one's eyes?

Arden shakes her head and glances up at the green light that just made its transition to red. He follows her gaze and groans. Her laugh fills the car, making him smile. Then she's gone.

Casper tunes back into reality and gives a weak wave to the perturbed drivers stuck behind his vehicle. He smooths his hands over his goatee. This is a sickness.

Knowing he won't be able to concentrate on anything at work, Casper decides to head home. It's the middle of the day, and he's looking forward to sitting alone in his five-bedroom house and daydreaming about Arden.

When he pulls into the circular drive of his home, he's surprised to find Karma's car parked out front. Cain's Jaguar is parked alongside it. He's been trying to get these two to hang out with him since last week. And here they are together.

Karma is supposed to be so damn busy preparing her closing argument for the Pollard trial. And Cain should be at the Young & Dunn ad agency, dreaming up new ways to con people out of their hard-earned disposable income. Neither one of them should be here, putting a wrench in Casper's plans.

He intended to stroll inside, kick back with a fifth of scotch and a cigar, and contemplate what voodoo he needs to work for Arden to become more than just a vivid hallucination.

Then he wanted to take a break from plotting a coup against the sanctity of the institution of marriage to make some progress on his screenplay. He doesn't often get the occasion to do so at home, without Karma preaching to him about writing being a flagrant misuse of his time.

“While you're wasting your time with this pointless hobby, someone else is moving in on that vice president position. You need to stay focused. No one is ever going to read your little story anyway.”

It always astounds him how she can dash his dreams with such ease, without even batting a false eyelash. He can't understand what more she wants from him. Every step he takes up the corporate ladder, she wants another rung.

She can congratulate him on his achievements. But lurking behind that brief stint of satisfaction with his efforts is an even loftier expectation.

A person like that, who's always so concerned with the greener side of the fence, can't ever be happy. There's a better-looking patch of grass on the other side of every fertile pasture. Casper doesn't have the stamina to continue bounding over fences for the rest of his life in search of something better.

He wants to laugh now, and laugh some more later. He wants to experience the feeling of having nowhere to be except in the present moment. To just be content. And that's something entirely foreign to Karma.

Casper takes his time heading into the house. He walks to the end of the drive and pulls a stack of letters from the mailbox. He makes polite conversation with an elderly neighbor, Mrs. Reynolds, who is out walking her dog.

He pets the black french bulldog with the white patch of fur on his belly. The robust little dog's coat makes him look like he's wearing a tuxedo.

This might explain why Mrs. Reynolds calls him Mr. French and likes to dress him in a top hat and prop a smoking pipe in his mouth. Her Christmas cards are always hilarious.

Mr. French doesn't seem to mind being treated like her canine clotheshorse. He poses for every picture and doesn't try to scramble out of whatever outfit she places on him.

Casper wouldn't mind having a pup like Mr. French, but Karma detests anything that can't clean up after itself. So she and young children often don't mix. It's a wonder she can tolerate Cain's two kids.

“Casper, how are you dear?” Mrs. Reynolds asks.

He gives Mr. French a final rub, then rises to tower over the petite woman. "I'm doing alright. How about yourself?"

“Well, you know me and this rheumatoid arthritis.” She twists the wrist of the hand that isn't holding onto the dog leash. “Sometimes I can barely get out of bed.”

“Maybe it's time to consider taking your son up on that offer for you and Mr. Reynolds to come live with him.”

“Not a chance.” She scoffs. “Junior's in bed before ten every night. Moving in with him would seriously cramp my style.” She does a quick cha-cha. “I like to cut a rug every once in a while.”

Casper chuckles. “I'm scared of you. Don't hurt nobody with those moves, Mrs. Reynolds.”

“You oughta join me sometime.” She winks at him. “Might teach you a thing or two.”

“Oh, I'm sure I couldn't begin to keep up with you.”

She pinches his cheek and he grins. “Well, I'm sure you got better things to do than standing out here, entertaining an old lady.”

He looks around and shrugs. “I don't see any old lady here. Just a woman in the prime of her life, with the understated elegance and beauty of a queen.”

“You're such a sweet boy, Casper.” Mrs. Reynolds smiles at him and glances behind him toward his house. Her smile subsides into a deep sigh. “You deserve every bit of happiness there is.”

Casper glances down at his shoes. “Thank you, Mrs. Reynolds.”

She takes one more look at the brick home behind him, then she and Mr. French say their goodbyes. Casper waves as he watches their slow gait up the street toward her house.

He turns to head inside, then stops to glance at Mrs. Reynolds again. She's always been nice to him. But today there was a hint of something else there. It felt a lot like pity.

Casper thought he had escaped that look of empathy a long time ago when he moved here from London.

He never could get used to seeing the uneasy expression on the face of anyone who knew about his past. People couldn't say hello to him without bringing up his sob story.

His childhood hadn't been the greatest, living on the income of a single parent. But his father made their barely middle-class existence a comfortable one. He doted on his son while managing to instill all the qualities a respectable young man should possess.

Frederick Buhari was the kind of man who worked his fingers to the bone in order to forget. He operated under the belief that, if he kept moving, his mind wouldn't have time to question why he could no longer sleep in his bed. Why he preferred the couch, to sleeping on a king-sized mattress without his wife. Why she had run away from life—their life.

Casper's mother, Ophelia, leaped from London's Tower Bridge to her death on his seventh birthday. Witnesses said one moment she was smiling down at the water and the next ... The murky waters of the River Thames owned the sweet personality of the Sierra Leonean beauty.

She had promised to buy him a chocolate cake from the bakery they visited every Sunday afternoon. He waited on the front steps of their home for her to come walking up the street, with that serene smile of hers, humming that ridiculous little tune.

Then two officers drove up to his house and told him that the woman, who had made him toast and eggs that very morning, wouldn't be rounding the corner with a three-tier birthday cake in her hands. She wouldn't be confiscating his comic books at bedtime, before kissing his forehead and tucking him into his Superman sheets.

His first love was no more.

The memories she left behind unraveled like a braid that had come undone at the end, evaporating into oblivion. Casper's days after her death was consumed with possessed cataloging of each moment that he had ever spent with her. He tried to capture every birthday, Christmas, and mundane afternoon down to the most minute detail before they slipped through his fingers like grains of sand.

He wanted to remember his time with her, and at the same time, he was struggling to understand her. He examined the words and actions of the past, in search of some explanation as to why she had left him.

What was going through her mind, that she could forget there were two people who worshipped the ground she walked on. And why had she chosen her only child's birthday to say goodbye to the world? She had her pick of three hundred sixty-five days, and she picked that one. She had to be sending him a message.

With no suicide note or any other obvious indicators of her mental state, Casper was left with only one person to blame ... himself.

He had no way of knowing that she got tired of trying to outrun the demons of a tortured past that she narrowly escaped. He had no way of knowing that her selfish choice had nothing to do with her precious boy. She would have given anything to continue being his mother.

But Casper deserved more than a broken woman, masquerading as a well-adjusted adult. Years of unspoken abuse at the hands of her father had left her hollow inside. The bitter seed that had taken root in her heart and soul, left little room for the unending affection every child needs.

The night before her baby's birthday, she sat thinking of what she could give him. After hours of contemplation, she knew the greatest gift she could ever offer him was her absence.

So on the day that marked seven years since a bundle of joy she named Casper came into this world, she walked to the middle of one of the most iconic bridges on earth. She wished her brilliant boy a happy birthday and fastened a big red bow to her head. With one last declaration of her love for him, she put an end to her suffering and the pain she believed she would have caused her child in the long run.

But Casper and Frederick didn't know any of that. She had left them floundering in an ocean of grief without a life raft. Seven years later, Frederick still hadn't managed to free himself from the choppy undertow. A massive stroke ended his constant fight just to keep his head above water.

Casper became an orphan at fourteen. A time in a young man's life when his parents' guidance is needed the most, especially that of his father. He was facing the possibility of four years in a boys' home. There wasn't a line forming at the door to adopt a teenager.

Lucky for Casper his mother's sister, Leonora, intervened. She and her family had left the UK years before when her husband got an opportunity to start his own practice in Alabama. As a result, Casper had a rare occasion to see his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Distance and time had made them a little better than strangers.

The week after his father's body was laid to rest next to his beloved wife, Casper hopped across the pond to another life. Thanks to his aunt's nurturing, it didn't take long for him to adjust to his new home.

Leonora and Charles adopted Casper and raised him as their own. He and his younger cousin, Cain, were brothers from that day forward.

Though the question of Casper's pronounced accent and Cain's clear lack of one did surface on a regular basis. Those closest to the family knew the truth of their relation. For others, Casper would put on his best southern gentleman accent. After he entertained them with his quick wit and impressions, no further mention was made of any differences between him and Cain.

Casper shrugs off his thoughts of the past and continues his walk to the front door. He steps inside his home and calls out to his wife.

Muffled sounds are coming from the master bedroom down the hall. His feet follow the noises, as he shuffles through a few bills and junk mail. He calls Karma's name again. Still no answer.

A loud thump and a long scratching noise make him hasten his steps. He's about to open his bedroom door when it swings open.

“Casper, what are you doing home?” Karma asks.

She pulls the door closed behind her, keeping her hand on the doorknob and her back pressed to the doorframe. A smile that carries the same authenticity as a knock-off handbag from the swapmeet spreads across her face.

“Took a half-day.” He regards her with a raised brow and critical eye.

“You can't just blow off work, Casper. That's not the kind of attitude that will get you promoted.”

She's the one who is supposed to be so damn swamped with work, that she couldn't take an afternoon to spend with her husband. And here she stands, disheveled and out of breath, outside their bedroom door in the middle of the day.

“I'm not blowing off work. All of my stuff was handled. So I left.” He takes a step back and shakes his head.