Loving Caspar Read online

  “I’ll do my best, Uncle.”

  “Ey,” he merrily groaned and patted her cheek with affection. “That’s what I like to hear.”

  They cheered to that.

  Chapter Three

  Caspar’s first day as the new boss began with a sign from the universe.

  On the drive there, she passed the animal shelter on Pelton and saw a worker trip over himself chasing after a stray dog that got the best of him. It juked right through the young man’s legs and booked it down the street with somebody’s sub in its mouth. The worker gave up about half way down the block. Caspar wanted so badly to be that dog. But promises made begrudgingly were still promises and she always kept her word. For better or worse.

  She took a long breath in the alley before going in through the back door. The plan was to hide out in her office until business hours were over. Too bad the receptionist caught her first.

  Right before she got to the door, a curvy and fair blonde in gaudy accessories and colorful makeup popped out from the open entry way to Caspar’s left and pulled her behind the reception station. The rest of the administrative staff and a handful of craftsmen already in their dusty coveralls filled up the lobby, shuffling around on the other side of the long counter.

  “It’s custom here to give all our newbies a big warm welcome. I’m Carla Whitman, I work the front desk with Jeffrey Ansari, who’s right over there…”

  Miss Carla continued for about ten more names, but Caspar heard none of them as the sound of her own blood pumping thundered in her ears. It was a sunny day despite the chill in her bones and something about the way the light cut in through the glass windows suddenly made her dizzy, the faces of her employees blurring before her eyes. She thought she might be blinking too much to combat this sudden wave of disorientation, so she tried her best not to move at all, except for the occasional nod between Carla’s words to acknowledge she faintly heard the woman speak.

  “…and everyone, this is Aobe Adami.”

  Cas jammed her sweaty fists deeper into her jeans’ pockets and grunted, clearing her drying throat.

  “Caspar. I-It’s Caspar…um. But you can just call me Cas. If you want. I don’t care.”

  Their faces fell and unsure glances were exchanged. That must’ve sounded meaner than intended.

  “Cas, okay,” Carla recovered. “Cas here is the sole grandchild of the late Miss Luci and Mister Bemo Adami, who built this business out of their own backyard right here in Cedamire forty odd years ago.”

  Everyone clapped, but Cas couldn’t be sure if it was for her or her grandparents. She nodded anyway.

  “Anything you’d like to say to us, Cas?”

  She glanced over all of their faces, including Carla’s as they gradually became clearer. Clear enough to tell that above their strained smiles were nervous, panicked eyes. They didn’t want to be there anymore than she did. Perfect.

  “No.” And with that said, she ducked back into the small corridor, went into her office, and closed the door.

  After throwing herself in the cushioned seat of the big wooden swivel chair behind her desk, she buried her eyes in her palms and counted to ten between deep breaths to combat the spiky ball in her chest. “Calm down, Cas. It’s just an office, they’re just people,” she whispered.

  At her second count to nine, there was a knock on the door. Caspar let out a long huff and sat up straight. She then leaned back in the chair, but decided that was too casual and sat up a little more. In a flash of frustration, she swore under her breath, got up and yanked her jacket off, wondering if she should’ve worn a collar shirt instead of plain white tee over a sleeveless undershirt.

  The knock came again. Too late now.

  “Yeah?” she barked, then winced, aware of the edge in her tone.

  Jeffrey Ansari entered with an armful of files and placed them on her desk. Caspar kept her back to him, remaining overly occupied with putting her jacket on the coat rack just right.

  “There’s uh, quite a bit of paperwork that needs to be reviewed, edited if needed, and signed off by management.”

  Cas ran both hands through her hair then down her jeans before moving on to the blinds in the window, closing them to shut out of the glaring sun. She cleared her throat and this time, carefully considered her tone.

  “And who, uh, is management?”

  “You, Aobe.”

  Cas did a quick glance over her shoulder at the skinny young man, raising a single brow.

  “Don’t call me aobe. We’re practically the same age.”

  “Sorry, ao-Cas.”

  Satisfied with the cool shadow cast over the room, Cas could finally sit back at her desk. She snatched up a file and confidently opened it to a random page. Just as expected, she had no idea what she was looking at, but it was better than looking at a pair of scared eyes and not knowing what to say. In the midst of flipping through pages with her brows knit in concentration, she glanced to her left at the other door in her office.

  “Wasn’t there someone else in here with George, someone who helped him with this stuff?”

  “That was Oscar. He was Daven-aobe’s Man Friday. That’s what we call assistants around here,” he explained with a light chuckle, which died in the dead silent pause and zero eye contact that followed.

  “And what happened to him?”

  “He got married. Moved to the city a few months ago. Rather than hire a replacement, Daven-aobe just took care of what he could on his own. Oscar did put a system in place.” Jeffrey pointed to the shelves behind the desk stocked full of color-coded binders. “It’s apparently easy to follow, but Daven-aobe, of course, abandoned most of it about a week after Oscar left because it involved working with a computer. There’s quite a bit to catch up on from before he left. Mostly forms that need filing for this quarter’s tax report. There’s still time to sort it out before the deadline. Those boxes should still be in the assistant’s office.”

  “This Friday man, will I get one?”

  “You can. Everyone here is already tied up with their own duties, so we put out an ad in the local paper. Assistant for hire. It might get some bites.”

  Until then, she was on her own. Her cheek twitched in a vain attempt to seem unbothered as she finally looked Jeffrey in the eye.

  “Okay. Bye.”

  Jeffrey nodded and scurried out, closing the door behind him. Caspar threw her weight back in the chair and huffed at the ceiling.

  Chapter Four

  Sergeant Desmond Taylor was Cedamire’s favorite bachelor. He was made up of a firm slender build at slightly above average height, Princeton-cut brown hair, and a cool tan complexion – compliments of his Indo-Euromutt parentage – all delectably wrapped in a crisp and fitted police uniform. It made the Sergeant a top pick among Cedamire’s maturing bachelorettes. But he was too busy for romance these days. Looking after Caspar Adami could be a full-time job, especially this time of year.

  Chea Adami was Desmond’s etti – an older sibling not by blood, but by spirit, making Caspar his family, too, whether the kid liked it or not. Before heading home after a shift at the Sheriff’s Department, he made his weekly trip up to the Adami house. He would’ve used his key to get in through the front door, but he didn’t need to. Noise from some kind of saw ripping through some kind of rock gave away Caspar’s location in the backyard where she worked under a cone of yellow light beaming from an outdoor lamp on the garage roof.

  Caspar hadn’t noticed the man until he tripped over an inactive power tool and stumbled into that light. She turned off the sawblade in her grip and pulled down her mask. After wiping the sweat off her face with the bottom of her sleeveless undershirt, she traded the saw for a sledgehammer.

  “What’re you doing here?”

  Desmond straightened himself out and approached slowly, zooming in on the kid’s every little movement.

  “Little dangerous to be working this late, isn’t it? Can’t it wait ‘til morning?”

  “No. What’
d you—” She swallowed and swayed, almost dropping the hammer. “What do you want?”

  Des scanned the haphazard work space and found just what he expected. Six empty bottles of booze in a crate and a fresh case beside it.

  “Starting already, I see.”

  “You said having a ritual helps with grief. This is my ritual.” Caspar dropped the handle of the sledgehammer and gestured to the mess of broken rocks on the ground.

  “The anniversary isn’t ‘til tomorrow, Cas.”

  She picked out a perfect broken piece of stone just slightly bigger than her hands, plucked a fresh bottle of beer from the ground, then took both into the garage to her work station.

  “I’m getting an early start.”

  “Tough first day?”

  “Nothing worth talking about.” She flipped on a rock tumbler and Desmond flipped it off, challenging her to a stare down. One stared with annoyed concern and the other with resentment that entered her heart six years ago.

  “I get that this is the one time of the year where you let yourself be angry and all that, but don’t you think you’re overdoing it?”

  Caspar scoffed and focused on smoothing the edges of the rock. “I should’ve been here. You’re the reason I wasn’t—”

  Des held up his hand. “I’m not talking about being angry with me. We’ve been over that enough times. I’m talking about her. Your mom didn’t like booze, so you get plastered and work with a bunch of dangerous tools just to spite her? You’re only hurting yourself, you know. Last year, you nearly broke your leg. If I hadn’t come around—”

  “I would’ve been fine.” With the defiant pout of a toddler hidden beneath the surface of her big boi glare, Caspar cracked open her beer and took a long swig.

  Desmond could only shake his head. He would’ve been more amused than aggravated if it didn’t hurt him to see the kid punishing herself. Back in the day, they used to talk more than she could with her mother. They would lift weights at the gym and hike in the mornings, have boxing lessons in the evenings before dinner. And if Chea didn’t come out of her room by then, Desmond would take point on feeding the kid, too. Young Caspar grew accustomed to being able to say to him what she couldn’t say to anyone else, ask questions no one else would answer, and always trust him to not only deliver the truth, but also help her cope with it.

  Then six years ago, Desmond coerced her into a decision that took her away from her mother when the fragile woman needed her most. Though the door to Caspar’s heart wasn’t closed to him, there were bars where an open threshold used to be. And the kid didn’t waste an opportunity to the throw daggers through the spaces. Not a single one would ever be sharp enough to drive Desmond away, of that the man was certain.

  “Look, just try to go easier than last year. See you tomorrow.”

  Without looking up from her project, Caspar spoke up. “Bring potatoes.”

  “Potatoes?”

  “I’m all out. Least you could do.”

  “You got it, kid.”

  She didn’t look up until Desmond’s cruiser rolled back where it came from. Then, she choked down another long sip of whatever kind of beer that was and this time, openly grimaced at the bitter taste. Desmond was right. Caspar only drank to spite Chea. Just like Chea only killed herself to spite her.

  She recalled every minute of that day, trying to see the signs that it was coming. Trying to see where she could've changed it. But each rumination concluded the same way. She wouldn’t have been able to change her mother’s mind because it had been made up without thinking of her. Chea’s declarations that it was them against the world, that Caspar had been the only thing – the best thing – in her life worth living for…those were lies. Lies told out of desperation. Truth was, Caspar was the reason she left, not her reason to stay. The kid just hadn’t known it – wouldn’t believe it – until she was gone.

  “Ah! Shit!” Cas hissed. She snatched a rag off the table, using it to catch the blood springing from a gash across her palm. She forgot what she was reaching to grab, but clearly missed it and met the jagged edge of an idle saw blade instead.

  Chapter Five

  Over the counter pain killers were no match for the army of trolls stomping on Caspar’s skull. Luckily, there was the pins and needles sensation around the cut in her hand to keep her mind off the throbbing pain in her head. The former wasn’t deep enough to need stitches, so she’d sealed it with medical gel and wrapped her palm with a waterproof bandage.

  After cleaning herself up, she skipped the morning tea, deciding to go for a refreshing float in Pine Lake instead. Get in one last swim before it was officially too cold to be in the water.

  She cut through the trees and lumbered down a bumpy path until she reached the slight clearing where an oblong pool awaited. No deck meant little to no expectation of visitors. Tourists and locals alike preferred the larger and more accessible Granada River which wound through the town’s popular hiking trails. Staying true to her upbringing, Caspar preferred things far from the beaten path.

  She pulled at the collar of her t-shirt, intending to make quick work of discarding it, when a distinct trickle made her pause. She pulled the shirt back down over her face and startled, stumbling back into a rock, and the dull clink got the attention of what had caught her attention – or rather, who.

  A girl emerged from under the ripples and had started into a set of breaststrokes when an unexpected visitor incidentally made her presence known. She whipped around, peering at the towering stranger through squinted eyes.

  Cas tensed, braced for a scream, and scrambled for something defusing to say. Not that she needed to, apparently. To her surprise, the girl smiled, flashing a wide grin. “Hi!” She even stuck her hand high above her head and waved.

  Cas managed to unfreeze long enough to return the gesture tentatively. Taking that as invitation, the strange girl swam to shallow ground and emerged from the water. She wore an oversized t-shirt over her vibrant brown skin, the fabric clinging to her fit hourglass figure with every step. While twisting water from the dark brown curls braided in a single tail the length of her back, she quickly trotted up to an old bicycle tied to a tree and snagged a towel out of the messenger bag dangling from a handlebar. After blotting some droplets from her skin, she slipped on tennis shoes and a thick sweater dress, then walked up to Cas with her hand out for a shake.

  “Hi. I’m Amie.”

  Caspar put her hands in her pockets and nodded, looking more so at the lake than at her. She tried to relax her jaw, but her teeth wouldn’t stop grinding. She was as nervous to be around a beautiful stranger as she was annoyed that her morning plans had now been interrupted.

  “Okay, too soon, that’s fine.” Amie chuckled, retracting the handshake. Her eyes darted to Caspar’s hands, noticing one was more buried in her pockets than the other. “Oh no, what happened there?”

  Cas cleared her steadily drying throat. “Work.”

  “Ah. What’re you doing at the lake?”

  “I could ask you the same thing.”

  “I asked first, so there.”

  “A swim. I came to swim. Clears my head.”

  Though her brows furrowed in mild confusion, her bow-shaped lips stretched into an amused grin.

  “Well clearly, I like a morning swim, too. Glad to see the lake is still intact.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “When I was a kid. Grew up here until I was about eight. My mom taught me how to swim in that water before she passed.”

  Cas paused, at last meeting Amie’s eyes for longer than a half second. “So did mine.”

  “Passed away or taught you how to swim here?”

  “Both.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Nice…uh, meeting you.”

  “Wait, what about your swim? Feel free to stay. I’m about to leave anyway. I need to be back in town. Got myself a job interview in a few hours. Wish me luck, stranger.”

  Cas watched her jog
back to the bike and ride away. Just as she’d started to breathe normally again and approach the lake, she heard a snap followed by a string of swears. She went over to the trees Amie had disappeared behind just as the girl began to haul her old bike up the rough trail, a chain dragging by her feet.

  “It’ll take close to an hour,” Cas said. “Maybe over, to push that out of these woods and into town. Shouldn’t you call someone?”

  “Oh, no. I’m light on my feet. I can manage. See ya around.” The girl smiled and waved again, picked up the pace and turned up a bend, out of Cas’ sight.

  That didn’t sit right with Caspar, but she ignored her instinct to intervene and returned to the water. Submerged and floated to the top of gentle waves. The cold sent shivers through her whole body as her muscles relaxed.

  “We have to float before we can swim,” her mom’s voice echoed through a soft wind.

  “But I already know how to swim.”

  “Sometimes we float after, too. Slow down, take everything in one breath at a time before it’s gone.”

  Every memory provided a new hint to what was coming. Chea’s small goodbyes. From the times Cas was a little girl and remembered her mother being happy, playful, and affectionate to the times after she turned thirteen, when she’d had to endure the chill of the woman’s gradual withdrawal. All the signs were there, practically hand delivered. She had just been too dumb with hope to notice.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  On her way into town, Caspar noticed the strange girl from the lake on the side of the road. She would’ve kept driving if the girl’s alarming state hadn’t caught her attention. Covered in dirt and twigs, hands on her hips, and hard huffs brushing past her lips, she was stomping on her fallen bike like it owed her money. Cas slowed to a stop beside the scene and rolled down the passenger window.

  “Hey!”

  “Oh. Hi again, stranger. So, uh, you were right. Turns out that it’s much easier going down a bumpy crooked trail on wheels than it is going up on foot.”