Linda Singleton: Dead Girl Walking

Here it was: Saturday, 12:07 p.m.

And Trinidad and I were hanging with ghosts in a graveyard.

I walked around with Mom’s phone held high above my head, checking for a signal. Around the car it was a total dead zone, but as I neared the tall, wrought iron cemetery gate, I got one bar. Excited, I lowered my arm — and the bar vanished.

“Amber, is the phone working yet?” Trinidad hung her head out the car window, her snaky black braid swaying inches above the ground.

“Almost,” I rang out confidently. “I’ll have a signal any minute now.”

“I hope so. I skipped breakfast so I could pig out at the party and I’m starving.”

“I won’t be long,” I assured her, but with less confidence.

Waving the phone, I rushed around searching for a signal. Dead air everywhere except by the cemetery gate. Even there, the bar only flashed for a mega-second. Then I slipped my arm through a gap in the gate; two bars flashed. Hmmm … the strongest signal was inside the cemetery. I stretched my arm up, the metal fence digging into my skin, and was rewarded with one more bar. Almost a full signal!

Now if I could press a few buttons, activate the speaker function, I’d be able to call Jessica. If she couldn’t offer directions, I’d try Dustin. He was always at his computer, a click away from Google.

My arm ached but I kept stretching, contorting my fingers around the phone. A thumb tap and the screen lit up. All I had to do was hit seven digits and—

I dropped the phone.

“No!” I screamed, leaning forward and banging my head on the gate.

“What’s wrong?” Trinidad called from the car.

“Nothing. Everything is fine!” I rubbed my head. “I’ll just be a bit longer.”

“Hurry, okay? This place gives me the creeps.”

Me, too.

“I have it all under control,” I shouted. Damn, my head hurt. “Why don’t you listen to your iPod? I’ll just be a few minutes.”

I looked back to see where the phone had fallen — then slapped my hand over my mouth to muffle my gasp. Instead of falling straight down, the phone must have bounced off a shrub, then rolled down the slanted embankment of what was once a paved driveway. I could see a corner of it, poking up from behind a broken concrete slab. Totally out of reach.

Oh, whoops, I thought. Mom is going to kill me.

I had to get her phone back.

Even though the rusty gate appeared dilapidated, the lock was shiny new. I tugged and rattled and whacked, but it wouldn’t budge. There were no breaks in the wrought iron fence. The only way over was to climb. Impossible. The gate was at least ten feet tall, twice my height, and gym was my worst subject.

Then I got this horrible flash in my mind. Of Mom’s face when I tried to explain how her phone had gotten into a locked cemetery. That was scary enough to jolt me with a burst of Super-Amber Energy.

Sucking in a deep breath, I reached high and grabbed an iron bar. I managed to grasp another bar, then another, until my feet dangled a few inches above the ground. But my arms were already giving out. So I kicked out with my right leg in a pathetic attempt to swing myself up. Clunk! My leg banged against the gate. I cried out in pain and my hands slipped. I landed flat on my butt.

Diagnosis: Bruised, a little battered, but not giving up.

I thought how girls like Trinidad and Jessica would just shrug off the phone loss. “I’ll buy a new one,” they’d say. Easy for them, I thought. It would be heaven not to worry about money and wave credit cards around like magic wands.

My life had almost been like that two years ago. I was the adored only child of professional parents and we lived in a condo by a lake. But when my parents decided to have a baby, they sold the condo and moved into boring suburbia. Mom quit her job, so money became tight. When I found out my parents had spent my college fund on fertility treatments, I walked around with the words “No Future” written in lipstick on my forehead. And I kept asking, “Would you like fries with that?” My friend Alyce accused me of being overly dramatic, and I never argued.

I couldn’t count on anyone for my future. Except me.

So I brushed off my dusty backside and looked around. A ladder would have been nice, but no such luck. I spotted an old board propped against a scraggly oak. Gravel crunched under my open-toed sandals as I carefully pushed aside weeds. The board was filthy with bugs, moss and gross droppings I didn’t even want to think about. I brushed off a corner with leaves, then dragged the long board through the weeds and propped it against the gate.

I half-walked/half-crawled up my makeshift ladder. When I reached the top, I swung up and straddled the curved iron saddle-style, with a leg dangling on each side. Holding tight, I huddled there for a moment, breathing hard.

When I could breathe normally again, I lifted my head to look around. Not so bad, even kind of cool if you were into old tombstones and monuments shaped like angels, saints and temples. There were no flower vases or other offerings from loved ones. Obviously this cemetery was so old even the loved ones were dust and bones. If Alyce were here, she’d snap pictures for her “Morbidity Collection.” She gathered images of the grim side of life, and aspired to be a famous starving artist or get rich from publishing a bestselling photo journal.

But morbidity was not my idea of fun — and the ground seemed so very far away. On the cemetery side there were sharp chunks of concrete from a crumbling sidewalk. Jumping into the cemetery would be suicide. Mom could save up to buy another phone, but I couldn’t buy a new body at Wal-Mart.

Defeated, I prepared to climb back down. But my leg swung too hard and banged into my board-ladder. The board wobbled, slid sideways, and landed on the ground with a poof of dust.

Now what was I going to do? Stranded high on the gate, I slumped against the cold iron. I’d lost my Big Chance. I’d never make it to Jessica’s now, and she’d think I was a loser. Trinidad would never accept a ride or anything else from me.

Diagnosis: Depressed and ready to give up.

I should just jump, end it all now — except I hated messes and really hated the idea of ending up a concrete pancake. I could wait for Trinidad to notice I was in trouble or jump to the softer ground in front of the gate. If I landed on my ample butt, I had a fifty-fifty chance of survival.

I had almost worked up the courage to jump, when I heard a sound that would change the direction of my life forever.

Mom’s cell phone!

Ringing!

Startled, I whipped around on my narrow perch toward the sound. Bad move. My hips shifted and swayed. I lost my balance. My leg shot out from under me, my hands slipped then flailed in empty air.

I was screaming as I fell toward the concrete.

When I opened my eyes, my first emotion was surprise. Somehow I had missed the concrete and landed in a scratchy bush.

Good news: I was alive.

Bad news: The bush was full of stinging nettles.

Pain kicked in like stabbing knives. I jumped away from the bush. Quick body inventory: no broken bones, but the mint-green shirt I’d bought with hard-earned babysitting money was mortally wounded. And tiny red bumps swelled in an ugly mass of welts across my arms and legs.

I couldn’t dwell on it, though, with the phone ringing.

Was it my parents? Dustin or Alyce? Psychic police coming to my rescue?

Hobbling and itching, I eased my way down the sloping road. As I grabbed the phone, the ringing stopped with a silence more painful than the stinging nettles. The signal bar flickered on and off. For better reception, I needed to move higher. An angel statue atop a steep granite podium with stairs looked promising. When I reached the angel, the sun peered through dark clouds and Mom’s phone flashed on. This had to be a good omen from the heaven — or from my Grammy Greta, who I often sensed watching over me.