The Ghost and the Goth

I drew in a deep breath (ironic, I know) and shook my head. None of that mattered now anyway. Sometime soon, very soon, a big bright light was going to shine in the distance and suck me in. Then I’d be living the life — or some imitation of it — of sunbathing on a white sand beach with NO sunscreen, nonvirgin mojitos, and an endless selection of shoe stores where everything was free. Hey, it was heaven, right? Before that happened, though, I wanted to see everything I could. A girl only dies once, you know?

I rounded the corner to the parking lot with a spring in my soundless step and realized that for the first time in my … well, for the first time ever, I couldn’t wait to get to school.

People always assume that being popular and pretty makes high school some big playground. Shows how stupid people can be. When you’re homecoming queen three years running, varsity cheerleader cocaptain, and first attendant on the prom court as a junior, there are certain responsibilities and expectations that must be met. The slightest variation — talking to the wrong person; wearing the same sweater that a geek, in a rare moment of fashion consciousness, wears as well; buying a burger instead of a salad — can tip you into obscurity or worse.

Case in point: Kimberly Shae. Kim had everything going for her — a rich family, flawless Asian features, and a metabolism that let her eat anything and still stay light enough to remain at the top of the cheerleading pyramid.

Like most of us in the inner circle, Kim got drunk, or pretended to, at all of Ben Rogers’s weekend woods parties. Except, this one time, Kim drank too much, or at least enough to forget one of the major popular girl tenets: drink enough to be silly and flirty, not enough to be stupid and horny. Someone with a camera phone caught her in the act with her longtime crush and our host, Ben Rogers, behind the school-spirit tree.

Yeah. All the guys would have killed to be in Ben’s place, and not a single girl at that party could honestly say that she hadn’t fantasized about doing the same thing. (Ben’s been considered the most eligible guy in our class since the third grade, and consequently, every girl dreamed of being the one to break him.) But getting caught? That’s a whole ’nother story.

Pictures circulated within hours, and as of Monday morning, Kim knew better than to sit with us in the caf. She relegated herself to one of the second-tier tables. Our cafeteria doubles as an auditorium, with a big stage at the front of the room, so there are steps and levels built right in. The closer you are to the orchestra pit — the smallest, most exclusive level — the more popular you are.

I’d worked hard pretty much my whole life to maintain my status at the pit table (a disgusting name, but not my idea, so whatever). You can’t just coast on your looks. My mother taught me that, in her own messed-up way. Maintaining the illusion of perfection, and being the envy of every other girl in school, took a lot of time and effort, but I gave it my all, and it was worth it.

I mean, take my funeral yesterday, for example. I’d never seen so many people from my school show up in one place. Outside of school, of course. (Thank God my mother had been too “distraught” to attend the graveside service.

Emotional outbursts would have been okay. Vomiting into the flower arrangements … not so much.) Anyway, someone had gotten organized and handed out black armbands with my name puffy-painted in pink on them. They brought flowers and candles and boxes of Kleenex. People I didn’t even really know — like that one chunky girl in pre-calc who always wore these ugly baggy sweaters like they made her look thinner … yeah, right — came and cried over my casket. Well, near it anyway.

I’d even heard talk of a permanent photo memorial of yours truly in the main hall, right next to the glass case of baseball and soccer trophies. (As a varsity cheerleader, I can assure you we suck at football, and if the trophy cases were any indication, we had sucked at it since about 1933.)

It sounds bad, but to be perfectly honest, I felt a little relieved to be dead. Not at first, of course. After I’d gotten over the shock of it, I’d been well and truly pissed for a while. Then again, spending the night in the morgue with your body does tend to make you a bit grumpy. All I could think about were all the things I’d be missing. No more hot fudge sundaes on the sly? No more kissing? Or anything else? I’d died a freaking virgin — that was so not the plan.

But then, the next morning, when I’d found myself transported to the center line on Henderson Street, the sun warm on my face, the roar of the buses overhead, I’d realized something else. All the things I wouldn’t miss. Among them, I’d been dreading the thought of college next year. Starting over, building up followers again, and competing with other girls like me from surrounding schools … ugh, totally exhausting. Now I didn’t have to worry about it. My popularity was frozen forever at its peak. I felt like I’d crossed the finish line of a race that I hadn’t even known I was running. I’d died before I could ruin my life, and while that sort of tanked, in a way it was kind of great, too.

Anyway, after yesterday’s impressive display of mourning, I couldn’t wait to see what my friends would come up with next. Had my fellow cheerleaders, Ashleigh Hicks and Jennifer Meyer, had time to work on the candle-wax sculpture of my face that they’d discussed yesterday between hiccups and sobs?

I picked up my pace, eager to get to the building and take a look at the main hall before the bell rang and everyone started milling around. All those bodies passing through me — they couldn’t see me to avoid me, and I couldn’t dodge all of them — made me feel queasy.

The first sign of something wrong, though, appeared before I got even close to the main hall. Halfway through the parking lot, I caught Katee Goode, a wannabe popular sophomore (third tier in terms of caf tables), glancing around covertly before pulling off the black band around her left arm and letting it drift to the ground.

The fabric caught the brisk breeze and scuttled across the gravel, finally catching on the rough edge of a rock near my feet so I could read the words: Alona Dare, Rest In Peace.

“Hey!” I called in outrage after Katee, but, of course, she didn’t even twitch at the sound of my nonexistent voice.

I crossed my arms over my chest. Fine. Let her be the one weirdo without the black armband. She’d never make the pit table at that rate.

Except as I watched Katee join her group of stupid little sophomore friends, I realized that none of them were wearing armbands anymore either. The cluster of band geeks (fourth tier, better than math geeks but not as good as science geeks because the science geeks could always be counted on to blow something up), just behind Katee’s group of friends, were also black armband — less.

My heart started pounding a little harder, and a cold film of sweat covered the back of my neck. For being dead, I certainly still “felt” a lot, and right now, that feeling was complete and utter horror.

I turned in a circle, just to be sure, the gravel strangely silent beneath my heels. But no … not a single person in view wore the symbol of mourning they’d all so proudly displayed yesterday. How could that be?

Ignoring the long-held instinct to remain calm and look bored, I bolted for the school entrance and the Circle.

Three wooden benches, donated by alumni, made a U shape around the flagpole out front, and this was the domain of my people. First tier, all the way. The popular crowd had lounged and lingered here for the better part of a decade, handing possession down to the next group of young hopefuls.

The benches were worn smooth by hundreds of perfect asses — like Ben Rogers’s — and the flagpole had borne silent witness to, like, hundreds of pre-first-hour hookups. All of it took place right in front of the office, too, because we could do that. We were “the good kids.” Let a burner try any of that, and you’d see detention slips flying. I’m not saying it’s fair, just that that’s the way it works. Everybody knows it.

I arrived at the Circle a little out of breath (yeah, I know, dead! Still …) and a lot closer to the bell ringing than I wanted to. It was harder than usual to get through the crowds of students ambling toward the building. I never realized how much I counted on people recognizing me and getting out of my way. Shame that was over.

As seniors, we finally rated seats on the benches, and my friends had taken their usual places. Ben Rogers was stretched out full-length on the bench closest to the parking lot, his group of would-be concubines encircling him. Seriously, all they were missing were the grapes to hand-feed him, and those big Egyptian fans.

No armband on Ben’s Abercrombie-covered arm, but then again, he hadn’t bothered to wear one yesterday either.

I wended my way through Ben’s future conquests to find Ashleigh and Jennifer, along with Leanne Whitaker, another senior varsity cheerleader, huddled near the flagpole and texting fashion critiques of the unwashed masses in Target jeans and no-name T’s to each other.