Ghost of a Chance Book 1 in Above the Grave Trilogy

Ghost of a Chance
Book One in the
Above the Grave Trilogy
Kara Kirkendoll
© 2012 Kara Kirkendoll

 

3rd Edition – Edited Version
To my family, for always believing in me.
Ghost of a Chance
Chapter 1: The Wheel of Fortune
Chapter 2: The Fool
Chapter 3: The Hermit
Chapter 4: The Moon
Chapter 5: Chains
Chapter 6: The Lovers
Chapter 7: Death
Chapter 8: Judgment
Chapter 9: Justice
Chapter 10: The Sun
Chapter 1
The Wheel of Fortune

As she sat staring out over the aged and water stained
balcony, sipping on her third cup of java for the morning, and
nursing an incredible hangover, Drew wondered what she was
going to do now that she had been evicted from her second
floor French Quarter apartment. She flicked a cigarette with
one hand and absent mindedly rolled a lone ivy leaf that had
made its way over the top of the banister in the other.

It wasn’t her fault the stupid old ladies had been out
walking in the middle of the night when she and her friend Liza
had decided to moon the sleeping neighborhood
.

Didn’t old people have curfews or something?
She
thought.

It was the French Quarter.
People showed body parts
all of the time, but it just so happened that she knocked her shot
glass off of the balcony, and knocked one of them in the head.
She wasn’t quite sure what caused her to do the things that she
did sometimes. Last night’s mishap had been brought on by
the dozens of margaritas that she and Liza had devoured, one
right after the other, or it could have been the countless shots of
tequila. Either way, it was New Orleans. It was the place for
partying right? Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do?

It wasn’t like she was a complete loser that did nothing
but get drunk and into trouble all of the time. She had a good
job working at the local art gallery, and if she would ever get
her head out of her ass and try to sell some of her own work
she might be able to make some extra money for a down
payment on her own home. She didn’t think that she would be
able to get another apartment this time. After all of the bad
references she had had in the past she had barely gotten this
one.

She played with the hot pink strand of hair that hung
unruly in front of her eyes. There was no way she was calling
her mother. She hadn’t talked to her since last Christmas when
she showed up at the “family” dinner completely inebriated.
She didn’t know what the big deal was; she was having a good
time after all.

Drew was an only child, and for many reasons she
preferred it that way.
She would have hated to have had
someone else to look after growing up. She could barely look
after herself and Lord knows her mother hadn’t done a very
good job of it. Any brothers or sisters that she would have been
blessed with would have ended up being her responsibility.

She didn’t know how long it had been since she had
been able to sleep in and not because she wasn’t allowed to.
This particular morning was no different. She had watched the
sun rise just as she had many mornings before, whether it had
been from staying up all night or just tired of tossing and
turning trying to get a few minutes of sleep. She didn’t need to
look inside over her kitchen counter to know that it was now
creeping up on the eight o’clock hour and she was in no way
near ready to get off her butt and start the day.

A large bang came from what sounded like the living
room area. Liza must have decided to join the living by falling
off of the couch. Poor Liza, she had been Drew’s best friend
since Drew beat up that girl for her back in Junior high. She
couldn’t remember her real name, but she and Liza had called
her Kelly, because she looked and acted like she was a perfect
young Kelly Barbie doll. The bitch.

Liza had been kind of a geek in school and after that
day in gym class when Drew had had just about enough of
those preppies picking on anyone that didn’t look and act just
the way they did, Liza had followed her around like a shadow.
It kind of annoyed Drew at first because at the time she was
happy being a loner. After a couple of weeks though, the two
were inseparable.

“Good morning, Sunshine!” Drew yelled in through
the sliding doors that she had left wide open. It was the middle
of August and hot as hell in New Orleans. Her air conditioner
was running full blast but she didn’t really care since it was in
the lease that the owners paid the utilities.
She planned on
letting the water run for a while that afternoon as well.

“What?” Liza yelled back.

Drew snorted.
She and Liza had been on a three day
drunk. She lived way too close to Bourbon Street anyway, she
had decided. It was too damn tempting.

Going back to work the next day was going to be a
bitch. She loved her job and it was probably the only thing that
she did right in her life. , the lights were way too bright some
days in that gallery.

“Where the hell are my pants?” Liza
asked as she
stepped out on the patio. Drew noticed that Liza’s pixy haircut
was flat on one side while the other stood up on end.
She
looked like she had slept upside down on the couch with one
side of her head lying flat against it.

“Who gives a shit?” Drew asked. “I can’t get evicted
twice in the same day can I?”

 

“Yes. As a matter of fact I did once.” Liza said
seriously.

They both laughed at that.
Liza was always on the
straight and narrow until she got around Drew. Liza getting
evicted twice in one day when she was in college was pretty
much Drew’s fault though. Drew had come to visit Liza for the
weekend and stayed in her dorm after hours even though she
wasn’t allowed (but that is another story). When Drew decided
to use the dorm showers the next morning and walked back to
the room naked with nothing but a towel on her head and a pair
of black thongs, the two girls were escorted out of the dorms
immediately. Liza had to even wait a couple of days before
they would let her come back and get her things. At the time
though, her most valued possession was her bong. The jerks
had confiscated that
though while she
was
on her
little
“vacation” away from the dorm. The second eviction for the
dayhad been from Drew’s apartment. Of course Liza couldn’t
tell her parents that she was evicted so she stayed at Drew’s. It
wasn’t their fault the floor was rotted out and when they tried
to do the Lavern and Shirley walk down Drew’s hallway, they
both fell through the floor into the downstairs tenant’s
bedroom. Thank God they landed on the bed and no one was
seriously injured.

“Did you really get evicted?” Liza asked.

“Yep! A great big red notice on the front door this
morning, plus a written lecture on how I need to respect my
elders.”

“You went out your front door this morning?”

 

Drew thought about that for a minute and laughed.
“Yea, I guess I did.”

They both sat in silence for a moment. Liza lay on her
back in nothing but boy shorts and a tank top. Drew sat in her
lawn chair already dressed in jean shorts and a tight pink TShirt that read “Yes, they are real”. She was still
contemplating where she was going to go.
The owners had
only given her a five day notice.

“Why?” Liza said.

 

“Why, what?”

 

“Why did you go out your front door this morning?”
Liza asked in awe.

 

“To check the mail.”

 

“It’s Sunday.”

 

“Oh.” Drew said. “That’s probably why I didn’t have
any.”

 

“What the hell are you going to do?” Liza said.

 

“Check it tomorrow after work I guess.” Drew said
absently.

 

“I’m not talking about the mail, dork! I meant what
are you going to do about the apartment?”

“Well, I am not really sure yet. I could always move in
with you and Tim and your little army of sunshine.” Drew
batted her eyes at her friend.

“No, really, what are you going to do?” Liza laughed
she hated that Drew’s angel like face made her feel like glitter
should be falling from the sky when her lashes fluttered that
way.

Though she loved Drew to death, she wasn’t into the
partying scene like Drew was. This weekend had been the first
drinking craze that she had been on in a long time. She was
actually happily married with three kids.
Her family just
happened to be on vacation without her to Tim’s parent’s house
for the weekend. There was no way that she would still be
married in a week if Drew moved into her house.

Liza admired and pitied Drew at the same time. She
loved her free spirit and how nothing could bring her friend
down.
She also loved that she was very honest, sometimes
brutally,and that if she had something to say she wasn’t afraid
to let it out. She felt sorry for her though because she knew
deep down that Drew was struggling with a past that she
probably hadn’t even told God about.

Drew would never talk about her personal life even to
her though, her closest friend. She didn’t have to be a
psychiatrist to tell that something was wrong. Even she knew
that Drew wasn’t fooling anyone with the tough girl rebel
routine.
She was
hiding
something
that
Liza knew she
desperately needed to get out. Besides, the girl was 25 years
old.
It was time to grow up.
Maybe finding out that life
doesn’t always just pick itself back up when you knock it down
was what her friend needed.

“I love this apartment. It looks out over all
of the
nosey people in the city.” Drew whined. “I can walk to work.
Depending on which way the wind is blowing I can smell the
garbage from Bourbon Street or the bakeries at Jackson Square.
Who could ask for a better place to live?” She stood over the
balcony looking out at the buildings that surrounded her. She
had never roamed far from the city. It was where she felt that
she belonged. She had no intentions of leaving.

“Well, I for one have only stayed with you three nights
and am already sick of the smells down here.
I love you,
Drew, but I am ready to go home to my little suburb across the
Ponchatrain. It is quiet there and I don’t have to worry about
how close I carry my purse or if someone is going to puke on
my shoes.”

Drew snorted at that. “It isn’t that bad here, if you
aren’t a tourist that is.”

 

“No, it is great really, just not every day for me.”

“I guess I could always go back to tending bar at
Boudreaux’s. He nearly fell to the ground weeping when I
took the job at the gallery. If hewasn’t gay I would swear he
was in love with me.” Drew cooed, batting those eyes again
making Liza roll her own.

“Do you think he would give you your old loft back,
the one that you didn’t ever sleep in because you lived right
over the bar and partied every morning until 6 or 7?” Liza
asked.

“Good point. I couldn’t live there and still work at the
gallery. I’d never make it to work.” She said chewing on her
nail, contemplating another cigarette. “I still need to find a part
time job though. I really need to buy my own place. My credit
isn’t the greatest in the world though.”

“You are rambling. Why don’t you go back to fortune
telling? You are great at reading tarots and palms.” Liza
suggested.

“Because the last few times I tried to read other
people’s tarots I kept coming up with the same cards. I
seriously doubt that girl Cookie from “the corner”, a computer
geek, and a bakery chef are going to all end up with the same
fortune. Then I tried to read them for myself and guess what?
The same exactcards!” Drew said as she got up and walked
towards the balcony rail again.

“Did you remember to shuffle them?” Liza laughed.
Drew just glared at her, making her friend take her a little more
seriously.

“Well, what were the cards?” Liza was always very
interested in Drew’s other worldly ventures though she never
could tell if Drew was taking it seriously herself or not.
Coming from her Nana’s “witchy” world she knew all about
tell-tale signs of the future and sometimes how the past opened
doors for the future. Drew may not have believed in what she
practiced, but Liza did.

“Ten of the Major Arcana, which is really strange; The
Wheel of Fortune, The Fool, Hermit, The Moon, Chains, The
Lovers, Death, Judgment, Justice, and The Sun. The meanings
aren’t exactly what they sound like.” Drew said when she saw
the horror on Liza’s face. “At least, they aren’t supposed to
be.”

As she watched a couple walk by holding hands and
noticed that the poor boy had been suckered into buying one of
the crazy ladies roses down the street, she thought to herself
that there was one card that bothered her more than any of the
others, even the Death card, and that was the Sixth card, “The
Lovers”.