Stalker Girl

by Rosemary Graham

  Jess stood by the side of the bed, arms folded in front of her. “Can’t I sleep in your room?”

  “What room? I don’t have a room; I have a bed. And no, you can’t. I have homework. I’ll have the light on for hours.”

  “I’ll use this,” she said, starting to slide the eye mask off Isabelle’s face.

  Carly reached out to stop her. “No.”

  “Why not? She never wakes up when she’s like this.”

  “I know. That’s why we’re going to move her. If we roll her onto her side, she’ll stop snoring, and there’ll be enough room for you.”

  “Great,” Jess said. “Where’s my raincoat?”

  “Oh, come on, it’s not that bad. Like you never drool?”

  Carly pulled the covers off. Isabelle was in her underwear: a frayed deep purple bra and black bikini panties, a combination that might have been sexy once, but now, in combination with her mismatched socks—one white, one blue—only looked sad to Carly. She hadn’t seen her mother undressed for a while and was surprised to see how thin she’d gotten, how tightly her flesh was stretched over her bones. She was warm and slightly damp with sweat.

  “Okay,” Carly whispered, though it would take a lot more than talking to rouse her mother. “Grab her feet on ‘three.’ One, two, three.”

  Jess reached across the bed and pulled the sprawled-out foot back to join the other, while Carly did the same with the sprawled-out arm. Jess held the feet and hands down while Carly walked around the bed, climbed in behind her mother, and pushed from behind. With a groaning, mumbling sigh, she rolled onto her side, curled into fetal position, and yawned.

  “That’s it, Isabelle,” Carly said, stroking her damp hair. “Breathe your stress away.”

  After another deep yawn, Isabelle’s breathing settled into a rhythm and Jess crawled in the other side.

  Carly turned on the noise machine to Jess’s choice of crashing waves. “Remember, if she rolls back and starts again, you just push from the shoulders.”

  “Okayyy,” Jess said, her voice full of complaint. “But if she smushes me and I can’t get her back over, I’m coming into your bed.”

  Carly bent down and kissed her sister’s forehead. “Sure.” But Jess was a sound sleeper. Carly knew she wouldn’t wake up once she was asleep.

  As she sat down at her computer, Carly fully intended to work on her admissions essay for Denman. But after five minutes, she was on the Ernestine is Everywhere Web site. They had a show that night. Uptown. Not too far from the sublet. It was going to be their last New York show before leaving on tour.

  Sitting in the law offices of Babcock & Whitman, looking at Shira’s printed-out blog entry, she tried to capture the frame of mind in which she had showered, dressed in black, and slicked down her hair. Her reasons were murky, even to herself. She had a half-baked, half-assed idea about facing the truth and accepting it. Of needing to see the truth in order to accept it. But that didn’t explain what she did when she got there. It was, as Shira said, totally psycho.

  Her father sat up in his chair, placed his hands on the table, and leaned over. “But you gave that girl’s name at the door?” Carly saw a look pass between her parents. It reminded her of how Jolie Albright’s parents looked when they talked about their daughter.

  Surely she wasn’t that far gone, was she? This could still come out okay, couldn’t it? “When I got there—the line was so long. I just—I wasn’t thinking it through. I just wanted to get out of the cold. And there were so many people, it looked like they would be turning some away, and so—I knew her name would be on the list because they always put the girlfriends on, even if they’re not coming to the show. It was a school night. I didn’t think she’d be there, so I said I was her just so I could get in.”

  The truth was, she didn’t know why she did what she did. At the time, she told herself it was just to get in the door. She’d never had to wait in line for an Ernestine show. She’d never had to pay a cover and never had to show ID. She always either arrived with the band—or else the bouncers, like at Train, already knew her.

  When she got to Bittersweet that night and saw the line, she walked all the way to the end of the block and actually stood in line for a while. But no one moved. If she hadn’t done what she’d done, she wouldn’t have gotten in. At that point, she was too far gone to see that not getting in wasn’t a bad thing.

  So she made her way to the front, passing clumps of people she recognized from Ernestine shows at Train. Shira Zeidman was there, surrounded by a group of kids from Performing Arts. She was smoking a cigarette and texting furiously. Carly pulled her hood up and forward to hide her face, then kept her eyes on the sidewalk as she passed.

  She tried to act casual as she approached the two big, stony-faced, crossed-armed bouncers.

  “Hi. I’m supposed to be on the list? Taylor Deen? I’m Brian Quinn’s girlfriend.”

  The guy looked her in the eye and held her gaze. She could feel herself reddening. Did he know the real Taylor Deen? Was she already there?

  He picked up the clipboard sitting on the stool next to him and skimmed the list.

  “He’s the bass player. . . .”

  The guy nodded. “Taylor Deen, Taylor Deen. I’m not seeing—Wait, wait. Yup. Here you are, Taylor Deen.” He put the clipboard back and actually smiled at her. “Got some ID?”

  “What? ”

  “I said ID, sugar. Got some ID? I gotta ask everyone. Even girlfriends.” The smile faded and the stony face reappeared.

  She wasn’t prepared for this. She’d never been asked for ID when she was with the band.

  “Oh, I don’t want to drink. You can just give me one of the green bracelets.”

  “Yeah,” he said, like he’d said it a hundred times before. “See, we need proof. Eighteen and up means no one under eighteen gets in. It’s not just about who can drink and who can’t.”

  “I’m eighteen, I swear. My birthday was in September. The seventeenth.” This was Taylor’s actual birthday.

  He nodded, crossed his arms.

  She smiled. Confident and friendly, as she imagined Taylor would smile. “What’s your name?”

  “Finn.”

  “Hi, Finn,” she said, and turned to the other one, who was holding a flashlight up to some kid’s driver’s license. The bouncer didn’t answer, and she couldn’t tell if it was because he didn’t hear her or just didn’t want to hear her.

  “That’s Mike,” Finn said. “He doesn’t talk much.”

  “Well, Finn.” Again she smiled. “Do you think you could let me slide this time? I’m Brian’s . . . girlfriend. The bass player?”

  Finn looked at his watch, then over her shoulder at the line of eager Ernestine fans behind her.

  “It was really stupid of me, I know. See, I was supposed to meet up with them earlier, and come with them, but, well—it’s a long story, and you don’t need all the details. I just didn’t think I’d need my ID. The guys at Train know me. And I never need it there, so . . .” She shrugged and held her hands out apologetically.

  She didn’t see the walkie-talkie until he brought it up to his mouth and pushed the button. “Yo, John?”

  He released the button and looked at her while he waited for a response. The walkie-talkie blipped, and a fuzzy voice said, “Yo.” She did her best to look unfazed, not worried in the least, while her heart pounded.

  Finn brought it back to his mouth, pushed the button and said, “Yeah, I got a girl out here. Taylor Deen. She’s on the list. A girlfriend. No ID.” He released the button. Waited.

  Blip. Fuzz. “Yeah, what’d you say the name was?”

  Finn held the walkie-talkie closer to his mouth. “Taylor. Deen.”

  Carly hoped nobody within hearing range knew Taylor.

  Blip. Fuzz. “Hold on, I’ll check.”

  “Okay.”

  She stood there, frozen, imagining Brian backstage, running scales, practicing riffs, doing those finger stretches he always did before
playing. What if he came out to help?

  She’d run. She’d head up Broadway, as fast as she could.

  Blip. Fuzz.

  Finn brought the walkie-talkie up to his ear and looked straight at her while listening to the verdict. “It’s cool. Let her in.”

  The bracelet guy slapped a bright green one on her wrist. “You want someone to take you backstage?” Finn asked. “It says here”—he pointed to the typed guest list, on the clipboard—“you’re ‘All Access.’”

  “Oh, no, that’s okay. Maybe later. I don’t want to get in the way back there. Thanks so much for helping me. And for understanding about the ID. I really appreciate that.”

  “No problem. Next time you better have it, though.”

  “Oh, I will, don’t worry.”

  She walked into the dark, crowded club. The opening band was still playing. Their vocalist, a tiny, pasty-faced girl with bleached-blonde hair and a strangely deep voice, was strutting and stomping with what appeared to be all her might. They weren’t bad. But hardly anyone except a small group in front of the stage paid them any attention.

  It was an Ernestine crowd.

  Carly got in line to buy a Coke and wound up behind a group of Columbia students trading Ernestine stories. When and how they first heard them. What shows they’d been to, how they thought the record deal was going to affect the music.

  Someone started bragging—loudly—about how he knew them before anyone heard of them.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, I worked with them last summer, upstate.”

  Carly looked for the source of the voice, and there was Cameron Foster, still wearing his puka beads and smiling his charming smile.

  “Really? Wow.” A dreamy girl looked up at Cameron. “Doing what?”

  “We worked at this camp together. They’re really cool.”

  “That’s amazing, Cameron,” Dreamy (and possibly Stoned) Girl said. “Are they, like, as cool as they seem? Because they seem totally cool.”

  “Yeah, they were really mellow and”—he paused to find the right word—“unassuming.”

  Hah. Unassuming. What a joke.

  Carly kept her head down, bought her Coke, and climbed up to the second-floor loft, where she found an empty stool in a dark corner, next to a half wall overlooking the stage. The opening act finished their last song, and their friends up front went nuts. Most people kept on talking.

  The two guys next to her were deep in philosophical conversation.

  “So we get to her room, and things start to get hot. She’s all over me. It’s nuts. It’s like she can’t get my clothes off fast enough.”

  “You liar.”

  “I swear, but wait, you have to hear what happens next. So we’re all over each other. Clothes are flying this way and that. She’s asking me if I have a condom.”

  “And you’re making this up.”

  “Dude. I’m not—would you just listen?”

  “Okay. Okay. She’s all over you, begging for it.”

  “Practically, yeah. I mean, I’m not exactly trying to fight her off or anything.”

  “Right. And then?”

  “And then her roommate walks in.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And she looks at us.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t turn around and leave, doesn’t ask us to leave. Doesn’t. Say. Anything. Ashley, the girl I’m with, says ‘Hey, Heather.’ And Heather says ‘Hey, Ashley.’ And then she sits down at her desk and opens her laptop.”

  “Yeah?”

  “And so I’m reaching for my shirt and trying to zip up my pants, and Ashley goes, ‘What are you doing?’ and I say, ‘I’m leaving.’ And she says, ‘Why?’ And I say, ‘Um, ’cause your roommate just walked in?’ And she says, ‘That’s okay. She doesn’t care.’”

  “Dude! No. And so what did you do?”

  “I got my shit and got the hell out of there.”

  “No.”

  “What was I supposed to do, keep going while the roommate was sitting there? For all I know, the two of them had a camera going and were streaming it live.”

  “Wouldn’t stop me.”

  “Dude, you’re sick.”

  “Dude, you’re the sick one. Why doesn’t this stuff ever happen to me? I’d be down with it. Roommate wants to watch? Fine. Maybe she’d like to join us. Anyone else? Come on in.”

  Carly knew that conversations like that took place all the time. And not just between guys, either. She’d heard girls at school say worse. Still, it was creepy to be standing practically in the middle of this one, unable to move without losing her view of the stage.

  Brian never talked about girls that way. And if Liam or Avery or some guy started that kind of talk he’d find a way to change the subject or suddenly remember something he’d left in the van or a call he had to make. He never got all self-righteous about it; he just didn’t go along with that bragging tell-all stuff.

  “Now, that’s sick,” the storyteller said to the listener.

  “No. It’s just practical. A man has to take these opportunities when they come along.”

  There was no response to this pronouncement because right then, the house lights went down and the stage lights went up. Conversations dropped off and people started cheering as Liam and Avery strode onstage, looking out into the crowd., Brian walked out last, keeping his head down.

  To someone who didn’t know him, he might appear shy. But Carly knew the lowered head meant he was focusing, gathering his energy.

  As soon as Liam sat, and Brian and Avery strapped on their guitars, they launched into “Mailman,” and the audience was on its feet. Some sang along. Brian’s eyes were closed, his head moving slightly to the beat.

  She wondered if the sound guy had them mixed right, because it seemed like all she could hear was Brian’s bass. She could feel it, too, traveling through her body. She watched his fingers move along the frets and curve around the strings and remembered how those fingers used to stroke her neck and slide down her spine before coming to rest in the small of her back.

  For a second, she indulged the memory. She closed her eyes and imagined Brian standing behind her. All she’d have to do was lean back and his arms would circle her waist, his lips would find that place on her neck.

  She snapped out of the reverie when she almost fell off the stool.

  She tried to focus on her reason for being there. She was saying good-bye. She was putting the past behind her and moving forward with her life.

  She tried to focus on being happy for Brian. He’d worked so hard, and now he was finally getting recognition. She looked around the club. It was twice as big as Train, and it was packed. She’d never seen them in front of a crowd that big. People were still coming in, too. Finn and Mike were still at the door, checking a steady flow of IDs.

  “Mailman” ended to long, loud applause. Avery took off the Strat, put it on a stand behind him, and picked up his beloved Gibson acoustic while the clapping died down. Brian stayed in his corner, smiling at no one in particular.

  When Avery got back to the mic, there was more applause.

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.” He waited for the second wave of applause to die out and said, “So this next one is our newest. My brother here—” He held his arm out toward Brian, who nodded shyly while people applauded and hooted and whistled. “My brother Brian here writes all our songs. Don’t ask me where he gets his ideas. Although with this one I think maybe I know. See, there’s this girl—”

  Carly’s stomach tightened. Her throat contracted.

  Everyone else laughed.

  “Oh, wow. This is so bizarre. There she is—” Avery held an arm out toward the door and every head in the house turned to see Taylor laughing as she talked to Finn and Mike, whose stony faces seemed to light up in her presence. She shook her head, pulled an ID out of the back pocket of her jeans, and handed it to Finn, who handed it to Mike, who shined his flashlight on it. Sh
e kept talking, seemingly oblivious to the fact that everyone in the entire club was looking at her.

  Carly had to get out of there. Fast.

  She’d seen an EXIT sign on her way upstairs. It was over the door to the hall where the bathrooms were. She could be down the stairs and out back before they even started looking for her. But she couldn’t pull herself away. She needed to see what happened next.

  “Hey, Taylor.” Avery had one hand over his eyes to block out the glare of the lights. He gave a little wave with the other and Taylor finally turned around and looked up on the stage, surprised. “Oh, hey, Ma.” Everyone laughed again and looked back at the door. Sure enough, there was Sheryl, standing right behind Taylor, talking excitedly to Finn while digging through her purse. When she pulled out a wallet, she held it up in the air like a trophy.

  “Hey, Mr. Doorman, that’s my moms. You gots to let her in.”

  More laughter. Sheryl was laughing, too, gesturing toward the stage and nodding. Even Finn was laughing.

  “Anyway,” Avery continued his introduction, “the name of this song is, ‘Same Goes for Me.’” He turned toward Brian, who counted off.

  Carly looked back at the door. Sheryl and Taylor were gone, and Finn wasn’t smiling anymore.

  He was scanning the crowd, looking for the fake girlfriend.

  The imposter.

  The wannabe.

  The usta-be.

  She started moving. The place was a lot more crowded now, and she had to squeeze her way through a lot of bodies.

  “Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me.”

  She’d seen Shira Zeidman in the crowd and steered clear of her. Not that she thought Shira even knew who she was, but just in case.

  Some people stepped aside or leaned back to give her space. Others gave her dirty looks and refused to budge. Eventually she made it to the bottom of the stairs. She peeked around the corner to the door. Taylor was nowhere in sight. Finn and Mike were huddled with another grim-faced, official-looking guy. Finn handed that guy the clipboard and took off toward the front of the club, walkie-talkie in hand, scanning the crowd. Mike went the other way, also holding a walkie-talkie.