Stalker Girl by Rosemary Graham Page A

Manhattan—that we can afford with even half the space we’ll need.”
    The lobby still looked like it had when they moved in twelve years before—except for the row of locked mailboxes along the back wall. The cracks and holes in the concrete floor hadn’t been filled, and no one had even tried to remove the graffiti. Carly used to wonder about that until she decided that people who could afford to live there liked it that way. It gave them the illusion of living on the edge.
    She pushed the elevator button. Her mother leaned against the wall like she needed the support. Isabelle looked tired. More tired than usual. The circles under her eyes were showing despite the chalky-pink concealer.
    “You’ve already been looking for apartments?” Carly had to shout over the elevator’s clanking descent toward the lobby.
    “This is not a sudden decision. Believe me.”
    “But why didn’t you tell me? Give me some inkling?”
    “I didn’t want to ruin your summer. I knew how much you were looking forward to that time with your father. I figured I’d find a place and get us all moved in while you were away.”
    The elevator landed with a thud . Carly pulled the folding metal gate open. The industrial elevator was another leftover from the veal factory. Wide enough for a rolling rack of calf carcasses, its linoleum floor was stained brown with blood and who knew what else.
    “You were just going to spring it on me when I landed at JFK? Bring me home to some strange place, not even let me pack my own stuff?”
    Isabelle leaned against the graffiti-covered wall and let out one of her trademark groan-sighs. “You know, Carly, I really haven’t thought it all through. I’m kind of going by the seat of my pants here.”
    Carly pulled the gate closed. “So what happens next?”
    “That’s the other thing I need to tell you.”
     
    The ride to the sixth floor was slow enough for Isabelle to tell Carly all about the “great opportunity” that had presented itself. Old friends of Isabelle’s sister, Nancy, owned a summer camp on a lake outside New Paltz. Their director had been in a rock-climbing accident the week before, and they needed someone who could step in and run the place for the summer.
    Isabelle had convinced herself that filling in as director would solve all the problems.
    “One, it gives me a place to stay for the time being, while I keep looking for an apartment. Two, I need the money. I’m going to need a security deposit and broker’s fee. And three, Jess can go to camp for free, which’ll be just what she needs this summer.”
    “Does Jess even know ?”
    “Not yet. We’re waiting for the right time.”
    Before Carly had a chance to ask what her mother meant by “right time,” the elevator opened into the middle of Nick’s studio. The air was thick with the acrid smell of burning metal, and the Ramones were blasting through the room. When Nick had a deadline, he’d play old-school punk on a nonstop loop. Jess stood off to the side in kid-sized safety goggles and grease-smeared apron, watching her father weld.
    The goggles and apron used to be Carly’s.
    Carly never knew how to refer to Nick with other people. “My mother’s boyfriend” made him sound inconsequential, like someone passing through her life. Isabelle sometimes used “partner” when she talked about Nick to other people, but Carly thought that sounded ridiculous, like they were accountants or lawyers. She’d settled on not explaining and just called him her stepfather.
    Now what was she supposed to call him, her ex-stepfather? Her sister’s father? Her mother’s ex? What kind of relationship would they have after Carly moved away?
    As soon as she saw them, Jess ran over and threw her arms around her mother’s waist. Isabelle hugged Jess, leaned down to kiss the top of her head and didn’t let go until Jess’s loud but muffled “I can’t breathe!”
    Squirming out from under her mother’s arms, Jess pointed to a