Upper East Side #7

by Ashley Valentine

  Rufus shrugged his shoulders. “Okay, I'll leave you alone.” He winked at his son. “Decided where you want to go next year yet?”

  “No,” Mekhi answered hollowly, then shuffled out of Bree's room and back to his own. His dad was so gung-ho about the whole college thing, it was seriously annoying.

  “Columbia's close!” Rufus called after him. “You could live at home!”

  As if he hadn't already mentioned that a thousand times.

  Alone in his room, Mekhi picked up the beard trimmers again. “Crack me like an egg!” he whispered, imitating his father as best he could. He grimaced. There just wasn't enough gristle in his voice to sound convincing.

  Trading the trimmer for the pile of college catalogs he'd been thumbing through for the past three months, he flopped down on his bed. Only one more week to choose between NYU, Brown, Colby, or Evergreen. He flipped to a picture of a tweedy, intellectual-looking Brown student, his back propped against the trunk of a giant elm tree, scribbling away in a notebook like a young Keats. He looked exactly as Mekhi had envisioned he'd look himself next year—before he'd been discovered by the Raves and before he'd just shaved the back of his head.

  He ran his finger over the shaved part of his head and glanced down at his outfit. He'd have to go shopping, because none of his clothes went with his hair anymore.

  And you thought that was something only girls worry about.

  If only Bree were there to help out, Mekhi thought grimly. But his little sister was too busy being a supermodel to go through his closet with him and tell him what was lame and what was acceptable. Mekhi picked up a cup of Folgers instant coffee that had been cooling on the floor since that morning and took a sip. He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror, and for an instant he could almost envision himself up on stage, giving the audience the same annoyed, pissed-off grimace. Maybe, just maybe he could pull this off, without even his sister's help.

  Or maybe not.

  4

  Fireeater: i keep a pretty sick schedule, like i sleep all day & work at night.

  Hairlesskat: what do you do?

  Fireeater: duh, i'm a performer

  Hairlesskat: you really eat fire?

  Fireeater: i'm working on it. mostly i dance with my snakes.

  Hairlesskat: snakes?

  Fireeater: yeah i have four snakes.

  Fireeater: you're okay with pets right?

  Fireeater: you still there?

  Fireeater: yo, hello?

  “Nice try, loser!” Yasmine Richards logged off her computer and went over to her closet. She'd taken off her hot and hideous maroon uniform—the only uniform she owned—two hours ago and hadn't bothered to change into anything else. Even though the girl Yasmine was supposed to interview in three minutes had sounded cool in her e-mail that morning, she probably wouldn't be too psyched if Yasmine greeted her at the door in her black cotton Hanes underwear.

  Yasmine pulled a folded pair of pants off the top shelf in her bedroom closet without even looking. Everything in her closet was black, and she was a strong believer in shopping in duplicate. If you owned six pairs of straight-legged black Levis, you never really had to think about what you were going to wear, and you only had to do laundry once a week.

  She pulled the jeans up around her slightly pudgy hips, yanked her V-neck tee down over them, and ran her hands over her shaved dark head. She might have looked odd to all the so-called “normal” girls she went to school with, but the girl she was about to meet sounded more interesting than they could ever hope to be—well, at least she had online.

  The downstairs buzzer rang, just as she'd anticipated. Yasmine went over to the window and pulled aside the curtain, which was really just a black bedsheet she and her sister Ruby had bought at Kmart last Halloween. On the street two floors below, a drunk homeless guy was shouting at empty parked cars. A little boy with green spiked hair and no shirt on sped down the sidewalk on a mountain bike that was way too big for him. The crumbling cement block that served as Yasmine's front stoop was empty. The prospective roommate was already on her way up.

  “Please be normal,” Yasmine murmured. Not that she actually liked normal girls. Normal girls, like the girls in her class at Willard, wore pink lipstick and different versions of the exact same pair of shoes and were religious about things like hairstyles and pedicures. In her e-mail application this girl Angel had said she was an art student at Pratt, so she was older, for one thing, and was probably kind of alternative. Hopefully she'd be as cool as she sounded.

  Yasmine opened the door to the apartment just as Angel mounted the top of the stairs. And to her complete surprise, Angel wasn't a she, she was a he. Yasmine had sort of forgotten to specify that she was looking for a girl roommate in her Web posting.

  A deliberate mistake?

  “Bet you thought I was female, right?” Angel asked, extending his hand for Yasmine to shake. “The name is totally old-fashioned and totally misleading. Don't worry, I'm used to it.”

  Yasmine tried not to look surprised, which wasn't hard for her. She'd mastered the unexpressive stare long ago while eating alone day after day in the Emma Willard cafeteria, tuning out the senseless babble of her beautiful, bitchy classmates. She tucked her fingers into the back pockets of her jeans and nonchalantly led the way into the apartment. “I was just IMing with this weirdo chick who dances with snakes. You don't have any snakes, do you?”

  “Nope.” Angel pressed his palms together in praying position and surveyed the starkly decorated apartment. The walls were white and the wood floors were bare. The kitchen was tiny and opened onto the living room/second bedroom, which was furnished with a futon and a TV. The only decorations were framed stills from the dark, morose films that Yasmine notoriously made in her spare time.

  “Whose work?” Angel asked, gesturing at a black-and-white photograph of a pigeon pecking at a used condom on the Brooklyn Bridge.

  Yasmine discovered she was staring at Angel's firm, round buttocks and quickly averted her eyes. “Mine,” she replied hoarsely. “It's from a film I made earlier this year.”

  Angel nodded his head, keeping his palms pressed together as he examined the other photographs. Yasmine loved that he didn't start babbling about how offbeat or depressing they were, the way people usually did. Just the way he'd said, “Whose work?” made her feel like a real artist.

  “Would you like a beer?” she asked. Her fridge was uncharacteristically full of beer from her insane eighteenth birthday party two weekends ago, and she'd take any opportunity to get rid of it. “Sorry, I don't have much else except water.”

  “Water would be fine,” Angel replied, and Yasmine found herself liking him even more. Ask any highschool boy if he wanted a beer and he'd down a whole six-pack in three seconds flat. All Angel needed was a little water to whet his palate, and a place to live—for instance, with her.

  Whoa…Slow down, Nellie! What about the interview?

  Yasmine went into the tiny open kitchen and got out a vintage Scooby-Doo glass and some ice and a pitcher of filtered water from the refrigerator. She filled the glass slowly, secretly studying Angel as she did so. His small, intense eyes were dark, and his skin was the color of a honey glazed donut. The palms of his hands and his fingernails were stained black with some sort of ink he must have been using in his artwork, and his drab green T-shirt was flecked with what looked like sawdust. His black pants were just the sort of loose black cotton she would have worn every day if she were a guy, and on his feet were a pair of those thin rubber flip-flops you can buy at the drugstore for ninety-nine cents. He was so not like the people she went to school with, Yasmine couldn't help but feel kind of excited.

  Could that have anything to do with the fact that he's a guy?

  She walked around the counter and handed Angel the water, already envisioning what it would be like to stay up late and watch movies together. She could bring him water and he would nod his head at her in that thoughtful, sexy way of his. And then they'd begin t
o dissect Spike Lee's work, film by film…naked.

  Yasmine took a seat on the futon sofa and Angel sat down beside her. “So, I'm kind of between places right now,” he explained. “I was in a dorm and now I'm in this group work-live arrangement with a bunch of artists in this warehouse space down by the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It can get pretty crazy there sometimes, though.” He chuckled. “I just need a place to crash where I don't have to worry about my fingers getting hacked off while I'm sleeping—you know, for someone's ‘body parts’ sculpture or something?”

  Yasmine nodded happily. She knew exactly how he felt. Of course, she'd never expected to share an apartment with a guy—other than Mekhi—but she was eighteen now, an adult, able to make her own decisions and mature enough to have a guy roommate and no intention of jumping his bones.

  Right.

  “The thing is,” Angel continued, “it would be kind of weird living with someone I'd never even breathed the same air with before, you know?”

  Yasmine's big hazel eyes widened. So he didn't want to live with her? “I guess so,” she responded glumly.

  “I wondered if maybe we could like, hang out for a few weeks first. Do stuff. Get to know each other. See if it could work out,” he added.

  Yasmine sat on her hands, feeling embarrassingly like one of those so-called normal girls she hated after some cutie had asked them to a prom or whatever they called those ridiculous dress-up parties they were always going to because it gave them the opportunity to buy a new dress. Angel did want to live with her. He just wanted to get to know her first. How refreshing and exciting to finally meet someone so intelligent, creative, cool—and cute!

  “Well, I am interviewing other people,” she responded, not wanting to appear too eager. “But that sounds like a good idea. I mean, you're right. It's important to know who you're about to move in with.”

  “Exactly.” Angel polished off the water, stood up, and carried the glass over to the sink.

  Wow, he even cleans up after himself.

  He flip-flopped back into the living room. “We could do something this weekend or—”

  Suddenly Yasmine had an idea. What better way to show Mekhi that she'd moved on and had a life of her own beyond him and his selfish self than to bring a guy to his first gig? “Actually, an old friend of mine is singing with the Raves tomorrow night. Want to go?”

  Thankfully Angel was mature enough not to jump up and down and freak out about the fact that she knew someone semi-famous. He pressed his palms together and nodded his head in that sexy monklike way of his. “Yeah. I'll call you tomorrow to make a plan.”

  Yasmine walked him to the door and then rushed to the window, following his nice ass with her eyes as he flip-flopped his way down South 6th Street and then disappeared into the maze of old factory warehouses that made up Williamsburg's landscape. Saturday mornings she and Angel would sit by that very window, making use of its southern exposure to make their art. He would work silently at his canvas, smearing black ink all over it with his hands while she filmed him. And both of them would be…naked.

  Of course.

  How exciting to live with an artist. Yeah, Mekhi was a poet, but that was different. All he did was scribble in notebooks all day, drinking bad coffee and getting shakier and more neurotic by the hour.

  Of course she would continue to interview other people—at least on Instant Messenger—until everything was worked out. But she was already pretty sure she'd found what she was looking for, the perfect mate.

  Wait. Doesn't she mean roommate?

  5

  “Excuse me. What are you guys doing?” Porsha demanded. Eleanor Sinclaire and Porsha's stepbrother, Tahj Campbell, were standing on the bed in Porsha's makeshift bedroom, thumb-tacking some sort of large map to the wall. Porsha stood in the doorway with her arms folded, awaiting an explanation.

  “Don't tell,” her mom whispered excitedly to Tahj. Eleanor was wearing a bizarre Versace outfit that had bad sample-sale purchase written all over it. Why was it that her mom was always drawn to designers' biggest mistakes?

  Not only was Eleanor's outfit ugly, but in another fit of postpartum depression she'd done something dreadful to her hair. That morning it had been shoulder-length and black. Now it was dyed dark burgundy and cropped close to her head, like a black Sharon Osbourne. Needless to say, it was sort of hard for Porsha to look at her.

  Tahj pushed the last tack into the corner of the map and hopped down from the bed, his wannabe Rastafarian mini dreadlocks banging merrily against his hollow cheeks. “I hate to break it to you, Ma, but this is going to require just a wee bit of clarification.” He shot Porsha an apologetic look. “Sorry, sis, we wanted to surprise you.”

  Porsha liked her stepbrother Tahj okay—much more than she liked his fat loser of a father, Cyrus Campbell—but it totally infuriated her when he called Eleanor Ma or her sis. After all, his father and her mother had only been married since Thanksgiving, so Eleanor was very definitely not his mom and she was very definitely not his sister. Despite the existence of her little brother Brice, who was a boy, and Yale, who was only a baby, Porsha had always identified herself as an only child, except for those rare occasions when she and Chanel were getting along so well it felt like they were sisters.

  Eleanor scooted off the bed, grabbed Porsha's hand, and dragged her over to the sage-colored wall to look at the map. It was a detail of Australia and the Pacific Ocean, and there were four red circles drawn around four pinpricks in the sea between Vanuatu and Fiji. Underneath the circles, written in black ink in Eleanor's loopy cursive, were the names Yale, Brice, Tahj, and Porsha.

  Pardonnez-moi?

  Porsha twisted her ruby ring around and around on her finger. “What the fuck, Mom?” she demanded impatiently.

  Eleanor was still holding Porsha's hand and she squeezed her daughter's fingers tightly with manic delight. “I bought you an island, sweetie, and named it after you. Each of my four little darlings has their very own Pacific island! And next year, when they print the new maps, your names will appear right there next to Fiji! Isn't it fantastic?”

  Porsha stared at the map. Fiji had always sounded sort of exotic to her, but the Island of Porsha probably consisted of a scrappy shrub on top of a piece of reef riddled with spiny sea urchins and kelp.

  “Brice is already planning our big South Pacific Christmas trip next year,” Eleanor rattled on. “He's researching which of our islands have the best surf.”

  “And your mom's buying each of us a board,” Tahj informed her. “Except for Yale.”

  Porsha noticed that Tahj's thumbnail was painted black.

  “It's a music thing,” he explained, noticing her noticing. “We were bonding over the fact that, at the moment, none of us has a girlfriend.”

  Big surprise, Porsha thought. If he wasn't careful, Tahj was going to become one of those skinny, asexual, vegetarian old men, fading into the ether without anyone remembering that he'd ever been there. Tahj and Chanel had hooked up and even been in love for a fleeting moment that winter, but Tahj wasn't exciting enough to hold Chanel's attention for more than five minutes.

  Then again, who was?

  Porsha really wasn't all that interested in what Tahj and his lame Bronxdale Prep friends did to amuse themselves, or in her mother's insane need to buy random, completely pointless things like islands and alpacas and surfboards, but she did want to know what Kitty Minky, her Russian Blue cat, was doing digging around in the sumptuous pile of silk-covered bolsters, pillows, and throws at the head of her bed.

  “Meow-meow?” Porsha playfully addressed the cat in the made-up cat language she'd used with Kitty Minky since she was nine years old.

  All of a sudden Kitty Minky let loose a stream of disgusting smelling cat pee.

  “No!” Porsha shouted, hurling a leather Manolo sandal at her. Kitty Minky leapt off the bed, but it was too late: Porsha's rose-colored silk bedspread and throw pillows were soaked through.

  “Oh my!” Eleanor exclaimed
, wringing her hands and looking like she was about to cry. “Oh dear me, what a mess,” she added despairingly, her mood shifting abruptly from high to low.

  “Don't worry, Porsha. You can sleep with me and Brice in our room until Esther cleans this place up,” Tahj offered.

  Brice and Tahj's room smelled like beer and feet and tofu hot dogs and those foul herbal cigarettes Tahj was always smoking. Porsha wrinkled her nose. “I'd rather sleep on the floor in Yale's room,” she responded miserably.

  Eleanor wrung her hands. “Oh, but baby Yale's in quarantine for the next few days. She picked up some sort of terrible face rash at the pediatrician's office when she was there for her checkup yesterday. Apparently it's very contagious.”

  Porsha's small brown eyes narrowed. She adored her baby sister, but she wasn't about to risk getting a rash, especially not a face rash. Which left a particular question unanswered: Exactly where the fuck was she supposed to sleep?!

  The penthouse was clearly uninhabitable, and while the Braxtons' house had seemed like an obvious choice only an hour ago, it had since turned into an after-school program for sixteen-year-old, Kaliq-worshipping stoners. Chanel's door was always open, but Chanel's parents were kind of old fashioned, and they probably wouldn't like it if Porsha had a boy in her room with the door closed or whatever.

  Like Chanel never had a boy in her room with the door closed?!

  Besides, Porsha had already tried living with Chanel for a few days that spring and they'd fought the whole time. Of course that was when Porsha had been trying to seduce Chanel's brother in order to lure Kaliq away from that drugged-up heiress he'd met in rehab. Still, now that she and Chanel were friends again, it was best not to risk it.

  As if they wouldn't find something else to fight over

  Porsha pulled opened the top drawer of the mahogany dresser. She had a credit card, and there were lots of nice hotels nearby. She grabbed a pair of clean white cotton underwear and a white tank top. The one benefit of wearing a uniform to school was packing light. And the benefit of packing light was that undoubtedly she would need something she didn't have and would therefore have to buy at one of the three Bs: Bendel's, Bergdorf's, or Barneys.