Upper East Side #7

by Ashley Valentine

  “Want to come see what Brice's found out about our islands?” Tahj offered. “He's downloading a whole bunch of stuff right now.”

  “The man I spoke to said the temperature on the islands is consistently between seventy-five and eighty-five degrees all year round,” Eleanor added gleefully. She glanced at her gold Cartier wristwatch. “Phooey. I'm five minutes late for my Red Door makeup appointment.” She giggled conspiratorially and clapped her hands together like a little girl. “Cyrus is taking me out to the Four Seasons tonight. I can't wait to surprise him with his present.”

  Porsha didn't even want to guess what her mom could have dreamed up to buy Cyrus. A whole country?

  “I'll probably be back to pick up a few things,” she informed her mother. “And we definitely need a new mattress, pillows, and sheets for this room. But I'm not sure if I'll even be coming back, you know, to live.”

  Eleanor blinked dazedly at her daughter. After seventeen and a half years of being Porsha's mother, she still didn't quite know what to make of her.

  “Just in case there's a civil war on your island or your new shipment of French underwear comes in, exactly where might you be reached?” Tahj demanded with an annoying wise-assed smirk.

  Porsha smirked back. “The Plaza?”

  And preferably a suite.

  6

  The roof terrace atop Kaliq's four-story townhouse wasn't high enough for a real view, but it was still nice to sit up there and suck hits out of Jeremy's giant glass bong and reminisce about all the wild shit they'd gotten up to when they were young and carefree—before they had stuff to worry about like college and the future.

  As if they were genuinely worried.

  Only two weeks left to make up their minds about which college they wanted to go to—for those of them who had a choice. Meanwhile, they were busy mastering the art of not flunking out of their last ever term of high school while spending as little time as possible actually in school or doing homework.

  “Bro. Remember that time in Latin when you were so high you thought you were in French?” Charlie Dern drawled, blowing smoke out of a tiny gap in the side of his wide, clownish mouth. “You were just babbling in French like a fucking lunatic and Mr. Herman the She-Man was like, ‘I beg your pardon, Mr. Braxton. Although all romance languages find their roots in Latin, I never did master French.’”

  Anthony Avuldsen and Jeremy Scott began to cackle as they remembered that legendary day.

  “I was speaking fucking perfect French, too,” Kaliq observed. “I think maybe for a moment there I thought I was French. Like a native speaker.”

  “Right,” Charlie agreed sarcastically. “Man, you could barely even talk.”

  Lexie floated by in her tie-dyed dress, barefoot and waving her hands in front of her face. She'd drawn flowers on her fingers and toes with a glow-in-the-dark pen she'd found on Kaliq's desk, and they glowed neon green in the deepening twilight. A ponytailed boy named Malcolm was playing the guitar and singing some ancient song.

  “I wish we were at the beach.” Jeremy sighed and traced his index finger along the rim of the bong. “Everything would be perfect if we were at the beach.”

  Kaliq nodded his wavy head in agreement. “We will be soon. My parents' Hamptons booze cruise is in a couple weeks. Boat's already docked down in Battery Park. You're coming, right?”

  The junior boys on the roof terrace looked up, wondering hopefully if Kaliq was addressing them. Fat chance.

  “Everyone's coming,” Anthony Avuldsen responded, making the juniors feel like even worse dweebs. “It's like the kick-off to the whole freaking summer.”

  “Porsha's class is doing their senior cut day the next day,” Kaliq mused. He realized vaguely that Porsha had never made an appearance on the roof terrace. Maybe she was still in the shower, or maybe she'd kissed him goodbye and gone home? He honestly couldn't remember. If she was in the shower, he might steal downstairs and surprise her. The thought of her wet and naked made him smile deliciously.

  Charlie pulled a marijuana-stuffed Ziploc from out of his pants pocket and began loading up the bong. “You said the boat's in the harbor?”

  Before Kaliq had a chance to respond, his cell phone rang. Porsha flashed up on the phone's screen. Speak of the she-devil.

  Kaliq pressed answer and put the phone to his ear without actually saying anything.

  “Guess where I am?” Porsha gushed happily. “The Plaza. So get your ass over here right now. I have a suite.”

  The Plaza was only about twenty blocks away. Kaliq gazed in the general direction of downtown. It seemed very far away, but it would be nice to lie on a big white hotel bed and watch lots of movies and order room service. He was pretty hungry.

  Not exactly what Porsha had in mind.

  “Just bring your toothbrush. I've got everything else covered,” she added coyly.

  Meaning the three Cs: champagne, caviar, and condoms.

  “Sounds good,” Kaliq responded gamely. “See you in a minute.” He clicked off and Jeremy shoved the bong at him.

  “So what I'm thinking is,” he told Kaliq with the intense face of a seriously high person. “We all head down to your parents' boat. It's stocked with liquor, and the crew's probably doing the tourist thing in town and won't even notice if we take it out for a spin, right? You sail like a master. Why not go on a little pre-Hamptons excursion to, say—”

  “Bermuda!” Charlie piped up.

  “Fuck, yeah,” Anthony agreed.

  The three boys looked at Kaliq. They knew they were asking to do something completely outrageous, but they could tell by the interested glimmer in Kaliq's eye that he was sort of into it.

  Kaliq's mind was racing in a blurry, zig-zaggedy, stoned way. Sail the boat to Bermuda? Sure, why not? They were seniors—they could do whatever they wanted. Porsha could come too, and they could drink mimosas and make love on the beach under the warm sun. She was always talking about going away together.

  Lexie came over and sat down in Kaliq's lap. She smelled like amber incense and the tip of her jet-black ponytail just grazed the sun, moon, and stars tattoo on her shoulder blade. “Alors, what's next?” she yawned, taking the bong from Kaliq.

  Kaliq waited until she was done with the hit before pushing her out of his lap and hoisting himself to his feet. He clapped his hands together like a stoned camp counselor. “Come on, everybody, we're going on an adventure.”

  The junior boys began to murmur excitedly. Not only had they gotten to party at Kaliq Braxton's town house, he was taking them somewhere—probably somewhere cooler than they had ever been before.

  “Anyone who pukes on boats should probably stay behind!” Jeremy warned.

  “No fucking way,” whispered a St. Jude's junior whose name happened to be Chris Lyons. There was a mass rush for the exit. Kaliq Braxton, the coolest senior boy on the Upper East Side, was taking them out on his boat. It was their big fucking day!

  Kaliq followed the rest of the boys downstairs with good-natured amusement, completely forgetting what he'd been about to do before the topic of a sail to Bermuda even came up. Behind him, his cell phone lay forgotten on the roof terrace, its little screen flashing the name Porsha as it rang every two minutes for the next half hour.

  7

  “Kaliq's on his way over,” Porsha announced to Chanel smugly over the phone. She'd called Chanel just to brag about being at the Plaza, feeling guilty as she dialed but getting over the guilt by the time the phone began to ring. She leaned toward the massive bathroom mirror and applied another coat of lipstick. It was dark red and she usually only wore it in winter, but when you were locked in a luxurious hotel suite with your boyfriend having constant sex, who cared what season it was?

  “Don't be mad,” Porsha pleaded with her best friend. “We can hang out in my suite tomorrow afternoon or something, okay?” She flashed her reflection a sexy, knowing grin. “After Kaliq and I wake up.”

  “You two are ridiculous,” Chanel scoffed without the sli
ghtest note of jealousy. Porsha had confessed to finally losing her virginity to Kaliq the morning after it happened, but she'd resisted going into too much detail and Chanel had resisted asking too many questions. After all, Chanel and Kaliq had lost their virginities together, so sex with Kaliq was kind of an awkward subject.

  “I have to go to this new Yale students' party,” Chanel responded. “Not that I'm going to Yale,” she hurriedly corrected herself. Her acceptance to Yale was an even worse subject. “My parents signed us up though, so I have to go.”

  “Oh.” Porsha pouted her lips and turned around to examine her butt in her new silk underwear set. Of course she wasn't exactly into Yale yet, but she was on the fucking wait list—they still could have invited her.

  “I was hoping you'd come with me,” Chanel added. “Since you're definitely more likely to go to Yale than I am.”

  Porsha readjusted her bra straps. Kaliq was into Yale too, but he hadn't mentioned any Yale party. And if he wasn't going, she certainly couldn't go. They might be…otherwise engaged.

  Uh-huh.

  “It's not until seven,” Chanel prompted. “You guys should be ready to venture outside by then.”

  “Can I call you about it tomorrow?” Porsha asked dubiously.

  “Whatever.” Chanel didn't mind going to parties by herself, since she was never by herself for very long. Boys buzzed and hovered around her like flies at a picnic. “Have fun tonight. Bye.”

  Porsha hung up just as the bellboy arrived with the bottle of Dom Perignon and the plate of caviar and toast points she'd ordered from room service. She slipped into one of the Plaza's thick white terrycloth robes and answered the door.

  “Over by the bed,” she commanded, loving how jaded she sounded. She tipped the guy and waited until he'd closed the door. Then she slipped out of her robe, flopped down on her side on the massive California king bed, and reached for the remote. Within seconds she'd found AMC—American Movie Classics, the channel that regularly played all her favorites like Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Audrey Hepburn, and Carmen Jones, starring Dorothy Dandridge.

  To her disappointment, Dirty Dancing was playing. Since when was anything made after 1980 a true classic? Porsha wondered. All of a sudden she felt old. But then, that seemed sort of appropriate, considering the fact that she was about to have a hot-and-heavy liaison with her lover in a lavish hotel suite. Where was Kaliq anyway? A cab from his house to the Plaza would only take about seven minutes. If she were Kaliq, she'd have made it in five.

  She dialed his cell without even looking at the buttons on her phone, but there was no answer. Maybe he was showering and putting on his sexy black Calvin Klein boxers in preparation for their rendezvous, she mused.

  Or maybe not.

  Porsha stood up, removed her robe, and dimmed the lights. Then she spread a little caviar on one of the toast points and stood watching herself in the oversized dressing mirror as she ate it. On the TV screen behind her, “Baby” was trying to look innocent after spending all night having big sweaty sex with Patrick Swayze, the dance instructor at the summer resort where her family was vacationing. Baby's dad was so seriously pissed off at her, Porsha wondered fleetingly how her own dad would feel if he knew she'd moved into a hotel suite just so she could have a little privacy with Kaliq. Not that her gay, French-chateau-living, pastel-socks-and-Gucci-sunglasses-wearing dad and Baby's responsible doctor dad had anything in common.

  She dialed Kaliq once again and when he didn't answer, she made herself another caviar toast point sandwich and called her dad's number in southern France, where he'd been living since he and Eleanor split up over his gayness almost two years ago.

  “Bear? Is everything okay? Did you hear from those fuck-heads at Yale yet? Are you in?” her father demanded as soon as he heard her voice.

  Porsha could picture him perfectly, naked except for a pair of royal blue silk boxers, his sleeping lover—Francois or Eduard or whatever his name was—snoring softly beside him. Harold Sinclaire used to be managing partner at a major corporate law firm, married to society hostess Eleanor and living in a penthouse with his two lovely children, Porsha and Brice. Now he bottled his own wine from the vineyards surrounding his chateau, shopped at cute French boutiques that catered exclusively to gay men, and swam laps in his pool while his tanned gay lovers attended him with fresh towels and glasses of cognac.

  It was a luxe life, indeed.

  “Guess where I am?” Porsha boasted in the same tone she'd used to talk to Chanel. In fact, talking to her dad was exactly like talking to one of her girlfriends. He didn't even mind that it was almost two in the morning in France and she had totally woken him up.

  “Paris?” her dad asked hopefully. “I'll send a car for you. You'll be here in an hour.”

  “No, Dad,” Porsha whined, although she honestly wouldn't have minded being in Paris—as long as she could bring Kaliq and her suite at the Plaza with her. “I'm at the Plaza. I'm living here now. In a suite.”

  “You go, girl!” her dad exclaimed. “I guess the penthouse might be a little crowded with the new baby and all.”

  In the background Porsha heard the sound of him pouring something into a glass. He was so into his latest batch of white wine, he probably kept a bottle chilling next to the bed exactly for occasions like this.

  In Dirty Dancing Land, Baby's bitchy sister was performing in a stupid talent show, wearing a bikini top that was way too small for her. Porsha muted the TV, spread another blob of caviar on a toast point, lit a cigarette, and sighed dramatically. “It's just that I'm almost graduating and I need space—you know, to do my work and think about next year and…”

  All of a sudden she had a very clear image of herself as a sort of reclusive movie star who rarely left her hotel room, communicating with the outside world only through the roles she decided to play. The staff would pick through her trash and steal her clothes, and tourists would stand on Central Park South opposite the hotel, just waiting to catch a glimpse of her. She'd be the talk of the town.

  As if she wasn't already.

  “Oh, I'll bet you're working,” her dad scoffed between sips of whatever it was he was drinking. “I bet that hunky boyfriend of yours is massaging your feet as we speak.”

  If only.

  Porsha giggled and scarfed down another caviar sandwich between drags on her Merit Ultra Light. “Actually, Kaliq's on his way over,” she admitted. She contemplated the bottle of champagne she'd ordered, still chilling in its silver-plated ice bucket. Kaliq wouldn't mind if she opened the bottle and had one tiny glass before he arrived, would he?

  Of course not.

  “I thought as much,” her dad replied knowingly. “But you deserve it, sweetie. You deserve to have it all.”

  As if she didn't already know that.

  Porsha grabbed the bottle of champagne and held it between her bare knees, expertly untwisting the wire keeper from around the cork and then inching the cork out of the bottle's neck, slowly…slowly…until…

  Pop!

  “Oh. My. God. You are so having a party!” her father exclaimed. “On a school night?” he added, pretending to be horrified, as if he were a strict parent who actually cared about things like that. “Let me talk to that hunky boyfriend of yours right now.”

  Porsha filled a champagne flute, guzzled the entire contents, and then refilled it. On screen, Patrick Swayze was face-to-face with Baby's dad. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” Porsha mouthed the words, even though the TV had been muted. It was the corniest movie, but she still fantasized about Kaliq defending her in such a determined, angry way. Kaliq was seriously sexy when he was angry, which was just about…never.

  It's hard to get riled up when you're high all the time.

  “I told you, Dad,” Porsha corrected, “Kaliq's not here yet.” She gritted her teeth and took another gulp of champagne. Although who knew what was taking him so goddamned long. “Anyway”—she pouted her lips for the mirror or the camera or whoever happened to be s
pying on her through a telescope from the treetops in Central Park—“if I deserve to have it all, then how come stupid Yale hasn't let me in yet?”

  “Oh, Bear,” her dad sighed in his manly-but-motherly voice that made both men and women fall in love with him instantly. “They will, dammit. They will let you in.”

  Porsha reached for another toast point and discovered she'd eaten them all. Over the phone she heard someone mumble something in sleepy French.

  “Look, Sugar Bear, it's late. I have to go,” her dad spoke over the mumbling. “You're okay though, right? You just enjoy yourself.”

  Porsha looked askance at the half-empty bottle of champagne and the crumbs of caviar scattered on the white china plate. Dirty Dancing had ended. “Good night, Dad,” she replied, feeling a little sad.

  She hung up and dialed Kaliq's cell phone again. No answer. She dialed his house line. No answer, just his uptight dad on the answering machine, reading from the actual instructions the machine came with that no normal person ever used: “You have reached the Braxton residence. Please leave a brief message and we will return your call as soon as possible.”

  Gone With the Wind was just about to start. Another old favorite. Porsha put the white terrycloth bathrobe back on and fluffed up the pillows on the giant bed. Then she dialed room service again. “A hot fudge sundae, please. And a pack of Merit Ultra Lights.”

  She sank back on the pillows and closed her eyes. When she'd left his house, Kaliq had been partying with a bunch of stoners, including an annoying French hippie chick named Lexique. That stupid, lazy asshole who so didn't deserve to go to Yale probably hadn't even noticed that Porsha had left.

  Tears seeped out from under her closed lids. Kaliq hadn't changed. Nothing had changed—except the status of her virginity. She bit her lip and fought back an angry sob.