UPPER EAST SIDE

by Ashley Valentine

  “Hey. You want to try it?” Elise asked.

  Bree turned back to the book. “What?”

  “Kissing,” Elise answered in barely a whisper.

  Your feelings are genuine and not to be ignored.

  Yes, but Bree didn’t really have any feelings for Elise. She liked her and everything but she wasn’t attracted to her. Still, kissing a girl sounded exciting. It was something she’d never done before, and if it felt uncomfortable, she could always pretend to be kissing that tall light skinned boy she’d spotted in Bendel’s.

  She closed the book and folded her hands in her lap. Her face was only inches away from Elise’s. “Okay, let’s do it.” It was just an experiment, something new to try on a boring, snowy night.

  Elise leaned forward and put her hand on Bree’s arm. Then she closed her eyes and Bree closed hers, too. Elise pressed her lips against Bree’s tightly clenched mouth. It wasn’t a kiss exactly—it was too dry. It felt more like a nudge or something.

  Elise pulled her head back and both girls opened their eyes. “It says in the book to relax and enjoy yourself, especially when it’s your first time.”

  What, had she, like, memorized the book?

  Bree pulled her curly hair up on top of her head and blew a big breath out through her nose. She didn’t know what she was so nervous about, but she would have preferred it if Elise had still been wearing her pants. “Do you mind putting your jeans back on?” she asked. “I think I could, you know, relax more if you were like, dressed.”

  Elise hopped up and scooted into her jeans. “There, is that better?” she asked, leaving them unbuttoned as she sat down on the sofa again.

  “Okay. Let’s try it again,” Bree replied, revving herself up. She closed her eyes and slid her hands under Elise’s hair and around her neck, trying to be less of a prude about the whole thing.

  After all, she was an artist, and artists did all sorts of crazy things.

  25

  After the Better Than Naked fashion show, the candles lining the runway were removed and red and blue strobe lights began to zoom against the black velvet walls. DJ Sassy broke out the beats, and the Harrison Street Club was transformed into a 70s disco full of half-naked ninety-pound models drinking Cristal champagne straight out of the bottle.

  Mekhi stood alone by the bar, sipping his Red Bull–and-who-knew-what-else cocktail. It tasted exactly like baby aspirin and he was only drinking it because the bartender had promised him it was loaded with caffeine and something called taurine, which was guaranteed to keep him hyper-awake all night.

  All of a sudden he noticed a violently tall woman wearing a flaming red wig—it had to be a wig—neon pink lipstick, and huge tortoise-shell sunglasses standing in the middle of the packed room with her hands cupped around her mouth. “Mekhi Hargrove? Calling Mekhi Hargrove!” she shrieked.

  It was Rusty Klein.

  Mekhi tilted his head back and downed his drink, blinking his eyes as the caffeine and whatever else was in his drink rushed to his brain all at once. He stumbled over to the woman, his heart thumping even faster than the music. “I’m Mekhi,” he croaked.

  “Look at you! Our new poet! You’re adorable! Perfect!” Rusty Klein pushed her enormous sunglasses up on top of her head and jangled the enormous gold bracelets covering her long bony wrists as she grabbed Mekhi and kissed each of his cheeks. Her perfume smelled oily and acidic, like tuna fish. “I love you, honey,” she purred, squeezing Mekhi tight.

  Mekhi shrank away, unused to being manhandled by someone he’d only just met. He hadn’t expected Rusty Klein to be so scary. Her eyebrows had been dyed to match her wig and she was dressed like a sword fighter, in a form-fitting black velvet puffy-sleeved jacket and matching bullfighting pants. A rope of black pearls clung to her bony cleavage.

  “I’ve been trying to write more poems,” Mekhi stammered. “You know, for my book?”

  “Wonderful!” Rusty Klein shouted, thrusting her lips at him again and probably smearing bright pink lipstick all over his face. “Let’s make a lunch date sometime next week.”

  “Um, I’ve got school all day every day next week, but I get out at three-thirty.”

  “School!” Rusty screamed. “You’re so cute! We can do tea then. Call my office and have Buckley, my assistant, set it up. Oh, fuck me!” She clasped Mekhi’s arm with a clawlike hand. Her fingernails were at least three inches long and painted orangey pink. “There’s someone here you absolutely must meet.”

  Rusty let go of Mekhi and held out her arms to receive a frail-looking girl with a long, sad face and milky chocolate skin. The girl was wearing only a see-through light pink slip over her gaunt frame and her lank, waist-length weave was uncombed, as if she’d just gotten out of bed.

  “Mystery Craze, this is Mekhi Hargrove. Mekhi, this is Mystery,” Rusty purred loudly. “Mystery, honey, you remember that poem I gave you to read? The one you said...Oh, fuck me. I’ll let you tell him what you said. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lick my favorite designer’s ass so he’ll give me some new free clothes. Love you both. Ciao!” she added, before striding away in her five-inch black stilettos.

  Mystery blinked her huge, tired eyes. She looked like she’d been up all night cleaning floors, like Cinderella. “Your poem saved my life,” she confided to Mekhi in a low, husky voice. A tall, narrow glass of something bright red was wedged into her frail hand. “It’s Campari,” she said when she noticed him looking at it. “Want a taste?”

  Mekhi never drank anything that wasn’t caffeinated. He shook his head no and tucked his black notebook under his arm. Then he lit a Newport and took a long drag. There, that was much better. Now at least he’d have something to do, even if he couldn’t think of anything to say. “So, are you a poet, too?” he asked.

  Mystery stuck her thumb into her drink and then licked it off. The corners of her mouth were stained red with Campari, making her look like a little girl who’d just eaten a cherry Popsicle. “I write poems and short stories. And I’m working on a novel about cremation and premature death. Rusty says I’m the next Sylvia Plath,” she answered. “What about you?”

  Mekhi sipped his drink. He wasn’t sure what she meant by premature death. Was there ever a right time to die? He wondered if he should write a poem about it, but then again, he didn’t want to steal Mystery’s material. “I’m supposed to be the next Keats.”

  Mystery dunked her thumb into her drink again and then licked it off. “What’s your favorite verb?”

  Mekhi took another drag off his cigarette and blew smoke into the crowded, noisy room. He wasn’t sure if it was the club, or the music, or the caffeine, or the taurine, but he felt so alive and so good at that very moment, talking about words with this girl named Mystery whose life he had saved. He was seriously digging it.

  “Dying, I guess,” he answered, finishing his drink and setting the empty glass down on the floor. “The verb to die.” He knew it must have sounded like he was trying to impress her. After all, she was writing a book about premature death and cremation. But it was the truth. Almost all of his poems really were about dying. Dying of love, dying of anger, dying of boredom, of anxiety; falling asleep and never waking up.

  Mystery smiled. “Me too.” Her eyes and long, thin face were starkly beautiful, but her front teeth were crooked and yellow, like she’d never been to the dentist in her entire life. She snagged another Red Bull cocktail from a waiter’s tray and handed it to Mekhi. “Rusty says poets are the next movie stars. One day we’ll both be riding around in limos with our bodyguards.” She sighed heavily. “As if that will make life any easier.” She raised her glass and clinked it against his. “To poetry,” she announced grimly. Then she grabbed the back of Mekhi’s head and pulled him toward her, crushing his lips in a deep, Campari-soaked kiss.

  Mekhi knew he should have thrown Mystery off, protesting that he had a girlfriend, that he was in love. He shouldn’t have enjoyed being hit on by a strange, practically naked girl with ye
llow teeth. But Mystery’s lips tasted sweet and sour at the same time and he wanted to understand why she was so sad and so tired. He wanted to discover her, the way he sometimes discovered the perfect metaphor when he was in the middle of writing a poem, and to do that he had to keep kissing her.

  “What’s your favorite verb?” he breathed into her ear when he came up for air.

  “Sex,” she answered, diving for his lips again.

  Mekhi grinned as he kissed her back. It might have been the taurine, but sometimes it just feels good to be bad.

  26

  “So you’re the one.” A beautiful, tanned, blond dude dressed in baggy orange surf shorts, white leather clogs, and a brown-and-white pony fur vest with nothing on underneath smiled at Yasmine with glistening white teeth. His name was Dork or Duke or something and he claimed to be a producer. “The genius filmmaker.”

  “She’s the next Bertolucci,” Ken Mogul corrected Duke, or whatever his name was. “Give me a year and she’s going to be a household name.” Ken was dressed like an urban cowboy in a silver Culture of Humanity down vest over a black Western-style shirt with pearly white snaps instead of buttons. His curly red hair was tucked into a black hat, and he was even wearing black cowboy boots with his boot-cut jeans. He’d flown into New York that night from Utah, where his most recent film had just been introduced at the Sundance Film Festival. It was an ambitious piece about a deaf and mute man who worked in a cannery in Alaska and lived in a trailer with thirty-six cats. The man didn’t talk and spent a lot of time at his computer e-mailing girls on singles Web sites, so Ken had had to be extremely creative with the camera to keep the action going. It was his finest work yet.

  “Dude, watching your film was like being born again,” Dork told Yasmine. “It made my day.”

  The corners of Yasmine’s mouth turned up in a half-bored, half-amused Mona Lisa smile. She wasn’t sure how she felt about being called “dude,” but she was glad she’d made Dork’s day.

  The Culture of Humanity by Jedediah Angel after-party was an even bigger deal than the fashion show itself. Highway 1 had been decorated like a Hindu wedding tent, and bikini-clad models who hadn’t even been in the show were lounging on leather sofas, drinking saffron martinis. or dancing to the live music. Yasmine tugged on her tight red top. It was kind of hard not to feel like a fatass around so many fit, seven-foot-tall models.

  “Okay. Here’s the guy from Entertainment Weekly,” Ken Mogul said, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Smile, it’s a photo op!”

  Duke stood on the other side of Yasmine and pressed his tanned, angular cheek against her soft, brown one. “Say salami!”

  It was Yasmine’s policy not to smile when she was being forced to have her picture taken, but why not? There really wasn’t any danger that she’d get swept up in the glow, marry Duke in the Temple of Surf and Sand, and live cheesily ever after in a surf shack on the beach in Malibu. She was too hardcore New York for that, and besides, she hated the beach. No, tonight would be her one night of cheese and then tomorrow she’d go back to being normal again.

  “Salami!” all three of them cried, flashing their cheesiest smiles for the camera.

  Duke stayed close to Yasmine’s side after the photographer left. “What hotel are you staying at?” he asked, assuming she was from LA, just like everyone else he knew.

  Yasmine unscrewed the cap on her bottle of Evian and took a swig. “Actually, I live here in New York, in Williamsburg, with my sister. I’m still in high school. She plays in a band.”

  Dork looked excited. “Dude!” he cried. “You’re like one of those people screenwriters make up, you know?” He lifted his fingers to make quotations in the air, “An ‘urban hipster.’ Except you’re real. You’re realer than real. You’re dyno-mite!”

  For a guy called Dork, he was actually pretty insightful.

  “Thanks,” Yasmine said, unsure whether that was the correct response or not. She’d never had a conversation with someone so stupid before. She felt a hand on her elbow and she turned around.

  A frail older man wearing a purple velvet smoking jacket and round black glasses smiled up at her. “You’re the filmmaker, right?” he asked.

  Yasmine nodded. “I guess.”

  The old man waggled a bony finger at her. “Don’t take your gift too seriously,” he said before wandering away.

  Duke bent down and spoke urgently into her ear. “I’m staying at the Hudson. Wanna go back to my room for a drink or something?”

  Yasmine knew she should have told him to fuck off, but she’d never been hit on by a gorgeous, dumb white surfer dude who could have hit on any one of the models in the room but had chosen to hit on her instead. It was really kind of flattering. And hadn’t that old guy just told her not to take things too seriously? Thank God she’d gone to all the trouble to remove the hair on her legs. “Maybe later,” she replied, not wanting to shut Dork down completely. “It’s kind of snowy out right now.”

  “Right, duh.” Duke slapped himself on the head with a goofy laugh. “Want to dance instead?” He held out his hand, his arm muscles rippling invitingly. He looked like he never missed a workout and survived on a diet of protein drinks and wheatgrass.

  Yasmine tugged on her red shirt again and took Duke’s hand, following him out onto the throbbing, crowded dance floor. She couldn’t believe herself—she hated to dance! At least no one she knew would be watching.

  Oh yeah?

  27

  Because the snow had become completely unpassable and they were trapped downtown, Porsha decided that the most attractive option was to get a suite in the hotel upstairs.

  “We can watch TV and order room service,” she whispered enticingly in Owen’s ear. “It’ll be fun.”

  The room was luxurious, with a king-sized bed, a sunken Jacuzzi tub, a flat-screen plasma TV hanging on the wall, and an impressive view of the partially frozen, white-washed Hudson River. Owen called room service and ordered a bottle of wine, filet mignon, and chocolate cake, and when it came they lay on the bed, feeding each other and watching TV.

  “How come you and your wife split up?” Porsha asked, forking a piece of cake into Owen’s open mouth. Chocolatey crumbs fell onto the white 450-thread-count Egyptian cotton pillowcases.

  Owen dipped a teaspoon into the cake’s frosting and offered the spoon to Porsha to lick off. “We haven’t...” He hesitated, his gorgeous, shapely eyebrows furrowing as he considered his answer. “I’d really rather not talk about it.”

  Porsha smiled sympathetically as she let the frosting melt on her tongue. She liked playing the role of the other woman. It made her feel so...powerful. “Did she go to Yale, too?”

  Owen picked up the remote and pointed it at the television. Then he put it down again without changing the channel. “I don’t know,” he replied, sounding exactly like Porsha’s little brother, Brice, when he was watching TV and their mom asked if he’d done his homework yet.

  Porsha grabbed the remote and began flipping through the channels. A Martin rerun. Wrestling. An old episode of MTV Cribs. She wasn’t sure if she liked the boyish side of Owen. She much preferred the man. “She didn’t go to Yale or she did?”

  “Uh-huh,” Owen answered, spooning a huge bit of cake into his mouth. “Astronomy major.”

  Porsha raised her eyebrows as she watched Sean “P. Diddy” Combs give a tour of his Upper East Side mansion. Owen’s wife sounded like a genius. What kind of person became an astronomy major anyway? Someone who wanted to be an astronaut? She wished Owen had said his wife hadn’t gone to college at all, but that she just sat around watching reality TV and eating Krispy Kreme donuts. That in the end she’d weighed five hundred pounds and he’d been forced to sleep in the guest bedroom until eventually moving out altogether. There just hadn’t been room for him anymore.

  Porsha flipped over to AMC, her favorite classic movie channel. Casablanca, starring Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart, was almost halfway through. The Germans had just invad
ed Paris and Ingrid was frightened.

  She settled back on the pillows, missing the way her long hair used to fan out around her face in a way she imagined must have been irresistible. “Sometimes I pretend I’m living in those times,” she told Owen dreamily. “It just seems so much more sophisticated, you know? No one wears jeans, everyone is so polite, and all the women have the best hairstyles.”

  “Yeah, but there was a war. A big one,” Owen reminded her. He wiped his mouth on a white linen napkin and settled back against the pillows beside her.

  “So?” Porsha insisted. “It was still better.”

  Owen reached for her hand and Porsha shifted her gaze away from the TV to study his profile. “You know you look exactly like Harry Belafonte in Carmen Jones?” she whispered.

  “You think?” Owen turned his head to look at her, his eyes smoldering sexily.

  “I cut my hair to look like Dorothy Dandridge,” Porsha admitted. She turned on her side and rested her head against his manly chest in its crisp white shirt. “We could be Dorothy and Harry.”

  Owen kissed her hair and squeezed her hand gently. With his free hand he began to rub her back and Porsha could feel his gold wedding band knock against the bumps in her spine.

  Outside the snow was falling harder than ever. Porsha watched it fall, unable to relax. It was sort of impossible not to think about Owen’s genius astronaut wife, sitting home alone as she wrote out impossible astronomical equations on a blackboard, all the while wondering about her husband. Even if Porsha and Owen did look exactly like Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte, Porsha was pretty sure the girls Dorothy played didn’t lose their virginities in hotel rooms with married older men, no matter how deep the snow got. Why not end the film here, while it was still good?