His friends watched him trudge purposefully through the slush toward Madison Avenue until he was out of sight. Something was happening to their old friend Kaliq Braxton, and it wasn’t just that he’d turned down a joint for the first time since he was ten years old.
Could it be, was it possible, that he’d fallen in love?
35
Porsha kept her hand clapped over her mouth and her mind clear of any thoughts of Owen the whole way home to keep from being sick all over the back seat of the taxi. But when she stepped off the wood-paneled elevator and into the penthouse, her nostrils were bombarded with the putrid scent of roses, causing her stomach to churn ominously once more. The entire front hall was packed with them. Yellow roses, white roses, pink ones and red. She dropped her bag on the floor and read the notes on the bouquets.
Porsh—You’re my honey-pie. Love, Chanel, said the note on the yellow roses.
Dorothy, my favorite little aristocrat, will you please be my Valentine? Love, Harry, said the note on the red roses.
My darling Mrs. Archibald, May our tiny daughter be as lovely and as wonderful as you are and as hopelessly happy as I am every day I spend with you. —Your loving husband, Mr. Archibald, said the note on the pink-and-white bouquet.
As if one of those notes wouldn’t have been enough to make Porsha puke out her already puked-out guts, she had to be bombarded with three uniquely repulsive missives. Throwing her coat down on the floor, she staggered into the nearest bathroom to empty her stomach again. “Mom!” she shouted, wiping her mouth on a guest towel.
“Porsha?” her mother called back. Eleanor Sinclaire wandered slowly down the hall wearing a pink wool suit that had been let out at the waist to accommodate her five-months pregnant belly. Her bob was pulled back into a neat ponytail and she was wearing white rabbit fur slippers and carrying her portable phone. Like most Upper East Side hostesses, Eleanor spent all the time she wasn’t having lunch or getting her hair done on the phone. “What are you doing home?” she asked her daughter. “Are you sick?”
Porsha clutched her stomach and tried not to look at her mother. “I saw the note from Cyrus,” she croaked. “You’re having a girl?”
Her mother beamed back at her, her eyes sparkling ecstatically. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she cried. “I found out this morning.” She flip-flopped up to Porsha in her fur slippers and threw her arms around her daughter’s neck. “Cyrus has always wanted a girl. And now when you come home from college you’ll have a little baby sister to play with!”
Porsha grimaced as her stomach did another back flip at the mention of college.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Eleanor babbled on. “But we’re planning to turn your room into a nursery since we’re running out of bedrooms. You and Tahj will be going away to school soon anyway. You don’t mind, do you, sweetheart?”
Porsha stared at her mother blankly. She hadn’t wanted a stepbrother or a stepfather and she certainly didn’t want a baby sister, especially not one who was going to take over her room. “I’m going to go lie down,” she replied weakly.
“I’ll have Myrtle send in some bouillon,” her mother called after her.
Porsha slammed her bedroom door and dove onto her bed, burying her head in the depths of her extrasoft goose-down pillows. Kitty Minky, her gray Russian Blue cat, jumped onto her back and kneaded her paws into Porsha's sweater.
“Help me,” Porsha moaned miserably to her cat. If only she could lie there until late August and then be helicoptered to her new dorm room at Yale, skipping all the bad parts in the script of the movie that was her life, the parts that needed to be rewritten.
Out of habit, she reached out and punched the playback button on the answering machine on her bedside table, keeping her eyes closed as she listened.
“Hello, Porsha, it’s Owen. Owen Wells. Sorry I couldn’t call earlier. What happened? I woke up and you were gone. Anyway, Happy Valentine’s Day, gorgeous. Call me back when you have a moment. Bye-bye.”
“Hello, Porsha, it’s Owen again. Did you get my flowers? I hope you like them. Call me back when you have a moment. Thanks. Bye.”
“Hello, Porsha. I know it’s short notice, but would you like to have dinner with me? Um, this is Owen by the way. Plans on the home front have changed and I’m all freed up. So how 'bout Le Cirque this evening, gorgeous? Give me a call.”
“Hello, Porsha. I got a table at Le Cirque—” Porsha kicked her answering machine off the bedside table and it came unplugged. She didn’t care that Owen had the sexiest voice and was the best kisser in all of New York. She couldn’t play Dorothy to his Harry anymore, not when Harry had turned out to be a lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch, scumbag dad. She didn’t even care if Owen told Yale she was a stupid flake who wouldn’t last more than two weeks there. Fuck Owen, and fuck Yale.
She grabbed her phone and dialed Owen’s cell phone number. It was the only number he’d given her, probably because it was the only phone he could be sure of answering himself.
“Porsha?” Owen answered eagerly on the first ring. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day!”
“In high school?” Porsha shot back. “I know it was a long time ago for you, but it’s this place where you go during the week where they teach you stuff. I’m only home now because I’m not feeling well.”
“Oh. I guess you’re not up for dinner then?”
Owen’s voice didn’t sound nearly as sexy now that she knew what a complete asshole he was. Porsha walked over to the full-length mirror on the back of her closet door and examined her hair. It already looked a little longer. Maybe it wouldn’t take that long to grow back. Or maybe she’d cut it even shorter. She pulled her hair back severely from her forehead to see what it would look like supershort.
“I know your daughter,” she hissed into the phone as she walked over to her dresser and dug around in the top drawer until she found the little pair of silver antique sewing scissors she’d inherited from her grandmother and never had much use for.
“P-Porsha—” Owen stammered.
“Fuck off.” Porsha clicked off the phone and threw it onto her bed. Then, grabbing a handful of hair, she began to hack away with the tiny silver sewing scissors.
Goodbye, Dorothy Dandridge, hello Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby!
36
Wednesday after school Mekhi stood in the lobby of the Plaza Hotel, fiddling with the collar of his new black suit jacket and clutching the small red leather-bound book Mystery had given him for Valentine’s Day. He’d been to the Plaza only once before, when he and Yasmine had been in Central Park filming ice skaters and she’d had to use the bathroom. Even in his fancy new suit he felt out of place in such sumptuous surroundings.
He’d better get used to it. After all, he was about to become a very famous author who had tea with his agent in fancy hotels on a regular basis.
Pauper in a mirrored castle, he thought, forming the beginnings of a poem.
“Mekhi!” He heard Rusty Klein shout from across the room. This time she was wearing her red wig in fat braids on either side of her head, and her immense, six-foot-plus frame was cloaked in an unusual black Japanese geisha robe dotted with tiny white flowers and paired with tall, black suede stiletto boots—as if she wasn’t already tall enough. Mystery stood at her side looking like a starved ghost in a tattered plum-colored wrap dress and worn brown leather boots. Her collarbone stuck out from her skinny frame like an airplane wing, and her lips were so chapped, they were almost white.
Skeleton princess drifts out on a ray of dust.
“Hey,” Mekhi greeted them casually, as if he always hung out at the Plaza after school. Inside his white shirt the silver gravity pen Mystery had given him beat against his dark chest. “Thank you for the gifts.”
Rusty swept him up in a big bear hug, suffocating him with her rank oily-fish perfume and smudging his cheek with orangey-pink lipstick. “Mystery and I had too much fun shopping for you, darling! We had to fo
rce ourselves to stop.”
Mystery ran her tongue over her yellow teeth. “We’ve been drinking martinis and deconstructing Kafka like two old ninnies,” she croaked, sounding drunk and looking like she hadn’t slept in weeks. She blinked her sleepy eyes. “Now that you’re here I can eat. You starve me.”
Bones draped in moth wings sewn with cobwebs.
“This way,” Rusty chortled, ignoring Mystery’s odd pronouncement. She ushered them through the immense lobby and into a large tearoom full of gilded mirrors, tinkling crystal, and overly perfumed ladies with freshly blown-out hair. The round, white-clothed table had been laid with a silver tea service and a three-tiered silver tray covered with freshly baked scones, pots of homemade jam, and tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Two half-empty martini glasses stood on the table, ready to be polished off.
“We’ve been having a little party to celebrate Mystery’s debut,” Rusty explained merrily. She sat down and tossed back the remains of her drink.
The queen of poesy gives a tempting tug.
Mekhi sat down next to her and put his red leather book on the table. “What debut?”
Rusty grabbed a blueberry scone and slathered it with butter, shoving the whole thing into her enormous mouth, where it disappeared instantly. “Good, you brought your observations book. Have you been writing everything down? Remember, nothing is inconsequential!” She winked at Mystery. “Who knows? It could all add up to a book!”
Mystery giggled and glanced at Mekhi. “I finished my novel,” she confided huskily.
House on fire! House on fire!
Mekhi rubbed his thumb over the tines of his fork, as he absorbed the information. Mystery had finished writing an entire novel in less than a week and all he’d done was write one crappy Valentine’s Day poem for Yasmine. He couldn’t even bear to read Yasmine’s response after he’d sent the poem to her, that was how badly it sucked.
“But I thought you’d just started it,” he said, feeling weirdly betrayed.
“I had. But Sunday night I fell off the plateau and kept gathering momentum, and I just couldn’t stop writing until I finished. I e-mailed it to Rusty at dawn this morning, just as the street cleaners were arriving. She’s already read the whole thing. She says I’m the next Virginia Woolf!”
“I thought you were the next Sylvia Plath,” Mekhi accused grumpily.
Moth princess helps herself to stolen meat.
Mystery shrugged her thin shoulders and poured a heaping spoonful of sugar into her martini, stirring it pensively before picking up the glass with both hands and taking a gulp.
“Anyhoo, let’s talk about you Mekhi,” Rusty practically shouted. “Oh, fuck me.” She pulled her hot pink cell phone out of her purse, pushed a few buttons and held it up to her ear. “Hold on, loves. I have to check my messages.”
Mekhi waited, watching Mystery dunk so many spoonfuls of sugar into her drink that it looked less like a martini and more like a slushy from 7-Eleven. He hadn’t noticed before, but her gnarly, gnawed-on fingernails were as yellow as her teeth.
Rusty tossed her cell phone into the middle of the table. “I think you should write a memoir,” she told Mekhi, reaching for another scone and breaking it in half. “Memoir of a Young Poet. I love it!” she shouted. “You’re the next Rilke!”
The queen of clowns pulls a pink rabbit out of her hair.
Mekhi tugged on the gravity pen. He wanted to write down something about Mystery’s yellow fingernails in his observation book and how surprising it was that he wasn’t turned off by them. In fact, they turned him on.
“But how can I write a memoir when all I do is go to high school?” he argued miserably. “Nothing big has ever happened to me.” He reached for the teapot with trembling hands and poured warm, fragrant Earl Grey tea into his white teacup. Ah, caffeine.
Rusty tapped the cover of his observation book with her long fingernails. “Small things, darling. Small things. And you might want to think about putting off college and writing for a year or two, just like Mystery.” She wiped her mouth with a white cloth napkin, smearing it with lipstick. “I’ve got you signed up with Mystery for a poetry reading at the Rivington Rover Poetry Club tomorrow night. Buckley is already distributing the flyers. It’s very now. All the old poetry clubs are coming back. You’ve got to be able to perform. I’m telling you, poetry is the next rock’n’roll!”
Mystery giggled and kicked Mekhi’s shin under the table like drunken donkey. Mekhi was tempted to kick her back because it kind of hurt, but he didn’t want to be immature.
Rusty snapped her foot-long fingers and the waiter instantly appeared. “Give these kids anything their little hearts desire,” she directed. “I have to run, darlings. Mama has a meeting.” She blew kisses at them and then click-clacked across the room in her geisha dress, turning heads with her flaming braids and immense stature.
Mother bird flees the nest, leaving the princess and the pauper with open beaks.
Mystery downed the dregs of Rusty’s martini and gazed exhaustedly at Mekhi with droopy eyes. “Every time Rusty mentions your name I feel the heat creep up my thighs,” she confessed throatily. “I’ve been drowning in desire all week, but I managed to channel that animal energy into my book.” She giggled. Her teeth looked like they’d been colored in with a yellow crayon. “Parts of it are totally X-rated.”
Pauper turns prince. To coin a phrase, I’m crowning.
Mekhi reached for a cucumber sandwich and shoved it in his mouth, chewing it violently without even tasting it. He was supposed to go home and write his memoir. He was supposed to have a girlfriend. He was supposed to be freaked out by this decidedly insane, yellow-toothed, horny chick. But the truth was, he was horny, too. He’d lost his virginity twice already, and he couldn’t wait to lose it again and again.
“Come on,” Mystery beckoned, holding out her yellow-nailed hand. “We can get a room and put it on Rusty’s tab.”
Mekhi picked up his observation book and followed her to the front desk. Poetry be damned. He couldn’t resist following this story line to the next chapter.
37
Bree couldn’t be sure that the D who’d sent her a note on Valentine’s Day was actually the boy from Bendel’s. He could’ve been a total nerd or even a gross, perverted old man, but secretly she was already in love with him. She felt like a girl in a fairy tale in love with a man in a mask, and she was determined to ride the 79th Street crosstown bus until she met him face-to-face. Monday and Tuesday she rode the bus alone until 7 P.M. with no luck. On Wednesday after school Elise came with her.
“I don’t get it. Why are we doing this again?” Elise asked. She’d already finished all her homework and was staring out the window over Bree’s shoulder, bored nearly to tears.
“I told you. I left my favorite hat on the bus this morning and if I ride enough buses, I’m sure I’ll see it,” Bree lied.
“Someone probably took it,” Elise argued. “Your cute fuzzy red hat? I’m sure someone took it.”
A swollen-ankled middle-aged woman wearing a dowdy trench coat and reading the Wall Street Journal glared at them the way people are always glaring at teenagers when they’re talking in public. Like, could you please just press the mute button?
Well, excuse me.
“Just this last bus and then we can go home,” Bree promised, even though she’d promised that two buses ago.
Elise put her hand on Bree’s black-stockinged knee and left it there. “I don’t really mind. It’s not like I have anything better to do.”
Bree waited for Elise to remove her hand. “What are you doing?” she whispered loudly.
“With what?”
“With your hand.”
“The book says to express your affection with gentle caresses,” Elise declared.
“But I don’t want you to. Besides, we’re on a bus,” Bree hissed, pushing Elise’s hand away. The last thing she wanted was for D to see her and Elise caressing each other. God. How embarr
assing.
“What’s wrong with it?” Elise cried, shoving Bree in the leg just as the bus lurched over a bump. Bree slipped off the seat and onto the floor, her butt landing hard on her neighbor’s shoes.
Bree closed her eyes, too mortified to open them. If her secret admirer were watching now, he wouldn’t be writing her any more love notes. The bus lurched over another bump as it roared across the park and Bree’s boobs bounced mercilessly, as if she hadn’t been through enough.
“Here.” A hand gripped her arm.
“Fuck off,” Bree mumbled in total humiliation. She batted the hand away and struggled to her feet. A light skinned boy's head loomed above her. Tall. Nice nose. Brown yes with thick lashes. It was him—the Bendel’s boy!
“Are you all right?” he asked. “There’s an empty seat back here. Why don’t you sit down?” He took her hand and pushed backward through the crowd.
Bree slid into the hard, narrow seat and looked up at the boy, her heart pounding. He looked to be about sixteen and he was perfect, just perfect. “Are you D?” she asked breathlessly.
He smiled shyly. One of his front teeth was chipped a little. It was extremely cute. “Yes. It’s Damien,” he answered.
Damien. Of course.
“I’m Brianna!” Bree practically screamed, she was so excited.
“Brianna,” Damien repeated, as if it were the most uniquely beautiful name he’d ever heard.
Elise poked her head through the rush-hour crowd and narrowed her eyes at Bree. “Hey, I’m sorry I pushed you. Are you okay?”
Damien smiled his adorable chip-toothed smile at her as if to say that any friend of Bree’s was a friend of his. Bree’s first instinct was to snarl at Elise to buzz off so she and Damien could get acquainted in peace. But she didn’t want Damien to think she was a total bitch. The man seated next to her stood up and Bree patted the seat. “Sit down.”
UPPER EAST SIDE Page 15
