Upper East Side #6

by Ashley Valentine

  "Chanel told us what happened!" her pregnant mother crowed, swaying hugely in the foyer. "Wait list, shmait list. I can't imagine why you got so upset, darling. Yale has just as good as accepted you!"

  Porsha peeled off her cardigan and threw it on the antique chaise in the corner. Mookie threatened to sniff her crotch again and she kicked him away. "It's not that simple, Mom."

  Pregnancy had made Eleanor's hair grow superfast, and it hung down to her shoulders in what Porsha thought was a pathetic attempt to look like she was of appropriate childbearing age. Eleanor clapped her bejeweled hands together. "Well, my little sourpuss, we're having a special family celebration for you anyway. Everyone's waiting in the dining room!"

  A family celebration. Oh, goody.

  The table was laid with Eleanor's finest crystal and silver, and she'd ordered in from Blue Ribbon Sushi, Porsha's favorite. Cyrus and Tahj were already merry with champagne. Even twelve-year-old Brice looked a little drunk.

  "And you thought you'd wind up at Norwalk Community College," Tahj said as he poured champagne into Porsha's empty glass. "We all knew you could do better."

  Cyrus winked at her with one of his bulbous, bloodshot, muddy eyes. "Yale rejected me flat when I applied. It's about time I made them sorry. If you'd like me to give them a kick in the pants about your application, I'd sure enjoy doing it."

  Porsha grimaced. As if she wanted Yale to know she and Cyrus were even remotely related?!

  "I'm not going to college," Brice announced, sipping his champagne like a pro. "I'm going to DJ in clubs all over Europe. And then I'm going to open a casino."

  "We'll see about that." Eleanor forked a six-inch-long California roll onto her plate and giggled. "Baby's hungry again."

  Porsha had a feeling her mother wouldn't look like she was twenty months pregnant instead of only seven if she'd stop eating so much. She downed her entire glass of champagne and reached for an untouched box of sushi. First she was going to stuff her face with eel roll and pour enough champagne down her throat to make her puke her guts out. Then she was going to meet Kaliq at that stupid party on West Street, but only for ten minutes, because watching everyone celebrate when she had nothing to celebrate was going to make her puke even more. And then she was going to fall asleep watching Breakfast at Tiffany's, her all-time-favorite movie, starring one of her all-time-favorite stars. Audrey Hepburn hadn't even gone to college, but she'd still had a charmed life.

  Her mother picked up her log of sushi and bit into it like a hot dog. She and Cyrus had known each other for less than a year and had only been married since November, but Eleanor seemed to have picked up his eating habits. She put the remaining sushi down and dabbed her lips with a white linen napkin. "Now that we're all gathered here, I have a favor to ask you, darling."

  Porsha looked up from her eel. It appeared her mother was addressing her. Oh, boy.

  "You know it's been a while, so my doctor thought it might be good for me to take a childbirth class, to refresh my memory. I signed up for the intensive one. It meets four afternoons for two hours. The thing is, Cyrus is working on his new project out in the Hamptons, and he's rather squeamish about these kinds of things anyway. Do you think you could come with me, darling? I have to have a partner, and it's only a couple of hours after school."

  Porsha coughed the rest of the eel into her napkin and lunged for her champagne. Childbirth class? What the fuck? "I thought Tahj was the one who wanted to be a doctor," she complained. "Why can't he go?"

  "You always take such good care of your mother," Cyrus told her.

  "I have music practice," Tahj said. As if he'd ever planned on volunteering.

  "Me too," Brice put in quickly.

  And it wasn't as though Eleanor could ask any of her middle-aged socialite friends to go with her. Their children were all college-age, or nearly. To them, Eleanor's pregnancy was a tremendous, horrifying embarrassment.

  "Fine. I'll go," Porsha agreed sullenly. She pushed her plate away and stood up. The thought of talking to them any longer made her want to puke already. Besides, everyone seemed to have forgotten what they were supposed to be celebrating, anyway. "May I be excused?" she asked. "I have to get ready to go out."

  Her mother reached over and snaked an arm around her. "Of course, darling." She gave Porsha's waist a squeeze. "You're my best friend."

  Ew?

  Porsha wriggled free and escaped to her so-called bedroom. At least Georgetown was further away than Yale—it had that going for it. And it wouldn't hurt to call the number on the acceptance letter and make arrangements for a visit. If only she'd applied to the University of Australia.

  She peeled off her jeans and T-shirt and made a half-hearted effort to dress for the party, putting on a tighter, darker pair of jeans and a black sleeveless shirt. Her arms looked slack, and she pinched them angrily.

  "Hey sis," Tahj called from outside her door. "Can I come in?"

  Porsha rolled her eyes at her reflection in her bedroom mirror. "It's not like I can stop you," she replied miserably.

  Tahj opened the door, wearing his Harvard T-shirt like the asshole he was. It was kind of a tradition to wear an article of clothing from the school you wanted to go to right after finding out that you'd gotten in, but Tahj had found out months ago. "I thought we could head down to the party together."

  "Fine," Porsha sighed. "I'm almost ready." She picked up a stick of eyeliner and drew a dark black line beneath each of her eyes. Then she smeared on some MAC lipstick and ran her fingers through her hair. There. Done.

  "Aren't you going to wear your Yale T-shirt?" Tahj asked, watching as she searched under the bed for an appropriate pair of shoes. "I won't tell anyone about the wait list."

  "Gee, thanks," Porsha retorted as she shoved her feet into a pair of boring black loafers. She yanked the bedroom door open all the way and stomped down the hall, not even caring that her tight jeans made her bulky cotton underwear bunch and ride right up her butt.

  So much for the days of dressing for success!

  9

  True West was one of those places that felt brand new every night, but it was also so classic, it might have been around forever. The walls were covered in mirrors with the drinks menus and specials scrawled all over them in waxy orange crayon. White leather banquettes were scattered haphazardly around the dining room, and on each table a faux deerskin served as a tablecloth. Waiters dressed in denim tunics and snakeskin boots wielded cocktails on vintage orange cafeteria trays. Hip hop and R&B drifted through the air, and behind the bar stood a wall of orange-tinted windows looking out over the Hudson River.

  Except for her battered black combat boots, Yasmine was barely recognizable in a black stretch miniskirt and fluttery red shirt. Thanks to the nice transvestite at the Bloomingdale's SoHo MAC counter, her lips were painted red, and her eyebrows had been plucked for the first time ever. She stationed herself on a stool at the far end of the bar and propped her camera upon her shoulder.

  The party had a giddy, first day of school vibe. Girls in matching BU t-shirts squealed and threw their arms around one another. Boys in Brown sweatshirts gave each other high fives. Yasmine observed them silently, waiting for one of them to approach her and volunteer for an interview.

  "I think I have something to say," announced an extraordinarily handsome boy wearing khakis and a plain white button-down shirt. He set his gin and tonic on the bar and took a seat on the stool next to Yasmine. "Do you want me to tell you my name and what school I go to and all that?"

  Yasmine trained the camera on his bloodshot but still glittering green eyes. "Not unless you want to," she replied. "Just tell me a little bit about how the getting-in process has been for you."

  Kaliq took a sip of his drink and looked out the orange-tinted windows. Across the river, planes circled over Newark Airport. "The funny thing is, I wasn't really stressed out until now," he admitted. He pulled a cigarette out of a pack someone had left behind and rolled it back and forth on top of the bar.
"And the stupid thing is, I shouldn't be stressed out. I should be celebrating." He glanced at the camera and then looked away self-consciously. Behind him the banquettes were filling up, and suddenly the music was so loud, he could barely hear himself think. "I don't know why I didn't tell her I applied," he mumbled.

  "Who?" Yasmine coaxed. "Where?

  "My girlfriend," Kaliq explained. "See, she really wants to go to Yale. Like, it's the most important thing in her life. I wound up applying there because they have a new lacrosse coach who brought them up from a shitty division-two team to the leading division-one team in less than a year. Anyway, today I found out that I got in and she only got wait-listed. I never even told her I applied, and I guess I'm kind of scared to tell her I got in. I mean, we only just got back together. And if I tell her, she'll break up with me again."

  Kaliq waited for Yasmine to respond. When she didn't, he reached for his drink.

  "The coaches from Yale and Brown are coming down this weekend to watch me play. Porsha's going down to DC to look at Georgetown, so luckily I won't have to lie to her about where the coaches are from and all that." Kaliq splayed his elbows and let his chin fall into his hands.

  Kind of sucks to be a liar, doesn't it?

  Everyone was always talking about how honesty was the best policy and how the only true relationship was an honest, open one. Well, Kaliq thought that was crap. Not that he thought lying was cool. Just that sometimes the less said, the better.

  All of a sudden the familiar scent of a certain essential-oil mixture filled his nostrils. "We did it, Kaliq!" Chanel breathed as she threw her arms around his neck. Her silky hair was piled into a messy knot on top of her head and she was wearing a sheer, white-and-gold-fringed poncho shirt over white jeans.

  Kaliq kissed her cheek and tried to look as hype as he should have.

  "Oops." Chanel grimaced, immediately catching on. "Did Porsha break up with you again?"

  "Not yet." Kaliq was about to explain the whole thing, but then Porsha stepped off the elevator at the opposite end of the enormous restaurant, glaring angrily at Chanel's back as she approached. At one of the banquettes, a group of Emma Willard seniors began to whisper among themselves.

  "I heard Porsha wrote this really dumb screenplay instead of an essay for her Yale application. Ms. Glos told her to change it, but she sent it anyway, and that's why she didn't get in," Nicki Button told her friend Rain Hoffstetter. Rain and Nicki were going to Vassar together next year, and they couldn't slop looking at each other and squealing.

  "I heard Porsha wrote Chanel's Yale essay for her. That's why she's so pissed off. She got Chanel in, but she only got wait-listed," Imani Edwards told her best friend, Alexis Sullivan. Imani and Alexis had both gotten into Georgetown and Rollins, but Imani had gotten into Princeton and she was already wearing her Princeton T-shirt. The idea of splitting up was so heartbreaking, they couldn't stop holding hands.

  "Well I heard Chanel got a 1560 on her SAT. She pretends to be so flaky and dumb, but it's all a big act. That's how she can go out so much and never study. She doesn't have to," Alexis stated jealously.

  “I heard she got in because she slept with all her interviewers,” Imani remarked.

  "What are you guys talking about?" Porsha demanded when she reached the spot where Chanel and Kaliq were seated at the bar. She'd only just arrived, but she hated the party already. She hated how many kids were wearing their stupid college T-shirts, she hated the stupid music blaring out of the stupid orange speakers hanging over the bar, and she hated that Chanel was talking to Kaliq in that intimate hands-all-over-over-him way she used whenever she talked to guys.

  "Nothing!" Chanel and Kaliq answered in unison.

  Chanel spun around on her bar stool. "Are you still mad at me?"

  Porsha crossed her arms over her chest. "How come you're not wearing a Yale T-shirt? Oh, that's right. You got in, but you're probably not going," she added sarcastically.

  Chanel shrugged. "I don't know. I'm visiting a bunch of places this weekend. Hopefully that will help me decide.”

  Kaliq's armpits grew suddenly damp. He slid off his bar stool, put his hands on Porsha's shoulders, and kissed her on the forehead. "You look pretty," he said in an effort to distract her from the subject of Yale.

  "Thanks," Porsha said even though she knew for a fact that she looked like a preppy, uptight bitch who never had any fun. She wasn't even wearing any earrings, for Christ's sake! Farther down the bar a group of girls in matching hunter green Dartmouth T-shirts shouted out some stupid Dartmouth song before doing a line of vodka shots. "Ten minutes and then I'm leaving," Porsha told Kaliq bluntly. "It's a school night, anyway."

  As if that had ever kept her from partying before.

  Kaliq kissed her temple. He was anxious to get her away from Chanel before she innocently blurted out the news that he'd gotten into Yale, too. "Want to go check out the sunset or something?" he suggested lamely.

  "Whatever," Porsha replied, keeping her arms stubbornly crossed over her chest.

  "Never mind me." Chanel swung her bar stool around until she was facing Yasmine. "Okay, babe, I'm ready for my close-up."

  Yasmine didn't need to adjust a thing. She'd been filming the whole time.

  "So I guess I should be happy," Chanel declared.

  Yasmine tracked the camera slowly across Chanel's flawless face and then panned down, looking for some physical defect or odd personality quirk to zoom in on. She couldn't find one. Then Chanel stuck her thumbnail in her mouth and began to gnaw on it.

  Aha!

  She pulled her thumb away and frowned. "I am happy," she insisted, as though trying to convince herself. "I got into every school I applied to. They didn't even care about me not getting asked back to boarding school this year. It's just..." Her voice trailed off when she saw a boy and a girl, both dressed in Middlebury T-shirts, making out near the elevators. She sighed. "I just wish I had someone to celebrate with."

  The music suddenly shifted from Future to the quirky beats of the new Rihanna album. Two guys in U Penn baseball caps and yellow neckties peeled off their shirts, turned their hats around backwards, and began to breakdance. Then four drunk girls wielding Vanderbilt pennants took off their shirts and started trying to breakdance, badly.

  "I used to dance on tables," Chanel confessed, sounding like some wistful, washed-up, middle-aged cabaret singer. "Now look at me."

  Of course about ninety-nine percent of the room's male population was looking at her while they tried to come up with a pickup line good enough to get her to dance with them. In addition to the boys, a short, curly-haired, large-chested freshman girl was sizing Chanel up as she considered how to approach her.

  Bree and Mekhi had only just arrived, leaving their emotional father waxing nostalgic in the family's favorite Upper West Side Chinese restaurant over a pitcher of sweet white wine. They stood in front of the elevator doors, surveying the room.

  "I warned you it would be obnoxious," Mekhi told his little sister. Normally Mekhi hated parties, and this particular scene should have annoyed the hell out of him, but he was feeling completely pleased with himself, and the party was the perfect setting for his mood.

  But Bree only had eyes for Chanel. "Don't worry, I can handle it," she replied. Hiking up her silk top, she pushed her way across the crowded room, making a beeline for the bar.

  "If I deferred," Chanel rambled on, "I could do some more modeling. And maybe some acting, too."

  Bree leaned against the bar as she waited for a chance to ask Chanel for advice on how to break into modeling. Her whole body shook with anticipation, and she felt silly for being so nervous.

  Mekhi only followed Bree because he was worried she would order some sort of poisonous mixed drink and would need to be taken home before Yasmine even arrived. Then he noticed that Yasmine was already very much there, her camera propped up on her shoulder as she interviewed Chanel for her film. Her lips were painted dark red, a silver snake was clipped to her ear, an
d a slinky black skirt clung to her thighs. Her red tank top was sort of slipping over her bare shoulders, exposing her cinnamon skin in a way Mekhi had never seen it exposed before. At least, not in public.

  Without even pausing to think, he pushed his way through the dance throng, walked up behind Yasmine, and kissed her neck. Her cheeks got hot and she whirled around on her bar stool, nearly dropping her beloved camera in the process.

  “It's not like I have to go to college now—” Chanel stopped in midsentence, staring as Yasmine and Mekhi groped each other like horny, sex-starved beasts.

  Cut!

  Bree decided to make her move. She bumped her shoulder up against Chanel's hip, hoping to give the appearance of running into her by accident. "Hey. So, congratulations and everything," she blurted out awkwardly. "That's a really cool shirt."

  If Chanel had been Porsha or some other senior girl, she might have brushed Bree off with a terse "Thank you" while wondering what this annoying freshman brat was even doing at a senior post-getting-into-college party. But Chanel never brushed anyone off. It was one of the things that made her so irresistible, or so intimidating, depending on who you were and how badly you wanted her. Besides, Bree just happened to be in the ninth-grade peer group Chanel co-led with Porsha, so it wasn't as if they were total strangers.

  Bree had a new haircut, with thick straight bangs and a curly bob that fell just to her chin. It brought out her hazelnut complexion and her brown eyes were big and round. The severe cut suited her.

  "I love your hair!" Chanel slid off her bar stool so Bree wouldn't be the only one standing. "You look like that model in all the new Prada ads."

  Bree's eyes almost popped out of her head. "Really? Thanks," she gasped, feeling like she'd been tapped on the shoulder with a magic wand.

  The bartender came over and Chanel ordered two glasses of champagne. "You don't mind drinking with me, do you?" she asked Bree.

  Bree was flabbergasted. Mind? It was an absolute honor. She ran her finger over the damp rim of her champagne flute. "So, have you been doing any more modeling?" she asked. "I really liked that perfume thing you did."