Upper East Side #6

by Ashley Valentine

  "I grew up in Maine," she explained, tugging on her pearls. "Camden. All my family ever did was sail and eat lobster."

  The truth was, Kaliq thought lobster was sort of ridiculous, like some silly crustacean cartoon character that could dance on its tail and hold a microphone in its claw and sing and tell jokes and make people giggle. It certainly wasn't the sort of food he craved when he had the munchies.

  Which was basically all the time.

  "So." Brittany topped off her champagne flute, even though the waiter had just filled it. She'd changed into a low-cut orange dress and was wearing sparkling lip gloss and mascara. Her burgundy hair was freshly brushed and she looked even cuter than she had earlier that day on the lacrosse pitch in the park. She fiddled nervously with the stem of her glass. "Enough about me. Do you, um...?" She bit her lip. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

  Kaliq poked at his salad, smearing goat cheese all over the leaves. He was pretty sure Brittany's low-cut dress and flirtatious behavior went beyond her mission of getting him to enroll at Brown. He suspected she had a crush on him. But she was still his Brown interviewer, and he wanted to make a good impression.

  "Um. Sort of," he told her hesitantly. "I mean, sometimes we're together and sometimes we're not."

  She seemed to like that answer. "Are you together now?"

  Kaliq had always preferred beer to champagne but he gulped his wine Porsha-style. In theory, he and Porsha were together again, happily. Hooray. But they hadn't exactly discussed the terms of their relationship. Did flirting with his Brown admissions officer really qualify as cheating?

  Suddenly his phone rang and he whipped it out of his pocket, kicking himself for forgetting to turn it off before dinner. He glanced at the phone's little screen. Speak of the devil.

  Kaliq's head was a little fuzzy from the six bong hits he'd done at Anthony Avuldsen's house before he came out. Speaking to Porsha might knock some sense into him.

  "Um, I should take this," he told Brittany. "Hey," he said into the phone.

  "Hello," Porsha responded coldly. "Before you say anything I just have to ask you a question."

  Her voice was clipped, as if she was trying to use as few syllables as possible. Kaliq could tell she'd been drinking. "Okay."

  "Tell me the truth. Did you apply to Yale?"

  Oh, boy. Kaliq grabbed his champagne and polished it off. Fuck! he cursed silently. Fuck, fuck, fuck. There was definitely no right answer. If he said yes, he was a bastard and a liar, and if ho said no, he was still a bastard and a liar.

  Brittany was smiling at him expectantly, her lips all shiny and glossed, her almond skin glowing. At least he could take comfort in the fact that Porsha was miles away at Georgetown, and he was having dinner with his Brown interviewer, who was dying to see him naked. He decided to tell the truth.

  "Yeah, I did. And I guess I got in."

  Porsha made a strange gurgling noise, and then Kaliq heard the distinct, familiar sound of her puking into a toilet. "Fuck you," she growled into the phone before hanging up.

  Kaliq turned the phone off and tucked it into his pocket. The waiter arrived with the lobster. "Boy, does that look good," Kaliq said, his voice hollow.

  "Do you want to share the tail?" Brittany asked, handling the steaming crustacean with practiced ease. She pointed at the stainless-steel claw-cracking tools the waiter had brought. "Or get started on a claw?"

  What Kaliq really wanted was to do a few more bong hits and then eat a big bowl of chocolate ice cream while sitting comatose in front of The Avengers, which he'd already seen eighteen times.

  Brittany put down the lobster. "Are you okay?"

  He shrugged. "I think my girlfriend just broke up with me again."

  Brittany's eyes opened wide. "You poor thing." She motioned to the waiter. "Can we have this to go?" She pushed back her chair. "Come on. I'll buy you a beer and a cigarette."

  Kaliq tried to tell himself that since Porsha wasn't around to murder him right now he was basically safe and should enjoy the next twenty-four hours before she came back. He could even hook up with Brittany if he wanted to.

  The thing was, he was sick of always breaking up with Porsha when they both knew that they were supposed to be together for the rest of their lives. And unlike Porsha, he didn't really care what college he went to. In fact, he'd be fine with not going to college at all for a couple of years. As far as he could tell, the only way to put himself and Porsha back on a level playing field was to try and get his Brown and Yale acceptances revoked. And what better way to do that than to act like an asshole?

  "Fuck it," Kaliq said under his breath. He stood up and helped Brittany into the denim jacket hanging on the back of her chair. His fingers brushed her neck as he pulled her hair out from underneath the collar. They were standing very close, and Brittany's breath smelled like Hawaiian Punch. "How badly does Brown want me?" he murmured into her ear.

  Her eyes opened wide. "Bad," she whispered unsteadily. Her hotel room key was on the table and Kaliq picked it up and dropped it in his pocket. "Bad," she whispered again.

  The waiter handed Kaliq a plastic bag with the twenty-pound lobster wrapped up in foil inside it. He chucked it on the table and put his arm around Brittany's waist. "Show me," he told her gruffly, disgusted with the sound of his voice.

  Guess he wasn't talking about the lobster.

  20

  Only a half hour into their journey to Providence, Chanel asked the driver to stop at a gas station. The convenience store was tiny and badly stocked, but she bought a Sprite, a Twix bar, and a local newspaper just to have something to do while she was mooning over Drew.

  Outside, a boy was standing just beyond the pumps, holding up a sign that said Brown. He was wearing faded jeans and a nice blue-and-white striped shirt, and dockside shoes without socks. On his back was a complicated backpack, the type people take on long hikes. His curly brown hair looked clean and he seemed normal enough.

  "Need a ride?" she called over.

  The boy whipped his head around. "Me?"

  Chanel liked how big and wide open his eyes were. "I've got a driver to take us up there. Come on," she offered.

  The boy grinned shyly and followed her to the car. He sat close to the door and put his backpack between them. A patch of the Dominican flag was sewn onto it. Chanel drank her Coke and pretended to read her newspaper. Then the boy pulled a drawing pad and pencil from out of his backpack and began to scribble away.

  At first she thought it was homework or a letter, but then she yawned and let her head fall back against the seat back, secretly taking a gander at what the boy was writing. Much to her surprise, he was sketching her. Her hands, to be exact.

  "Do I get to keep that when you're done?" she asked.

  The boy jumped, as if he thought he'd been really coy and secretive about the fact that he was drawing her. He closed his notebook and tucked the pencil behind his ear. "Sorry."

  "That's all right." Chanel stretched her arms over her head and then let her hands fall into her lap. "I'm in such a daze anyway. Go ahead. Keep drawing."

  He opened his notebook again. "You don't mind?"

  "Nope." After all, she was a professional model. She sat back and folded her hands the same way they'd been before. "Is this okay?”

  "Mmhm," the boy answered, his head bent over his work. He had dark olive skin and thick dark curls and he exuded an odor of fresh mint.

  Chanel closed her eyes, trying to recall what Drew smelled like. She honestly couldn't remember. She opened her eyes again and glanced at the boy. The back of his neck looked soft and brown. If we had children, they'd have year-round tans and that sort of sandy blond-brown hair that's so pretty in the sun, she mused. Then she looked away again, horrified. What was wrong with her? She didn't even know his name!

  The boy looked up again. "Do you go to Brown?"

  Chanel kept her gaze fixed on the window. It was dirty and she could see his reflection in it. His thick eyelashes were curly and his eyes wer
e wonderfully soft, like Bambi's or something. "Not yet, but I might, next year."

  Wait, wasn't she all about Harvard like five seconds ago?

  "I hope so," he said quietly before turning back to his drawing.

  Chanel didn't know what had gotten into her, but she was totally turned on. What if I just grabbed him and kissed him? she wondered to herself. The driver was listening to some baseball game on the radio; he wouldn't even notice.

  "You know, you would be a great artist's model," the boy told her. "You could sit for the figure-drawing classes at Brown. Professor Kofke is always looking for good models."

  "Thanks. Actually, I have done some modeling," Chanel began, but then shut herself up for fear of sounding like a brat.

  The boy tucked his pencil behind his ear, studying his drawing. "It doesn't even matter to me whether a model is beautiful or not. Usually I only do hands."

  Chanel peered over his shoulder. He really did smell like mint. "You made my hands look much nicer than they are. Look at my thumbnail, I've chewed it to bits! And this one..." She held out her left pinky. "My poor cuticles!"

  But the boy wasn't even looking. He unzipped a side packet in his backpack, pulled out a piece of paper, and handed it to her. Chanel unfolded the piece of paper. It was a clipping ripped from a magazine. "Tighter Abs in Seven Days," the caption read.

  "Turn it over," the boy told her.

  She flipped the clipping over. On the back of it was the ad for Chanel's Tears. There she was, crying in the snow in Central Park, wearing a yellow sundress.

  "Is that really your name? Chanel?" he asked, gazing at her with those Bambi eyes.

  "Yes."

  He took the clipping back. "I lied about only doing hands. I thought I was dreaming when you picked me up at the gas station back there. I've been painting you for two months. From this picture. I'm still not finished. It's in the studio, up at Brown." He folded up the clipping and tucked it into his backpack. Then he held out his hand. "I'm Christian."

  Chanel let her hand linger in his. She supposed she should have been freaked out, but instead she was more turned on than ever. "Would you mind showing me around a little when we get there?" she asked. "I'm supposed to meet my brother, but I'm already so late, he's probably already in a bar or something."

  Cairo wouldn't mind if she blew him off. Brothers and sisters always blew each other off all the time. Besides, Christian could probably give her a much more thorough tour.

  Yeah, you bet he could.

  21

  The Hispanic guys were gone, replaced by three women in Smithsonian Museum security uniforms singing Whitney Houston. "And iiiiiiiiiiiiiii will always love you!"

  Talk about painful.

  The moment she hung up with Kaliq, Porsha went over to the bar and ordered a pitcher of pink grapefruit margaritas for the table. "You guys saved my life," she told Rebecca, Forest, Jessica, and Fran as she set the pitcher down. The girls' heads wobbled drunkenly in response. Porsha sat down, lit a cigarette, took a drag, and then passed it to Rebecca. “I'm just glad I got you as a tour guide, and not some loser.”

  Rebecca passed the cigarette around, and the girls' lipsticks combined to make a smudgy plum-colored stain on the filter. "Last month Forest was taking this prospective student around—a guy. They got caught by the dean of students practically doing it in the laundry room. She got fired by admissions."

  "Shut up," Forest whined, but she was smiling.

  Porsha tried to imagine what her visit would have been like if her tour guide had been a guy, but knowing her luck, he'd have been a total geek. She stared at Forest, wondering if maybe she ought to say something about how her bleach-blond hair looked cheap and slutty and no wonder the admissions office didn't want her to be a tour guide. But since she was drunk as a fish, she said something else entirely.

  "So, are any of you still virgins?"

  The four girls giggled and kicked each other under the table. Porsha lit another cigarette, feeling slightly annoyed that she'd set herself up to admit that she was a virgin in front of four obvious skanks. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

  Rebecca blinked her eyes drunkenly in an effort to compose herself. "Actually, we all are. See, we made this pact." She glanced around the table at her friends. "Georgetown doesn't have sororities, but we sort of have one. We call it the sisterhood of celibacy.”

  Porsha's eyes opened wide. She was about to get programmed into some sort of virginity cult, and she was so drunk and upset and vulnerable, it actually sounded like a good idea.

  "We aren't, like, against fooling around or anything. God no. All of us have done just about everything but go all the way," Jessica clarified. She rubbed her pug nose. "We're saving that for marriage."

  "Or at least true love," Fran clarified. "I'm never getting married."

  "Fran's parents have each been married and divorced three times," Rebecca noted.

  Porsha stamped out her cigarette. Fuck Kaliq. Fuck Yale. All of a sudden she wanted nothing more than to pledge their little sorority. "Me too," she admitted. "I mean, I'm a virgin, too."

  The four girls stared at her in amazement, as if they couldn't quite believe that a sophisticated New York girl like herself had never once experienced sex.

  "You totally have to join," Fran said in her hoarse, intense whisper. "And when you go here, we'll all be together. Not just until graduation, but forever!"

  Porsha put her elbows on the table and leaned forward, ready for action. "What do I have to do?"

  The four girls giggled giddily, like they just loved their initiation rites.

  "I'm the newest member," Forest explained.

  "Her hair was almost jet-black before," Jessica put in.

  "First you have to let us shave your legs," Fran said.

  "And then we bleach your hair," Rebecca added.

  And they had a problem with the whole pee-on-a-cracker thing?!

  Porsha sat back in her chair. Her life was shit, and besides, she'd always wanted to know what she'd look like as a blond. She picked up her drink and poured it down her throat, banging the glass down on the table when she was done. "I'm ready," she told her new sisters.

  "Yippee!" the girls chorused, and poured themselves another round.

  "If I don't eat something soon," Rebecca moaned, "I'm gonna hurl."

  "Me too," the other girls agreed.

  "We gotta get to the grocery store before it closes," Rebecca added. "We can pick up some Hot Pockets or something."

  Yummy. Maybe they could even have fried pork rinds!

  Porsha grabbed her purse and rose shakily to her feet. "Last one in the cab is a drunk virgin bitch."

  The five girls linked arms and staggered out into the night.

  Question: Even if they were your new best friends, would you let four drunk virgin bitches shave your legs and dye your hair?

  22

  "This is great," Mekhi enthused as he watched the spaghetti boiling in its pot. He glanced at Yasmine, who was standing next to him, slicing onions on a chopping board balanced over the sink. Onion tears streamed down her face and he kissed her damp cheek. "Look at us."

  Yasmine laughed and kissed him back. Actually, this whole living-together thing was fun. Ruby had left early that morning, and with one taxi ride full of stuff, Mekhi was all moved in. They'd spent the afternoon grocery shopping and buying stupid little things for the apartment, like refrigerator magnets and black sheets with neon green UFOs on them. Now they were cooking their first meal together as a cohabiting couple.

  If you can call spaghetti with onions and Ragu cooking.

  Mekhi slipped one hand under Yasmine's shirt and turned the burner off with the other. Dinner could wait. Their faces pressed together, they staggered out of the open kitchen area and into the living room, where they fell back onto Ruby's futon, which was now their living room couch. It still smelled like Christian Dior Poison and that licorice tea Ruby was always drinking, but it was all theirs and they could h
ave sex on it whenever they liked.

  "What will we do on Monday when we both don't want to go to school?" Yasmine wondered out loud as Mekhi kissed his way down her arm. Her hands smelled like onions.

  "Cut? It's not like we have to worry about getting into college anymore," Mekhi said.

  She whipped his belt out of his pants and flicked it at his butt. "Bad boy. Remember what your dad said? If your grades drop, you have to move back."

  "Hey, that feels good," Mekhi joked.

  "Oh, yeah?" Yasmine giggled, whipping him with the belt a little harder this time.

  And then someone sneezed.

  Mekhi and Yasmine broke away from each other, freaked out of their minds. A girl was standing in the doorway. Purple-and-black matted hair. Brown skin. Black shorts. Ripped black T-shirt. Black knee socks. Black Converse high-tops. She was carrying some sort of pick-ax and a duffel bag.

  "Mind if I join you?" She kicked the door closed behind her. "I'm Tiphany. Ruby mentioned I'd be staying here?"

  Ruby hadn't said anything about a friend coming to stay, but then again, Ruby wasn't the most organized human being on the planet. Yasmine extracted herself from Mekhi. "Ruby left for Germany today." Then she realized Tiphany had let herself in. "She gave you a key?"

  "I used to live here," Tiphany explained. "Your sister and I were roommates for a while." She walked in and dumped her stuff on top of the futon where they were sitting. Then she bent down and opened her duffel bag. A little head with beady eyes and whiskers popped out. Tiphany picked the creature up and cradled it like a baby.

  Mekhi blanched. It looked like a rat.

  "What is that?" Yasmine asked, intrigued. Ruby had never mentioned anyone named Tiphany, but Ruby had lived in Williamsburg a whole year by herself before their parents had let Yasmine come down from Vermont to join her. A lot of stuff had probably happened in that year that Yasmine didn't know about.