All of a sudden she felt a warm body next to hers and smelled Chanel's trademark signature essential-oil mixture. "Hey sleepyhead. So, Jonathan Joyce—you know who he is, right?—calls me, like, all excited about your Polaroids. He knows we're friends and totally wants to shoot us together, like, later this week!"
Was this some sort of vicious joke? Bree squeezed her eyes shut as tight as they could go and tried to will Chanel away.
"You'll get to keep some of the clothes," Chanel added.
Bree raised her head and stood up shakily. "Leave me alone," she murmured, then bolted out of the cafeteria to the nurse's office, where she planned to beg to be sent home.
33
"Tooter, look at that!" Tiphany put the ferret on her shoulder and waved his paw up and down at Jaylen's little white monkey. The monkey was wearing a tiny red T-shirt. "Hey little monkey, wanna be my friend?"
Yasmine and Tiphany had come to pick Mekhi up from school. "Maybe not," Yasmine warned, knowing how much Mekhi hated Jaylen's guts.
"Hey cutie, what's your name?" Jaylen came over and scratched Tooter under the chin. He held his monkey up so the two animals were nose-to-nose. "I'm Sweetie. And don't worry, I don't bite. I really am sweet."
"I'm Tooter," Tiphany chirped in her version of a ferret voice. "And beware, I really can toot!" she added, cackling hilariously.
Mekhi pushed open the school doors and paused at the top of the steps. He hitched his black messenger bag onto his shoulder, squinting in the harsh April sunlight. All afternoon he'd been worrying about his little sister. Bree was probably at home right now, facedown on her bed, all alone. His house was only twenty blocks away. Maybe he ought to go up there and try to cheer her up. Then again, when Bree was upset, all she wanted was to be alone, same as him. It ran in the family.
"Hey hot stuff, over here!" Tiphany shouted at him in her glass-shatteringly loud voice. Down on the sidewalk stood Yasmine, Tiphany, and Jaylen. Tiphany's ferret and Jaylen's monkey were perched on their owners' shoulders grooming each other.
"God," Mekhi muttered. Maybe Jaylen would move in with them, too, and they could all be one big, happy family. Or maybe he'd just tell Yasmine right now that he was going to stay at home for a while. His sister needed him.
"May we escort you home?" Yasmine stepped away from the group as Mekhi came down the stairs with a sour expression on his face. She kissed him quickly on the cheek. "Hey pumpkin, don't look so pissed off all the time." Mekhi had been acting pissed off and withdrawn ever since they'd moved in together and Tiphany had turned up. It was getting a little tiring always having to be the upbeat one in the relationship.
Pumpkin? In only a matter of days Yasmine had picked up Tiphany's over-the-top, cheery way of talking, annoying Mekhi even more.
"I'm not pissed off," he grumbled, glaring at Jaylen and Tiphany, who were bonding over their pets. "I'm just—"
Tiphany pointed her index fingers at him, like twin pistols, and pretended to shoot. "You know, Mekhi, I think what your little sister did was really cool. Baring your tits is the boldest feminist statement a chick can make!" She'd braided the front of her hair and left the back in a sort of crazy, purple-and-black rat's nest, which she probably thought was some big feminist statement, too.
Yasmine had tried not to look a moment ago when Jaylen showed Tiphany the picture of Bree, but she couldn't help herself. And the funny thing was, she actually agreed with Tiphany. Bree may not have looked like a model, but she definitely looked bold. "I think so, too," she agreed before she saw the look on Mekhi's face.
"She didn't bare anything," Mekhi told them angrily. "Jesus, she's only fourteen."
"Hey, that reminds me," Yasmine said, eager to change the subject. "In case you forgot, it's my birthday this weekend. I'm gonna be eighteen!"
Mekhi frowned. He and Yasmine had never made a big deal out of their birthdays before.
"And I was thinking, now that we're living together, we could have a party!" Yasmine continued.
Mekhi noticed there was a sort of purple glow to her hair that he hadn't seen before. "A party?" Yasmine had always hated parties. This definitely had to be Tiphany's idea.
"It's gonna be great!" Tiphany shouted. She grabbed Tooter's paw and pointed it at Jaylen's monkey. "You're coming, right?" she asked in her stupid ferret voice.
"Most definitely," Jaylen chattered like a monkey.
Fucking hell.
"Come on." Yasmine pulled Mekhi toward Broadway. It was another sunny day and a steady stream of boys were making their way west toward the park. "First I want to do a few more interviews. Then we can go home and send e-vites."
"But—"
"Don't worry about your sister," Yasmine countered, reading his mind. "She's more together than you think." She kissed him, trying to bring a smile to his sullen lips. "Our first real party!"
Mekhi let her pull him away, following along with heavy feet. He hated parties, and besides, they had no other friends. In total the guest list would consist of Jaylen, Tiphany, Jaylen's monkey, Tooter, and Mekhi's social misfit of a sister, Bree. Some party.
Yasmine poked him in the ribs. "Come on, smile. You know you want to."
"If you don't smile, I'm going to flash my tits at you," Tiphany threatened, skipping along the sidewalk beside them in her purple-and-black-plaid boots. She unzipped the camouflage-print army jacket she'd borrowed from Ruby's closet and tucked Tooter into her black tank top.
"Can I flash mine, too?" Jaylen joined in. His monkey had wrapped its long, snowy white tail twice around his neck. Wearing his military beret, he and Tiphany sort of matched.
Mekhi gritted his teeth and smiled weakly just to shut them up.
"He smiled!" Yasmine and Tiphany shouted gleefully, and slapped each other five.
Here's what Mekhi was really thinking as he continued to smile: Evergreen College was way across the continent in the Pacific Northwest, where it rained a lot and people were depressed. He'd never seriously considered going there, but it was beginning to seem like paradise.
Central Park was the usual sunny afternoon mob scene of rollerbladers, skateboarders, Frisbee throwers, and girls in bikini tops pretending they were on the beach in St. Tropez. Yasmine set up her camera in her usual spot by Bethesda Fountain.
Tiphany pulled Tooter out of her shirt and began to bathe him in the water. Mekhi hung back and bought one of those huge ice cream cones from a vendor on the promenade. Then he sat down on a park bench to wait for Yasmine, praying Tiphany would leave him be.
"So I think I might be happy up at West Point," Jaylen confided to Yasmine's camera. "As long as I can find someone to keep Sweetie nearby so I can visit her. And they don't make me shave my head—no offense. And I get a bigger bed than those dinky cots they make those poor losers sleep on."
Looks like he's in for a rude awakening.
"Mom promised to set me up an account at Balducci's so they'll send me a box with brie and caviar and chocolate and cigars once a week," he added. "I'll miss my apartment, but it's better than nothing..." His voice trailed off, and he stuck his face into the ruff of white fur on Sweetie's neck. "West Point," he said, his voice muffled. "West fucking Point!"
All of a sudden Kaliq appeared beside him and Jaylen looked up, grinning his obnoxious grin, like he hadn't almost just burst into tears. "I'm done if you want to go next," he said, clearly unwilling to bare his soul in front of another guy. He stood up and carried his monkey over to where Tiphany was bathing Tooter. "Can I help?" he twittered in his monkey voice.
Kaliq shoved his hands in his khaki pants pockets and shifted from foot to foot. Then he sat down in Jaylen's place. "I guess I really screwed up," he admitted to the camera. "I mean, my girlfriend's life is, like, a train wreck and I can't even call her." His green eyes looked sad as he watched Tiphany rinse Tooter off in the stream of water cascading from the fountain.
"Did you decide which college you want to go to yet?" Yasmine prompted. She didn't mind hearing about this guy's love li
fe, but the film was supposed to be about getting into college.
Kaliq frowned. "That's just the thing," he explained. "Yale. I want to go to Yale now." He shook his head and grinned unhappily down at the ground. "No way am I going to Brown. And the other schools' lax teams just aren't as good. But if I go to Yale and Porsha doesn't get off the wait-list..." He leaned back on his elbows and squinted up at the sky. "I know she was the one who said it, but I guess I believed it, too—that we'd always wind up married." He sat up again, took off his frayed baseball cap and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Now I don't know."
Tiphany carried Tooter over to Yasmine and pressed his cold, wet body against the back of her neck. "Eee!" Yasmine screamed, nearly dropping her camera. Then she and Tiphany burst into a fit of hysterical cackling.
Kaliq stood up, still deep in thought as he ambled away.
Over on his park bench Mekhi tossed his ice cream in the trash and lit a cigarette. It was weird, but he and Kaliq were almost thinking the same thing. He'd always thought he and Yasmine would be together forever...
Now he wasn't so sure.
34
"This is Yale in the baby blanket I got her at Michael Kors. And this is her and Kitty Minky watching Breakfast at Tiffany's with me in the rocking chair. See, she even has on kitten socks with tiny ears and whiskers!"
Friday senior homeroom was the sacred half hour during which the Emma Willard seniors sat on the floor in the senior lounge—a tiny, empty, fifth-floor classroom—drinking cappuccinos, trading gossip, and exchanging personal opinions about their new clothing purchases. This Friday was Porsha's first day back at school since The Baby, so the half hour was given over to show-and-tell.
"And here she is sleeping in her little Moses basket."
"Aw," thirty girls chorused together.
"And where did she get that fantastic cow-jumping-over-the-moon figurine?" Lauren Salmon demanded.
"It's from Tiffany. It was a gift."
From Kaliq, Chanel added silently from where she sat on the outer edge of the group. Kaliq had even called her from Tiffany so she could help him pick something out.
"The basket she's sleeping in is so precious," added Imani. "I love the way the pink ribbon is woven into the handles."
Thanks, Chanel thought to herself. She'd ordered the basket from a baby boutique in southern France and had it flown over. "It was hand woven by Alsatian monks from the branches of willow trees," she blurted out. "It's supposed to stay in the family and become an heirloom."
Meaning that it was a gift to Porsha, too.
Porsha looked up from her digital camera. She and Chanel hadn't spoken since their unfortunate college-acceptance-letter opening party and it was pretty obvious that the generous baby gifts Chanel and Kaliq had sent to her mom were meant as peace offerings. But Porsha had never been one to forgive and forget easily.
The first bell rang and the tightly packed group of girls moaned and began to dissipate, collecting their books and pens and gum and hairbrushes and whatever else they'd need to make it through the day, while still hanging around to listen to Chanel and Porsha face off.
Chanel stayed where she was, hugging her knees and watching Porsha rearrange her school stuff in her baby blue Fendi backpack. "She's beautiful," Chanel told Porsha earnestly.
Porsha allowed her a smug half-smile. Yes, Yale was beautiful. "How'd last weekend go?" she demanded. "Where do you think you want to go?"
It was a trick question. If Chanel said Yale, Porsha would shoot fire out of her eyeballs and burn her to the ground. If she said another school, she'd be lying, since she still hadn't made up her mind. But Yale was closest to the city, and it had Lars and the Whiffenpoofs, and that uptight New Englandness that reminded her of home. Plus, how much fun would it be if she and Kaliq and Porsha were friends again and all went there together?
She scooted her butt across the plush red carpet towards Porsha and began to explain. "Actually I fell in love. With all of them. Every school." She blushed as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "I fell in love with my tour guides. They were all boys and they were so—”
Porsha held up her hand and rolled her eyes. Did anyone or anything ever change? "I don't want to know." Actually, she did, but she knew Chanel would eventually tell her anyway.
"And what about you?" Chanel asked curiously. "How'd it go at Georgetown?"
Porsha rolled her eyes again and touched her pixie cut self-consciously. "You don't want to know."
Chanel shrugged her shoulders. "It doesn't matter. You're going to get into Yale anyway," she stated confidently.
The second bell rang but the other girls lingered, watching Chanel and Porsha out of the corners of their eyes as they pretended to drink out of empty cappuccino cups.
"I heard Chanel got a huge modeling contract for next year so she's going to give Porsha her spot at Yale. Porsha just has to pretend to be her," Alexis whispered to Imani.
And who will Chanel pretend to be? Chanel Iman?
"I heard she and Porsha are going to take their babies to Yale with them and start a lesbos-with-babies support group," Imani hissed back.
"Oh my God. I saw Chanel at my mom's gyno yesterday," Lauren volunteered. "I'm waiting for my mom, and then I hear Chanel telling him how she'd gotten all these diseases from the guys she slept with this weekend. Ew!"
“Hey, have you guys heard about that party?” Imani asked, suddenly changing the subject. “So it's in Brooklyn and the people throwing it are basically not the type of people we see socially, but there's not much else going on this weekend—”
"Wait, I thought they were fighting," Alexis pointed out, completely tuning Imani out. "Look, they're hugging."
Each girl turned to gape over her shoulder as Chanel and Porsha took hold of each other.
"Kaliq's been calling, like, ten times a day every day to ask about you," Chanel murmured as she pressed her cheek against Porsha's.
Porsha bit her lower lip. "He sent Yale some really cute stuff."
"You know he loves you," Chanel said, even though she didn't need to. "And we're all so much happier when we're not fighting."
"Yeah," Porsha admitted. But Kaliq was going to have to prove it to her on his own.
Not that she'd be that hard to win over.
35
"Can I sit here?" Elise asked Bree at lunchtime on Friday.
"I don't know why you'd want to," Bree grumbled. Ever since her ghastly picture had appeared in that magazine, she'd been creeping around with her head down, avoiding public places at all costs. Just being in school at all was excruciating. But her father had forced her to go, and now she was parked at her usual beside-the-mirror table, glaring at her reflection.
"I brought you an ice cream sandwich." Elise sat down across from her and pushed the ice cream toward Bree.
Bree pushed it away. She was on a food strike. "I'm not hungry. Actually, I was about to leave," she added grouchily. So Elise was making an effort to be friends again? Honestly—she wasn't in the mood.
Elise drizzled honey from a plastic packet into a teacup, beginning the little tea ceremony she'd had with herself every day at lunchtime since she and Bree started fighting. "Just sit with me a little while," she begged in a voice verging on desperate.
Bree knitted her eyebrows together. "Why should I?"
Elise stirred her tea and took a careful sip. "I don't know." She glanced around the room, as if looking for someone. "Because I asked you to?"
Bree sighed heavily and stood up. "Look, I'm going up to the computer lab, okay?" At least up there she could hide from everyone's vicious stares while she pretended to send e-mails to all the friends she didn't have. "See you later."
Elise grabbed her arm. "Wait. Sit down. Just one more minute."
Bree pulled her arm away. "What's your problem?"
Elise's freckled face turned red. "I just—" Then Chanel plunked her beautiful ass down at their table and Elise let out a huge sigh of relief. "I thought I was going to
have to sit on her to keep her down here," she grumbled.
"What's going on?" Bree demanded. So now Elise and Chanel were, like, working together to sabotage her life even worse than it had already been sabotaged? That was just peachy.
Chanel pulled a stack of magazines from out of her bag, "Before you say anything, can I just show you the stuff Jonathan Joyce has done?" She rifled through the magazines, and started pointing out pictures. "There. And there. And how cool is this?
Bree stared glassy-eyed at the photos. Models frolicking on a bed wearing little or no makeup, old T-shirts, and baggy men's trousers. A girl with her legs tucked up underneath her, drinking a glass of milk. A man kissing his dog. A stewardess asleep in an airport lounge with a pilot's coat draped over her. There was nothing provocative about the pictures. They were just plain good.
"He wants to shoot us on the merry-go-round in Central Park on Saturday," Chanel continued. "The clothes are awesome—Jonathan's already got a whole rack of stuff he and I picked out together." She beamed at Bree. "And the best part is, whatever we wear on the shoot, we get to keep."
Bree didn't know what to say. Sure, it sounded exciting, and the keeping-the-clothes thing was definitely a plus, but how did she know it wasn't just another degrading look-at-the-girl-with-the-big-boobs stunt?
"I have a birthday party to go to in Williamsburg on Saturday," she protested lamely.
"But that's not till nighttime," Elise countered. "I could come with you to the shoot, and I could shout or blow a whistle if I think your integrity is being compromised."
Leave it to Elise to put it into the type of clinical terms she'd read in one of her mom's self-help books. Bree crossed her arms over the part of her integrity that was most often compromised.
"I made him promise not to shoot us in anything too revealing," Chanel added. "He's really only interested in our faces anyway."
Bree examined her reflection in the mirrored wall in front of her. She had a good face, and this famous guy wanted to take a picture of it. What was the big deal? Plus, everyone wanted a fairy godmother, and she just happened to have one in the form of a tall, beautiful senior. Bree may have made the most embarrasing mistakes of her life on a weekly basis but Chanel was the master of turning infamy into magic. She took a deep breath. "Okay. I'll do it."
Upper East Side #6 Page 12
