Upper East Side #2

by Ashley Valentine

  Mekhi took a sip of his coffee. Bree always got a little overexcited when it came to Chanel. He enjoyed teasing her.

  “Oh, come on, tell me something. What’d you guys do?” Bree insisted.

  Mekhi shrugged. “We ate ice cream.”

  Bree put her hands on her hips. “Wow. Hot date.”

  Mekhi just smiled. He didn’t care if it drove his sister nuts; he wasn’t going to let go of any piece of last night. It was too precious, especially the kissing part. In fact, he’d just written a poem about it so he could relish it forever. He’d called the poem “Sweet.”

  “So what else? What did you do? What did she say?” Bree prodded.

  Mekhi filled his mug with more hot water. “I don’t know—” he started to say. Then the phone rang. Both he and Bree leapt to get it. But Mekhi was faster.

  “Hey Mekhi, it’s Chanel.”

  He pressed the phone close to his ear and walked out of the kitchen and over to the window seat in the den. Through the dust-covered pane he could see kids rollerblading in Riverside Park and the bright autumn sun sparkling on the Hudson River beyond. Mekhi took a deep, calming breath. “Hey,” he said.

  “Listen. I know this is kind of a weird thing to ask, but I have to be a bridesmaid in this big wedding in three weeks, and I was wondering if you’d like to come with me, you know, as my date.”

  “Sure,” Mekhi replied, before she could say more.

  “It’s Porsha Sinclaire’s mother’s wedding,” Chanel said. “You know, the girl I used to be friends with?”

  “Sure,” Mekhi said again. It sounded like Chanel not only wanted him to go with her, she needed him to go, for moral support. It made Mekhi feel important, and it gave him courage. He lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper, just in case Bree was listening in the other room. “I’d really like to go up to Brown with you, too,” he said. “If that’s okay.”

  “Okay.” Chanel paused. “Um, I think I’m going up this Friday after school. We have half-days on Friday. Do you?”

  It kind of sounded like she’d forgotten about asking Mekhi to come with her. But Mekhi decided he was hearing her wrong. “I get out of school at two on Fridays,” he told her.

  “Okay, so you could meet me at Grand Central. I’m going to get the train up to our country house in Ridgefield and pick up the caretaker’s car there.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It’ll be great,” said Chanel, sounding a bit more enthusiastic. “So thanks for agreeing to come to the wedding with me. It might be fun.”

  “I hope so.” He didn’t see how he could not have fun with her. But he’d have to find something decent to wear. He should have kept that Armani tux after all.

  “Um, I’d better go. The maid is yelling for me to come eat my breakfast,” Chanel said. “So I’ll call you later on, and we can make plans for next weekend, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.” He hung up before he could say something else. I love you.

  “That was her, right?” Bree asked when he returned to the kitchen.

  Mekhi shrugged.

  “What’d she say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yeah, right. You were whispering,” Bree accused.

  Mekhi pulled a bagel out of a paper bag on the kitchen counter and examined it. Surprise, surprise, it was moldy. Their dad wasn’t the best housekeeper in the world. It was hard to remember to shop for groceries or mop the floors when you were busy writing essays on why some poet no one had ever heard of was the next big thing. Most of the time Mekhi and Bree survived on Chinese takeout.

  Mekhi threw out the bag of moldy bagels and found an unopened bag of potato chips in the cupboard. He ripped open the bag and shoved a handful of chips into his mouth. They were better than nothing.

  Bree made a face at him. “Do you have to be such an annoying idiot?” she said. “I already know it was Chanel on the phone. Why can’t you just tell me what she said?”

  “She wants me to go to a wedding with her. That Porsha girl’s mom is getting married, and Chanel is going to be a bridesmaid. She wants me there with her,” he explained.

  “You’re going to Mrs. Sinclaire’s wedding?” Bree gasped. “Where is it?”

  Mekhi shrugged. “I don’t know, I didn’t ask.”

  Bree bristled. “I can’t believe this. It’s like, all this time you and Dad were so against all those fancy girls I go to school with and their rich families. And now you’re like, going out with the queen of all of them and getting invited to incredible weddings. It’s so unfair!”

  Mekhi shoved another handful of potato chips in his mouth. “Sorry,” he said with his mouth full.

  “Well, I just hope you haven’t forgotten that I was the one who like, told you that you even had a chance with Chanel,” Bree huffed. She flung her used teabag angrily into the sink. “Do you realize that wedding’s probably going to be in like, Vogue? I can’t believe you’re going.”

  But Mekhi was barely listening. In his mind he was riding on a train, holding hands with Chanel and gazing into the deep, dark depths of her eyes.

  “Did she say anything about tomorrow?” Bree asked him.

  Mekhi stared at her blankly.

  “Me and Yasmine and Chanel are supposed to meet at Yasmine’s boyfriend’s bar in Williamsburg to go over the film we helped Chanel make for the film festival. Make sure it’s all set to go.”

  Another blank look.

  “I thought maybe she would have invited you.”

  No response.

  Bree sighed, exasperated. Mekhi was hopeless, she realized, so entirely lovesick that she might as well forget about trying to get any information out of him. He hadn’t even asked why she was wearing a black tube top around the house on a Saturday morning. Suddenly Bree felt extremely lonely. She had always relied on her brother for company, but now he was flaking out on her.

  She definitely needed to find some other friends.

  6

  “Come and have pancakes, darling,” Mrs. Sinclaire called down the hall, hoping to unearth Porsha from her room. “I had Myrtle make them nice and thin, just the way you like them.”

  Porsha opened her bedroom door and stuck her head out. “Hold on,” she said. “I’m getting dressed.”

  “There’s no need, dear. Cyrus and I are still in our jammies,” Porsha’s mother said perkily. She retied the cord on her green silk dressing gown. Cyrus was wearing one just like it. They’d bought them yesterday at Saks after sizing wedding rings at Cartier. Then they’d gone to the dark and cozy King Cole bar in the St. Regis Hotel to drink champagne. Cyrus had even joked about getting a room. It was so romantic.

  Gross.

  “Just hold on,” Porsha repeated stubbornly, and her mother retreated to the dining room. Porsha sat on the edge of her bed, looking at her reflection in the closet mirror. She’d lied to her mother just then. In truth, she’d been up for hours and was already completely dressed in jeans, a black turtleneck, and boots. She’d even painted her nails dark brown to suit her mood.

  Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Not Porsha—at least not today.

  She’d spent her entire Saturday feeling pissed off. Then she’d gone to bed pissed off, and she’d woken up pissed off on Sunday morning. In fact, it looked like she was going to spend the rest of her life permanently pissed the fuck off. Kaliq hadn’t tried to see her since Friday night, so he was obviously more than a little disappointed about what had happened. She was still a virgin. Her mother was marrying an obnoxious idiot. And the date they’d chosen for their wedding happened to be Porsha’s most important birthday ever.

  Oh, yes, her life definitely sucked. Big time. Since it couldn’t suck any worse than it already did, and because she was hungry, Porsha got up and headed out to the dining room to eat pancakes with her mother and Cyrus.

  “There she is,” Cyrus boomed loudly. He patted the seat next to him. “Come, sit.”

&n
bsp; Porsha did as she was told. She picked up the platter laden with pancakes and forked a few onto her plate.

  “Don’t take the one with the hole in the middle,” her eleven-year-old brother, Brice, told her. “It’s mine.”

  Brice was wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt and had a red bandanna tied around his head. He wanted to be a music journalist and modeled himself after Cameron Crowe, the movie director who’d toured with Led Zeppelin when he was only like fifteen. Brice had a huge collection of vinyl and kept an antique hookah pipe under his bed. Not that he’d ever used it. Porsha was concerned that Brice was turning into a freak who was going to have trouble making friends. Her parents thought it was cute, as long as he wore his suit to St. George’s every morning like a good boy and got into a good boarding school.

  In the world Porsha and her friends lived in, everyone’s parents were like that—as long as their kids didn’t screw up and embarrass them, they could basically do whatever they wanted. In fact, that was the mistake Chanel had made. She’d been caught screwing up, and getting caught was unacceptable. She ought to have known better.

  Porsha poured maple syrup over her pancakes and then rolled each of them up like a burrito, just the way she liked them. Her mother snagged a grape from the fruit bowl and popped it into Cyrus’s mouth. He hummed happily as he chewed and swallowed it. Then he puckered up his lips like a fish, begging for more. Mrs. Sinclaire giggled and fed him another one. Porsha rolled her pancake burritos around in their syrup, ignoring their revolting display.

  “I’ve been on the phone with the man at the St. Claire all morning,” her mother told her. “He’s very flamboyant and very concerned about the decor. He’s hilarious.”

  “Flamboyant? You mean gay. It’s okay to say ‘gay,’ Mom,” Porsha said.

  “Yes, well…” her mother stuttered uncomfortably. She didn’t like to say the word gay. Not after having been married to one—it was too humiliating.

  “We’re trying to decide if we should book a few suites in the hotel,” Cyrus said. “You girls could use one for changing into your gowns and doing your hair. And who knows—some of our guests might get so tipsy they’ll want to crash out until morning.” He laughed and winked at Porsha’s mother.

  Suites? Suddenly Porsha had an idea. She and Kaliq could get a suite! What more perfect place and time to lose your virginity than in a suite at the St. Claire on your seventeenth birthday?

  Porsha put her fork down, dabbed gently at the corners of her mouth with her napkin, and smiled sweetly at her mother. “Can you book a suite for me and my friends?” she asked.

  “Of course we can,” Eleanor said. “That’s a fine idea.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” Porsha smiled excitedly into her coffee cup. She couldn’t wait to tell Kaliq.

  “There’s so much to do,” her mother said anxiously. “I’ve been making lists in my sleep.”

  Cyrus took her hand and kissed it. The diamond blazed on her finger. “Don’t worry, Bunny,” Cyrus said, as if he were talking to a two-year-old. Porsha picked up a dripping pancake roll in her fingers and shoved it in her mouth.

  “Of course I want your input on everything, Porsha,” her mother told her. “You have such good taste.”

  Porsha shrugged and chewed, her cheeks bulging.

  “And we can’t wait for you to meet Tahj,” Eleanor said.

  Porsha stopped chewing. “Who’s Tahj?” she asked with her mouth full.

  “My son, Tahj?” Cyrus said. “You knew I had a son, didn’t you, Porsha?”

  Porsha shook her head. She didn’t know anything about Cyrus. He might as well have wandered in off the street and asked her mother to marry him. The less she knew about him the better.

  “He’s a senior at Bronxdale Prep. Smart kid. Skipped tenth grade. He’s only sixteen, a graduating senior, college bound!” Cyrus announced proudly.

  “Isn’t that impressive?” Porsha’s mother chimed in. “And he’s so good-looking too.”

  “That he is,” Cyrus agreed. “He’ll knock your socks off.”

  Porsha reached for another pancake from the platter. She didn’t care to listen to Cyrus and her mother go on and on about some geek wearing a pocket protector who skipped grades for fun. She could imagine Tahj exactly: a skinny version of Cyrus, with pimples and braces and horrible clothes. The apple of his father’s eye.

  “Hey, that’s mine!” Brice whined, dinging Porsha’s fork with his knife. “Hand it over.”

  Porsha could see now that the pancake she’d taken had a finger-sized hole in the middle of it. “Sorry,” she said and passed her plate across the table to Brice. “Take it.”

  “So, will you stay home today and help me?” her mother asked. “I’ve got a whole stack of wedding books and magazines for us to go through.”

  Porsha pushed her chair back abruptly. She couldn’t think of a worse way to spend the day. “Sorry,” she said. “I’ve already made plans.”

  It was a lie, but Porsha was sure that as soon as she was finished talking talking to Kaliq, she would indeed have plans. They could see a movie, go for a walk in the park, hang out at his place, plan their night at the St. Claire...

  Wrong.

  “Sorry, I’m meeting Anthony and the guys in the park to play ball,” Kaliq said. “I told you that yesterday.”

  “No, you didn’t. Yesterday you said you had to hang out with your dad. You said maybe we could do something today,” Porsha complained. “I never get to see you.”

  “Well, I’m heading over there now,” Kaliq insisted. “Sorry.”

  “But I wanted to tell you something,” she said, trying to sound mysterious.

  “What?”

  “I’d really rather tell you in person.”

  “Come on, Porsha.” Kaliq sighed impatiently. “I have to go.”

  “Okay. Fine. What I wanted to tell you was that my mom and Cyrus are getting suites at the St. Claire for their wedding. And seeing how it’s going to be my birthday and everything, I thought that maybe that would be the perfect time for us to…you know…do it.”

  Kaliq was silent.

  “Kaliq?” Porsha asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “So what do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” he said distractedly. “It sounds fine. Look, I have to get going, okay?”

  Porsha clutched the phone to her ear. “Kaliq? Do you still love me?”

  But he was already hanging up. “I’ll call you later, alright? Bye.”

  Porsha clicked off and stared at the Persian rug on the floor of her bedroom, the pancakes churning uncomfortably in her stomach. But before she could even think about sticking her finger down her throat, she had to come up with a plan.

  She wasn’t going to see Kaliq today, and they probably wouldn’t see each other during the week, what with her one hundred and one extracurriculars and his sports. And next weekend she was going up to Yale and he was going to Brown. She couldn’t let a whole week go by with Kaliq mad at her for shutting him down Friday night and her worrying about him being mad at her. She had to do something.

  If only she and Kaliq could have had the kind of romantic fights couples had in movies. First they would yell hurtful things at each other until she began to cry. She would grab her purse and her coat, fumbling with the buttons because she was so upset. Then, just as she was shakily opening the front door, preparing to walk out of his life forever, he would come up behind her and wrap his arms around her, holding her tight. She would turn around and look searchingly up at him for a moment, and then they would kiss passionately. In the end, he’d beg her to stay, and then they would make love.

  The real thing was so much more boring, but Porsha knew how to spice things up. She imagined walking over to Kaliq’s townhouse dressed in a long black coat, a silk scarf wrapped around her head, her face masked by huge Chanel sunglasses. She’d drop off a special gift for Kaliq, and then disappear into the night. When he opened the gift, he’d smell her perfume and long for her.


  Forgetting all about making herself sick, Porsha stood up and grabbed her purse, ready to hit Barneys. But what do you get for a boy to remind him that he loves you and wants you more than ever?

  Hmm. That’s a hard one.

  7

  “So tell me why you’re calling me again?” Cairo said grumpily.

  “Nice to talk to you, too,” Chanel replied. “I’m just calling to tell you that I’m definitely coming up to Brown next weekend. I have an interview scheduled for Saturday at twelve.”

  “Okay. We usually have a party on Saturday nights though. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Mind?” Chanel laughed. “That’s perfect. Oh, and I’m probably bringing a friend.”

  “What kind of friend?”

  “Just this guy Mekhi I’ve been hanging out with. You’ll like him, I promise.”

  “Cool,” he said. “Listen, I’m kind of busy. I have to go.”

  Chanel realized that Cairo was most likely not alone. He always had at least three girlfriends whom he slept with on a rotating basis.

  “You’re such a whore. Okay. See you soon.”

  Chanel clicked off. She stood up, padded over to her closet, and opened the door to get dressed. Inside were all the same boring clothes she always wore. But she was going to college next year, maybe even to Brown. Didn’t she deserve to buy herself something new? Plus, Winter was coming. It was the city’s favorite season and hers, too. The boys were out in Central Park, playing ball or doing whatever boys did that time of year, getting all mussed up with bits of dried leaves on their sweaters and in their hair.

  Talk about irresistible!

  It was time to break out the credit cards and hit the department stores for some cool new boots, sexy fishnet tights, little wool skirts, and delicious cashmere sweaters. The city felt a little sparklier this time of year, and Chanel wanted to sparkle with it. She pulled on a worn pair of jeans and a black sweater, getting ready to go to her favorite place in the whole wide world: Barneys.

  When she got there, Barneys was already crowded with Upper East Siders who had wandered in, unable to resist. The buzzing, brightly lit ground floor—its glass cases filled with unique jewelry, gorgeous gloves, and one of a kind purses, and its countertops littered with sleek beauty products—made every day feel like Christmas.