Porsha had made him promise to forget about Chanel, but Kaliq had never been sure if he’d succeeded. He’d been trying to avoid her, because seeing Chanel usually made his heart hurt. Not this time, though. This time, something was different. When he looked at Chanel all he saw was a beautiful old friend.
“Hey, I know those boys!” Chanel said, hopping off her stool. She left her unlit cigarette on the bar and walked over to Kaliq.
“Wait,” Mekhi said. She hadn’t told him what she thought of his poem. He watched her approach the boy who’d been staring at her and kiss him on the cheek. All of a sudden Mekhi knew why these boys looked so familiar. They were the same boys he’d seen playing soccer with his sister in the park.
“Hey, guys,” Chanel greeted, smiling her breathtaking smile. “Where’re you going?”
It was just like her to walk up, give Kaliq a kiss, and say “Hey,” as if she hadn’t noticed that he had been ignoring her ever since she’d come back to New York last month. Chanel wasn’t one to hold a grudge, unlike some people he knew.
“We’re heading up to Brown,” Anthony said. “But first we have to pick up Jeremy’s mom’s car in New Canaan.”
Chanel’s eyes lit up. “No way. We’re going up to Brown, too! My brother goes there, so we’re staying with him. Want to ride with us?”
Kaliq frowned. Riding up to Brown with Chanel was definitely not in Porsha’s you-can-go-away-without-me rule book. But who said he had to follow her rules?
“Hell yeah,” said Jeremy. “Sounds like a party.”
“Cool,” Chanel replied. “You guys can probably stay with my brother, too.” She turned and waved at the scruffy dark-skinned boy hunched over the bar. “Hey, Mekhi. Come here.”
Mekhi got up and slowly came over. Chanel noticed he looked a little sad.
“Guys, this is Mekhi. Mekhi this is Kaliq, Charlie, Jeremy, and Anthony. They’re going to ride with us up to Brown.”
Chanel smiled brightly at Mekhi, and he tried to smile back—he really did, but it was hard. Why hadn’t they gotten on the train early? They could’ve been happily drinking wine and eating Chanel’s sandwiches instead of sharing rides with four, spoiled St. Jude’s boys who would totally monopolize Chanel and change the whole tone of the trip. There would be no whispering to each other in all-night diners, holding hands under the table. No sleeping together on her brother’s floor. It wasn’t a romantic weekend away anymore: it was a college-visiting road trip, a meaningless party.
Woo-hoo!
Mekhi had never felt so disappointed. “Cool,” he said. He wished he were back in his room, writing about the weekend that could have been.
“Okay, let’s roll. We better make that train,” Charlie said.
Chanel slipped her arm through Mekhi’s and pulled him down the steps with her. “Come on!” she cried, running.
Mekhi stumbled after her. He had no choice.
Kaliq walked behind them, feeling a little bit sad himself. He wished he’d brought someone with him, and it wasn’t Porsha he was thinking of.
18
“Maybe we should drive through Middletown on the way. Look at Wesleyan,” Tahj suggested. He punched in the Saab’s lighter and opened the sunroof.
They had just pulled onto 1-95 in Connecticut. Porsha had ridden the whole way in silence as Tahj maneuvered his way out of the city. Some kind of hippie-happy reggae music she had never heard of was playing on the radio. She slipped off her shoes and put her socked feet up on the dashboard. “I’m not applying anywhere else but Yale,” she said. “But we can drive through Wesleyan if you want.”
Tahj pulled a cigarette out of a funny-looking tin and lit it. He cocked his head at Porsha. “What makes you so sure you’re getting in?”
Porsha shrugged. “I’ve been planning to go there since I was little,” she said in explanation. “Is that weed?”
“Hell no, man,” Tahj said with a grin. “They’re herbal. Wanna try one?”
Porsha made a face and pulled a pack of Merit Ultra Lights out of her bag. “I prefer these,” she said.
“Those things will kill you,” Tahj remarked. He slipped the car into the middle lane and took a deep drag. “These are one hundred percent natural.”
Porsha glared out the window. She really didn’t feel like being lectured on the holistic qualities of Tahj’s special cigarettes. “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said, hoping that would put an end to the conversation. She was starting to hate her future stepbrother already. She knew hate was a strong word and everything, but she was only a teenager. She was supposed to hate her parents every once in a while. She was also allowed to hate any siblings, older or younger, who annoyed her, especially those not even related to her who she didn’t even ask for.
However, if one of these unasked for siblings happens to be a rather cute boy with dreadlocks, you might want to be nice.
“So I’m trying to figure out whether you’re a big partier or not,” Tahj said. “Something tells me that when you let your hair down, you can get pretty crazy.”
Porsha continued to stare out the window. Actually, he was right, but she really didn’t give a crap what Tahj thought. Let him think what he wanted to think.
“Not really,” she said, puffing her cigarette.
“So, do you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“But he doesn’t want to go to Yale?”
“No. I mean, he does,” Porsha corrected, “but he’s looking at Brown this weekend. He’s going up there with a few friends.”
Tahj nodded. “I see.”
Something about the way he said it completely infuriated Porsha. It was like he saw right through her and knew that she had practically gotten down on her hands and knees and begged Kaliq to come up to New Haven with her, but he’d refused. Tahj could go fuck himself for making her feel like shit.
“Look, it’s really none of your business,” Porsha snapped. “Let’s just get there, okay?”
Tahj shook his head and pointed at the tin of herbal cigarettes that he’d placed on the dash. “You sure you don’t want one?” he asked. “They’ll mellow you out.”
Porsha shook her head.
“Fine,” he said. He pulled out into the left lane and revved the engine up to ninety.
Porsha glanced at his hand on the stick shift. His thumbnail was bruised a purpley-black color, and he was wearing a silver thumb ring in the shape of a snake. If he hadn’t been her almost stepbrother, it would have been kind of sexy.
But he was, and it wasn’t.
Mekhi was too depressed to even think about getting high with Kaliq’s friends in the backseat. The whole way on the train up to Ridgefield, Chanel and Kaliq and his friends had talked about stuff Mekhi didn’t know about. Like bars he’d never heard of, or places in the country where he’d never been sailing or played tennis. Mekhi had spent last summer working part time at a bookstore on Broadway and part time at a deli. He got free books at the bookstore, and at the deli he got to drink as much coffee as he wanted. It was great. But he hadn’t shared that little piece of trivia. It was anything but glamorous.
Mekhi knew Chanel wasn’t trying to be a snob. She wasn’t like that. She didn’t need to climb up the social ladder—she was already on the top. What depressed him was that she didn’t want to be alone with him the way he wanted to be alone with her. If she did, she wouldn’t have turned their cozy weekend away into a turnt-up slumber party.
“Who wants one?” Chanel called from the passenger seat. She turned and dangled a six-pack of Bud into the backseat.
“Me!” All four of the other boys cried out eagerly, including Kaliq, who was driving.
“No way, Kaliq,” Chanel said. “You have to wait till we stop.”
“Aw, come on,” he groaned. “I was high as fuck when I took my driving test.”
“Sorry,” Chanel told him, passing a beer back to Charlie. “You wanted to be Big Daddy the Driver. Now you have to pay.”
Anthony giggled and kic
ked the back of Kaliq’s seat. “Daddy, are we there yet?”
“Shut up back there,” Kaliq shouted gruffly. “Or I’m going to have to pull over and whip you with my belt.”
The back seat erupted in laughter.
Mekhi sat hunched by the window, watching the billboards on 1–95 flash by, hating Kaliq and his stupid friends. First they’d taken his sister away and now his girlfriend. As if they didn’t already have everything they could possibly want handed to them on a fucking silver platter. Mekhi knew that wasn’t exactly fair, but he didn’t feel like being fair. He was pissed.
He reached in his pocket for a Newport, his hands shaking more than ever. One thing was certain. He wasn’t on this trip for nothing. Tomorrow he was going to ace his fucking Brown interview.
Tahj saw a sign for a Motel 6 about twenty miles before New Haven and turned off the exit.
“What are you doing?” Porsha asked. “We’re not there yet.”
“Yeah, but it’s a Motel 6. We’re close enough,” Tahj said, as if that explained everything.
“What’s so great about Motel 6?”
“They’re clean. They’re cheap. They have cable. And their vending machines are great."
“I thought we were going to stay someplace nice, with room service,” Porsha said irritably. She’d never been to a motel before.
“Trust me,” Tahj insisted, pulling up outside the motel office.
Porsha stayed in the car with her arms folded sullenly across her chest, while Tahj went in to register. He was trying to act all down with the people and pretend he wasn’t a spoiled rich boy from the suburbs. It was so annoying. Still, she felt kind of seedy driving up to a motel in a red Saab with a boy with dreadlocks. The parking lot was dim and the rooms were all shaded with curtains. It looked like the kind of place people went to disappear from a previous life.
Tahj came back with one key. “They only had one room left. It’s got a big bed, though. You okay with that?”
Porsha was certain Tahj was expecting her to throw a hissy fit and demand her own room. “Fine,” she said. She could deal.
Tahj got back in the car and screeched out of the parking lot and back onto the main road.
“Where are we going now?” Porsha demanded. She hated Tahj’s way of just doing whatever the hell he pleased, never mind what she wanted.
“That’s the other great thing about Motel 6s. They’re always on roads with cheesy strip malls, so you can get everything you need,” he said. He turned into the parking lot of a Shop ‘n’ Save and pulled his mother’s Shop ‘n’ Save credit card out of his wallet. “Come on, let’s splurge.”
Porsha rolled her eyes. At least he knew how to use plastic.
Kaliq drove until he couldn’t stand it anymore. His friends had been giggling in the back seat for two and a half hours, and he needed a beer.
“I’m pulling over,” he said. “I saw a Best Western sign. They’re okay, right?”
“My family stayed in a suite in a Best Western upstate when we were dropping my sister off at camp,” Mekhi insisited. “It was nice.”
“They have suites?” Jeremy asked incredulously. “I thought Best Westerns were like, motels.”
“It had room service,” Mekhi responded a little defensively. “And a fridge full of drinks.”
“We’re definitely getting a suite,” Charlie said.
Mekhi closed his eyes and prayed that there weren’t any suites in this particular Best Western. There was still hope that he and Chanel might wind up sharing their own room together. It might be almost better than he’d hoped.
The bed in the Motel 6 was loaded with snack food. Chips Ahoy, Fritos, chocolate pudding, Hawaiian Punch, soy Swiss cheese, Ritz crackers, and, of course, canned bear.
“I bet there’s something good on TNT,” Tahj said, plunking himself down on the end of the bed. He cracked open a Bud and reached for another one of his special cigarettes.
Porsha fluffed up a pillow and leaned against the headboard, tucking her knees neatly under her chin. She’d never exactly done this before—eaten crap and drunk Bud in a motel room with a boy she didn’t know very well while watching bad TV. It was kind of…different.
“I’ll have one of those,” she said quietly.
Tahj kept his eyes on the TV and handed her a beer, his silver snake ring flashing. “See, I told you. Fast & The Furious. Cool.”
“And one of those,” Porsha said, pointing to his cigarette.
Tahj turned and smiled crookedly at her out of the side of his mouth. “I’m telling you, they make you feel really mellow,” he warned.
“Fine,” Porsha said evenly. She’d had a stressful past few days. Why shouldn’t she relax?
Tahj flipped her a cigarette and handed her a pack of matches. “Careful not to inhale too quick, or you’ll fry your lungs.”
Porsha rolled her eyes, annoyed. She knew how to smoke. The back of Tahj’s T-shirt read POWER TO THE PEOPLE, which also annoyed her. He thought he was so cool and liberal and politically aware.
She lit a match and held it up to the cigarette. Just a quick smoke, a few sips of beer, and maybe a donut, and then she was going to bed early. Tomorrow she had her future to contend with.
The Best Western suite had two double beds and a pull-out sofa. There were hunting scenes on the walls and through the large, rectangular window was a view of a local fairgrounds, closed for the winter. The Ferris wheel hovered in the night air like an obese skeleton. Mekhi couldn’t stop staring at it.
Kaliq and his friends had ordered a bunch of pizzas and a case of beer and were lying all over the beds fighting over the remote. Jeremy wanted to watch pornos on pay-per-view. Kaliq wanted to watch some old action movie on Bravo. Charlie wanted to turn out all the lights and open all the windows and play Lil Wayne on his iPod docking station.
Chanel was taking a shower. Mekhi could smell the steam from underneath the bathroom door and it smelled like lavender and candle wax. Chanel was singing.
“Voulez vous couchez avec moi, ce soir?”
Yes, Mekhi did want to sleep with her tonight. Badly. But it didn’t look like that was going to happen.
“Hey, you boys better not be getting pepperoni grease on my bed,” Chanel warned, opening the bathroom door, her body wrapped in a big white hotel towel.
“Which one is your bed?” Anthony asked, burping loudly.
“I haven’t decided yet," she replied. "But if you’re going to burp and fart all over that one, maybe I’ll sleep on the other one.”
She suddenly walked across the room to her bag and pulled a gray sweatshirt and a pair of plaid flannel boxers out of it. Every one of the boys watched her. It was kind of hard not to.
“And don’t eat all the pizza, either,” Chanel said, marching back to the bathroom to change. “I’m starving.”
Mekhi lit a cigarette, his hands shaking harder than ever. He got up from his chair by the window, grabbed a beer off the bed, and sat down on the sofa. He had nothing better to do. He might as well get drunk.
Chanel came back out of the bathroom wearing the sweatshirt and boxers. She picked up a can of beer and a slice of pizza and sat down on the sofa next to Mekhi. It was such a relief to have the other three boys along for the trip. The poem Mekhi had sent her had been all about love and death and how he wanted to keep on living because of her. Chanel liked him a lot, but he really needed to lighten up.
“Here’s to college,” she said, slapping her pizza against Mekhi’s beer can. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we all wound up going to Brown together?”
Mekhi nodded, threw his beer back, and stood up for another one. Yeah, that’d be funny all right, he thought. Hilarious.
Porsha lay back on the bed and held a Ritz cracker over her left eye, squinting at the ceiling with her right one. A tiny spider walked toward the overhead light.
“Gross. There’s a spider on the ceiling,” she told Tahj. She had drunk three beers and eaten five donuts for dinner. She was having Ritz cr
ackers and spray-on cheddar cheese for dessert.
“Know what we forgot?” Tahj said, kicking the empty beer cans off the bed and shoving a handful of Fritos in his mouth.
“Water?” Porsha asked. She had eaten so much sugar, salt, and grease she was dying of thirst. The three herbal cigarettes she’d smoked hadn’t helped either.
“No,” Tahj replied. “Candy.”
Porsha smiled. A KitKat might be nice. “Okay.”
They tiptoed out of their room and down the hall to the vending machine. Porsha burst out laughing when she saw the hall carpet. It was brown with red swirls. Who decorated these places, anyway?
Tahj stood in front of the vending machine, frowning. “I can’t decide.”
Porsha stood next to him. They had KitKats, but they also had Twixes and Snickers and Almond Joys. It was a tough decision.
“How much change do we have?” she asked seriously.
Tahj held out his hand. They had enough for exactly two and a half candy bars. Or two candy bars and some gum.
Porsha burst out laughing again. “I’m getting straight A’s in AP calculus, and I can’t even pick out a fucking candy bar.”
Tahj took three quarters and dropped them into the slot. Then he grabbed her hand. “Okay, close your eyes and pick one.”
He guided her hand toward the machine until her fingers were just skimming the buttons. Porsha pressed her finger on a button and heard something drop into the bottom of the machine. She bent down to pick it up.
“Wait!” Tahj cried, pulling her back. “Let’s do another one and then see what we got.” He dropped another three quarters into the slot.
Porsha tried to remember where the KitKats had been, but she couldn’t. She pressed another button, and again something dropped to the bottom of the machine. She opened her eyes and rushed forward to retrieve their prize—an Almond Joy and a pack of Lifesavers.
Upper East Side #2 Page 10
