Upper East Side #2

by Ashley Valentine

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jason said. He stood up and held out his hand once more. “Thanks so much for coming in.” He shook Porsha’s hand. “Good luck.”

  Porsha wriggled her feet back into her shoes and smiled winningly at him. “See you next fall,” she said. And then she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

  As if she hadn’t already made enough of an impression.

  22

  “I thought I’d feel more nervous,” Chanel said, stamping her feet in a pile of dried autumn leaves outside Corliss-Brackett House, the small brick building where the Brown University admissions office was located.

  She had woken up in the hotel bed holding Kaliq’s hand. When he’d opened his eyes a moment later, they’d smiled at each other, and Chanel had known everything was going to be all right between them. There was still Porsha to contend with, and they would never be as close as they once were. Things were different. But the look of distrust was gone from Kaliq’s eyes, and so was the look of longing. She was just an old friend. She was safe.

  “I’m not nervous, either,” Kaliq said. “I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? They don’t take me? So what?”

  “Yeah,” Mekhi agreed, although he really was nervous. He felt clammy and shaky and completely overcaffienated. He’d sat in the lobby of the Best Western for two hours that morning, reading the paper and drinking cup after cup of coffee, while the others took their time waking up. He took one last drag on his Newport before chucking it into the bushes. “Ready to go inside?”

  “I feel like we should say some kind of cheer or something before we go in,” Chanel said, pulling her coat around her.

  “Or not.” Kaliq punched her lightly on the arm.

  “Ow,” Chanel giggled. She punched him back. “Asshole.”

  Mekhi scowled at his shoes. He hated how comfortable they were together.

  Chanel turned and kissed Mekhi on the cheek. “Good luck,” she murmured.

  As if he weren’t nervous enough already.

  Then she turned and kissed Kaliq, too.

  "Break a leg,” Kaliq said, opening the door.

  Chanel’s interviewer was an older white man with piercing blue eyes and a bushy gray beard. He didn’t even bother to introduce himself. He just sat her down and began firing away.

  “Got yourself kicked out of boarding school,” he said, drumming his fingers on his sturdy oak desk as he peered at her file. He looked up and removed his glasses. “So what happened?”

  Chanel smiled politely. Did he have to start with such a touchy subject?

  “I just didn’t get back in time for the beginning of senior year.” She uncrossed her perfect legs and recrossed them again, hoping she hadn’t flashed too much thigh. Her skirt was a little short.

  The interviewer frowned, furrowing his stern gray eyebrows.

  “I kind of extended my summer vacation,” Chanel explained. “They didn’t like that.” She put her thumb in her mouth to bite her nail and then quickly removed it. She could do this.

  “I see. Where were you? Stuck on an island in the Pacific? Working for the Peace Corps?” the interviewer barked. “Building latrines in El Salvador? What?”

  Chanel shook her head, feeling suddenly ashamed. “I was in the South of France,” she squeaked.

  “Aha. French. Any good at it?” the interviewer asked. He put on his glasses again and glanced down at Chanel’s file. “All you New York private school girls start French in preschool, don’t you?”

  “Third grade,” Chanel said, tucking her hair behind her ears. She wasn’t going to let this dude intimidate her.

  “So your old school took you back after Hanover sent you packing?” he pointed out. “That was good of them.”

  “Yes,” Chanel said. Her voice sounded a little meeker than she would have liked.

  The interviewer looked up. “And are you behaving yourself?”

  Chanel smiled her most winning smile. “I’m trying to.”

  Kaliq’s interviewer’s name was Brittany. She’d graduated last year and loved Brown so much she’d gotten a job in admissions. For extra cash she made cold calls in the evenings asking for donations to the alumni fund. She was supremely perky.

  “So tell me about some of your interests,” Brittany said with a bright, dimpled smile. She had close-cropped hair, light brown skin, and was built like a gymnast. She perched on the edge of her desk, facing him, a little white notepad in hand.

  Kaliq wriggled his butt around on the uncomfortable wooden chair opposite her. He hadn’t put much thought into the interview process because he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to go to college next year or not. He was just going to have to wing this.

  “I guess my biggest interest is sailing,” he began. “Me and my dad build boats up in Maine. And in the summers I race. I’d like to crew for an America’s Cup team. That’s my goal.”

  Kaliq wondered if he sounded like some kind of lame sailboat geek, but Brittany nodded enthusiastically. “I’m impressed.”

  He shrugged. “I guess I probably put more work into sailing than school,” he admitted.

  “Well, when you’re really passionate about something, you don’t notice the effort. Hard work feels like fun.” Brittany smiled brightly and wrote something down in her pad. It was almost as if Kaliq had just validated one of her favorite tenets of perkiness.

  He rubbed his knees and leaned forward. “All I’m saying is my grades probably aren’t good enough for Brown.”

  Brittany threw her head back and laughed, nearly unseating herself. Kaliq put out a hand to steady her.

  “Thanks,” she said, righting herself. “Listen, I totally flunked AP bio in high school, and I got in. I know it may come as a surprise, but Brown is about way more than grades. We’re into interesting people, not robots with straight A’s.”

  Kaliq nodded. Brittany was better at her job than she’d first let on. He felt like he’d practically told her that he wasn’t interested in going to Brown, but she wasn’t letting him get away with it. She was making him want to try.

  “So, is there a sailing team here?” he asked.

  Brittany nodded energetically. “The sailing team rocks!”

  “So, you’re a reader,” Marion, Mekhi’s emaciated interviewer remarked. She was perched on the edge of her chair, her stick legs wrapped pretzel-like around each other as she scribbled notes on an index card. “Quick, name two books and tell me why you liked one better than the other.”

  Mekhi cleared his throat and swallowed. His tongue felt so dry and brittle he thought it might break off and fall to the floor. He wondered how Chanel was doing in her interview. He hoped she was all right.

  “The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Goethe,” he said finally. “And Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”

  “Good,” Marion replied, writing something down. “Go on.”

  “I know he’s supposed to be this brave soldier prince, but I think Hamlet’s pathetic." Marion’s eyebrows went up. “Werther I could relate to more,” Mekhi went on. “He’s a poet. He lives in his head, but it’s like he’s...it’s like he’s in love with the world. He can’t stop himself from writing about it.”

  “Do you really believe that Goethe’s Werther is less pathetic than Shakespeare’s Hamlet?” Marion asked.

  “Yes,” Mekhi said, feeling more confident now. “I know Hamlet has a lot on his mind. His dad was murdered, the girl he loves is losing her mind, his friends betray him, his own mother and his stepfather want him dead.”

  Marion nodded, clicking her pen open and shut. “That’s right. And Werther’s only problem is that he’s in love with Lotte, who doesn’t really love him back and who’s already spoken for. He’s completely obsessed with her. He needs to get a life.”

  Mekhi sucked in his breath. Marion seemed to have hit the nail on the head. It was impossible not to see it now. He was Werther, and Chanel was Lotte. She wasn’t in love with him. She was already spoken for. After all, he’d seen her holding hands with that guy Kaliq.
And Mekhi? He needed to get a life.

  He put his head in his hands, his whole body trembling. He was afraid he was about to cry.

  “I have to say, I’m impressed with the confidence with which you discuss literature,” Marion observed, scribbling more notes.

  He didn’t look up. Chanel didn’t love him. It was all so clear now.

  Marion clicked her pen open and shut a few more times. “Mekhi?”

  Chanel’s interviewer pulled on his beard and narrowed his eyes at her. “Read any good books lately?” he asked.

  Chanel sat up straight, thinking hard. She wanted to impress him, but she had to name a book she was at least vaguely familiar with. “No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre?” she said hesitantly, remembering the book Mekhi had recommended that she hadn’t even finished.

  “That’s not a book, it’s a play,” the interviewer said. “Full of complainers in hell.”

  “I thought it was funny,” Chanel insisted, remembering that Mekhi had said it made him laugh. “'Hell is other people,' and all that,” she quipped. It was all she remembered from the book.

  “Yes, quite. Well, maybe you’re smarter than me,” the interviewer said, although it was clear he didn’t believe it. “Did you read it in French?”

  “Mais bien sûr,” said Chanel, lying her ass off.

  The interview frowned and wrote something down.

  Chanel pulled her skirt down over her knees. She had the feeling this wasn’t going well, but she wasn’t sure why. It felt like the interviewer hadn’t really given her a chance, like he’d had something against her before she even walked into the room. Maybe his wife had just left him and she was French or something. Or maybe his dog had just died.

  “What else do you do?” the interviewer asked vaguely. It didn’t even sound like he was interested.

  Chanel cocked her head. “I made a film,” she said. “It’s kind of experimental. I’d never made one before.”

  “Trying new things, I like that,” the interviewer said. He seemed to warm to her for a second. “So tell me what it’s about. Describe it to me.”

  Chanel sat on her hands to keep from biting her nails. How could she describe her film so that he’d get it? Even she didn’t exactly get it, and she was the one who’d made it. She took a deep breath. “Well, the camera kind of follows me around, staying really close up. First it follows me downtown in a cab. And then I go to this great shop on 14th Street and kind of walk around describing things. And then I try on a dress.”

  The interviewer frowned again, and Chanel knew she’d sounded like a total airhead. She looked down at her black flats, kicking her heels together like Dorothy trying to wish herself back to Kansas from Oz.

  “It’s pretty artsy,” she added feebly. “You kind of have to see it to know what I mean.”

  “I guess so,” the interviewer said, barely masking his disdain. “So, do you have any questions for me?”

  Chanel scrambled for something to say that would turn the interview around. Show them you’re interested, Ms. Glos always said. She stared at the floor, tiny beads of nervous sweat forming on her eyelids. What would her brother do in this situation? He was always so good at getting out of jams. Fuck 'em was his favorite phrase.

  Exactly, Chanel suddenly realized. She had done her best. If this guy wasn’t interested in her for whatever reason, then fuck him. She didn’t need Brown anyway. Sure Cairo went there, but she could do her own thing and her family would just have to deal. Like Kaliq had said before they went in for their interviews, so what if she didn’t get in? She could go someplace else.

  She looked up. “What’s the food like in the dining halls?” she asked, knowing perfectly well what a lame question it was.

  “Probably not on par with what you were eating in the South of France,” the interviewer replied with a sneer. “Anything else?”

  “No,” Chanel said, standing up to shake his hand. As far as she was concerned, the interview was over. “Thank you.” She flashed him her best smile one more time and then walked out of the room, her chin held high. She hadn’t had her usual luck this time, but she was still amazingly masterful at restoring her cool.

  “Okay, so tell me about something you read lately,” Brittany said. “Like a book or an article. Something that interested you.”

  Kaliq thought about this. He wasn’t a very big reader. In fact he barely skimmed the books he had to read for English. He certainly didn’t read for pleasure. But she’d mentioned an article. Surely there must be something.

  Then he thought of it. He and his friends had passed around an article from the Times about a marijuana pill. It was pure THC. No chemicals, no stems, no rolling papers. Of course the pill was for sick people, but Kaliq and his friends had other things in mind.

  “I read in the Times that they’re making this marijuana pill that’s pure THC,” Kaliq began. “It’s supposed to be for cancer and AIDS patients, to like, manage their pain. But it’s really controversial. I guess everyone’s worried about it making it to the streets. It’s pretty interesting.”

  “It sounds fascinating,” Brittany said. “What’s THC stand for, anyway?”

  “Tetrahydrocannabinol,” Kaliq said without skipping a beat.

  Brittany leaned forward eagerly, threatening to fall off the desk again. “The pill you’re talking about, it’s man-made. It originated in a lab, was created by intelligent scientists and is administered to sick people by highly trained doctors. And yet it may become the catalyst for a whole new world of drug dealing and crime.”

  Kaliq nodded.

  “You know, there’s a concentration here at Brown called science and technology studies that follows that sort of development,” said Brittany. “You should look into it.”

  “Okay,” Kaliq responded. Again, he had the feeling that Brittany wasn’t going to let him get away with not trying to get into Brown. She was just way, way into it.

  “So, do you have any questions for me?” she asked.

  What the hell, Kaliq decided. He might as well go for it. “So even if my grades aren’t that good, do you think I could still apply early?”

  Porsha would kill him for not even bothering with Yale, but Kaliq realized he didn’t care what Porsha thought anymore. It would really ease his mind if he could apply to just one school and get in and then decide whether or not to go. If he did go to Brown he could sail the boat he’d built with his dad down from Maine and keep it somewhere near school. How cool would that be? He took a deep breath and flexed his calf muscles. Wow, did he feel good.

  “Definitely apply early,” Brittany enthused. “It will really demonstrate your commitment. We love that.”

  “Cool,” said Kaliq. “I’ll do that.”

  He couldn’t wait to tell Brianna how awesome Brown was.

  “So, you write, too, don’t you?” Marion said gently.

  Mekhi pulled his hands away from his eyes and glanced dazedly around the office. Marion had a lot of books about men and women and relationships on her bookshelf. He could imagine her all curled up in an armchair in her office, sipping tea and reading Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus.

  Maybe he should ask her to borrow it.

  “What sorts of things do you write?” Marion coaxed.

  Mekhi shrugged dejectedly. “Poetry, mostly.”

  She nodded. “What sort of poetry?”

  Mekhi looked down at his scuffed suede shoes. Heat crept up his neck and into his cheeks. “Love poems,” he said. Oh God. He couldn’t believe he’d sent that poem to Chanel. She probably thought he was a stalking loser freak.

  “I see,” said Marion. She clicked her pen a few times, waiting for Mekhi to say more. But Mekhi remained silent as he gazed out the window at the fiery fall foliage decorating Brown’s distinctive looking campus. He’d imagined himself and Chanel strolling hand in hand along the college green, discussing books and plays and poetry. He’d imagined them doing their laundry together in the basement of their dorm, making out on top
of the washing machine as their clothes spun round and round. Now he couldn’t remember why he’d wanted to go to Brown in the first place. It all seemed so pointless.

  “Excuse me,” he said, suddenly standing up. “I have to go.”

  Marion unwound her legs. “Are you all right?” she asked, looking concerned.

  Mekhi rubbed his eyes and headed for the door. “I just need some fresh air,” he said. Opening the door, he held up his hand. “Thanks.”

  Outside, he smoked a cigarette and gazed at the Van Wickle Gates, the official entrance to the Brown campus. He’d read in the catalog that they were only used twice a year. They swung inward when a new group of freshmen began the year with convocation, and they swung outward to let the graduating class out after commencement. Mekhi had imagined himself and Chanel marching through the gates, arm in arm in their graduation robes. He’d imagined so many things he wouldn’t be surprised if Chanel herself was a figment of his imagination.

  Nope.

  “Hey, Mekhi, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Chanel called from the car. “My brother’s getting a keg.”

  Mekhi stubbed out his cigarette. Awesome, dude, he thought sarcastically. He couldn’t wait to drink beer and hang out with a bunch of guys at a college he wasn’t going to get into because he’d just had a nervous breakdown in his interview. He was tempted to tell Chanel and the others that he’d just grab a bus home.

  But then he turned around and saw how the sun melted on Chanel’s silky hair, how her golden fingers glistened on the steering wheel, how she smiled at him. It didn’t make him forget all his troubles, but it was enough to make him walk up to the car and get in.

  At least he’d have some new material for his depressing poetry.

  23

  Bree was glad she’d come to Yasmine’s screening at The Five and Dime, because there was only one other person in the audience besides CJ. That didn’t seem to bother Yasmine, though.