Upper East Side #2

by Ashley Valentine

  Chanel sat at the end of the front row near the window, watching smartly dressed passersby parade across 93rd Street. Her nails were already chewed ragged, and she’d worried the tiny run in her black tights into a major run that traveled from her ankle up to her thigh.

  Of course, she still looked good. She always did.

  But Chanel was nervous. This was her one extracurricular project. Winning the competition was the only way for her to show colleges that she was more than just a girl who got kicked out of boarding school because she couldn’t be bothered to get back in time for the first few weeks of classes, or a girl whose grades were less than spectacular. She wasn’t a total screwup. She was creative. She had substance. She had taste.

  And if they couldn’t see that, then fuck ‘em…Right?

  Yasmine was nervous, too, although she didn’t let on. She sat slumped in her chair, digging X’s into the top of her black three-ring binder, glaring over the tops of her Doc Martens at the auditorium’s wood floor. She didn’t care if Ruby and CJ didn’t get her film. Bree said she liked it. And even if the story hadn’t really worked out the way she’d wanted it to, and the chemistry between Marjorie and Mekhi had been less than sizzling, the cinematography was excellent. Even before she started making the film, she’d counted on winning the competition. It was surely going to secure her early acceptance to NYU.

  Porsha felt sick to her stomach for a variety of reasons. She’d been calling, e-mailing, and texting Kaliq ever since she’d gotten back into the city on Saturday afternoon, and he hadn’t replied. Last night she’d almost stormed over to his house to see what the deal was, but then her mother had dragged her to a tasting at the St. Claire Hotel to decide on food for her wedding. As if Porsha could give a fuck whether the quenelle was too fishy or the salad dressing was too oily.

  After they had settled on four courses, she’d had to listen to her mother and the party planner have an inane discussion about whether or not the flower arrangements should be high or low, long-stemmed or short-stemmed. High meant people would have trouble seeing over them. Low meant they wouldn’t look as impressive. They settled on in-between, as if that weren’t the most obvious call in the world.

  When she got home, her father had left a message on her voicemail asking how his Bear’s Yale interview had gone. Porsha didn’t call him back. The memory of her lousy interview clung to her like a bad smelling shadow, and she refused to discuss it with anyone. Talking about it would be like admitting defeat, and Porsha wasn’t ready for that yet.

  Instead, she sent her father a perky e-mail telling him all about how her interviewer was fascinated with wine and had been trying to add a wine management minor to the curriculum for years. She left out any mention of the actual interview, telling him only that a donation would secure her ‘already pretty sure’ place at Yale. With a few lines, she had her father dying to donate his entire estate. She was a master of persuasion.

  Incidentally, Yale University had just announced the addition of the Yale Sinclaire Vineyard, and a new minor in wine management had been added to the curriculum. Students would produce their own wines, which would be sold by local merchants with the university’s name on the label. Each semester a group of students would live and work at the university’s new vineyard in Southern France, mastering the art of making wine, eating French food, and speaking French like natives. The vineyard would be up and running this summer, thanks to a generous donation by a prospective parent.

  It looked like Daddy came through with the goods. But Porsha was still going to have to wait until April to see if she got in, just like everyone else.

  Today the film competition brought another chance for Porsha's luck to change. It had to change. It just had to.

  “Thank you for coming,” said Mr. Edwards, smiling his notoriously ravishing smile. He had starred in a TV show in his teens, had a platinum R&B album in his twenties, and made all sorts of sexy music videos. Now he was a movie star and did Pepsi ads. “Today I’m pleased to present the next generation of new talent in the film industry.”

  He went on to give a little talk about the history of Black women in film. Dorothy Dandridge. Hattie McDaniel. Lena Horne. Angela Bassett. Halle Berry. Taraji P. Henson.

  Then he introduced the first film: Chanel’s. The lights were dimmed and the film began to roll. Nervous butterflies flitted inside Chanel’s stomach as she watched her film for what seemed like the hundredth time. Even so, the film seemed to hold up. In fact, she began to feel kind of proud of it.

  “Um. Can you say weird?” Ashley Perry whispered to her posse of juniors.

  “Oh my God. How slutty does she look in that dress?” Rain Hoffstetter whispered to Lauren Salmon in the back row, where the seniors were sitting.

  “And you could totally see her naked boob in the dressing room mirror,” Lauren whispered back.

  When the picture faded to black and the lights came up, the audience applauded. It wasn’t crazy, wild, screaming applause, but it was solid. Somebody whistled and Chanel craned her neck to locate the whistler. It was Mr. Beckham, the film teacher. She wasn’t even one of his students.

  “I heard she didn’t even make the film herself,” Alexis Sullivan whispered to Imani Edwards. “She paid this famous director to do it for her.”

  Imani nodded. “I think it was Spike Lee.”

  Next, Mr. Edwards introduced two more films. First, there was Carmen Fortier’s conversation with her ninety-three-year-old grandmother, which didn’t seem to make much sense. Next was Nicki Button’s tour of her country house in Rumson, New Jersey, which was boring as hell, especially when she recited the names of all the stuffed animals she had collected over the years. Fluffernutter. Larry. Bow Wow. Horsie. Ralph. Pigsy fucking Wigsy.

  Like, who the hell cared?

  The Willard girls clapped politely, and then Mr. Edwards introduced Yasmine’s film. The minute Marjorie’s frizzy red-headed form appeared on the big screen, Yasmine began giggling nervously. She rarely laughed or even smiled in public, but Marjorie was just so ridiculous she couldn’t help it. Her whole body was shaking, and she had to look away.

  Next to her, Porsha Sinclaire crossed her legs in that bitchy way of hers and shot Yasmine a nasty glance. Then the camera moved lovingly over Mekhi and Yasmine stopped laughing. God, he was beautiful.

  The room was quiet for a moment after the film ended. Then Bree began to clap from where she sat with the rest of the ninth graders. Mr. Beckham whistled loudly, and the room erupted in applause.

  “Way to go, Marjorie!” a few sophomores shouted.

  “That condom thing was really gross,” Alexis whispered to Imani in the back of the room.

  “What the hell was that?” said Lauren.

  “That girl is seriously deranged,” replied Rain.

  Finally it was Porsha’s turn.

  Porsha clutched her iPhone to her chest as Audrey Hepburn ate her croissants over and over. In the back of the room her friends danced in their seats to the music and clapped loudly when the film was over.

  “That was cool,” Imani told Alexis. “Wasn’t it?”

  “Definitely,” Alexis agreed.

  “That was okay,” Ashley Perry whispered to her friends. “I mean she probably didn’t have that much time to work on it now that she’s so busy filling out applications to like, every college on the East Coast.”

  “I heard that even if she gets into Yale, she has to defer her admission for a year so she can get like, some intense therapy,” another junior girl said.

  “You mean because of the thing with her stepbrother? I heard they’ve been sleeping together ever since he moved in,” Ashley said.

  “Gross!” the other girls exclaimed.

  “I hear she is a total klepto. Like in kindergarten she stole other kids’ Barbie erasers and pencils and shit. And you couldn’t invite her over for sleepovers cause she’d steal your clothes. I also heard she stole a watch from Tiffany,” another junior girl chimed in. “I mean, it’s
not like she doesn’t have, any money. If she had any real friends, they’d get her some help.”

  “I don’t think stealing is Porsha's biggest problem right now. I mean, have you seen the guy who’s about to become her new stepdad?” Ashley snorted.

  Finally Arthur Edwards stood up with a white envelope in his hand. “You know, there are no really winners or losers,” he began.

  Porsha swallowed nervously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just open the frigging envelope.

  “And the winner is…”

  Heavy pause.

  “Chanel Crenshaw!”

  Complete silence.

  Then Yasmine stood up and wolf-whistled like her sister had taught her. She was disappointed, but Chanel’s film was good, and fuck it—she was proud to have been a part of it.

  When she saw Yasmine, Bree stood up, too, clapping loudly. Then Mr. Beckham stood and shouted, “Bravo,” and the rest of the school joined in.

  Chanel walked up to the podium in a daze of happiness and accepted the award—two tickets to Cannes and three nights at a five-star hotel during the film festival in the spring. She hesitated, pushing her shimmering black hair behind her ears and leaning into the microphone.

  “I’d like two other girls to come up here,” she said. “Yasmine Richards and Brianna Hargrove. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

  Yasmine stuck her tongue out at Bree from across the auditorium and then went up to the podium to join Chanel. After all, she had done all the camera work. She deserved some fucking credit for making this whole thing possible.

  Chanel shook Yasmine’s hand and handed her a plane ticket. “Thanks,” she whispered. “I want you to have this.”

  Bree crawled excitedly over her classmates’ knees and joined Chanel and Yasmine at the podium. Chanel kissed her on the cheek and pressed the other plane ticket into her hand. “You’re awesome,” Chanel said. Bree blushed; she’d never stood up in front of an audience before.

  This isn’t happening, Porsha thought. She sat stiffly in her chair and closed her eyes to drown out the applause. She was sleeping. It was only three in the morning and Monday hadn’t even started yet. There were hours to go until she would step proudly up to the podium wearing her lucky lilac-colored cardigan and accept the prize from Mr. Edwards.

  Not.

  Porsha opened her eyes. Chanel was still beaming annoyingly at the audience. And Porsha was still starring in the most depressing movie ever made. The movie that was her life.

  26

  “I won!” Chanel cried.

  Mekhi kicked at a broken Snapple bottle on West End Avenue and clutched his cell phone to his ear. “Won what?” he asked, trying not to sound interested.

  “The senior film festival,” Chanel burbled excitedly. “They liked it! I can’t believe it. Yasmine even said I should think about applying to art schools. I could be a filmmaker!”

  “Good,” Mekhi said. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate response. Every time he heard Chanel’s voice or even thought about her, he felt like he was being tortured.

  “Anyway, I just wanted you to know, since you’ve seen the film and everything.”

  No response.

  “Mekhi?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just making sure you were still there. Anyway,” she rattled on, “I have to do all this wedding stuff this weekend, so I may not be able to get together. But you’re still coming to the wedding with me, right?”

  Mekhi shook his head. Tell her no, his mind ordered him.

  “You promised,” Chanel reminded him.

  “Sure.” His heart won out every time.

  “Cool,” said Chanel. “Okay, I’ll call you later. Bye.”

  Mekhi sat down on the bottom step of someone’s stoop and shakily lit a cigarette. Was he overreacting? Could it be that he had it all wrong? Maybe Chanel did care, at least a little bit.

  It was something to hope for. And something to torture himself over.

  27

  “So Brown was good?” Bree asked Kaliq. They were sitting beside the boat pond in Central Park, watching little boys sail their toy boats past lazy ducks and floating leaves. Kaliq was holding her hand and it felt so nice Bree didn’t care whether they talked or not.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “I mean, I still have to do well this term and write my essay and all that shit. But I really hadn’t been thinking about school next year at all, you know? And now I’m kind of hype.” He held Bree’s hand up in front of his face and examined her tiny fingers.

  Bree giggled. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know. It’s good to see you, though.” Kaliq smiled at her. “I was thinking about you all weekend and now here you are.”

  “Me too.” Bree smiled shyly. Again, she wondered if Kaliq was going to kiss her.

  “I felt kind of bad before when we were in the park,” Kaliq continued. “You know, when my friends showed up?”

  Bree nodded. Yes?

  “There was something I wanted to do,” he said. “And I should have just gone ahead and done it.”

  Yes, yes!

  Kaliq pulled her toward him. They both kept their eyes open, smiling as they kissed. Bree had only kissed two boys during a kissing game at a party once—and not to mention that disgusting incident with Jaylen Harrison—but kissing Kaliq was the best moment of her entire life. She felt like she was going to explode with happiness.

  Kaliq was surprised at how good he felt. He definitely felt better than when he kissed Porsha. Brianna just tasted better, like a sugar donut or a vanilla milkshake.

  He pulled back, still gazing at her flushed and happy face. Brianna didn’t know about Porsha, and Porsha didn’t know about Brianna. He’d been ignoring his girlfriend's calls and basically pretending she didn’t exist, but how long could he keep that up? Sooner or later he was going to have to talk. He just wasn’t sure what he was going to say.

  28

  After some light shopping in the Prada store on the ground floor, Eleanor Sinclaire and her bridesmaids rode the elevator up to the Frederic Fekkai spa on 57th Street. Porsha, her mother, Alexis, Imani, Chanel, and Porsha’s aunt Zo were all there for their milk-and-honey foot and hand treatments, their sea mud facials, and, of course, to chat about the wedding. Afterward, they were having lunch at Eleanor Sinclaire’s favorite restaurant. Porsha’s aunt Fran was meeting them there, forgoing the pedicure because she hated people to touch her feet.

  The spa was like a busy restaurant, except it smelled like shampoo and hair gel instead of food. It was big and bright, and employees rushed to and fro, servicing women in the beige hospital-type gowns that they wore to protect their clothes.

  “Ciao, mes cheries!” cried Pierre, the skinny Japanese boy who worked in reception. “I’ve got three of you in pedicures while the other three are having your facials. Follow me, follow me!”

  Porsha didn’t quite know how it happened, but she soon found herself seated between Chanel and her mother with her hands and feet soaking in bowls full of warm milk and honey, while Alexis, Imani, and her aunt were having their facials in another section of the spa.

  “Doesn’t this feel nice?” Porsha’s mother cooed, sinking back in her chair.

  “My milk smells off.” Porsha wished she’d told her mom she’d meet everyone at the restaurant, as Aunt Fran had done.

  “I haven’t had a pedicure since the summer,” said Chanel. “My feet are so nasty I wouldn’t be surprised if they turned my milk sour.”

  I wouldn’t be surprised either, Porsha thought bitterly.

  “How do you want your nails?” her mother’s manicurist asked as she massaged her fingers.

  “I like them rounded, but not pointy,” her mother advised.

  “I like mine square,” Chanel told hers.

  “Me too,” Porsha said, although she hated to say she liked anything Chanel did.

  Porsha’s manicurist slapped her wrist playfully. “You’re so tense. Relax,” she said. “Are you the bride?”

>   Porsha looked at her blankly.

  “No, that’s me,” her mother answered cheerfully. “It’s my second time,” she whispered, winking annoyingly at the manicurist.

  Porsha felt her muscles tense up even more. How in hell was she supposed to relax?

  “I saw these wonderful cashmere pajama bottoms in Barneys’ men’s department,” her mother continued to babble. “I was thinking of getting a pair for Cyrus as a wedding gift.” She turned to Porsha. “Do you think he would wear them?”

  Chanel glanced nervously at Porsha, wondering if she should say something. Now was her chance to bust Porsha and get her back for being such a bitch. She could say something like, “Hey, Porsha, didn’t I see you buying a pair of pajama bottoms just like that at Barneys last week?” But Porsha’s face was turning more and more tense, and Chanel didn’t have the heart to say anything. Or rather, she had too much heart. Porsha was already screwed up enough to have taken the pajama bottoms in the first place—Chanel didn’t need to screw her up even more.

  “I don’t know, Mom,” Porsha said miserably. Her neck felt itchy. Maybe she was having an allergic reaction and would have to be rushed to the hospital.

  The manicurists finished massaging their hands and sat down on low stools to rub their feet and calves with lavender-scented oil. “You never told me how your Yale interview went,” Porsha’s mother said, her eyes blissfully closed.

  Porsha kicked a puddle of milk onto the floor. “Careful,” her manicurist advised.

  “Sorry,” snapped Porsha. “It went great, Mom, really great.”

  Beside her, Chanel let out a sigh. “I just had one at Brown this weekend,” she said. “It was terrible. I think the interviewer was having a bad day or something. He was such a jerk.”