Porsha turned away, tears of disappointment clouding her vision as she headed into the ladies’ room for the third time. She was badly in need of a cigarette, and she wanted to smoke it somewhere warm and private.
“Get your fucking hands off my sister,” Mekhi growled, waving his burning Newport at Kaliq.
“Mekhi?” Bree said, sitting up. “Don’t. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Mekhi sneered at his little sister. “You don’t know anything.”
Kaliq gave Bree’s leg a reassuring squeeze and stood up. He reached for Mekhi’s shoulder and patted it gently. “It’s okay, man. We’re friends. You know that.”
Mekhi shook his head. Angry tears dripped off his face and onto the marble floor. “Get away from me.”
“What’s your problem?” Bree demanded, standing up. “Are you drunk?”
“Come on, Bree.” Mekhi grabbed her arm. “Let’s go home.”
She twisted out of his grasp. “Ow. Let go!” she cried.
“Hey, man,” Kaliq said. “Why don’t you go home? I’ll make sure Brianna gets home okay.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you will,” Mekhi spat. He lunged for Bree’s arm again.
“Yo, Mekhi,” a girl’s calm, sarcastic voice called from the bar. “Why don’t you just go write a poem about it or something? You need to chill the fuck out.”
Mekhi, Bree, and Kaliq all looked up. It was Yasmine, perched on a bar stool in her black dress. Her lips were painted dark red and her hazel eyes were laughing. Her head was shaved like an army dude’s and her cinammon skin was so smooth it gleamed. She looked pretty fabulous. At least to Mekhi.
The most amazing thing was her eyes. Why had he never noticed them before? They weren’t just hazel like Chanel’s had been just brown. They were talking to him. And they were saying things that he wanted to hear.
“Hey,” Yasmine said, speaking only to Mekhi.
“Hey,” he said back. “What are you doing here?”
Yasmine slid off her stool and walked over. She put her arm around Mekhi’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek. “Buying you a drink. Come on.”
33
After “Step in the Name of Love,” the band played “Happy People.” Chanel and Cairo were living it up in their corner of the dance floor. Chanel swung her arms gaily, trying to be carefree, the life of the party. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the hurt expression on Mekhi’s face.
Then Jaylen cut in. “May I?” he asked, slithering his pinky-ringed hand around Chanel’s waist and butting Cairo out of the way.
Chanel couldn’t have asked for a better reason to stop dancing. “Get lost.” She walked off the dance floor and grabbed her purse from her chair. Maybe she could catch Mekhi at the bar and reason with him over cigarettes.
But when she got to the bar, Chanel found that Mekhi was already being reasoned with…by Yasmine. Her arm was around him, and even though her head was still shaved and she was still wearing her Doc Martens, her face looked softer and sweeter than Chanel had ever seen it. That was because Yasmine was looking at Mekhi and Mekhi was looking back at her and they were…in love!
Chanel kept on walking, right into the ladies’ room. She still wanted a cigarette, and she didn’t want to ruin their moment.
Porsha was perched on a sink at the far end of the bathroom, chain-smoking. She heard someone come in, but she didn’t turn her head. She was too wrapped up in her own tragedy. There was a good chance she wasn’t getting into Yale, even after her father’s embarrassingly outrageous donation. Kaliq didn’t love her. She didn’t even have the same last name as the rest of her family anymore. And she was still a virgin. It was as if she really had become someone else without even trying. As if she’d been run over by a car and gotten amnesia and had gone on living without even realizing she’d been in an accident.
Porsha’s nose dripped on her dress and she swiped at it. She couldn’t even tell if she was crying anymore. She felt numb.
“Hey, Porsh, you okay?” Chanel called out, a little timidly. Porsha didn’t actually have fangs, but she could still bite your head off.
Porsha looked over her shoulder and nodded. Strands of thick hair were plastered to her wet cheeks, and her eyeliner was smudged.
“Here,” Chanel said, walking up and handing her a wad of paper towels. “I have some extra makeup and stuff in my purse if you need something.”
“Thanks,” Porsha said, taking the paper towels. She blew her nose, her shoulders shaking with the effort.
Chanel had never seen her look so spent. “Are you okay?” she asked again.
Porsha looked up and saw genuine concern in Chanel’s eyes. It was unbelievable, but it was true. Even after Porsha had been so incredibly mean to her, Chanel still cared.
“No,” she admitted. “I’m definitely not okay.” Her chest heaved as she let out a sob. “My life is a fucking mess.”
One of the beaded shoulder straps on Porsha’s dress fell down and Chanel reached out to put it back in place. “I saw you steal those pajama bottoms from Barneys.”
Porsha looked up. “You didn’t tell anyone though, did you?”
Chanel shook her head. “Promise.”
Porsha sighed and looked down at her beautiful shoes. “I don’t know why I did it,” she said, her lower lip trembling. “He didn’t even thank me for them.”
Chanel shrugged “Fuck ‘em,” she said. She dug around in her purse and pulled out a brush and a pack of cigarettes. She lit two cigarettes and handed one to Porsha. “It’s your birthday. Forget him.”
Porsha nodded and took the cigarette. Chanel was the only person to even acknowledge her birthday. She puffed tentatively on the cigarette as tears dripped down her face. And then she hiccupped, loudly.
Chanel tried hard not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. Porsha just looked so pathetic. She bit her lips to hold back the giggles.
Porsha glared at her. But when she opened her mouth to say something nasty, all that came out was another enormous hiccup. She sucked in her breath. “Fuck it,” she giggled. And once she started she couldn’t stop. Neither could Chanel. It felt so good to laugh! Mascara ran down their faces and their noses dripped on the floor, making them laugh even harder.
When they finally got control of themselves, Chanel stood behind Porsha and began brushing her hair. “Well, happy birthday,” she said, looking at her in the mirror, her cigarette propped between her teeth. “Tell me if it hurts.”
Porsha closed her eyes and let her shoulders drop. For once, she wasn’t thinking about her Yale interview, or losing her virginity to Kaliq, or her messed up family. She wasn’t the star of any movie. She was just breathing, enjoying the gentle tug and pull of the brush on her hair.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she told her old friend. “It feels good.”
34
“I don’t think Yasmine is going to want to leave with me,” Bree whispered to Kaliq, nodding to where Yasmine and Mekhi had their heads bent together at the bar.
“Who said you were leaving?” Kaliq asked.
Bree smoothed her dress down over her thighs. She and Kaliq had been kissing for a while, and it had ridden up. “Well, don’t you have to get back to the wedding reception? I mean, you are like, an usher and everything.”
Kaliq tipped back his glass and crunched an ice cube between his teeth. He didn’t care anymore who saw them together. Even Porsha. He wanted them to see. “Yeah, but I’m taking you with me.”
“No!” Bree gasped, half terrified and half thrilled to death. “I can’t!”
But of course she was dying to go. She might even get her picture in Vogue!
“Come on.” Kaliq stood up and held out his hand. “Let’s dance.”
Mekhi took a big gulp of scotch and set his glass down on the bar. “So I bet you think I’m a total loser, right?” he said, turning to gaze into Yasmine’s laughing hazel eyes. Again, he wondered how he could have overlooked them.
“Well, you are a loser,” Yasmi
ne said, crossing her legs like a lady. She grabbed a handful of nuts from a dish on the bar and shoved them into her mouth.
“But you still love me, right?” he asked, watching her intently.
Yasmine picked a ball of lint off her fishnets and flicked it onto the bar floor. She couldn’t believe she was actually flirting with Mekhi. She hadn’t even broken up with CJ yet! But it was kind of fun to be such a slut. She leaned forward and kissed Mekhi on his quivering lips.
“Right,” she said, her mouth still full of nuts.
“Me and Kaliq were supposed to have sex in here tonight,” Porsha said, flopping onto the bed in her hotel suite and kicking off her shoes. Her limbs were loose and floppy with exhaustion. It felt good to sprawl out.
Chanel decided not to rub it in by asking Porsha what had gone wrong. She pulled her dress off over her head and tossed it into an armchair in the corner. Wearing only her skimpy satin underwear, she walked into the bathroom and put on a fluffy white terrycloth robe. She came out carrying an extra one for Porsha.
Porsha took the robe and wriggled out of her dress. “Don’t look,” she warned. “I’m not wearing any underwear.”
Chanel laughed and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She’d forgotten about Porsha’s tendency to take things to extremes. “Don’t tell me. You got a Brazilian wax, too, right?”
Porsha smiled. Chanel knew her too well. “Yeah, I did,” she admitted. “What a waste.” She tossed the dress onto the floor. “And that fucking thing was giving me a rash.”
Chanel walked over to the TV and clicked it on. “I wonder if they get the Playboy channel here. We could watch pornos and order beer from room service,” she laughed. She carried the remote over to the bed and sat down.
“Give me that.” Porsha grabbed the remote out of Chanel’s hand. “It’s my birthday.” If she wasn’t going to have sex, she could at least watch American Movie Classics. They always played Audrey Hepburn and Dorothy Dandridge movies. “Let’s watch a movie and then go out to a club or something.”
“Fine,” Chanel said, piling up the bed pillows so she could lean against them. “But can we order a pizza or something? I’m starving.”
Porsha scooted back on the bed so she was sitting right next to Chanel. She clicked through the channels until she found AMC. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was only just getting started. She settled in to watch, leaning her head back against the pillows until it was resting only inches away from Chanel’s, strands of her thick hair mingling with Chanel’s silky ones.
The two girls watched Audrey Hepburn flit around her apartment and flirt with her new neighbor. They sang along as she sang “Moon River” out on her fire escape, and counted how many crazy hats she wore. Audrey Hepburn was poised and thin and always knew what to say. She had incredible clothes and was fabulously beautiful. She was everything Porsha wanted to be.
Porsha sighed heavily. “I'm really not anything like those old movie stars, am I?” she asked out loud.
Chanel smiled, keeping her eyes on the screen. “Sure you are,” she said.
And Porsha decided to believe that what she said was true.
Author's Note
With everyone changing partners right and left it’s kind of hard to know what will happen next!
Will Porsha and Chanel stay friends?
Will Porsha and Kaliq become “just friends”?
Will Porsha find true love? Will she lose her virginity?
Will Yasmine ditch her boyfriend to be with Mekhi?
Will Mekhi be happy? Will he stop writing poetry?
Will Kaliq and Bree stay together?
Will Chanel meet someone who can keep her attention for more than five minutes?
Find out in the 3rd book of the Upper East Side series, which is out now!
Did you love Upper East Side 2? Then you should read Upper East Side 3 by Ashley Valentine!
Christmastime in New York is truly magical, especially uptown. The air smells like falling snow and burning logs and Christmas cookies baking. From up in our penthouses, Central Park looks like a silvery wonderland, Park Avenue is a parade of Christmas lights, and the size of the tree in Rockefeller Center seems to promise that this is going to be the most amazing Christmas ever—although most of us will be drinking too much champagne to notice.
Porsha and Chanel are best friends again and up to their old tricks—partying hard and breaking hearts from Fifth Avenue to the Caribbean. Porsha's mother and Cyrus are having their honeymoon in Salt Key, and when school lets out for the holiday, Porsha, Chanel, Tahj, and company head down to blow off some steam after their midterm exams. In between Pina Coladas and topless sunbathing, the crew is up for some major surprises.
Everyone jets back to NYC for Chanel's New Year's party, during which Kaliq and Porsha may or may not finally go all the way, and Chanel may or may not be discovered to be the secret fling of R&B's hottest lead singer.
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