Upper East Side #3

by Ashley Valentine

  She shrugged. “Sure. But tell your dad I’m not going to pig out like I did last year. That’s another thing I’m doing over break. I’m going to lose five pounds.”

  Mekhi kept stroking her back. “Why?” he asked. Yasmine didn’t need to go on a diet. Her body was just the way he’d described it in one of his poems: like water.

  “Because my clothes will fit better if I do.” Yasmine wasn’t interested in being a fitness freak, like most of her classmates, but she didn't like it when she had to suck in her stomach to button her pants.

  “Well, I like how you are,” Mekhi said, nuzzling his nose into her ear.

  Yasmine turned her head toward him, and their lips met in a long, sweet kiss. As they kissed, she couldn’t help but think that sex with Mekhi might be a whole lot more meaningful than it had been with CJ. If only he were ready.

  “I love you,” he whispered, opening his eyes.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered, closing hers. Briefly she considered asking him again if he wanted to try having sex, but she didn’t want to ruin the moment. She’d just have to wait until he was ready, although with Mekhi that might mean waiting until they were married or something.

  Yawn. As if they didn’t act like they were already.

  4

  In the back seat of Flow’s limo, Porsha found herself wedged between that big-boobed Bree Hargrove and Tahj’s gangly friend, Miles. Across from them, Chanel was sitting on Flow’s lap—“to make room for everyone else,” she claimed—and Kaliq was huddled by the window, getting high. He had also rolled joints for Alexis, Imani, and Jaylen, who were even more annoying when they were baked than when they were drunk. Tahj was sitting cross-legged on the floor between the two backseats, smoking one of his herbal cigarettes and playing with the limo’s PlayStation.

  “What’s your real name, anyway?” Chanel asked Flow, even though she already knew from watching MTV that his name was Julian Prospere. It was actually a whole lot better name than Flow, but she wasn’t about to say that.

  He grinned the famous shy boy grin captured on the covers of Vibe, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Interview and shook his head. “Not telling.”

  “Well, you’re not as good looking in person,” she said, turning her head away from him with a wicked little smile. She was lying, of course. He was at least ten times better looking than in his photographs, if that was even possible. Chanel knew she was being ridiculously flirtatious, but she loved the way Flow’s hair curled around his temples and how long and delicate looking his fingers were. Why not flirt with him? It was only a one night thing. Tomorrow he would go back to LA or wherever he lived, and she would finally start studying for midterms. All she wanted was to have a little fun.

  All Chanel ever wanted was to have a little fun.

  Flow winced, pretending to be ashamed of his godlike appearance. “Sorry. I guess I’m not as tall, either.” He bent down and swung open the little Sub-Zero fridge beneath his seat. “Hey, we got beverages here. Anybody thirsty?”

  “Yes, please,” Porsha answered immediately. Getting good and drunk was the only way to tolerate any of this.

  “Um, I'll try some,” Bree ventured timidly. The limo hurched over a manhole, and her boobs bounced mercilessly. She glanced at Kaliq to see if he'd notice, but he was looking out the window with that spaced out look he got when he was extremely high.

  Miles helped Flow fill ten crystal champagne flutes. He handed one to Porsha. “Cheers,” he said, clinking his against hers.

  Porsha took the glass and, since she wasn’t sitting next to the window and had nothing else to look at, considered Miles’s face. He had round light brown eyes, sort of like Mookie’s, Tahj’s dog. His skin was the color of coffee and his hair was cut in a polished fade. Judging from the way the veins stuck out from his long neck, he probably worked out or played basketball or something. All in all, he looked sort of like a cartoon character with an athlete’s body. But since she had nothing better to do and he was clearly hot for her, Porsha thought it might be mildly entertaining to flirt with him. She put her hand on his leg. “Thanks,” she said, taking a sip of her champagne.

  Miles smiled as though he thought this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  Flow couldn’t stop drooling over Chanel. “You really are the most gorgeous girl I’ve seen in a while,” he murmured in her ear. “Maybe ever. I can’t believe you’re not a model or an actress or anything.”

  Chanel dipped her fingers in her champagne glass and then put them in her mouth. Considering how famous he was, she’d thought Flow would be all cocky and smooth talking, but he was surprisingly earnest. If he hadn’t been a gorgeous R&B singer, this might have been a total turn off, but he was a gorgeous R&B singer, so she decided to overlook it.

  “Nope,” she said. “I’m just me.”

  In fact, pictures of Chanel were constantly appearing in gossip sites and society columns and magazines. She just didn’t get paid for them—she didn’t need to.

  Flow kept on staring at her. Chanel giggled. “Stop it.”

  “Ooh, baby,” Jaylen said obnoxiously, sucking on his joint. “Somebody is getting some tonight!” He closed his eyes. It looked like he was about to pass out.

  “I’m starving,” Alexis said. She opened the ashtray in the limo door and then closed it again. “Don’t you have any food?”

  “I feel all...prickly,” Imani declared with her eyes bugging out of her head.

  Tahj glanced up from the floor to find Porsha sitting very close to Miles, her hand resting carelessly on his knee. Without finishing the game, he switched off the PlayStation and stood up, squeezing to fit between them on the seat.

  “Ow,” Porsha whined as his skinny butt rammed her hip.

  “Well, move over, then,” Tahj said. “Hey, where are we going, anyway?” he asked Flow.

  Flow ran his long fingers through Chanel’s silky endless hair and shrugged. “Downtown. Maybe stop at a club.”

  Bree clutched her champagne flute and squirmed in her seat. It was fine for all of them to go to a club. They looked older than they were, and probably all had fake IDs. Despite her chest, Bree still looked about ten years old. The last thing she wanted was to watch everyone glide through the doors of a cool club while the bouncer kindly asked her if it wasn’t way past her bedtime. She should have just gone on a walk with Kaliq. She always had a much better time when they were alone together than when they were with other people.

  “Kaliq?” she said in a small voice, leaning forward and taking his hand. “I should probably go home soon.” It was a little after twelve, and she was supposed to be home by one, anyway.

  Contrary to popular belief, Kaliq wasn’t completely dead to the world. He’d noticed Porsha lying all over that tall dude he’d never seen before, and he’d also noticed that Bree looked kind of uncomfortable. But when things got weird, Kaliq tended to zone out and wait for somebody else to make a move.

  “Okay,” he said, snapping out of it. “Let’s get out of here.” The weed he’d brought with him was extremely mellow, and he didn’t feel like going to a noisy club, anyway. After he dropped Bree off he could always call Jeremy and meet up with the boys at that bar on Rivington with the cozy back room where you could sit on the sofa and smoke joints and no one would bother you. “Hey,” he called, rapping on the glass between the backseat and the driver. “Can you let us out?”

  Porsha smiled. Could it be that she had rubbed Kaliq so completely the wrong way that he had to get out because he couldn’t face seeing her with her hands on another guy?

  “Aw, Kaliq. Don’t you guys want to come out with us?” Chanel asked.

  He shrugged. “I have to take her home.”

  Bree frowned. She didn’t particularly like being referred to as “her.”

  The limo driver stopped the car and opened the back door for them. Bree hopped out and Kaliq clambered out after her. “Bye!” she called brightly to everyone left inside.

  Across
the backseat Jaylen smirked at her, his eyes slitted. “Too bad,” he grunted.

  Bree wasn’t sure what he meant, but she was pretty sure it was something perverted.

  “See you!” Chanel called back, the only other person who actually acknowledged their leaving. “Good luck on midterms!”

  * * *

  Kaliq and Bree sat in silence during the taxi ride uptown. Kaliq was happy to watch the stores and restaurants whiz by, silently counting from one to twenty over and over in his stoned head. Bree sat with her legs crossed around each other, fretting about what had gone wrong. It was mostly her fault, she reasoned. She was the one who’d wanted to take a ride in the limo in the first place.

  The cab stopped in front of Bree’s building on 99th and West End Avenue and she reached for the door handle.

  “Hey,” Kaliq called, touching her coat sleeve. He couldn’t let her go without saying good night. Whether he was baked into oblivion or not, he had good breeding, and with breeding came manners. He kissed her on the cheek, his hand brushing her skin. “Good night,” he said with a sweet boyish smile.

  Bree smiled back, wanting desperately to forget the last hour and pretend that the night was ending as perfectly as it had begun. “Good night,” she said, suddenly reluctant to leave.

  “Sleep tight,” Kaliq added, his green eyes sparkling in the lamplight.

  Aw. He could be so incredibly adorable sometimes!

  Her heart brimming with true love, Bree slammed the cab door closed and ran into the lobby of her building. Instead of taking the elevator, she ran all the way up the eight flights of stairs and burst into the apartment.

  “Hey,” her older brother, Mekhi called to her. He was walking down the hall, carrying two mugs of Folgers instant coffee back to his bedroom.

  “Hey.” Bree peeled off her black faux fur coat and threw it at a chair in the corner. The coat hung on the back of the chair for a second and then slid to the floor. It wasn’t like anyone would notice. The sprawling old four-bedroom apartment hadn’t been cleaned properly in years.

  “How was it?” Mekhi asked.

  The star-shaped turquoise pendant Kaliq had given her hung at her throat. Bree touched it for reassurance. “It was okay.” She looked at the mugs in Mekhi’s hands. “Is Yas still here?”

  Mekhi nodded. He could sense that something was up. “Yeah. Want to come and hang out with us for a while?”

  Bree and Mekhi got along well, but he wasn’t always this nice to her. “Okay,” she agreed, following him down the hall to his room.

  Yasmine was sitting on the bed, still in her black tank top and tights. “Hey, Brianna,” she greeted, taking a mug of coffee from Mekhi. “You still want me to call you that, right?”

  Bree nodded. Only Kaliq and Yasmine called her Brianna. Kaliq did it because that was how she’d introduced herself to him when they’d met in the park, and Yasmine did it because Bree had asked her to. Yasmine had always been nice to her.

  Mekhi’s bed was all messed up, and the rest of Yasmine’s clothes were on the floor. It was pretty clear to Bree that they had probably been having sex. She stood in the doorway, embarrassed to go any further.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she said finally. She didn’t make it clear which one of them she was asking, because she didn’t really mind if she got two answers.

  “Go ahead,” Yasmine said, sipping her coffee with her hands wrapped around the steaming mug.

  “Can you tell me honestly what you think of Kaliq?”

  Mekhi frowned. He and Kaliq didn’t go to the same school, but by pure accident he’d wound up on a road trip up to Brown with him and Chanel and Kaliq’s stoner friends last month. As far as he could tell, Kaliq was just a rich, good looking pothead. There was nothing wrong with him, but he wasn’t particularly special either. It sort of killed Mekhi that his smart, beautiful sister was wasting her time with a guy who was bound to break her heart. But at the same time, Mekhi could see why Bree was so enamored with Kaliq. He was older, for one thing, and he was the type of cute, popular boy every girl would want to go out with. At least, until she realized how boring he was.

  At the back of Mekhi’s mind was a nagging worry that Kaliq was pressuring Bree to do things she wasn’t ready to do, but Bree had come home almost an hour early and didn’t look upset or anything, so he decided not to bring it up.

  Yasmine shrugged. Kaliq was the type of preppy idiot she had no time for at all, but she didn’t want to hurt Bree’s feelings by saying so. “I really don’t know him, but all the girls at Willard are always talking about him. I guess he probably makes a good boyfriend.”

  Mekhi nodded. “Yeah.” That was a decent way of putting it.

  Bree frowned. “Okay,” she said, feeling more confused than ever. “I think I’m going to go take a shower.” She closed Mekhi’s door and walked down the hall to her room.

  He makes a good boyfriend, she repeated to herself. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She didn’t want just a good boyfriend. She wanted that thing Gustav Klimt had captured so perfectly in The Kiss. That radiant, electric, hold-me-tight-so-I-don’t-fall-from-up-here-in-the-sky feeling of being in love.

  Well, don’t we all, sweetie?

  5

  By the time the limo pulled up at Gorgon, the hot new club on the Lower East Side, Alexis, Imani, and Jaylen had all fallen asleep in a twisted heap of hair, scarves, purses, legs and coats on the black leather seat of the limo. Porsha, Chanel, Flow, Miles, and Tahj stood on the sidewalk looking down at them.

  “Thank God,” Porsha said. If she had to listen to Alexis or Imani make one more mindless stoned comment about the way everyone looked all purple or whatever, she was going to scream.

  “They look like puppies,” Chanel observed.

  “Want me to wake them up?” Miles offered.

  “No!” the two girls squealed in unison.

  “Hey Miles,” Tahj said. “Isn’t this one of your dad’s clubs?”

  Miles blushed and looked down at his shiny black shoes. “Yeah.”

  Porsha thought it was actually kind of cute how embarrassed he was.

  “Cool.” Flow wound his bare fingers through Chanel’s gloved ones. “Ready to rock?”

  Chanel had that crazy, giddy feeling she got when she wasn’t sure what was going to happen next. It was her favorite feeling. She squeezed his hand back. “Definitely.”

  They started walking toward the door of the club. The bouncer was already pulling aside the red velvet rope to let them in.

  “Wait,” Porsha said, stopping as she remembered the gross comment Jaylen had made earlier that evening. Now was her chance for some sweet, cheap revenge. “Who’s got a pen?”

  Flow pulled the black Sharpie he kept handy for signing autographs out from under the inside breast pocket of his tuxedo jacket. Porsha leaned into the limo, careful not to brush Jaylen's nose with her coat sleeve as she wrote, TAKE THIS LOSER HOME, on his forehead. Then she slammed the limo door closed.

  “Thanks,” she said, handing the pen back to Flow.

  They all started to walk past the enormous bearded bouncer and beyond the velvet rope.

  “Um...” Tahj said, hesitating. He flicked his Zippo open and closed. “I think I’m actually going to head home. I’ve got a lot of studying to do tomorrow.”

  Porsha rolled her eyes. “So? So do I.”

  “Want to head back with me?” Tahj offered.

  Porsha glanced at Chanel, who was adamantly shaking her head. “Nah,” she answered.

  “You sure you want to take off?” Miles asked him. “It’s pretty cool inside. And I can get us a private room.”

  “Awesome,” Flow said appreciatively.

  Tahj just shook his head. He was the odd man out, and he knew it. “Yeah. I’ll see you guys.”

  The four of them watched him walk down the street with his hands shoved in his tuxedo pants pockets, shirttails flapping out behind him. Then Flow grabbed Chanel around the waist and picked her up, running wit
h her toward the club door.

  “Last one in is a rotten egg!” she squealed.

  Porsha was about to take off after them when Miles grabbed her hand. “Hey. Do you mind if I do something before we go inside?”

  Porsha stared up at him. No, she didn’t mind. After all, she was the one who’d put her hand on his leg inside the car.

  Miles bent down and kissed her oh-so-gently on the mouth. It was a very polite, gentlemanly kiss. “I've been wanting to do that all night,” he confessed with a shy smile.

  Porsha was trying to maintain Chanel's devil-may-car attitude. She could do this. She could have random fun with a random boy who wasn't anything like Kaliq. Besides, after tonight she'd never have to see Miles again if she didn't want.

  She smiled coyly. “I guess we're the rotten eggs,” she said as she lifted her chin to kiss Miles again. And this time the kiss was anything but polite.

  * * *

  In three thousand words or less, write about a person who has inspired you in a profound way. Please demonstrate the effect of his or her life on yours as specifically as possible.

  Porsha Sinclaire

  Yale University Application Essay

  December 18

  Audrey Hepburn was born in Brussels on May 4, 1929, the daughter of a Dutch baroness and an Anglo-Irish businessman. The name on her birth certificate was Audrey Kathleen van Heemstra Ruston.When she was only three weeks old, she got sick with whooping cough and her heart stopped, but her determined mother revived her by spanking her. And even though she was only a baby, Audrey must have learned a lesson that day because for the rest of her life, even when she was sick, she lived her life to the fullest. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by the pressures of my AP exams or my crazy schedule, I think of Audrey and feel inspired.