I believe that if you apply yourself and work hard toward a goal, you will be rewarded. Audrey was rewarded by being discovered by...
6
It was Monday, the first day of midterm week, and the girls in the Emma Willard senior AP French class were sitting at their desks in a third floor classroom, wearing their uniform skirts, cashmere turtleneck sweaters, black tights, and hunched over their exam booklets, madly scribbling away. Porsha sat in the front row, near the proctor, who happened to be her lame film teacher, Mr. Beckham, who she also happened to despise because he’d given her a C on her last film paper. The paper had been on Woody Allen movies and how they don’t speak to the greater American audience because they are only about New York and the neurotic people who live there. As it turned out, even though Mr. Beckham was from the Midwest, he was a Woody Allen fanatic. He’d called Porsha’s paper “condescending.” What a prick.
The beginning of the exam was a series of questions that had to be answered in one concise, descriptive paragraph. The first question was Qu’est-ce que vous voulez faire pendant votre temps libres? “What do you like to do in your free time?”
That was beyond easy. Porsha liked to shop for exquisitely designed expensive shoes, eat steak frites, drink Ketel One and tonic with Chanel, and smoke a lot. In the summers she liked to play tennis. She used to like kissing Kaliq on her bed while Carmen Jones was on the DVD player in the background, but now she didn’t do that anymore. She was too busy doing all those other things.
The next question was Decrivez votre famille. “Describe your family.”
Porsha let out an exasperated sigh. She was practically fluent in French, so she knew the words for “vain homosexual,” “stupid flake,” and “overweight, tacky loser,” which was how she would truthfully describe her father, her mother, and her stepfather. But Madame Rogers, her French teacher, had a major pole up her ass and no sense of humor at all, so it was unlikely she’d be impressed by Porsha’s description. Instead, Porsha generously described her father as “a handsome fellow whose favorite hobby is the same as mine: buying shoes”; her mother as “a good-natured woman who would forget her own name unless someone reminded her”; and her stepfather as “a jolly man with a loud laugh and unusual taste in clothes.” Her little brother, Brice, was easy: “He might grow up to be cute, but his best friends are his PlayStation and his eighties record collection.” That left Tahj. Porsha paused for a moment. She liked Tahj, even though he’d been acting kind of quiet and sullen lately. On the stepbrother scale, he could have been so much worse. She smiled to herself and wrote, My new stepbrother, Tahj, will probably save the world. There. That was just about the nicest thing she’d ever said about anyone.
The next question was Imaginez qu’un djinn apparaît sur votre épaule pour vous dire qu’il vous accordera un seul souhait. Quel serait votre souhait??
Porsha tapped her number two pencil against the wooden desk. What would she wish for? She wished she would get into Yale, obviously. And she wished her mother and Cyrus would stay on their honeymoon forever so she wouldn’t have to live with them or see them kissing and fondling each other in public all the time. She wished Kaliq would move to Antarctica so she wouldn’t ever have to bump into him or his little girlfriend again. She also really wanted a pair of tan leather boots with skinny four-inch heels, she just hadn’t found the right pair yet. And a sheepskin jacket. And a fox fur hat with earflaps.
Porsha didn’t really mind that her father was gay, but she wished he’d find a boyfriend to live with in New York instead of France so he could take her shopping more often. And she wished Chanel was in AP French so they could sit next to each other during their exam and pass notes about all the crazy stories in the papers today about Chanel and Flow. She also kind of wished she and Kaliq had gone ahead and had sex when they were together so she wouldn’t still be a virgin. And she kind of wished she hadn’t stayed up so late on Saturday night with Miles and Flow and Chanel, because she was still a little hungover from it. Plus Miles had called her twice yesterday and left messages on her voicemail, even though she had specifically given him a fake number so she would never have to hear from him again. Not that she was even considering calling him back. Saturday night had been fun, but the last fucking thing she needed right now was a new boyfriend.
Mr. Beckham cleared his throat noisily, and Porsha lifted her eyes from her exam paper and stared him. He had yellow hair. Not blond yellow, but yellow like a person’s snot when they’re seriously sick. Their eyes met, and then Mr. Beckham did a weird thing: He blushed.
Excusez-moi?
Porsha turned away, horrified. Her foot jiggled nervously as she looked at the question. She wished very much that her skeevy film studies teacher who she thought hated her hadn’t just looked like he might actually have a crush on her. She wished she were on the beach right now instead of freezing her ass off in an underheated classroom. She wished she’d eaten breakfast, because she was starving. She wished a lot of things, but one answer would have to do.
She wrote down the thing about getting into Yale, even though it seemed totally redundant for a senior in high school to write about wanting to get into college, but she’d rather be boring than reveal any juicy personal details to Madame Rogers, anyway. Then she drew a little high-heeled boot in the margin of her blue exam book and looked up at Mr. Beckham again. He was still staring at her, his cheeks a gross shade of purpley red. What the hell was he doing? Plotting her murder, or imagining what she would look like in her underwear?
Porsha looked away, disgusted and glanced at her platinum Cartier watch. Another fucking hour to go. Next question.
* * *
Two floors below Porsha, in the auditorium, Chanel was toiling over her American history exam.
Not. Chanel wasn’t exactly the toiling type. She had already counted the number of split ends in the end of her ponytail—nine—and she’d answered the question about the English involvement in World War II with a very short essay about how during wartime there were shortages of everything and English women had to give up wearing stockings because there was no nylon available.
Chanel sighed. In those days a girl could probably spend a night out with a guy and not have her picture plastered all over the gossip pages the next day. Photos of Chanel and Flow at Gorgon had appeared in the Post, Entertainment Weekly, People, and countless gossip sites, all naming them “the new ‘it’ couple.” It was so ridiculous. She’d kissed Flow goodbye in the wee hours outside the Tribeca Star Hotel bar on Sunday morning, and he’d gone off to catch a private plane down to Baja, where he was reshooting some scenes for the video for 45’s new song, “Life of Krime,” before he went away for Christmas. He’d been incredibly sweet and they’d had a great time that night, but they definitely were not a couple. A couple meant you saw each other every day. It meant you were in love. And though she and Flow might have been a little in lust, they were definitely not in love, despite the fact that he had already sent her flowers. Three dozen very-hard-to-find black tulips, to be exact. Chanel was used to getting gifts from guys, so the flowers didn’t faze her, as long as Flow didn’t start sending her things every day. Sometimes a guy could go a little overboard.
Take Mekhi Hargrove for example. He’d followed Chanel around like a puppy dog when she’d returned from boarding school in the fall, and he’d even written her poems that were so lovesick and serious, they were kind of scary. Chanel really liked Mekhi, but he was a little too intense. Lucky for her, he’d hooked up with Yasmine, who was equally intense, and they made a great couple. But Chanel wasn’t interested in being matched up with anyone. She treasured her independence, her ability to follow her whimsy and do what she pleased. She was a spur-of-the-moment kind of girl—couplehood would only cramp her style.
Chanel stared at the next question. When did the American armed forces enter World War II, and why?
A more pertinent question was When was she ever going to use this knowledge?? The answer was pretty obvi
ous: never! Who cared about what had happened in the past when the future lay ahead of her with fabulous surprises and untold craziness hiding behind every curve and bend?
Someone tapped her on the shoulder and Chanel looked up. It was Mr. Hanson, her Latin teacher and the proctor for the history exam. He was tall and thin and had a mustache that was always so exactly the same length, the girls at Willard were all convinced it must be a falsie.
“What?” Chanel said, startled. She knew she’d been spacing out, but she couldn’t get in trouble for that during a written exam, could she? “Did I do something wrong?”
Then she noticed that Mr. Hanson was smiling under his mustache. He shoved a copy of the Post into her hands. It was turned to Page Six, the celebrity gossip page, where there was a huge picture of Chanel and Flow getting into a cab after leaving Gorgon on Saturday night.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I noticed you were finished with your exam, and I was just wondering if it would be possible for you to ask Flow to sign this,” he whispered. “I’m such a huge fan. And it would be great if you would sign it, too.”
Chanel blinked. First of all, she’d had no idea Mr. Hanson was cool enough to even know who Flow was. Second of all, she had no intention of asking Flow for anything. And third of all—Hello? She was nowhere near finished with her exam!
“Flow's in Baja,” she whispered back. “Is it okay if I just sign it?” She glanced around the room self-consciously. Most of the other girls had stopped writing and were either staring at her and Mr. Hanson or chatting amongst themselves.
“I heard Flow and Chanel are engaged,” Nicki Button told her friend Alicia Wilson. “They're getting married on New Year's Eve, in Vegas. At the Bellagio.”
“The Post said they met at the Black and White on Saturday,” Imani told Alexis. “But that's so not true.”
“The met in rehab last year, right?” asked Alexis. “Flow's been in rehab, like, twelve times. But so has she.”
“I know for a fact that Flow is gay. The only reason he's hanging with Chanel is so people will think he's straight,” Nicki piped up.
“I noticed at the Black and White that his tuxedo pants looked a little tight in the ass, so maybe you're right,” Imani whispered.
Chanel signed her name and handed the paper back to Mr. Hanson, hoping he wouldn't give her a bad grade in Latin now that she hadn't gotten him Flow's autograph.
“Thanks,” he whispered, examining her signature. He smiled excitedly. “I’m sure this is going to be worth a fortune one day!”
“No problem,” Chanel said, humoring him. The buzz in the room was getting louder and louder.
“All right, girls. Back to work,” Mr. Hanson called sternly as he went back to his desk at the front of the room.
Chanel looked down at her exam paper again. When did the American armed forces enter World War II, and why?
But before she could even begin to answer the question, she was swarmed by a dozen of her classmates, all clutching copies of the Post for her to sign. Mr. Hanson couldn’t very well tell them to stop when he was the one who’d started it in the first place.
“All right,” he said, ignoring Chanel’s pleading look. “I’ll give everyone five extra minutes on your exam. Five minutes, and then I want you back in your seats.”
“Me first!” cried Rain Hoffstetter, shoving her copy of the Post at Chanel.
“No, me!” Lauren Salmon shouted, pushing Rain out of the way.
Chanel giggled to herself in amazement. When she’d returned from boarding school two months ago, she’d been considered an outcast. And now everyone wanted her autograph?
She hesitated, pen poised above the photograph in Lauren’s copy of the paper. Then she wrote in her trademark loopy scrawl, You know you love me, Chanel.
7
The senior English exam at Riverside Prep was notoriously long and difficult, but Mekhi wasn’t worried. He had read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein twice and had most of the Keats poems in his anthology memorized. Besides, he could write an A-worthy English essay in his sleep.
After deconstructing “Ode to a Nightingale” as thoroughly as he could, he flipped to the back of his blue exam booklet and started writing a new poem that hopefully would turn into something he could send along with his college applications. Mekhi generally never wrote anything but angst-ridden love poems. This one was called, “For Yasmine.”
Paper cuts
slicing lemons
saltwater in my eyes
He was experimenting with a new form of free verse, and he wasn’t quite sure whether it made any sense.
Your face
a nut
you soothe my cuts
and oil my engine
Oil my engine? No, that sounded too sexual, and he didn’t want to give Yasmine any ideas in case he actually showed her the poem. What he meant was, she inspired him. Mekhi stared at the words and tried to think of a better way to put it. Then he tore the piece of paper out of the book and crumpled it up into a ball. Why couldn’t he ever write anything good anymore?
Mekhi felt somebody watching him and glanced to his left where Jaylen Harrison, one of the biggest dicks in his class, was sitting. In seventh grade, Jaylen had been one of the shortest boys in school. He wore horn-rimmed glasses and brown corduroy suits and looked like he had to go to the bathroom all the time. He and Mekhi had seventh grade English together, and the teacher had asked them to write a poem in class about a body part. Jaylen was terrible at creative writing, and he’d passed Mekhi a note begging Mekhi to write a poem for him. Writing came easy to Mekhi, so he’d written the first thing that came to mind, a poem about his hands and all they did for him in the course of a day. He’d given the poem to Jaylen to turn in, and then dashed off another poem about his mouth that wasn’t half as good. Jaylen had gotten an A+ on the hands poem and a note from the teacher that said, See what you can do when you put your mind to it?, while Mekhi had gotten a B on his mouth poem and a note from the teacher that said, I know you can do better.
At first, Mekhi didn’t mind. At least he’d helped out a kid who seemed like he really needed it. But within a year Jaylen grew a foot and a half taller, started shaving and wearing his signature monogrammed pinky ring and scarf, and turned into a serious asshole, especially when it came to girls. He’d even tried to molest Mekhi’s little sister, Bree, in a bathroom stall at a party last month. Mekhi had made it very clear that he hated Jaylen’s guts, but Jaylen didn’t seem to care. Every now and then he would still ask Mekhi for help in English, and Mekhi would have to tell him to fuck off, again.
Right now Jaylen was staring at Mekhi’s blue book, trying to read his essay on “Ode to a Nightingale.” Mekhi turned to a fresh page and wrote, CAN YOU READ THIS, ASSHOLE? in giant black capital letters. Jaylen squinted at Mekhi’s blue book and then looked up and gave Mekhi the finger.
No, fuck YOU! Mekhi wrote, and underlined it twice.
Before going on to the next question, Mekhi reread some lines from “Ode to a Nightingale” on his exam sheet. Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death.
There was a perfect beginning to a poem for Yasmine. She was his darkling. And it was true, Mekhi was half in love with death, the way he chain-smoked, and rarely ate, and drank way, way too much coffee. Yasmine kept him sane. She kept him alive.
Mekhi picked up his pen again and tried to think of a more brief, poetic way to write the same thing Keats had written, only different. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t think of another way of saying the same thing that was even half as good. Instead he read the next question on the exam.
In class we have discussed the various symbolic meanings of Mary Shelley’s man-made, manlike creation, Frankenstein. But what does Frankenstein mean to you?
Mekhi stared at the glowing red Exit sign over the gym door, thinking. He’d always thought Frankenstein was scary, but also very beautiful in a way. Frankenstein didn’t mean to harm anyon
e, but he couldn’t help it—he was a monster. In a way, he was like love itself: horrible and wonderful, terrifying and liberating, thrilling and sad, all at the same time.
Trembling with creative energy, Mekhi flipped to a fresh page in the back of his blue book and wrote For Yasmine again at the top of the page. Then he wrote the first line: You are my Frankenstein.
Oh, dear. Do we even want to know what the second line was?
* * *
Yasmine sat at the back of the Emma Willard School auditorium taking the same history exam Chanel was taking. She’d finished the exam forty-five minutes early, and now, while her mindless classmates were all swarming around Chanel like little worker bees around their queen because she happened to have been photographed with that vapid, tone-deaf poster boy of a lead singer over the weekend, Yasmine was mapping out a route for a film tour of the city that she hoped to hand in to NYU as part of her application. Screw Page Six. She was going to document the real things that went on in the city, the truly interesting stuff that happened right under people’s noses.
First, she wanted to get up before dawn and film the fishermen down in the harbor delivering their fish to the Fulton Fish Market. The smell of fish made her gag, but it was one of those perfect things. She could trace one fish’s journey from the boat to the market, where it would be sold for, like, thirty-two cents a pound, to some restaurant uptown, where it would be served encrusted in pistachio nuts with a side of red potatoes and wild mushroom butter for twenty-nine dollars a plate. Some anorexic twice-divorced Park Avenue woman would order it, eat only a few tiny bites, and then the rest of it would get thrown away.
That was exactly the kind of irony Yasmine lived for: the bittersweet kind. She was a pessimist and Mekhi was a romantic, which was why, no matter how much she loved him, she couldn’t see why Mekhi had gotten so worked up about them having sex. The way she saw it, the longer he waited and the more he blew sex out of proportion, writing poems about it and worrying himself sleepless, the more he was destined for disappointment. But she couldn’t think of a gentle way to make him see that, other than to just tie him down and rip his clothes off. Which might not be such a bad idea. Yasmine smiled to herself and turned her thoughts back to her film essay.
Upper East Side #3 Page 4
