Upper East Side #3

by Ashley Valentine

  Meaning “piglike,” for those who got low scores on their SAT verbal.

  Eleanor Sinclaire Campbell squealed when she saw them all standing at the bar. “Hello, kidlets!” she cried, rushing over and squeezing Brice tight. She let go of him and threw herself at Porsha. “I’ve missed you so much. And I’ve got so much to tell you!”

  Chanel smiled politely. “Hello, Mrs. Campbell.” Porsha’s mother was kind of a ditz, but she was a lot less stuck up than her own mother.

  Cyrus shook Tahj’s hand. “Glad to see you, son. My lawyer hasn’t called me, so I guess you and Porsha managed not to burn the building down while we were gone.”

  Tahj grinned. “Oh, we did. We’re building you a new one. You’ll see when you get back.”

  Porsha decided to have a little fun, too. Or maybe she was just drunk. “And I got pregnant.” She put her arm around Miles. “This is Miles. He’s the father.”

  The grin disappeared from Tahj’s face.

  “Since when did you become such a comedian?” Eleanor asked, cocking her head in wonder at her daughter’s lewd sense of humor.

  Porsha removed her arm from Miles’s shoulders and flashed her mother a wry smile. “After I dropped out of school?”

  Chanel giggled. “You’re such a liar.”

  Cyrus grabbed Porsha with a meaty paw and pulled her into a hug. “Someone’s in a good mood!”

  Not anymore.

  Letting go of Porsha, Cyrus signaled to the bartender. “Champagne for everyone!”

  Porsha winced. Talk about tacky.

  Eleanor patted her stomach. “Not me, darling.”

  Since when did she turn down champagne?

  “The more for us.” Cyrus winked at Porsha and passed out glasses to Tahj, Porsha, Chanel, Miles and Brice. He handed Eleanor a glass of seltzer and then held his champagne out in front of him. “To our big, happy family,” he boomed, grinning like an idiot.

  Porsha had had enough family time already. “Can we sit down and eat?” she whined. “I’m starving.” She hadn’t made herself throw up since her mother and Cyrus had been away, but she had a feeling that anything and everything she ate today wasn’t going to stay down for very long.

  They trooped into the open-air dining room and sat down at one of the white leather banquettes. A ceiling fan circled lazily overhead, and a light breeze ruffled the leaves of the surrounding palms. Everyone except Tahj ordered a hamburger. It was a French restaurant, and there wasn’t a single vegan dish on the menu.

  “I’ll just have a salad and fries,” he told the waiter, lighting one of his special herbal cigarettes.

  “We’ve been having such a wonderful time,” gushed Eleanor, buttering a roll and wolfing it down like she’d been stranded on an island for weeks with no food. She’d gained so much weight since she’d been away, Porsha wondered if she ought to say something. “But I’m so glad you kids came.”

  Cyrus squeezed her arm. “And your mother and I have a great big surprise for you,” he said, his eyes looking more bulbous than ever.

  Eleanor put her diamond-encrusted fingers over his fat lips. “Shh,” she said. “Not until Christmas.”

  Tahj felt Porsha’s knee touch his beneath the table and instead of pulling away, he left it there. It was one of his twisted little pleasures—the casual knee bump, her hand brushing his as she reached for the bread, her breath on his ear as she sighed with boredom. He could tell that Porsha had just had a shower, even though her hair was dry, because she smelled like her favorite coconut shampoo. He also noticed that her skin looked darker and smoother than it had been when they were on the plane. He knew her toenails were painted light pink and that she’d taken her watch off. And he hated himself for noticing these things, because these were not things a brother was supposed to notice.

  Brice stared dejectedly into his Coke. He wanted to have his own record label one day and make videos for MTV. Not only did it suck to be only eleven years old and have to spend vacation with his family instead of going to Afropunk Fest, but everyone else had a friend with them except for him.

  “Don’t worry, man,” Tahj said, noticing his stepbrother’s protruding lower lip. “As soon as we’re done eating, me and Miles are taking you out jet skiing.”

  Brice fished the straw out of his glass and tried to set it on fire with Tahj’s Zippo. “Cool,” he said, trying to maintain his eleven-year-old badass image while dressed in absurdly nerdy khaki shorts and a green Lacoste shirt.

  Their food came, and Cyrus and Eleanor started to give the highlights of their honeymoon cruise. Last week they’d climbed a volcano and seen stingrays in Martinique. In St. Johns, Cyrus had bought Eleanor a coral-and-diamond pin that had been found in a shipwreck. And on Virgin Gorda they’d had cocktails with Albert Finney, who was supposedly some very famous old actor that none of them had ever heard of.

  Chanel tuned them out. She and Porsha were seated facing the beach, and in the sky above the water a seaplane looped and dived. It soon became apparent that the plane was writing letters in the sky. How did they do that? And wouldn’t it be funny if the pilot couldn’t spell? She squinted as she read the word drifting in the sky, assuming it would be in French.

  C-H-A-N-E-L.

  Chanel’s hand flew to her mouth and she nudged Porsha hard with her elbow. Porsha nudged her back just as hard. She picked up a little folded white card displayed in the center of the table and handed it to Chanel.

  Chanel’s fingers were trembling as she read the gold type printed on the card: Please make your reservations for the Isle de la Paix Chris`tmas Eve party featuring 45. 8 PM–midnight.

  Chanel grabbed Porsha’s hand and squeezed it tight. The only thing that was going to keep them both sane this Christmas was if they stuck together.

  “Oh, look!” Eleanor hissed, causing both Chanel and Porsha to jump in their seats. She pointed across the restaurant to the reception desk. “It’s Misty and Apollo Harrison!” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I heard Misty had her liver removed—she has a terrible drinking problem—but she looks all right to me. I wonder if they came down here by boat. What a clever way to dry up. I mean, you can’t very well drink on a boat if you don’t bring any booze.”

  Misty and Apollo Harrison, parents of the infamous Jaylen Harrison, were checking into the hotel, a pile of Louis Vuitton luggage at their feet. Porsha and Chanel waited for Jaylen to appear beside his parents—it would be just their luck—but there was no sign of him.

  “It was her appendix, Mother,” said Porsha after a moment. It looked like Jaylen had stayed home, thank fucking God. “She got appendicitis. No big deal.”

  “Well, that’s not what I heard,” Eleanor insisted. “Anyway, I didn’t know they were spending Christmas here.” She glanced around the restaurant, stroking her coral-and-diamond pin with her fingertips. “I heard there are quite a few celebrity types staying here, too, although I haven’t seen anyone I recognize.”

  Cyrus shut her up by slipping a French fry into her mouth. “Just making sure you’re getting all your vitamins and minerals, darling,” he said lovingly.

  Porsha was pretty sure her mother didn’t need any extra fries, and she was also pretty sure she didn’t want to sit there and watch Cyrus feed them to her. Talk about making her want to puke.

  “Excuse me,” Porsha muttered, and then bolted from the table in search of the nearest ladies’ room.

  Everyone was so used to Porsha jumping up from the table instantaneously that no one thought anything of it, but Chanel hated the thought of Porsha in a bathroom stall making herself sick. She draped her cloth napkin over her uneaten burger. “Thank you for lunch,” she said weakly. Then she got up and hurried after Porsha to see if she was okay, keeping her head down in case Flow was somewhere nearby, lurking behind a palm tree.

  18

  “Wait’ll you see the stuff I just shot,” Yasmine told Mekhi as she sat down at his father’s dining room table. Bree and Kaliq weren’t there yet, but Rufus had drunk to
o much red wine and couldn’t wait to eat. “It’s totally crazy. You’re going to be very proud of me.”

  “So, you’re a filmmaker, Yasminella?” Mekhi’s father’s friend Lyle asked, helping himself to some lasagna. “What sort of films do you make?”

  Yasmine took a sip of water. “Black and white. You know. Not much action.”

  Lyle filled the rest of his plate up with baked beans, the side dish Rufus had chosen to serve with the lasagna. “Artsy movies, eh?”

  Yasmine nodded. “I guess.”

  “I’m kind of an adventure film buff myself. Ever seen The Mummy? As far as I’m concerned it’s the perfect movie.”

  But Yasmine wasn’t listening. Kaliq and Bree had just arrived and were busily undressing in the hallway.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Bree said breathlessly, removing her hat.

  Yasmine recognized the hat instantly. It was red and fuzzy, just like the hat the girl in the park had been wearing. And Kaliq was wearing a long navy blue overcoat, just like the guy in the park. He had the same preppy look, too, and the same wavy hair. Yasmine put down her fork.

  Oops.

  “Dad, this is Kaliq,” Bree said, leading him over to the table. She felt like dancing around the table, kissing everyone there. She hadn’t known it was possible to feel this happy—Kaliq had said he loved her!

  Kaliq shook hands with her father. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Hargrove.”

  Rufus had his mouth full and he washed it down with wine. “Kaliq, my boy,” he said, “you’re the reason my daughter has borrowed over four hundred dollars from me in the last month. It’s nice to finally meet you.” He pulled the chair next to him away from the table. “Come, have a seat.”

  Bree was so elated, she didn’t even care if her father embarrassed her. She just hoped he’d be nice to Kaliq.

  “So tell me,” Rufus said, pouring a gallon of wine into Kaliq’s glass. “What are you into?”

  Kaliq smiled. Brianna’s dad seemed cool. “Boats,” he answered simply. “My parents have a house up in Mount Desert, Maine. Me and my dad make boats and sail them up there.”

  Mekhi waited for Rufus to begin eating Kaliq alive, railing about the selfishness of the leisure class and the uselessness of things like sailboats, but Rufus appeared to be fascinated and kept on asking Kaliq questions. Normally the hypocrisy of this would have driven Mekhi nuts, but he was too distracted by what he wanted to tell Yasmine to get upset about the fact that his dad was shooting the shit with a spoiled stoner like Kaliq. He picked at his lasagna. Give it ten more minutes, and then he was going to ask to be excused so he and Yasmine could “talk” in his room.

  All of a sudden, Rufus banged on the table. “Hold on, everyone, pass me your plates. I think this lasagna would taste a hell of a lot better if it was flambéed.”

  “Dad,” Bree whined. He was going to completely embarrass her. It was unavoidable.

  Kaliq handed Rufus his plate. Rufus lit a match and dropped it on Kaliq’s lasagna. There was so much rum in the sauce, the lasagna burst into flames.

  “All right!” Kaliq exclaimed.

  Rufus laughed gleefully and Bree handed him her plate, a thrilled grin plastered to her face. It looked like they were bonding!

  Mekhi couldn’t stand it any longer. He turned and bent his head toward Yasmine. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” He was so nervous, his hands were shaking.

  “Okay,” Yasmine shot back, suddenly nervous, too. Did she dare go through with it and show him her little costume? Lyle took her plate away and then handed it back to her in flames. “Thanks,” she murmured distractedly.

  Mekhi stood up. “Come on.”

  Yasmine picked up her bag and followed him down the long hall to his bedroom. The Hargroves’ apartment was one of those rent-controlled relics that hadn’t been renovated since the 1940s. It was big and dusty, with creaking wood floors and paint peeling from the walls, and it smelled like old shoes and moldy book bindings.

  “So,” Mekhi began awkwardly as he closed his bedroom door. “I wanted to tell you something.”

  Yasmine sat on the floor and unlaced her black leather combat boots. If she was going to go through with this, she had to just do it quick before she stopped and thought about it.

  “Uh-huh,” she said. She pulled her black wool kneesocks off and wiggled her bare toes. Two nights ago she’d let her sister paint her toenails chocolate brown. They still looked pretty good. She stood up and unbuttoned her cardigan.

  Mekhi walked over to his desk and picked up his latest black notebook, thinking that maybe if he showed Yasmine how bad his poetry was, she would understand why he had to have sex. He thumbed through the pages. They were full of the beginnings of poems like, You are my Frankenstein, my Lichtenstein. You are divine.

  None of them had endings because they were all too terrible to finish. Reading them made him blush with embarrassment. “I can’t seem to write anything good anymore,” he said, still rifling through the pages.

  Yasmine pulled off her black wool skirt. She yanked her black turtleneck off over her close-shaven head. Then she stood with her hands on her hips, waiting for Mekhi to turn around.

  “And I was thinking, maybe the reason I can’t write anything is because...” Mekhi closed the notebook and spun around. “I need to—” He stopped short. Yasmine was standing next to his bed wearing a black lace push-up bra and a pair of lace short shorts that were both so flimsy and sheer, Mekhi could see everything through them.

  Of course. That was the point.

  She grinned and batted her eyelashes. “What do you think?”

  Mekhi stared at her, appalled. It was the last thing he’d ever expected to see. “What are you doing?”

  Yasmine walked toward him, trying not to think about what her upper thigh and lower butt region looked like in the very high-cut tangas. She put her hands on Mekhi’s shoulders. His whole body was trembling. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.

  Mekhi glanced around the room. “You’re not filming this, are you?” he asked suspiciously. Usually Yasmine asked him first if he wanted to be in one of her films, but he could see her trying to get something totally raw on film by not telling him about it first.

  She shook her head. “Kiss me.”

  Mekhi folded his arms over his chest. He could see what Yasmine was up to now. So? They were in love. Why didn’t he just go for it? Any other guy definitely would have. But Mekhi wasn’t any other guy. He was Mekhi, the sensitive romantic. He didn’t want his first time cluttered with black lace lingerie. It was too premeditated and clichéd and...wrong. He wanted it to be pure and spontaneous and...right. Mekhi took a step back and turned his head away.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Yasmine understood that she had pushed him and perhaps that wasn’t fair, but she’d just been trying to have a little fun. She had also tried to make herself irresistible to him, but he’d obviously been able to resist just fine. She grabbed her shirt from off the bed and quickly pulled it on over her head, feeling completely humiliated.

  Mekhi lit a cigarette and took a long, hard drag. “Want to show me that stuff you filmed in the park?”

  Um. Maybe not.

  Yasmine shook her head, unable to look at him. She pulled on her skirt and buttoned up her cardigan. Mekhi put out his cigarette in an empty coffee mug. “I guess we should go back to the table, then.”

  Yasmine tied her bootlaces and stood up. “I think I should just go,” she said, her voice shaking. She hadn’t cried since she was about four years old, but it looked like she was about to now.

  Mekhi nodded, feeling torn between asking her to tell him what was wrong and wanting her to leave so he could try to write again. What would they say to each other if she stayed, anyway?

  Weird how a thing like having your girlfriend dress in skimpy lingerie can totally change your relationship.

  Yasmine walked over to the door and opened it. “Bye,” she said quietly.

  “Bye,” answered Mekhi as the
door closed behind her. He went back to his desk, sat down, and opened his notebook, hoping his confusion over what had just happened would inspire him to write something brilliant. But it didn’t, and so he just sat there, chain-smoking.

  19

  “May we be excused, Dad?” Bree asked. “I want to show Kaliq my room.”

  Rufus barely glanced at her. “Mais oui,” he said in a terrible French accent. “Bien sûr.”

  Bree rolled her eyes. When her dad drank too much red wine, he attempted to take on the persona of a cool poet, smoking cigarettes and speaking French in a bohemian café.

  Like father, like son.

  “Come on,” she told Kaliq, leading him down the hall to her room. She opened the door and turned on the light.

  Kaliq hadn’t expected to be surprised by Bree’s room. The rest of the apartment was kind of comfortable and crumbling, like a country house that had never been cleaned, and he’d expected her room to be more of the same. But Bree had always hated her plain, off-white walls, her cracked ceiling, her bare wood floor, and her plain old white sheets, and she was actually quite a good artist. So over the past couple of months she had taken up painting, specifically portrait painting, and her favorite subject was, of course, Kaliq. There were six portraits of him in all, each one done in the style of a different artist. There was Monet Kaliq, done impressionist style; Picasso Kaliq, with his eyes in his feet; Dalí Kaliq, dripping into in a puddle on the sidewalk; Warhol Kaliq, with his eyes electric green and his hair in gold paint; Pollock Kaliq, with paint splattered in the shape of a head; and Chagall Kaliq, with Kaliq’s head flying through a night sky.

  “Do you like them?” Bree asked hopefully. “I’m trying to copy all different styles. The Pollock one was the hardest.”