Upper East Side #3

by Ashley Valentine

  He pulled out the playbill from the Nutcracker and thumbed through it. He didn't think back to five days ago, when he’d taken Bree to see the ballet and they’d sat in the first row of the balcony at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center, holding hands as the nutcracker’s army of toy soldiers fought off the evil mice under that wicked-big Christmas tree. He thought back instead to the last time he had taken Porsha to the same ballet.

  Porsha had had cramps, so at intermission Kaliq had gotten some Advil for her from the bartender, and then they’d gone outside to smoke cigarettes on the balcony. They wound up kissing and spent the whole second act out there, smoking and kissing and watching people walk past the empty fountain and through Lincoln Center. Porsha had been wearing a camel-hair coat with a mink collar that Kaliq liked to press his face into, breathing in the combined scents of animal fur, Porsha’s perfume, and cigarette smoke.

  From on top of the maple dresser in Kaliq’s Mount Desert bedroom, his cell phone rang. The phone had nine voicemail messages on it, all from Bree’s number, and Kaliq hadn’t yet dealt with answering any of them. But this time the number flashing on the screen was different. Kaliq grinned. He was always happy to hear from Chanel.

  Yeah, so is every other guy on the planet.

  “Hey. What’s up?”

  “Kaliq?” Chanel’s voice chimed over the airwaves. “I just wondered when we’re ever going to see you again,” she said. “Or are you gonna, like, stay up in Maine until graduation?”

  Kaliq bent down and grabbed the foil packet of blueberry Pop-Tarts out of Bree’s care package. He ripped it open with his teeth and pulled out one of the Pop-Tarts, wolfing it down before he tossed the packet back in the shoe box. “I think I’m going to hang out here for a while longer.” He wanted to put off dealing with Brianna until the very last minute. Or forever, if possible.

  “But I’m having a New Year’s Eve party,” Chanel said in a pouty voice. “Alexis and Imani are here right now, helping me plan. We’re going to have a cool theme and the best DJ and a huge deck so we can all watch the fireworks. You’re lame if you don’t come, and I absolutely promise you’ll regret it.”

  Kaliq chuckled. The party did sound cool. Then he thought of something. “Hey, where’s Porsha? Aren’t you guys still in St. Barts?”

  “We came home early.” Chanel sighed. “Porsha’s being a nerd and working on her Yale application.”

  “Oh.” Kaliq picked up the copy of Romeo and Juliet and ran his thumb across the edges of the pages. Then he looked at the cover—a classic painting of a boy and a girl entwined in an embrace. “She’s coming to the party, though, right?”

  “Of course, silly,” Chanel exclaimed. “She’s not that nerdy.”

  “All right,” Kaliq agreed, still holding the book. “I’ll be there.”

  Chanel clicked off. Across from her, seated on the red and white chintz love seat, Alexis and Imani were talking busily on their cell phones, booking the caterer and ordering more alcohol than they would ever need. Chanel smiled to herself. It was kind of interesting how Kaliq had only said he’d come to the party after she’d mentioned that Porsha was going to be there. She had a feeling it was going to be a very interesting New Year’s Eve indeed.

  29

  Still wearing the same coffee stained white T-shirt he’d been wearing for almost a week, Mekhi had almost filled up a whole new black notebook full of morbid poems about how love was just a pathetic hoax made up by Hallmark to sell Valentine’s Day cards and give people the false impression that their lives had meaning. Right now he was working on one called “Car Full of Rocks,” about a guy who fills up his car with rocks and drives it into a river because the car reminds him of his ex-girlfriend who liked to drive around and listen to static on the car radio instead of music.

  Bree knocked on his door. “There’s mail for you, Mr. Hermit Man.”

  Mekhi put down his pen and opened the door. Bree was wearing her pink bathrobe and had a mustache of white goopy cream above her lip. She handed him an envelope.

  “What’s that on your face?” he asked, taking the letter.

  “I’m depilating,” she said, turning away and heading down the hall toward the bathroom.

  Whatever the hell that means, Mekhi thought, closing the door. Clearly Bree had been spending way too much time trapped in the house reading fashion magazines, but it served her right for being such a slut.

  Mekhi turned the thin white envelope over and examined the return address. It was from The New Yorker, probably a letter asking him to subscribe, when his dad was already a lifetime subscriber. He tore it open and unfolded the two pieces of white paper that were tucked inside.

  Dear Mr. Hargrove,

  Thank you for submitting your poem, “Sluts,” to The New Yorker. Congratulations! I am very pleased to inform you that we will be publishing the poem in our Valentine’s Day issue. If you would please fill out the Writer’s Information form attached here, we can include some information about you on our Contributors page. A check for eight hundred dollars will follow. Happy New Year!

  Jani Price

  Submissions Editor

  Was this some sort of joke? Mekhi wondered. He reread the letter twice before dropping it on the bed, his entire body shaking in horror. The New Yorker rarely published poems by unknown writers, and Jani Price was famous for sending nasty one-line rejection letters like, “Nice try!” or “Sorry, Charlie.”

  Mekhi studied the letterhead. It looked authentic. Then he read the letter again, his hands still shaking wildly at the thought of some stranger—let alone someone as famous in the literary world as Jani Price—reading his poem.

  The more he thought about it, the more apparent it became that the only person who could have sent the poem to the magazine in the first place was Yasmine. As if she hadn’t done enough damage already. What the hell—no, what the fuck was she thinking?

  Mekhi threw the letter down on his bed and pulled off his dirty shirt. First he was going to take a steaming hot shower and put on some clean clothes.

  Finally!

  Then he was going to head straight over to Brooklyn to chew Yasmine out. How dare she violate his work by sending it out to whomever she pleased without asking him first? Who’d she think she was, anyway? His shaven-headed, combat-boots-wearing fairy godmother?

  * * *

  Ruby had finally retrieved the missing Sony digital camera and Yasmine was sitting at her computer, downloading the images of icicles from it and inserting them into her new film, right before some footage she’d taken of pigeons roosting inside a garbage truck. She had already deleted the footage of Kaliq and Bree in the snow and had decided to put the whole thing behind her and focus on her new film instead. Beside the roosting pigeons, a dirty, bald doll’s head with a missing eye was sticking out of a burst garbage bag. It was awesome.

  An instant message box suddenly appeared in the top righthand corner of her computer screen and Yasmine clicked on it, hoping it was Mekhi. He might have heard from The New Yorker by now, and maybe he was IMing to say thank you because they’d decided to publish it and all was forgiven. But the address in the IM wasn’t Mekhi’s.

  KM10001: r u Yasmine Richards, filmmaker?

  Hairlesskat: maybe

  KM10001: i’m looking for the person who filmed those kids in the park messing around. The camera work was not to be believed.

  Hairlesskat: oh really? says who?

  KM10001: Ken Mogul. i'm an in independent filmmaker, i made Seahorse. maybe u’ve seen it. So am i talking to the right person?

  Hairlesskat: yes.

  KM10001: wow. so i’d really like to work with u. i’m finishing up a film now that i’m submitting at Cannes. r u interested?

  Hairlesskat: i’m kind of still in high school. but yeah, i’m interested.

  KM10001: cool. can i meet u somewhere? like later today? i’m in NYC btw.

  Hairlesskat: i’m shooting in Central Park tonite @ 10pm or so. meet me there?


  KM10001: excellent. i’d love to watch u work. see you then.

  Hairlesskat: bye

  Yasmine went back to editing her film knowing there was a big possibility that the person who had just IMed her was actually a group of Kaliq’s preppy thug friends who were right now hacking a hole in the ice in the lake in Central Park so they could throw her into the freezing water and drown her because of the video that had been going around. Or maybe it really had been Ken Mogul, alternative Black filmmaker, one of her heroes. She laughed out loud. She was such a sucker for crank e-mails. But who knew? Anything was possible.

  30

  Bree had shaved, depilated, tweezed, exfoliated, and moisturized her entire body, polished her nails, blown out her hair, and applied subtle makeup in gold and bronze tones according to a chart she’d saved from Allure magazine. Then she’d donned the thong and the same pair of black skinny pants she’d been wearing that special day in the park, paired with a tight black v-neck sweater with gold threads in it that looked cheesy on the hanger but great on.

  According to her, anyway.

  Last of all, she put on the turquoise pendant Kaliq had given her and a pair of pointy black high-heeled boots that were difficult to walk in, but who cared? That was at six, and for the last two and a half hours she’d tried to amuse herself by watching reruns of Love & Hip Hop and slowly demolishing an entire bag of cheddar-cheese-flavored goldfish, all the while keeping her cell phone cradled in her lap. But now it was already 8:30 on New Year’s Eve and Kaliq still hadn’t called.

  Bree had been so preoccupied with preparing her body for the evening and waiting for Kaliq’s call that she hadn’t really noticed what the rest of her family was doing. She clicked off the TV and clomped up the hallway. Mekhi’s door was open a crack, and she pushed it open. The computer was off and no lit cigarettes burned in the ashtray.

  “Mekhi?” she called out, but there was no answer. She made an about-face and stomped down the hall to her father’s office. The door stood open. Empty. “Dad?”

  But again, no answer. Traditionally on New Year’s Eve Rufus went out with some of his cronies to an all-night poetry reading marathon in a café in Greenwich Village. It looked like he had already left.

  Bree pressed a few buttons on her cell phone and the phone instantly dialed Kaliq’s number. The voicemail system answered, again. “If you are trying to reach—” said the robotic female voice.

  “Kaliq,” he said in his own voice.

  “Please leave a message, or wait for the tone,” the robotic female voice continued.

  “It’s me again,” Bree chirped, trying to sound upbeat. “I guess you got stuck in traffic or something. I think I’ll just go to Chanel’s party now. Maybe I’ll get the cab to stop by your house and buzz up. Anyway, hopefully I’ll see you before midnight! Okay. Love you. Bye.”

  Bree clicked off and went back into her room to get her bag and coat. So what if she wasn’t officially ungrounded? Rufus and Mekhi had left her alone in the apartment. What did they expect from a princess who’d been locked in her tower for too long?

  * * *

  Kaliq had considered not smoking at all until he got to the party because he knew Porsha preferred it when he wasn’t high. But come on, it was New Year’s Eve.

  “Here,” said Jeremy, passing him the enormous joint he had just lit. Kaliq, Jeremy, and Anthony were huddled together near the Gandhi statue in Union Square. “Take a big hit,” Jeremy advised. “Then we’d better find that fucking party. It’s like Antarctica out here.”

  Kaliq held the joint to his lips and sucked in, closing his eyes. There was nothing better than a good long hit on a freezing cold night. He handed the joint off to Charlie, holding the smoke in his lungs for a moment longer.

  “What if the party sucks?” Charlie asked before taking a hit.

  Kaliq remembered what Chanel had said about Porsha locking herself in her room all week so she could work on her Yale application. Whenever Porsha spent a prolonged amount of time alone doing schoolwork, she was always extremely horny afterward.

  “Dude,” he said, blowing a cloud of smoke into the air near Gandhi’s head. “Believe me, it won’t suck.”

  31

  Leave it to Chanel to raise the standard for New Year’s Eve parties, or any party for that matter. Two minutes inside the Chelsea loft she’d rented for the extravaganza was long enough to make it clear this was definitely the best party anyone had ever been to. There were torches smoldering in the corners, and the dance floor was made of real green grass. The bartenders were wearing skimpy crocheted bikinis, and the DJ was some newly famous guy from Africa. At one end of the loft were three rooms with white leather couches and bathtubs in them, for those who needed some privacy or just wanted to take a bath. And there was a huge terrace with views of the city in three directions for when the fireworks started.

  Porsha hadn’t slept for more than a few hours or been out of the house since she’d returned from St. Barts. She’d been running on espresso, adrenaline, cigarettes, and determination. Her screenplay was going to work, she could just feel it—it was going to get her into Yale!

  But even the best auteurs need a little break.

  She arrived at the party wearing a purple suede micro-miniskirt, a black satin camisole, and black fishnet tights. Her hair was pulled up into a superhigh, superbouncy sixties ponytail and she was wearing false eyelashes and purple lipstick. On her feet were her newest pair of black suede Christian Louboutin ankle boots that her gay father had sent her from France as a Christmas present with a card that said, “Merry Christmas, Porsha Bear. Warning: Do not go out unattended wearing these boots!” But Porsha hadn’t heeded his advice, she’d come alone.

  It didn’t take her long to find Chanel. She was the only girl with pink streaks in her hair, dancing barefoot, and wearing a string bikini top, black short shorts, and long, dangly diamond earrings. The DJ had cranked up the volume and the music was so loud the walls were shaking.

  “My boobs hurt!” Chanel shouted at Porsha, still dancing.

  “My brain hurts!” Porsha shouted back. What she needed before she even thought about dancing or talking to anyone was a stiff drink. Or three or four.

  “I just saw Kaliq!” Chanel shouted, pointing randomly into the crowd. “He was looking for you!”

  Sure he was.

  Porsha ducked past Chanel, pushing her way through the crowd toward the bar. She deserved to get drunk. She had almost finished her screenplay—all but the ending—and she was pretty sure it was great. Plus it was New Year’s fucking Eve, and if Kaliq wanted to talk to her, she wanted to have at least one drink in her first.

  Alexis and Imani were standing by the bar waiting for their cosmos. “Hey, Porsha,” they cooed in unison. They were both wearing long black halter dresses, exactly like the ones Porsha and Chanel had worn to the Black and White Ball.

  “Chanel said you were working on your Yale application,” Alexis said, slurping her cosmo. “We still have a whole month before our applications are due, you know.”

  Porsha glared at the bartender for taking so long to take her order. “I just want it to be perfect.”

  “And I’m sure it will be,” a familiar voice assured her.

  Porsha whirled around to find Kaliq—her leading man—standing right in front of her, wearing the moss green cashmere V-neck sweater she had given him last Easter. Before she’d wrapped it up and given it to him, she’d sewn a little gold heart pendant inside of one of the sleeves so that he would always be wearing her heart on his sleeve. She wondered if the heart was still there.

  Alexis and Imani left them alone, slinking over to a group of girls who began whispering to one another.

  “I heard she lost her virginity to some guy in St. Barts,” said Lauren Salmon.

  “That’s why she came back early,” added Rain Hoffstetter. “To get the morning-after pill from her gyno.”

  “Has anyone seen Flow?” Alexis asked.

  “Chanel promised
us he was going to come,” whined Imani.

  Nicki Button shook her head knowingly. “I heard Flow broke up with Chanel because he wants to stay clean and she’s a total druggie.”

  "Yeah, Chanel has definitely gone back to her old ways," Alexis butted in. "The whole rumor that her and Flow are engaged is totally bogus. The real reason she even went to St. Barts was to find a dealer so she could bring back a whole load of drugs to sell."

  * * *

  “So, where’s your little kindergartner?” Porsha asked, pulling a cigarette out of the pack in her purse and waiting for Kaliq to light it for her.

  Kaliq grinned. It was a start. At least she was talking to him. “We broke up,” he said simply.

  Since when?

  The bartender finally sauntered over in her skimpy crocheted bikini, and Kaliq slapped his hand on the bar. “Ketel One and tonic, and a Jack and Coke with lots of ice,” he said, ordering for both of them.

  Porsha loved how Kaliq already knew exactly what she wanted without her having to say anything, but she pretended not to notice, smoking her cigarette and watching the dancers grind their asses into one another.

  “So, how was your Christmas?” Kaliq asked, carefully handing her the overflowing vodka tonic.

  Not the best conversation starter. Porsha took a large gulp and then a deep drag on her cigarette. “Shitty.”

  Kaliq could tell she didn’t want to talk about it. “Never mind,” he said. “Only six more months till graduation.”