Upper East Side #11

by Ashley Valentine

  “So, roomie. Wanna go to bed?” Yasmine raised one eyebrow mischievously, her lips curved into a smirk. Before Mekhi could answer, Yasmine stepped away from the countertop and walked into Bree’s old room, her combat boots slapping against the floor.

  Mekhi could hear the snapping of sheets as Yasmine made the bed—something she rarely did. Making the bed. Did that mean she wanted him to come to bed? But it was barely dark out. Maybe she was just tired of the apartment being such a total mess? Mekhi’s head hurt. It had been a long, long day. He sighed and walked into the room behind her.

  “Hey, roomie,” he parroted back to her, grabbing one corner of the sheet and pulling it tight around the mattress. Yasmine let go of her end of the sheet and threw a pillow at his head. Was she flirting with him? A fine sheen of sweat coated her face, and her cheeks were flushed, giving her a radiant glow. Mekhi resisted the urge to crawl across the bed and lightly kiss each cheek.

  Right. Sharing a room will be just like a girly sleepover.

  Mekhi waited to see what Yasmine would do next, but then a shrill buzzing sound came from her pocket, startling them both. He still wasn’t used to Yasmine having a cell phone—she’d gotten one shortly after moving in with the Hargroves. Probably a good thing, since Rufus was not known for his skill at relaying messages. Usually he left sticky notes on the fridge that read, A GUY CALLED, and then the time of the call, to the minute—like that was helpful.

  Yasmine dug for her phone, not all that thrilled with the interruption. Flirting with Mekhi was so fun now that he was supposedly gay. She flipped open her phone. “Hello?”

  “Lil’ sis!”

  “Ruby?!” Yasmine hadn’t spoken to her sister since she returned from Europe and kicked her out. Fun times. So why was she calling now?

  “What’s up, girl!?” Ruby yelled, sounding uncharacteristically manic. “God, it’s great to hear your voice!”

  “Um, you too. What’s going on?” Yasmine tried to keep her voice neutral, but she was still mad as hell at her sister and wasn’t about to forgive her without first receiving some serious ass-kissing. She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Ruby’s apology. Maybe she and Piotr had broken up and she wanted Yasmine to move back to Williamsburg and into her old room. She could almost smell the sweet, burnt scent of the sugar factory directly across the street from their apartment. Soon she’d be having breakfast at Rye and late-night coffee at Diner, her days of decoding Mekhi’s flip-flopping sexuality finally over...

  “Listen, Yas, I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch for so long, but I’ve just been really busy...”

  Yasmine gripped the receiver with one hand and stuffed a pillow back into its case with the other. Right. She’d probably been busy holding Piotr’s dick.

  Ick.

  Yasmine shivered at her own perverted thought and threw the pillow onto the almost-made bed. Mekhi sat on the end of the bed, eavesdropping and examining his fingernails in a typically gay way.

  “Piotr’s working on a new series of paintings and he’s been using me as a model—I can’t wait for you to see them.”

  Scowling at the receiver, Yasmine stomped out of the room. Okay, so Piotr was still in the picture. And presumably he was still using Yasmine’s room as his studio. But maybe Ruby wanted her to move back in anyway: she could get a cot or something. She walked down the long crumbly hallway to the kitchen and began to spoon granules of Folgers into a lumpy yellow ceramic mug Mekhi’s mom had sent over from Prague ages ago.

  “Um, sure, I’ll check the paintings out at some point...” The last she’d heard about Piotr’s “art,” he’d been doing a series of paintings of “monolithic nudes and their canines.” She pictured a huge canvas of Ruby naked, astride a slobbering German shepherd. Not exactly her idea of “art.”

  This from the girl who prefers photographs of dead pigeons and spat-out gum?

  “Anyway,” Ruby went on, her voice as breathless as if she’d been running the 10K, “That’s not the really big news. Are you sitting down?”

  “Yeah,” Yasmine lied, distractedly placing her ceramic cup in the microwave and setting the timer.

  “We’re getting married!!!!!”

  “What!?” Yasmine sank to the floor in front of the microwave, Folgers crystals scattering all over the floor they’d just mopped this morning. Married? To Piotr? They’d just met a few months ago! He made paintings of naked women and dogs! And now he was going to be family? There was something seriously wrong with the world.

  Just then Mekhi’s mom glided into the kitchen, wearing a floor-length pink dressing gown embroidered with hundreds of exotic birds. A pasty, fragrant white cream that smelled like pound cake covered every inch of her face. Her fuzzy pink slippers shuffled against the linoleum floor.

  “Pardon me, I forgot to take my vitamin drink!” Jeanette whispered, opening the refrigerator and pouring a toxic-looking brown liquid into a Scooby-Doo glass. “Vitamins are nature’s gift to us all!” she trilled. Yasmine just shook her head as Jeanette smacked her lips and started to walk back to Mekhi’s room, drinking the disgusting-looking concoction and humming as she went.

  “Yas? Can you hear me?” Ruby’s voice broke the silence.

  “Um, yeah. Whatever. I mean, congratulations,” Yasmine murmured into the phone. She looked up to see Mekhi standing in the doorway. He shot her a quizzical look and mouthed, “Are you okay?” Yasmine just nodded and brought the phone closer to her ear. Ruby was still chattering away happily, totally oblivious to her less-than-peppy response.

  “...maid of honor,” Yasmine heard her sister’s voice say over the low hum of the microwave.

  She sat up straighter. “Maid of what?” she asked incredulously.

  “Who are you? Where’s my sister?” Ruby cackled. “Come on, you know you’re dying to wear a big Laura Ashley dress.”

  Yasmine got to her feet just as the microwave beeped noisily. No fucking way.

  “So, will you do it?” Her sister’s voice rang in her ears. Slowly, she removed the mug from the microwave, handling it carefully so that the water wouldn’t spill over and burn her. Although maybe a third-degree burn would get her out of any wedding-related duties.

  Tempting.

  Yasmine sighed. She knew she couldn’t say no to her sister, even if Piotr did have horrible teeth and bestiality issues.

  “Yeah, fine. Whatever. I’ll do it.” She took a sip of scalding coffee and promptly spat it out all over her cargo pants. “But only if I can wear my own clothes. There’s no way in hell I’m putting on one of those totally gay pastel bridesmaid dresses.” She glanced over at Mekhi, who had pulled the hot pink silk jumpsuit out of one of his mom’s bags and was holding it in front of his skinny body as if picturing what it would look like on. She mouthed, “Sorry,” smiling weakly. “I mean, so totally lame,” she said into the phone, wiping her thighs with a ratty brown kitchen towel.

  Ruby laughed, and Yasmine could hear her mumbling to Piotr in the background in some insane language she couldn’t understand. Probably Martian.

  “Don’t worry about that. The ceremony is a week from Saturday, a picnic kind of thing at Prospect Park—so it’s totally casual. Everyone’s bringing some food and wearing their own clothes anyway.” Yasmine could hear the click of her sister’s lighter and then the sound of her exhaling as she blew out the first drag. Ruby never smoked before she met Piotr. Was “Eurotrash” a contagious disease?

  And is there a vaccine?

  “Thank God.” Yasmine held the coffee up to her lips, letting the steam float over her skin. “You really had me worried there for a second.”

  “Listen, the bachelorette party is on Thursday. You’re kind of supposed to plan it. I’ve got some ideas though, so don’t worry too much.”

  Bachelorette party? Plan it?

  “Yeah,” Yasmine managed to mumble while taking another sip of her coffee, which tasted like ass. “I guess.” Was there some unwritten rule that all coffee in the Hargroves’ apartment had to be
terrible?

  “Of course you’re going to film the whole wedding, too. And before I forget, listen—can you ask Mekhi if he’ll write a poem to read at the reception? You know, something about love, that kind of thing. Piotr’s friends are planning some performance art, but we’d like someone to read something and don’t know any other poets. It would mean a lot to us.”

  Yasmine snorted into the phone. Straight love poems weren’t exactly Mekhi’s thing.

  “Anyway, listen, I have to run. I have a dress fitting first thing in the morning and I gotta get some sleep. Oh, and my last gig as a single woman is on Monday at the Galapagos Art Space—if you’re free, come check it out!”

  There was a click, and then the dial tone began buzzing rudely in Yasmine’s ear. Waking up early for a dress fitting? Ruby really had been abducted by aliens.

  “My sister’s getting married,” Yasmine intoned flatly, staring at a postcard of some really old building in Prague that Bree had sent. The building was so completely covered in pigeon shit it looked like it was made of wax.

  “Are you serious?” Ruby was the last person Mekhi ever thought would get married—except for maybe Yasmine. Yasmine had told him once that she thought marriage was all about money and status and that it always had been, all throughout history. In the Middle Ages it was practically a form of slavery. Still, Mekhi had always believed that someday he would get to watch Yasmine walk moodily down the aisle in a long black dress, carrying a bunch of brilliant white daisies. He’d even written a poem about it. But now he was gay; was gay marriage even even legal in New York?

  “...anyway, she wants you to write a poem and read it at the ceremony,” Yasmine’s voice broke into Mekhi’s thoughts.

  “Who? Me?” Mekhi tied the sleeves of the fuchsia jumpsuit around his shoulders like a cape—that was the only way it was ever going to fit.

  “Yeah.” Yasmine downed the rest of her coffee in one gulp. “You. The one in the cape.”

  Supergay? Captain Gaypants?

  Mekhi scratched his head. Ever since his recent “revelation,” he hadn’t felt much like writing. In fact, he hadn’t written a single word since he’d kissed Gabriel. It was as if all his confused feelings were trapped inside, circulating furiously, and he couldn’t get any of them out and onto the page. “But, what’s it supposed to be about?” he wondered aloud, rubbing his unshaven cheek against the magenta silk. The only thing he could possibly write about right now was penis-shaped cream puffs, and he didn’t think that was going to go over too well at a wedding. Even a European one.

  “I don’t know.” Yasmine pulled out a chair from the table and sat down beside Mekhi, her now-empty coffee cup in front of her. “Love, I guess.” She shivered, suddenly cold.

  “Okay,” Mekhi responded. It occurred to him that the only person he’d ever really loved was sitting right next to him. Certainly he could write a poem for Yasmine’s sister, who he actually happened to like. “I can do that.”

  “I just hope their friends don’t like, boo you off the altar or whatever,” Yasmine joked. “And that they understand a little English.”

  Suddenly the weight of what Mekhi had agreed to sank into him. Get totally mushy and, well, completely...gay in front of a whole bunch of Williamsburg hipsters?

  That’s one way to come out.

  7

  Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeak.

  Kaliq opened the glass-and-wrought-iron front door of his Park Avenue townhouse, cringing at the moan of the hinges. With any luck, the Captain would be long asleep, and Kaliq could just stumble off to bed—avoiding his father completely. He had waited until almost midnight to come home for just that purpose. After he’d left Porsha’s, he’d headed for the boat pond in Central Park, smoking joint after joint and watching the clouds of smoke drift over the calm surface of the water. It reminded him of sailing, of how peaceful it had been out there on the ocean, surrounded by nothing but water and more water.

  As Kaliq stood looking out at the boat pond, his brain all fuzzy from the weed, he couldn’t help remembering the way he and Porsha and Chanel had spent afternoons at the park when they were kids sailing miniature boats. Their nannies would sit talking quietly on dark green benches, and the three of them would throw rocks in the water and lick their Popsicles—which both girls would eventually grow tired of, and Kaliq would promptly eat. And now here he was, sneaking around his own home at age eighteen, and not much had changed. He was still a troublemaker. He still loved sailboats and popsicles. And most of all, he still loved Porsha and Chanel.

  Kaliq sighed, walking down the carpeted hall as noiselessly as possible. Somehow, things seemed so much simpler back then. He didn’t need to be reminded that lately, things were far from simple. After getting caught stealing Coach Michaels’s Viagra, Kaliq hadn’t received his diploma at graduation. He was supposed to work for Coach all summer, helping to fix up his house out on Long Island and earn his diploma that way. But after Mrs. Michaels started coming onto him, Kaliq took off without a word of explanation to anyone. He’d stolen his dad’s car, kidnapped Porsha, and then stolen the Charlotte. Jesus, what hadn’t he done? And because of all his screwups, his future was totally up in the air.

  As he tiptoed past his father’s study, it was impossible to miss the sliver of yellow light that peeked out from the half-open door. Kaliq’s heart sank in his chest. Fuck. He ran his hands through his hair and tried his best to straighten up. He wasn’t really that high, was he?

  Is that a serious question?

  “Who’s there?” His father’s voice boomed out into the hall, echoing off the polished wood floors. “Kaliq? You home?”

  Kaliq sighed, ran his fingers through his hair one last time, and slowly pushed open the door.

  The study was paneled in rich, dark wood, and it reminded Kaliq of the sea caves he’d once explored while sailing off the Amalfi coast in Greece. Captain Braxton was sitting in a rust-colored leather chair. His feet, clad in gray cashmere socks, were propped up on a matching leather ottoman. A crystal tumbler of wine rested on the armrest, the amber liquid sparkling in the light. His father’s hair was gray, with a touch of black—a reminder of his younger days as a fine-young-Yale-lacrosse-player-turned naval-captain. His eyes were green, like Kaliq’s, without the sparkle. As usual, he was wearing a gray cashmere suit tailored in England expressly for him, his silk tie slightly askew.

  Kaliq braced himself for the shitstorm that was surely about to rain down on him. All he wanted right now was to take a long nap—maybe sleep until this whole stupid thing blew over. But then, shockingly, the Captain’s face broke into a wide grin. Was he seeing things? Kaliq blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to clear them.

  After three hours of smoking, he was kind of past the point of Visine.

  “Kaliq, my boy! Home at last!” The captain threw down the Wall Street Journal and jumped to his feet, throwing his arms around his son and squeezing tightly, clapping him roughly on both shoulders as he pulled away. Kaliq felt dazed, as if he’d just woken up from a long sleep. What the hell was going on?

  His father sat back down and motioned to the matching leather chair across from him. “Sit, my boy. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”

  Kaliq sank down in the chair and started fiddling with the gold lighter in his pocket. Porsha had given him that lighter two summers ago, and the smooth weight of it under his fingers calmed him down a little.

  “So, you’ve been on quite the sailing adventure, haven’t you?” Captain Braxton noted, peering contemplatively at his son. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “Uh, yeah. With Porsha. It was great.” Kaliq shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It wasn’t like his father to make small talk.

  “Tell me, son, are you looking forward to Yale?” The Captain reached up and loosened his tie even more as he spoke, finally pulling it from around his neck and dropping it on the desk, where it lay like a puddle of blue silk. So that was it. The Captain had no clue that Coach hadn’t granted Kaliq his dipl
oma and that there was no way Yale would take him.

  “Yeah,” Kaliq answered, letting out some of the breath he’d been holding. “Um, I think so.” His father didn’t know. But how long could he keep it from him?

  As if reading Kaliq’s mind, the Captain sat forward in his chair, a fierce look in his green eyes. “You think so?”

  Uh-oh.

  His father sat back in his chair and waved one hand in the air. “Let’s stop all the pussyfooting around. We’ve got some important things to discuss.”

  Kaliq’s heart sank in his chest. He dragged a scuffed sneaker back and forth across the Oriental rug, knowing what that meant. He squirmed in his chair, wishing that he was just about anyplace else—but most of all that he was out on the water, with the waves lapping against the sides of the boat. He braced himself, waiting nervously for his father to speak.

  “I’ve heard from Coach Michaels, and I know exactly what’s going on.” Captain Braxton’s voice was neutral but firm, and Kaliq began shifting nervously again in his chair. Whenever his dad adopted this tone of voice, it meant that he’d decided something with complete finality—usually something that Kaliq didn’t want to do. “And this time, I’m not bailing you out. You’ll repeat senior year at St. Jude’s. End of story.”

  Kaliq stared at him, openmouthed. He’d never really considered that not getting his diploma would mean he’d actually have to repeat senior year. Maybe take a year off, do some “community service” building outhouses on a beach in Costa Rica or something, but another year of high school? Taking the same boring classes, doing the same boring things, while his friends were all off at college, having fun without him?

  Next stop: total humiliation.

  His father took a slow deliberate sip of scotch, and Kaliq could hear the frosty sound of ice cubes rattling against the crystal. He fingered the stubbed-out joint that remained in his pocket, wishing he could pull it out and light up right there. He’d promised Porsha that he wasn’t going to smoke so much anymore—she didn’t think it was mature, or intellectual, or whatever—but this was an emergency. He had to calm down. Then maybe he could think.