Upper East Side #5

by Ashley Valentine

The boisterous big-band music that no one had even noticed was playing suddenly stopped, chilling the room.

  “We're getting drunk,” Chanel cut in before Porsha could do anything insane, like karate-chop Kaliq's head off. “Only one more day of school left before break!”

  Kaliq flagged down a passing waiter and got them all more vodka. “You guys going anywhere good?”

  “Sun Valley—just like always,” Chanel told him.

  Porsha just stood there guzzling her second drink and wishing a) that Kaliq would go away, b) that he didn't look quite so dashing and nonstoned, c) that he would stop being so absurdly friendly, and d) that Chanel would stop being so friendly back.

  “Porsha's coming with us. She just got her ticket.”

  Kaliq pulled a pack of Newports out of his pocket and stuck one between his lips. He lit it carefully, glancing at Porsha through the flame and then away again.

  “Looks like I'm going there, too,” he said finally. “Mercedes' mom has a house near the mountain. We should ski together.”

  Porsha felt her stomach begin to gurgle and splosh in Chanel's too-tight dress. “I'll be right back.” She shoved her empty glass at Chanel. “Maybe you should find our table so we can sit down.”

  “Porsha's living at my house for a while,” Chanel explained to Kaliq as they watched Porsha make a beeline for the ladies' room. All of a sudden, Chanel felt sort of big-sisterly and protective toward Porsha, and she was glad she'd been able to help. “Her mom's turning her room into a nursery for her new baby sister. Bummer, huh?”

  Kaliq tried to imagine what Porsha's life must be like now that she had a new stepfather and stepbrother and a new baby sister on the way. He didn't get very far.

  “You look different,” Chanel noted, looking him up and down. She cocked a perfectly groomed eyebrow and grinned. “You look good.”

  Kaliq and Chanel had always lusted after each other. They'd even given in and had sex, losing their virginity together the summer before tenth grade, just before Chanel had gone off to boarding school. They even hooked up the week she came back to the city. It was a recreational sort of lust, though, with no strings attached, and they'd never acted on it again since those two times.

  “I feel good,” Kaliq admitted. He thought about telling her how he'd quit getting high but still hadn't made lax captain. How he couldn't wait for her to meet Mercedes because they'd definitely get along. But Kaliq wasn't much of a gusher. “It's cool you're going out there,” he said simply. “It should be a good time.

  “Should be a good time?” Chanel repeated, throwing her arms around him in her usual spontaneous manner and getting pink lipstick all over his cheek. “Normally I only have my boring old brother to ski with. It's gonna be so much fun!”

  Kaliq endured the hug, trying not to get turned on. But now that he was weed-free, the mere whiff of a girl's perfume or the brush of her hand was enough to make his body hot, especially when she was as gorgeous as Chanel was.

  Chanel lifted a cigarette from out of the pack in his breast pocket and squeezed past him. “I better go check on Porsh. See you later, okay?”

  Kaliq watched her go, feeling for his cell phone in his tuxedo pants pocket. Mercedes was probably in her room at Breakaway right now, having quiet time, or whatever it was they made their patients do after dinner, but maybe the nurse on duty would be nice enough to let them have phone sex.

  He dialed the number and put the phone to his ear before looking up. Jaylen was staring at him from his seat next to his jewel-encrusted mom, looking extremely gay indeed. And just the thought that Jaylen might possibly have a crush on him was enough to quell the urgency of Kaliq's call to Connecticut. He tucked the phone back into his pocket and went off to find his table, not even bothering to think about the rumors Jaylen had already started circulating about him and Chanel

  12

  Yasmine knew it had been a mistake to come the minute she laid eyes on Misty Harrison's gold dress. Never mind the fact that her dad was wearing a wool poncho and a skirt—she was still wearing her school uniform!

  But her parents didn't seem at all self-conscious. “Look at Dad checking out the free booze,” Ruby whispered in her ear. “He's in freaking heaven.”

  “They need to turn the music up so people can dance,” their mother commented, snapping her fingers and bobbing up and down in her moccasins. She was probably the only woman in the building not in heels—even Yasmine and Ruby were wearing platform boots.

  A hushed, horrified murmur slithered through the room.

  “Who the hell are they?” Jaylen asked his mom. Misty Harrison was one of the grande dames of New York Society. She knew everyone.

  “I'm not sure,” his mother answered. “But I do love a man in a skirt. It takes such courage!”

  “You know, I recognize those two,” Titi Edwards told her husband. “They're the artists from the opening we went to last night—the one with that wonderful horse!”

  “Gabby! Arlo!” A woman in an elegant floor-length gown, her hair pulled back in a stylish, professionally done 'do, was waving energetically at the Richards from a table in the corner.

  “I think that must be Mrs. Rosenfeld,” Yasmine said, dragging her parents over to the woman.

  Mwa! Mwa!

  “We are just too glad you're here!” Pilar Rosenfeld cried, kissing each one of the Richards twice on each cheek. “Isn't it wonderful, Roy?” she asked, touching her husband's crisp, tuxedoed arm. “Here we all are together again after all these years.”

  “Splendid!” Roy Rosenfeld said in his deep, dapper voice. The Rosenfelds had gone to art school with the Richards and had once worn only tie-dyes, cutoffs, and no shoes, even though they were both from wealthy New England families. Obviously their shoeless days had been just a phase.

  Next to Mr. Rosenfeld, a tall, chestnut-skinned boy wearing wire-rimmed Gucci glasses stood peering down his intimidating nose at Yasmine, as if trying to place her.

  “Jordan, you remember Gabriela and Arlo and Ruby and Yasmine?” his mother asked.

  The boy's haughty stance didn't change. “I think the last time I saw you, you were only a baby, but I'm pretty sure you had more hair.”

  Yasmine had just noticed Chanel Crenshaw and Porsha Sinclaire basking in their glory at the next table, making her even more aware of the fact that she was wearing her school uniform. “Last time I saw you, you were wearing tie-dyed diapers.”

  Jordan pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his tremendous nose. “Well, now I'm prelaw, at Columbia.”

  Ruby sat down at the table and poured herself a huge glass of champagne. “Mom? Dad? Are you guys okay?”

  Their parents were standing stiffly together, propping each other up like one of their found-art statues. Yasmine wondered if they'd expected to be dancing barefoot around a fire to welcome the coming of spring instead of sitting down at a black-tie affair.

  “Please.” Mr. Rosenfeld pulled out the empty chair next to him and gestured for Yasmine's mother to sit down.

  “I just love your skirt,” Mrs. Rosenfeld noted, pointing to Arlo's accidental fashion statement. “Is that Galliano by any chance?”

  Arlo stared at her blankly. A white-jacketed waiter arrived to serve the first course, a duck pate terrine. Arlo began to poke at it with his dessert spoon, checking it for signs of life. Yasmine's mother picked up her cloth napkin and blew her nose into it. Ruby snorted and giggled into her champagne.

  “Are you still making art for peace, or have you given all that up?” Gabriela asked Pilar.

  Pilar smiled. “Roy and I are in real estate law. Jordan wants to get into law, too, when he's done with school. Forget about it—we don't even have time to recycle anymore!”

  Yasmine's parents both blanched. Recycling was what found-art was all about. Without recycling, they and their art would cease to exist. “Well, that's a pity,” Gabriela said, frowning down at her paté. “You don't suppose I could ask them to make us a salad, do you?”

  Yasmi
ne dug into her paté, delighted with this entertaining turn of events. “What kind of law do you want to practice?” she asked Jordan.

  He waved cigarette smoke away from his weirdly long nostrils. Behind him, Porsha and Chanel were smoking like chimneys while Porsha's pregnant mother polished off the food on their plates. “Probably real estate, just like my parents.”

  Yasmine nodded. It was sort of hard to relate someone's desire to emulate his parents when her own parents were such freaks. But Jordan's lack of imagination was also strangely appealing. And he wasn't bad-looking either, with nice hair that looked like he probably spent a lot of time grooming it, and that nose. Yasmine wouldn't have minded getting Jordan's nose on film. “I like your glasses,” she told him.

  Just because she had a shaved head didn't mean she didn't know how to flirt.

  “Thanks.” He pulled them off and then put them back on again. “You're a senior, right? Know where you're going to college next year?”

  Yasmine glared at Ruby, daring her to blurt out the information about Yasmine's early acceptance at NYU. But Ruby remained loyally silent, which was a major challenge for a motormouth like her.

  “What does it matter?” Arlo demanded grumpily. “Any school that can help her discover something she's passionate about would be fine.”

  Gabriela tugged on her long gray braid, her brown eyes passing over Yasmine absentmindedly. “That's right, you are going to college next year.” She turned to Pilar. “Arlo always hoped Yasmine would go to Oberlin. I don't know where he got that idea. After all, it's an arts school.”

  “I'm sure some school will be dumb enough to take me,” Yasmine said quietly.

  “That's the spirit, dear!” Pilar chirped. “And all this time, you two girls have been living on your own in Williamsburg,” she added, changing the subject. “My, you're independent!”

  “Ruby's got to keep up with her music,” Gabriela gushed. “Her band might get signed to a label soon.”

  Yasmine smiled tightly. “While I just sit around the house all day, eating Pringles and watching TV.”

  Next to her Jordan grunted, the only one at the table who'd gotten the joke.

  The band began to play, a little louder this time. Jaylen Harrison shimmied over to Chanel and Porsha's table, his hands on his hips for added gayness. “This party would be so much less boring if you girls would dance with me.” He leaned over the backs of their chairs and breathed down their bare necks.

  Chanel and Porsha glanced at each other sideways. Their only surefire escape was to sprint to the ladies' room for more cigarettes. Grabbing their drinks, they scooted their chairs back and leapt to their feet.

  Rrrriippp!

  Whoosh!

  Oops!

  Porsha's borrowed too-tight pink dress ripped obscenely down both sides, revealing the fact that she was wearing only a pair of sheer black stockings underneath and absolutely no underwear. Worse still, Chanel's strapless dress got caught on the back of her chair and was yanked down to her waist, revealing her completely bare 34Bs.

  “It's all right, we're all girls here,” Jaylen tittered.

  “Close your eyes, dear,” Titi Edwards snapped at her husband, Arthur.

  “Oh, my!” Mrs. Crenshaw exclaimed, reflexively reaching for her drink.

  “Whoa,” Kaliq breathed, suddenly glad he wasn't high.

  The girls giggled hysterically, frantically clutching themselves and each other as they tore past Jaylen, dashed to the coatroom to fetch their coats, and beat it out of the Frick as fast as their three-and-a-half-inch heels would allow.

  No one at Yasmine's table had even noticed. The elder Rosenfelds and Richards were too busy being offended by each other as the band struck up another song.

  Yasmine hated to dance, but she grabbed the sleeve of Jordan's expensive suit jacket, anyway. “I love this song. Come and dance with me?”

  Jordan stood up and pulled back her chair for her, all manners and conformity. Then he led her onto the dance floor and twirled her around with the confident ease of someone who'd been to dancing school.

  Yasmine surprised herself by feeling a little giddy as she was spun and dipped. He was such a good dancer, she completely forgot about her stupid school uniform. Even though most of the other girls in the room would surely never forget.

  13

  “The last time I was here, our house was definitely on this road,” Mercedes insisted stubbornly. “But you don't know my mom. She would totally move the house somewhere else just to spite me.”

  Kaliq looked out the Sun Valley taxi window at the stunning log cabin mansions on Wood River Drive in Ketchum, Idaho, the main town in Sun Valley. Behind them rose the snow-covered mass of Mount Baldy, its robust sides alternating between pristinely groomed ski runs and swatches of dense forest. Squinting, Kaliq could just make out the antlike trickle of skiers zigzagging down the slopes. His new board was tucked snugly in the back of the minivan in its padded red case, and he couldn't wait to try it out.

  “Maybe you could call and ask exactly where it is,” the driver suggested, glancing at Mercedes in the rearview mirror. The ride from the airport to her house was only supposed to take about twenty minutes, but they'd been driving around Sun Valley for forty-five.

  “Just keep driving,” Mercedes commanded as she rested her head heavily against Kaliq's shoulder. The sleeping pill she'd mooched off the old man sitting next to her on the plane still hadn't worn off, and as usual she wasn't making any sense. Also, she was wearing purple satin sandals and a flimsy black halter top, which was kind of strange, considering the fact that they were going skiing. Still, her smooth arms felt good in Kaliq's hands, and her long dark hair was so wavy and luxurious, he didn't mind. It was nice just being together in person instead of on the phone.

  “Do you remember how many floors it has?” he asked, trying to be helpful. “Or if there's like, a stream next to it or something?”

  “Not really,” Mercedes yawned. “I remember one time when we were here for Christmas, Nanny and I built a snowman together. I stole one of my mother's Fendi purses for it to carry on its stick arm.”

  Very helpful.

  The driver was sort of creeping along the road back toward town. He seemed to have given up.

  “Wait a minute,” Mercedes cried, sitting up.

  The car jolted to a halt.

  “That's it!” She grappled with the door handle and slid the minivan door open, completely unmindful of the fact that she was getting out in the middle of the road on a blind turn. “Come on!” she called to Kaliq impatiently. Obviously she expected the driver or the house staff to deal with the luggage.

  Don't we all?

  Kaliq had admired the sprawling timber ranch house the two other times they'd driven by it, wondering who lived there and if they were famous or something, since there were seven matching black SUVs parked outside.

  “Whose cars are these?” he asked as he followed Mercedes down the snow-dusted driveway to the imposing eight-foot-high steel front doors of the house.

  Mercedes bit her lower lip with eager anticipation. She didn't even seem to notice that her satin sandals were already completely ruined. “I guess someone knew we were coming.” The massive doors swung open with barely a nudge. “Mom doesn't believe in locks,” Mercedes explained. “She likes her friends to feel welcome even if she's not here.”

  “She's not here?” Kaliq had sort of assumed when Mercedes first told him about the trip that they'd be hanging out with Mercedes's mom—that they'd help her cook dinner and then watch movies together until her mom fell asleep on the sofa and they could sneak upstairs to have sex.

  “Nah. She's in the Dominican Republic or Venezuela or somewhere. She always goes south in the winter.”

  They were inside the lofty foyer of the house now. The floor was made of red clay tiles and big, exposed wooden beams crisscrossed overhead. The foyer opened onto a huge sunken living room with an entire wall made of glass facing the mountains. Off the living r
oom was a wooden deck, where steam from a hot tub rose into the air, barely masking the seven heads of the people sitting in it.

  “Ooh, the hot tub's turned on!” Mercedes squealed, kicking off her sandals. “Last one in has to bring the drinks!”

  Kaliq let her run on ahead as he gazed up the wide plank staircase to the second floor. Clothes littered the stairs, and along the windowsill on the landing above were the small round skulls of wildcats. He crossed the living room, sunlight pouring through the wall of glass and drenching his face. In front of the great stone fireplace was a grizzly bear rug.

  We should be fooling around on that rug right now, he thought bitterly, but instead he had to go out and talk to a bunch of strangers in Mercedes's mom's hot tub.

  There were seven of them altogether, which sort of explained the seven cars, although if they were comfortable enough to sit in the hot tub together, then couldn't they just share one SUV? Mercedes was already in the tub, wedged between a grinning guy and Jaylen Harrison. And they were all naked.

  “Mercedes told me she had a special someone,” Jaylen said, leering at Kaliq. His chest was covered with thick, dark hair. Meanwhile, the hair on his head was still an outrageous bleach-blond. He looked like a knockoff Chris Brown or something. “But she didn't tell me it was the infamous Kaliq Braxton!”

  Kaliq sat down on the wooden bench skirting the railing of the deck. He didn't feel like getting wet or naked, not in front of all these guys.

  “And this is the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team!” Mercedes said, sweeping her arm in the direction of the seven guys dozing lazily in the hot water. “Jaylen met them on the half-pipe just before the lifts closed.”

  “That's Jan, that's Franz, that's Josef, Conrad, Sven, Ulrich, and Gan! Aren't they too yummy?” Jaylen asked, sliding down into the tub until only his nose and eyes were out of the water. Then he popped up again.

  “Nice to meet you,” Kaliq said, barely hiding his annoyance. If Mercedes was already naked in the hot tub with the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team, then where did that leave him? A few of them could've been gay, since they were hanging out with Jaylen, but they couldn't all be gay.