Upper East Side #5

by Ashley Valentine

  Siegfried Castle grimaced and removed his hand. “You're a poet, no?”

  Mekhi nodded, his eyes shifting nervously to the other people in the office. They were all looking up now, examining him coldly. He noticed now that everyone else had those little green bottles of mineral water lined up on their desks, too. And they were all dressed in black and white, just like Mr. Castle. Mekhi felt like a freak in his light blue shirt and gray suit.

  “Yes. I had a poem in the Valentine's Day issue of The New Yorker last month. Maybe you saw it? It's called ‘Sluts.’”

  Siegfried Castle didn't seem to hear him, and Mekhi wondered if there was some sort of rivalry between Red Letter and The New Yorker. Maybe he'd committed a horrible faux pas by mentioning the competition.

  “Now. I show you my outbox. My inbox. My files. Show you the slush pile. Show you the photocopier. The phone. The fax. You sit there. I call you for things. We eat at one-thirty in conference room. You will order our food.” He was pointing around the office, and Mekhi realized that Mr. Castle wasn't going to show him anything else or introduce him to anyone. The tour was over.

  The phone rang, and Siegfried Castle sat down again and pointed at it with a neatly manicured finger. Mekhi picked up the phone. “Hello?” He winced, realizing he should have said something more professional. “May I help you?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” the voice on the other end said in an English accent. “Get me the Zigster, pronto.”

  He held the phone out to Mr. Castle, who he noticed had a few gray hairs and was probably older than he looked. “It's for you, I think.”

  Mekhi sat down in what was presumably his chair in the corner, facing the wall. There was nothing on the desk. No computer, no phone. Not even any water. He wondered if he should go around and introduce himself to the other people in the office, but he didn't really want to bother them while they were working. He squinted up at the red line of words running along the wall, but the more he looked at them, the more they seemed to dance and blur together. He glanced sideways at Mr. Castle's outbox. It had a letter in it.

  “Would you like me to mail that for you?” he asked.

  Siegfried popped a cigarette into his mouth and flicked open his silver Zippo lighter. Then he threw the unlit cigarette into the trash can beneath his desk. “Go ahead,” he said spitefully, as if he couldn't wait to get rid of Mekhi. “Also, I need caviar.” He pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket. “Gourmet Garage on 7th Avenue. Not beluga. It's zee black one in the blue tin.”

  As if anyone would know what he was talking about?

  Mekhi took the money and the letter and went outside. The envelope wasn't stamped, and he had no idea where the post office was, but surely there was one nearby, and he could smoke a cigarette while he was looking for it.

  Ten blocks later he still hadn't found the post office, but he'd smoked four cigarettes on a pier overlooking the Hudson River. “I have to get back,” he told himself, and tossed his cigarette into the water. But how could he go back with the envelope in hand, looking like a dope because he couldn't figure out where to buy a stamp?

  He leaned against the railing, and before he could stop and think about what he was doing, he tossed the envelope into the swirling brown water. It floated on top for a minute, turned beige and wet-looking, and then sank.

  Whoops!

  Mekhi turned quickly around and strode across the pier and up 11th Street. Maybe when he got home tonight, he'd look online and locate the nearest post office to the Red Letter headquarters. How important could that one letter have been, anyway?

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, felt the crinkle of the hundred dollar bill, and remembered the caviar.

  “Fuck.”

  Inside Gourmet Garage, there were stacks of tinned black caviar and about eight different kinds with blue labels. Mekhi grabbed the most expensive one and headed over to the register.

  “Mekhi?”

  He turned around. It was Elise, Bree's friend. She was carrying a baguette that was about three feet long, and she had flour on her face. She looked sort of cute, actually, except that Mekhi suddenly noticed she was much taller than he was, by like a foot.

  “What are you doing here? Bree said you were starting your new job today.”

  Mekhi pointed to the little tin of caviar motoring along on the black rubber conveyor belt toward the cashier. How could anything that small cost seventy-four dollars? “My boss sent me out to buy some stuff.”

  Elise watched as he paid for the caviar with the hundred dollar bill and then tucked it and the change into his coat pocket. “Wow,” she breathed, impressed. “Well, anyway, I just went over to your new office to bring you some cookies. I was bored, and I thought maybe you'd like a treat on your first day.” She smiled shyly as she paid for her baguette. “I always write better when I have something good to munch on.”

  Mekhi wasn't quite sure what to make of this. “I have to get back,” he told her, and pushed open the door to the street.

  “Okay.” She walked with him to the corner with the baguette tucked under her arm. There was flour all over her black wool pea coat. “I need a cab. I was just buying my mom some bread. Our family practically lives on Pepsi and French bread. My dad calls it the Wells Diet.”

  Mekhi smiled. The diet worked. Elise was pretty skinny. He squinted up at her in the cold noon sun. Elise had brought him cookies. She had cute freckles and was gangly and tall and had a baguette under her arm. Standing there in her black pea coat and black ballet flats, she looked extremely French and poetic. He could definitely write a poem about her.

  She waved the baguette at a passing cab. “Hey!” The cab stopped, and she turned to say goodbye. "Me and Bree might watch movies or something later. Maybe I'll see you at your house?”

  Mekhi took a step toward her. “You have flour on your cheek.” He daubed at it with his thumb and then kissed the spot. “There.”

  The corners of Elise's lips turned up in a tentative smile. “Thanks.” The cabbie honked his horn. She tucked the baguette more snugly under her arm. “I left the cookies on your desk. They're good, I think. Okay, see you,” she added before hopping into the backseat of the taxi.

  Petite mignonette, Mekhi began to write in his head as he walked back toward the office. Sweet coquette. He wasn't even sure if those were real French words, but they sounded like a flirty little French girl who carried bread under her arm and brought you cookies. The kind you wrote songs and poems about and kissed on the cheek. Elise was only fourteen, after all. She was no Mystery Craze, but she obviously adored him, and at least she was around.

  He lit another cigarette and walked back to the office at a leisurely pace. So far this work thing wasn't so bad. As long as he stayed out of the office.

  17

  “Look, dad, an old sled,” Yasmine called. She'd made the mistake of mentioning how much old stuff people in New York leave out on the sidewalk—she'd actually found a pair of perfectly good old-fashioned roller skates that way—and now she was patrolling the streets of Williamsburg, helping them hunt for found-art treasures.

  Arlo shuffled over to the red plastic sled and picked it up. It was cracked down the middle and covered with puffy stickers of turtles. The bottom of it was stained and discolored from the days of dog pee it had endured.

  “It might smell,” Yasmine warned.

  Arlo shrugged and dropped it into Ruby's black metal shopping cart. Already they'd found a plastic fishbowl, a white chef's hat, and an ashtray made out of thumbtacks.

  “What we really need is something big,” Gabriela said as they continued on. “Something profound.”

  Yasmine trailed them grudgingly, wondering what her mother meant. Another horse? A supersized cheese grater? She kicked a crushed empty juice box away with her foot and sat down on a stoop while her mom and dad conversed with the owner of an ancient pickup truck parked outside of what looked like a fisherman's shack in the midst of a block of warehouses. Then her mom walked
over and sat down next to her.

  “Arlo's found a kindred spirit,” she remarked, smiling at her husband from afar. “I think he's going to be a while.”

  Today Arlo was wearing his wool poncho over Bermuda shorts and tennis shoes with no socks. His knees were knobby and his shins were bruised from knocking around in Vermont, making sculptures out of old wheelbarrow carcasses or deer antlers. Yasmine marveled that her dad had ever found someone who could look at him the way her mom did. Talk about kindred spirits!

  “So what happened to that wonderful shaggy little boyfriend of yours?” Gabriela asked. She pulled the rubber band out of the end of her long gray braid and combed her paint-stained fingers through her hair.

  Yasmine grimaced. Part of the reason she kept her head shaved was that her mother's hair grossed her out. “You mean Mekhi?”

  Gabriela reached up and began to massage the back of Yasmine's neck. Yasmine winced—she hated to be touched without an invitation—but her mother didn't notice her discomfort. “I always thought you two would wind up getting married or something. You reminded me of Arlo and me.”

  Yasmine hugged her knees, enduring the massage. “Mekhi's joined the police force,” she said, knowing how much her parents resented law enforcement.

  “No kidding.” Gabriela let go of Yasmine's neck. She divided her gray hair into three thick clumps and began to braid it again. “He was such a marvelous talent. Such a rare, keen eye for beauty. And so loyal.”

  Loyal? Maybe not.

  “Ha!” Yasmine fumed. Mekhi would be nowhere if she hadn't recognized how good his poem was and submitted it to The New Yorker. “Actually, Mekhi's not becoming a cop,” she admitted. “He just stopped being nice. Like, it's okay to walk all over people as long as he can get a good poem out of it.” She glanced at her mother to see if the comment had registered. “He's an asshole,” she added.

  “True artists are forever accused of being assholes,” Gabriela sighed. “You mustn't be so hard on us.” She fastened the end of her ponytail with the elastic band from the bunch of broccoli Ruby had cooked last night. “You know who the real assholes are?”

  “Who?” Yasmine asked, standing up. Her father was walking toward them now with a stinky old fishing net in his hands, grinning eagerly like he couldn't wait for show-and-tell.

  “The Rosenfelds,” her mother replied. “That comment Pilar made the other night about how she doesn't even recycle? What kind of person doesn't recycle?!”

  Um, lots of us.

  “Jordan's nice,” Yasmine ventured quietly.

  “But those glasses he was wearing? They probably cost as much as our car! If you ask me, he should have spent the money on a nose job.”

  See, even peace-loving hippie freaks can't resist a little nasty gossip.

  Yasmine snorted. Considering the fact that her parents drove a Subaru wagon that was older than she was, Jordan's glasses probably cost way more than their car. And if her mom really detested the Rosenfelds so much, Yasmine couldn't wait for her mom to find out whom she'd invited to Ruby's gig later that night.

  A certain expensive-glasses-wearing, long-nosed boy, perhaps?

  18

  When Mekhi finally made it back to the office, he was buzzed in again only to find the place completely deserted. He deposited the change for the caviar on Siegfried Castle's desk and continued past the row of desks and down a short hallway. At the end of the hallway was a closed door and Mekhi could hear voices on the other side. He knocked softly.

  “Come in,” Siegfried Castle commanded.

  Mekhi pushed open the door. The Red Letter staff was seated around a conference table, eating cookies and sipping mineral water out of those little green bottles they all seemed to like so much. A printed copy of Mystery Craze's brand new memoir translated into German was lying in the middle of the table. The cover was white with a picture of a flamingo on it. Not the whole bird, just the legs, with one leg folded up at the knee.

  “We zought if you didn't come back with zee caviar, we could still enjoy your cookies,” Siegfried Castle explained. He nodded at the petite middle-aged woman seated next to him. “This is Betsy. Zat's Charles. Zat's Thomas. Zat's Rebecca. Bill, another Bill, und Randolph,” he said, continuing around the room and introducing everyone at a ridiculously rapid pace.

  Randolph was also Mekhi's middle name, and he despised it. He nodded and smiled politely. Everyone was dressed exactly like Mr. Castle, in pressed white shirts with French cuffs. It was like they were in some sort of cult.

  “Sorry I took so long. There was a really big line at the post office,” he lied. Normally he wasn't into lying or throwing out people's mail, but something about having a job made him want to rebel. “Anyway, here it is.” He set the tin of caviar down on the table in front of Mr. Castle.

  The famous editor peeled the label off the tin and stuck it on the table. Then he tossed the caviar into the wastepaper bin near the door.

  Hello?

  Mekhi wasn't sure whether to sit down or not. Obviously they were having some sort of meeting, and obviously he'd bought the wrong kind of caviar so—

  “Tell us vhat you tink of Mystewy Cwaze,” Mr. Castle interrupted his thoughts. “Everyvun here tinks she's some sort of prophet, even zee vimmen!”

  The guys around the table laughed lasciviously.

  “She's a freaking sex goddess,” Randolph called out, chomping on his cookies.

  Mekhi was still standing, suffocating in his coat. He sat down in the empty seat next to Mr. Castle and stared at the empty plate where Elise's cookies had been. “Mystery and I are pretty good friends,” he said quietly. “She's very…accomplished.”

  The guys in the room laughed loudly again. All of a sudden Mekhi had a feeling he wasn't the only one there who'd slept with Mystery.

  “She's a pretty good poet, too,” Rebecca remarked. She had pointy ears, like an elf's. “I can't believe she's never been to school.”

  “An orphan zat's never been to school, raised by wolves, vill do anything and zen write about it later. No vonder she's already famous,” Siegfried Castle remarked dreamily. He jotted something down on the purple pad lying in front of him on the table.

  Mekhi fiddled with the threads sewn across his suit pants pocket. He wasn't really sure what this meeting was about. What he really needed was a cigarette and a cup of coffee, and to write down the poem about Elise before he forgot what he wanted to say. He gestured toward the German version of Mystery's memoir. “I haven't read her book yet, but I'm sure it's good.”

  Siegfried Castle picked up a pile of papers from off the floor and tossed them on the table in front of Mekhi. “Zat's all cwap—vee warely take anything from submissions. But I vant to read it, anyway.”

  Mekhi looked at the pile. He'd always thought everything in Red Letter came from submissions. “How do you do it, then?”

  Everyone laughed. “Silly boy. Vee just ask our friends to write tings, or maybe vee find something vee like written on zee bathroom wall,” Mr. Castle declared, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  Mekhi picked up the pile of papers. “Do you want me to set aside the ones I think are good?” he asked, confused.

  “Just read zem and zen trow dem away!” Siegfried Castle yelled, his face red and angry-looking. “Out! Out!” he cried, pointing at the door. He swiped the empty cookie plate from off the table and shoved it at Mekhi. “Out!”

  Mekhi hurried out of the room, carrying the plate and the poems back to his empty desk. His entire body was shaking, and he was worried he might cry. Instead, he began flipping through the pile of poems, reading quickly. Some of them were pretty awful, but some of them were original and brilliant. He thought of asking Mr. Castle what he thought was wrong with the poems. Or maybe he could leave the poems he liked in Mr. Castle's inbox with a note asking him to reconsider them. But then again, the less he had to do with Siegfried Castle, the better.

  When he'd gotten control of himself again, he pulled a blank pie
ce of paper out of the stack near the printer and clicked open his pen, jotting down the first few lines of the poem that had been in his head all afternoon.

  Petite mignonette, sweet coquette

  I taste your cookies, your bread

  You fill my plate

  The last line sounded familiar, like maybe he'd already used it in another poem. He crossed his legs, pondering, and heard the sound of a toilet flushing. He could pee, he decided. Pee and then finish the poem. He got up to go to the bathroom. Inside, there was something written in Latin on the wall in red ink, but he couldn't decipher it.

  When he got back to his desk the piece of paper with his poem on it was gone, but the entire staff was still in the conference room.

  Mekhi didn't dare investigate. He could only hope his fragment of a poem would be published under “Anonymous” in the next issue of Red Letter. Eventually, he could leak the information that the poem was his, and the literary world would clamor for more. He'd publish a book—or maybe ten books—and become world-famous, just like Mystery Craze.

  Although maybe not quite as notorious.

  19

  Bree and Damien held hands throughout the entire movie and kept holding hands as they walked out of the theater. Bree hadn't even paid attention to the movie. All she could think the entire time was, He's going to take me home afterward. We're only five blocks away from that big doorman building on Park. And then I'll meet his dog and his mom and her personal trainer and their ten maids…

  “So, I was thinking maybe we could walk over to the Guggenheim now.” Damien smiled down at her with his cute, cracked-tooth smile.

  If he was so loaded then how come his parents didn't get his tooth fixed? Bree wondered. Then again, she was glad they hadn't. “It's after eight. Aren't all the museums closed by now?”

  “They have these once-a-month things at night,” Damien explained. “And it's kind of cooler, you know, seeing the paintings when it's dark out.”