Upper East Side #5

by Ashley Valentine

  “Help!” Chanel cried, her face aflame at how pathetic she sounded.

  Never mind how strange the sight must be.

  “Woo! Nice ass!” someone shouted out the window as the car screeched past.

  The toboggan bumped and slid along as the car's taillights disappeared down the road. “Hey, you guys!” Chanel yelled, straining her neck. “Can you stop?”

  Her so-called friends didn't even turn around. Perhaps they didn't hear her, or maybe they were just pretending not to hear.

  “Please?”

  But still they didn't stop. The road lit up again as another car approached. This time the car slowed down. Then a siren blared, and red-and-white lights whirled and churned up the night.

  “Fuck, it's the police!” Jaylen shouted. “Run!”

  “No!” Chanel shouted back. The toboggan bumped and slid as the police car drew closer.

  “Let go! Let go!” Chanel heard Mercedes scream.

  All of a sudden, the toboggan zigzagged haphazardly, before careening into a ditch. It rolled once and fell on its side in a stream of freezing slush. Water seeped through the wool blanket and covered Chanel's knees. It was so cold, it felt hot.

  “Stop! Stop right there!” the police ordered as they gave chase, the lights on top of their car whirling off into the distance.

  Chanel shivered in the ditch. The police hadn't even seen her.

  “Help,” she whimpered. “Please, help.”

  31

  “Now we're dressed exactly alike,” Porsha said as she stepped out of Mercede's mom's bathroom, wearing only a towel.

  Cairo put down the ski magazine he'd been reading while he waited for her on the bed. “Cool.”

  The room had a high, slanted, timber ceiling and gigantic mismatched triangular windows facing Mount Baldy. Headlights on the Snowcats grooming the runs for the following day twinkled in the darkness. Porsha wondered fleetingly if Kaliq was still out there, wandering around in the snow in his sneakers, or if he'd come to his senses and come back inside. Not that she cared. She spun her ruby ring around and around on her finger and shifted her gaze back to the bed. I'm about to become a woman, she reminded herself.

  Even with cookie crumbs scattered all over his chin and bare chest and his hair damp and matted from soaking in the hot tub, Cairo was irresistible. She walked over to the bedside table and took a swig of champagne right from the bottle. “Okay. I'm ready.”

  Cairo took her hand and pulled her down on top of him. Their lips met in a thrilling mixture of chocolate and champagne. He pressed himself against her hip. He appeared to be ready, too.

  She closed her eyes as music filtered up from the party downstairs, some rap song she didn't recognize. The night she'd thought she was going to do it with Kaliq, she'd made a playlist and filled her room with candles. Then nothing had happened. This time she was in a strange house with strange music playing. But maybe it was better this way—the looser the script, the more room for experimentation. Not that she wanted to try anything weird.

  “Open your eyes,” Cairo murmured, nuzzling her neck. “You have beautiful eyes.”

  Porsha opened her eyes and giggled to herself. She was kissing Chanel's fine older brother. She closed her eyes again, diving in for another round of mouth-to-mouth. It seemed easier to just do it rather than think about what she was doing or who she was doing it with.

  Cairo pulled back the silk covers and scooted underneath it. Porsha shimmied in after him and removed her towel, tossing it onto the floor with more flourish than she'd actually intended.

  Ta-da!

  “You've done this before, right?” Cairo asked as he drummed his capable fingers slowly down her spine.

  Porsha shivered—partly out of pleasure and partly out of fear—and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, sure.”

  She could feel Cairo bulging hugely against her leg. Maybe they wouldn't have to do it all the way, just a little bit. Then she remembered what she and Chanel always told the ninth-graders in their peer group. Don't do it just to do it. Do it with someone you love who cares about how you feel. And don't do it unless you know without question that you're ready.

  That had always been easy for Chanel to say. She had lost her virginity way back in the summer after tenth grade, with Kaliq, no less. It was the constant, invisible, unspoken thing between Porsha and her. The albatross in their friendship.

  When Porsha approached the topic of sex in peer group, she spoke with such authority, she almost believed she'd done it herself sometimes. And sure, she'd come pretty close—with Kaliq on several occasions while they were together—but not that close. She'd always stopped him, just in the nick of time.

  Which, considering the fact that she and Cairo were both naked and lying very close together, was like, right now.

  “Are you nervous or something?” Cairo asked, stroking her hair and looking into her eyes in that pleasant, gorgeous way of his.

  “No. Why? Do I seem nervous?” Porsha replied a little too hastily.

  “It's just the way your knees are kind of pushing me away…”

  Porsha hadn't even realized what she was doing with her knees. Even though she desperately wanted to do it and get it over with, her body clearly had other ideas.

  How was she going to lose her virginity when her body wouldn't even cooperate?

  32

  Kaliq was on his way back to Mercedes' house, his legs numb with cold and his sneakers soaked through from the snow, ready to give in and jump in the hot tub. He'd thought a good long walk alone would help clear his head, but he had so much to think about—getting into Brown, not making lacrosse captain, Mercedes' erratic behavior, the way Porsha seemed to look right through him—all he could really think about was how great it would be just to smoke a joint and forget all his troubles.

  “Damn,” he cursed under his breath as he hurried along the shoulder of Wood River Drive.

  “Please help?” he heard a tiny pleading voice whimper from the ditch to his left.

  Kaliq whirled around, his eyes bulging out of his head when he recognized the long black hair and the familiar body strapped inside the overturned ski patrol toboggan. If he hadn't been so sober, he would've thought he was having some sort of mental allergic reaction to weed or something.

  “Chanel?” He knelt down and began unbuckling the straps. “What the hell happened?”

  As soon as Chanel's arms were free she reached up and hugged Kaliq around the neck, sobbing wordlessly. She wouldn't have minded if it had been Jan who'd rescued her, but Kaliq was ten thousand times better.

  “You're okay. You're okay,” Kaliq murmured, stroking her hair with one hand as he worked the rest of the toboggan straps with the other. When all the straps were undone he pulled back the heavy wool blanket, never imagining what he'd find underneath. “Whoa.” He grabbed her under the arms and helped her to her feet before wrapping the blanket around her once more.

  Chanel swayed against him, too overcome to be embarrassed or even to explain how she'd wound up naked in a ditch, strapped to a ski patrol toboggan. Kaliq bent down and picked her up like an oversized baby. “Let's get you back. All you need is a nice warm bath and some warm clothes and you'll be good as new.”

  He started down the road toward the house, his arms and legs ablaze with energy from his manly rescue. Chanel let her head fall against his shoulder and breathed sweet warm air into his ear. Maybe it was Kaliq—her Kaliq—who she'd been meant to be with all along. Her knight in shining armor. The love of her life.

  When they got back to the house, ever-efficient Kaliq carried Chanel upstairs to the guest bathroom and ran her a nice hot bath. While she relaxed in the bubbles, he went down the hall to Mercedes' mother's room to look for a warm bathrobe and some cozy cashmere socks. The door was closed, but the cleaning staff had kept it closed ever since he'd arrived at the house, so he thought nothing of opening it without knocking.

  Oops.

  Kaliq stood frozen in the doorway, blinking. Porsha's
clothes were on the floor and her delicate hand with its little ruby ring was curled around the neck of somebody. That somebody turned his head, proving not to be a member of the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team—thankfully—but Cairo Crenshaw, Chanel's older brother. Which wasn't much better.

  “Sorry,” Kaliq muttered. “I just needed some stuff out of the closet.”

  “Um, can you come back later? We're kind of busy,” Cairo said, without a hint of embarrassment.

  Kaliq just stood there staring at them with his hands in his pockets. He needed some sort of explanation or acknowledgment from the bottom half of the Cairo-Porsha nooky sandwich before he could turn his back.

  But Porsha just lay there with her eyes closed. Cairo had almost talked her body into going on the trip she'd wanted to take in the first place, but at the sound of Kaliq's voice, she canceled the flight.

  Finally she heard the sound of the door closing and Kaliq's footsteps hurrying down the hall. Then she rose up on her elbows and inched her body away from Cairo's, pulling the sheet up over her chest to cover herself.

  “Actually, this was going to be my first time,” she admitted, blushing with shame for lying about it when he'd asked. “But I guess I'm not ready.” She looked up at Cairo, her eyes round, hoping with all her heart he wouldn't be too mad.

  Cairo's adorable lips curled up in a half smile. “Nah. You're ready. I'm just not the right guy, that's all.”

  And it's no secret who is.

  33

  When the downstairs buzzer rang, Gabriela and Ruby were making yeast-free, sugar-free, organic whole-grain-and-wild-berry energy bars in the kitchen area of Yasmine and Ruby's small apartment. Meanwhile, Yasmine and Jordan were helping Arlo tie the daffodils that he had stolen out of the local park onto the fishing net he'd found and dragged home. Supposedly, the daffodils represented hope, although Yasmine wasn't exactly sure what the fishing net itself was supposed to represent. The net was scratchy and was cutting up her hands, and Jordan was annoying her with the way he was suddenly all interested in her parents and their work. He'd even taken his shoes off when he came inside, just like they did, and he was wearing a beaded peace-sign necklace that he'd probably stolen out of a box of his mom's old things. Needless to say, the sound of the buzzer was a welcome signal to Yasmine to drop what she was doing and run.

  “I'll get it!” she shouted, stuffing a daffodil into Jordan's helpful hands. She hurried over to the intercom. “Hello?”

  “Postal service with a package, ma'am.”

  Yasmine buzzed the postman in. He reached the top of the stairs and handed over a box. It was addressed to her, and Mekhi's name and address were written in the upper left hand corner.

  She closed the door and sat down on the floor, tearing open the package with her teeth. Inside, wrapped in newspaper, was a bright pink plastic spaceship with three little plastic girls standing on top of it. The little girls had matching black pigtails and matching green plastic dresses. She turned the toy over and flicked the power switch to on, then set it down on the floor. A crazy Japanese dance song began to play as the girls on the spaceship whirled around and around and little plastic lights flashed on and off at their feet. It was tacky and horrible—superfantastically so.

  “What on Mother Earth?” Gabriela exclaimed, coming over to look. “Who would send you such a thing?”

  That wonderful boy you thought I might marry one day?

  “I like it,” Yasmine declared. “It's so bad, it's good.”

  Jordan walked over with a garland of daffodils draped around his neck. He frowned down at the thing like it was supposed to make sense. “What is it?”

  “It's just a thing,” Yasmine replied, the ideas for her next film already stacking up in her brain. “Hey, could you come down here for a minute?” she asked, thinking of Jordan's nose.

  He bent down eagerly and she closed one eye, cupping her fingers around the other eye to form a camera-lens view of his astounding nose, the crazy pink spaceship toy whirling and flashing in the background.

  Sounds like an Oscar winner already.

  “Stay right there.” Yasmine sprinted toward her room to retrieve her camera from the closet. If she was fast, her parents wouldn't even notice what she was doing. “Hold it,” she whispered, holding the camera to her eye as she zoomed in on Jordan's nose, making sure to leave the peace-sign necklace and the daffodils out of the frame. “Okay, got it.” She turned the camera off and tossed it into her black book bag by the door.

  From across the living room, her father was watching her curiously, the flashing lights from the toy setting his eyes aglow.

  Yasmine headed back into her room to gather some more supplies. From now on, she'd have to take the spaceship and the camera with her wherever she went, capturing whatever crazy thing she fancied, the spaceship being the only constant; forever in the background.

  “Can I stand up now?” Jordan asked when she came back. He was still kneeling awkwardly in front of the spaceship, his eyes woozy from listening to its insane song over and over.

  Yasmine grabbed the toy and switched it off, tucking it and her extra batteries and lenses into her bag. “Yeah, you can go,” she told him absently. Meaning she had no use for him anymore.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Ruby shouted at her from the kitchenette.

  Yasmine could already tell from Ruby's tone of voice that her sister knew exactly what she was up to. She laced up her Doc Martens and pulled her black windbreaker on over her head. “Out,” she shouted back as she banged through the door, her father's eyes burning curious holes into her back as she went.

  34

  Petite mignonette, sweet coquette

  I taste your cookies, your bread

  You fill my plate

  On his last day at work before school started again, Mekhi stood in front of the toilet in the Red Letter men's room reading and rereading the words he'd written on the scrap of paper that had disappeared from his desk a week ago. He'd found the other poem he'd written using that same last line—you fill my plate—and he'd intended to reword the line in this new poem. But it was his fleeting glimpse of Elise holding a baguette that had inspired the poem, and both his interest in her and his interest in finishing the poem had completely diminished.

  Did that have anything to do with a certain e-mail he might have received recently?

  The redundant line was not the main reason he couldn't stop staring at the words on the bathroom wall. The words he was staring at weren't even his. Whoever had copied his fragment of a poem onto the wall had written underneath it, Note to self: See above for how not to write.

  Okay, so what he'd written was sappy and girly and didn't make much sense. He'd be the first to admit that. But insulting someone's writing so deliberately was just downright…mean and immature. It was like talking trash about your mother: Only you were allowed to do it.

  “Bastards,” Mekhi muttered under his breath as he flushed the toilet. He dug a black Sharpie out of his back pocket and began to scrawl next to his poem.

  Notes on how not to be an asshole:

  1. Don't steal stuff from people's desks, especially when they don't know you well enough to think it's funny.

  2. Never assume a poem is finished. In fact, never assume anything, because when you ASSuME, you make an ass out of u and me.

  3. Go fuck yourself, because no one else will.

  He stuffed the pen back into his pocket, washed his hands, and kicked open the door, almost trampling over Siegfried Castle.

  “Kid,” Mr. Castle addressed him in his awkward German accent. “I am haffing some calls about checks zat never arrived. But you mailed zem yourself last veek. Wusty just called to say Mystewy Cwaze is trapped in Helsinki because Wusty can't wire her traveling money.”

  Mekhi walked over to his desk and picked up his black messenger bag. He was tempted to tell Sig Castle that Mystery's check was on its way to Helsinki via the Hudson River, but he didn't want to get fired—he wanted to quit. Mr.
Castle had followed him to his desk and was staring him down with his mean German eyes.

  “Why don't you find someone else to be your slave,” Mekhi hissed. He climbed on top of his chair to read the words written in the red horizontal line that was painted around the room. Red Letter, Red Letter, Red Letter, was all it said, over and over. “That's real creative,” he added, hopping off the chair. And then he walked out.

  Within thirty seconds of his leaving, his cell phone rang obnoxiously in his back pocket. Mekhi knew without looking at it who was calling.

  “Fuck me, kid. NO ONE, I mean NO ONE, quits a job at Red Letter!” Rusty Klein shouted at him. “You're supposed to be ABSORBING the aura of literary genius. You're supposed to DO AS YOU'RE TOLD. You're just an APPRENTICE, for chrissakes. You can't QUIT!”

  Mekhi strode up 7th Avenue South with the phone pressed against his ear, determined not to let Rusty ruin the tingly feeling of triumph coursing through his body. “Sorry, but I don't really get what mailing people's mail or buying caviar or making photocopies has to do with writing good poems.”

  Rusty was silent—at least for a moment. “Hop in a cab, doll. I'll meet you at the Plaza in ten. I think I know how to handle this.”

  Mekhi stood at the head of the stairs down into the subway at 14th Street. He thought about how Rusty had tried to talk him into taking a break from school to write a memoir, which was so totally not what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to college to have new experiences and learn how to write better, and he didn't need an agent to do it. “That's okay, I think I can handle it myself. Actually, I think I can handle me myself. At least for a while, anyway.”

  Rusty didn't answer right away. Mekhi could hear the phones ringing and her assistant, Buckley, frantically answering them. He waited for her to shout something at him about how he didn't know what was good for him, but instead she just said, “You're sure about this?”

  “Yeah,” Mekhi said firmly. “Thanks.”