Upper East Side #5

by Ashley Valentine

  “We just had no idea you were so…artistic,” Gabriela faltered. “No idea.”

  It wasn't exactly a compliment, but Yasmine hadn't exactly been fishing for compliments. Her films were so dark and weird, hardly anyone ever really liked them.

  Arlo grabbed the remote and switched the TV on again. They'd been watching the reinterpretation she'd done of a scene from Natural Born Killers, starring none other than Mekhi. The camera followed a scrap of dirty paper being blown by the wind on the Brooklyn Bridge and then settled on Mekhi, looking out into the sunset. It zoomed in on his face and Yasmine's heart dropped into her knees.

  “Can we turn that off now?” she pleaded. But no one paid any attention.

  “It's not just that you can tell a story,” Arlo gushed, entranced. “But the way you do it, like a painter.” He turned his teary, bloodshot eyes to Yasmine. “You put us all to shame.”

  “She got into NYU early, too, cuz she's so freakin' good,” Ruby burbled proudly.

  Yasmine's face burned. “Shut up.”

  Gabriela wrapped a tentative, kimonoed arm around her shoulder. “We're so proud of you, Eggplant,” she whispered, using the endearing name Yasmine hadn't heard since she was a baby.

  Then Arlo came over and hugged the both of them, his face damp with tears. Ruby reached out to rub his back, and soon the four of them were wrapped in a group hug even the hippiest of hippies couldn't top. It was totally un-Yasmine, but it wasn't like anyone was filming it or anything.

  “Jordan's going to come stay with us for a while this summer. Is that all right?” Gabriela murmured while they were still hugging.

  Ruby snorted. “I don't think she minds what you do with Jordan.”

  “Oh, I thought you liked him,” her mother said.

  “I do,” Yasmine faltered. And Jordan was nice while he lasted. “I just—”

  “She likes that Mekhi friend of hers from the film a bit better,” Arlo interrupted, as if reading her mind. “He's really got something.”

  Ruby giggled, and Yasmine kicked her in her leather pants.

  Yeah, Mekhi definitely had something, and she was pretty sure she knew what it was.

  Her.

  39

  “I made us tea.” Chanel pointed to the white cups and saucers sitting on her orange plastic lunch tray. She sniffed and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her blouse. “With honey.”

  Porsha permitted Chanel to sit down across from her at the cafeteria table and accepted the tea. She had a terrible cold. Tea with honey would be just the thing. Besides, she and Chanel always sat together at lunchtime, especially when they had peer group, for which they were both leaders. Plus there was something Porsha needed to ask her.

  The cafeteria was crowded with girls pouring ketchup over their fries and trading gossip about spring break.

  “I heard Chanel and Kaliq got arrested for doing it on a chairlift,” Rain Hoffstetter whispered to Lauren Salmon.

  “I heard she's moving to Amsterdam after graduation. She met this guy from the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team. They're getting married,” Alexis Sullivan told them.

  “And Porsha's dad is trying to get her into Brown now,” Imani Edwards piped up. “Because she and Cairo Crenshaw are in love.”

  “Nothing happened, you know, between Kaliq and me,” Chanel declared after she'd sat down. She took a sip of her tea. Actually, something had happened between them, but that was a long time ago. “I mean, after Mercedes' party.”

  Porsha stirred her tea. She and Chanel had been ignoring each other ever since the party in Sun Valley, mostly because it was easier and more exciting to let the other girl imagine what had happened than to admit the embarrassing truth.

  Porsha pushed her tea aside and rested her elbows on the table, staring at Chanel intently. “What was it like?”

  Chanel put down her tea and blew her nose into a paper napkin. She, too, had a terrible cold. “What?”

  “Sex. With Kaliq.”

  Chanel crumpled up the napkin and stuck it under her tray so they both wouldn't have to look at it. Was this a trick question? Was Porsha just waiting for her to say the wrong thing so she could pounce on her with her claws out and rip Chanel's head off with her teeth?

  “It was really…” She paused, waiting for Porsha's expression to turn ugly, but Porsha just sat there looking genuinely interested. She really wants to know, Chanel realized. “It was amazing. The first time we were both kind of scared, but because it was with Kaliq, it was fun.” She smiled, remembering. “And we weren't embarrassed about it afterward.”

  Porsha nodded and looked down at the table. That was all well and good, but what about her? How were she and Kaliq ever going to do it if they weren't—?

  Over Chanel's shoulder Porsha could see the girls from their ninth-grade peer group heading toward the table. It was time to change the subject. “Never mind,” she muttered, grabbing her bag off the floor to get out the materials for peer group.

  “Hey, guys, how was your break?” Mary Goldberg, Vicky Reinerson, and Cassie Inwirth asked the two seniors in unison. The three perky freshman girls were all wearing matching V-neck sweaters. They set their lunch trays on the table and sat down practically on top of one another. “Ours was totally crazy.”

  “Good,” Porsha said without much enthusiasm. She gave each of them a handout. “If you could just read this before we get started.”

  The girls glanced down at the handout and giggled as if to say, Like we're really going to talk about that?

  “So, Chanel, did you have to do any modeling over break? I heard you were in a shoot with the Dutch Olympic snowboarding team, like for some lip balm or something?” Mary asked.

  Chanel flashed them a wry smile. The shit people made up about her was so insane, she almost wished it were true. “Yeah, it was great!”

  The other two members of the group, Bree Hargrove and Elise Wells, came over carrying their lunches in brown paper bags. Instead of the tired cafeteria salad bar or hot lunch of fish sticks with fries, they were eating egg rolls from the Chinese restaurant over on Lex, which they'd had delivered right to the school doors. It was always surprising to discover how crafty the two girls could be when—except for Bree's gigantic chest—they were the picture of innocence and goodness.

  “Bree is depressed,” Elise announced as she sat down. She pulled a piece of shrimp out of her egg roll and popped it into her mouth. “She needs advice. Bad.”

  Bree nudged her friend irritably. “I'm fine.” She stared at her egg roll, which was soaking, untouched, in a deep bath of sweet-and-sour sauce. After what she'd done to it, it was basically inedible.

  “See, Damien turned out to be totally normal instead of a billionaire or something,” Elise explained, as if they all knew exactly who Damien was, or even cared. “And the only reason he knows stuff about fur and dog boots is because he walks Madame T's dog for her, and we all know she wears a ton of fur.”

  Porsha yawned rudely and dumped a packet of Equal into her tea just for something to do. Hopefully Chanel would take care of this one. But suddenly, Chanel grabbed the empty Equal packet out of Porsha's hand and wrote something on it. Then she passed it back.

  He's still in love with you, Porsha read.

  The ninth-graders looked back and forth between the two seniors. “What are you guys doing?” Mary and Vicky whined with annoyance at being left out.

  Porsha folded up the packet of Equal and dropped it into her bag. “So, who here knows how to knit?”

  Bree wasn't sure what the hell was going on. “I do. I learned at arts camp last summer.”

  Porsha blew her nose. “Doesn't everyone learn to knit up at boarding school?” she sniffed in Chanel's direction.

  Chanel shrugged. “I never learned, but all the models are doing it. It's all they do backstage at the shows.”

  “We've always wanted to learn!” Cassie, Mary, and Vicky piped up.

  “Knit?” Elise asked, completely lost.

  Porsha zipp
ed up her Prada bag and stood up. “Come on,” she told them. “We're going out to buy yarn. And after school, we're all knitting booties at my house.”

  Across the cafeteria, that shaved-headed weirdo, Yasmine Richards, was filming their meeting, a crazy pink plastic spaceship whirling and blinking on the table in the foreground.

  Chanel stood up and gathered her things. “You mean socks,” she countered.

  “No. Booties,” Porsha corrected with a smile. At least it was something they could do with their hands besides smoking. And after school would be a great time to start, especially with the boys otherwise occupied.

  The ninth-graders trailed Chanel and Porsha out the school's great blue doors, thrilled by the idea of being on a field trip led by the two coolest girls in the entire school. After so many cold months, the warmth of the sun was so intense, it was shocking.

  “I'm sorry we were fighting,” Chanel told Porsha as the group of girls walked east toward Third Avenue. “It's not even worth it if we always wind up friends again, anyway.”

  “That's okay,” Porsha said, blinking her eyes slowly like a cat in the sun. Maybe it was the weather, but all of a sudden, she felt strangely optimistic. Every day babies were born and given cool names like Yale; boys and girls who were broken up got back together; best friends fought and made up; and people got into college—particularly a college called Yale. “It's such a nice day. I think we'd better go to the park after school instead of to my house.”

  “I can run home and get a blanket,” Chanel offered. “We can meet in the meadow!”

  Kaliq, Anthony, Charlie, and Jeremy had walked over to Sheep Meadow directly after school let out. The weather was good and a bunch of guys were already throwing a Frisbee around. Kaliq recognized Chris Pressman, a junior from the St. Jude's lacrosse team, and went over to say hello.

  “Didja hear about Holmes?” Chris asked. There was a big bag of weed in his lap, and he was busy rolling tight little joints and lining them up inside an old Altoids tin.

  “I heard he was missing.” Kaliq licked his lips as he watched Jason sprinkle weed inside a neatly folded rolling paper.

  “Busted,” Chris said. “Dude got caught in the Miami airport with like, a pound of hash.” He sealed the joint and dropped it into the tin. “He's been expelled. Coach says you gotta be lax captain now.”

  Anthony, Charlie, and Jeremy were rolling their own joints just a little ways away. Kaliq turned around and grinned at them. It was an even better story that he'd given up lacrosse captain only to get it in the end. Besides, he'd earned it.

  Chris reached up and slapped Kaliq's hand, passing him a joint as he did so. “Nice work, man. Congratulations.”

  “Hey, thanks.” Kaliq held the joint in his fist. “What a day,” he observed, throwing his head back to catch the sun. Good thing there were more guys around than girls, otherwise the grass would've been wet with drool.

  The meadow was filling up with private-school boys pretending they just happened to all be at the park for absolutely no reason. Jaylen Harrison was sitting cross-legged on a camping blanket, wearing a black baseball cap with Sun Valley Ski Patrol printed on it. Perched on his shoulder was a small white monkey.

  Yes, that's right. A live one.

  Jaylen was an asshole, but he never ceased to entertain. Kaliq was too intrigued not to check it out. He lit the joint Chris had given him and walked over. “What is that, anyway?” he asked, sucking on the joint.

  “A snow monkey. From South America.” Jaylen scratched the monkey under the chin while the monkey looked up at Kaliq with trusting golden eyes. “Sweetie, meet Kaliq. Kaliq, meet Sweetie.”

  “Um, where'd you get her?”

  Jaylen sneezed and blew his nose into a pink silk handkerchief. “Him. Mercedes' mom sent him to my parents as a thank-you gift—you know, for getting her out of the whole indecent-exposure fiasco? It's so crazy because Mercedes' mom was in South America and didn't even know she was in jail, so my mom had to bail us both out.”

  It was true—Mercedes and Jaylen had apparently been arrested for prancing around on a public road, in the buff. It was later discovered that both were under the influence of all manner of substances and that they had also stolen a ski patrol toboggan, which was returned by authorities to ski patrol headquarters. Both parties were released on bail the next morning and were flown home to Greenwich and New York, respectively, by private jet. It was even rumored that both the Wood River Police Department and the Sun Valley Ski Patrol had already received substantial “anonymous” donation checks to keep quiet about the matter.

  Jaylen stroked Sweetie's long white tail where it draped over his left shoulder, as though he were wearing an expensive fur stole, only it was still alive. “You know, they have snow monkeys in the zoo right here in Central Park, but they're really rare as pets. Mom thinks Sweetie smells, but I have my own apartment now over on Sutton Place. So I get to keep him.”

  Well, isn't he just the luckiest?

  “Cool.” Kaliq was pretty much over the monkey now and ready to move on to something else.

  “Hey, Kaliq!” Jeremy shouted at him. “This kid's seeing your old girlfriend. The ninth-grader with the huge tits!”

  Twenty feet away, Jeremy, Charlie, and Anthony were talking to some light skinned kid whom Kaliq thought looked familiar, but he wasn't sure. He walked over and shook the kid's hand, holding the joint between his lips as he did so.

  “We're not seeing each other,” Damien insisted nervously. “We sort of met online and then became friends and then—” He stopped and frowned at Kaliq. “Hey, I never knew she'd gone out with you.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and kicked at the grass. “Anyway, now we're not even talking.”

  Just then, Chanel and Porsha walked into the meadow, trailed by five younger girls, including Bree, the notorious “ninth-grader with the huge tits.” The girls helped Chanel spread out a huge fleece blanket. Then they all sat down cross-legged on top of the blanket in a tight circle. Porsha handed each girl a ball of pale yellow yarn and a set of pink metal knitting needles.

  “First we have to cast the yarn onto one needle,” Bree instructed. She made a loop of yarn, stuck the tip of her needle through it, and began casting on. The other girls leaned in, watching closely.

  Not fifty feet away, Kaliq continued to puff on his joint. “But you like her. I mean, admit it. She's pretty hard not to like.”

  Damien blushed. “Yeah.”

  “So what are you doing? Why don't you just walk over there”—Kaliq pointed to the circle of girls on the blanket—“and kiss her? That's what I'd do.”

  As soon as he'd said it, he realized that was what he needed to do with Porsha—just walk up and kiss her. He'd been horny the whole time he'd been off weed, but when he was stoned he was romantic. It was one of the things Porsha loved about him.

  “I don't know,” Damien said quietly. “Maybe some other time.”

  “Yeah,” Kaliq agreed. Now really wasn't such a good time.

  The five boys were still watching the group of knitting girls when Mekhi walked up, looking ragged and overcaffeinated as usual, a damp Newport dangling from his dark, trembling fingers. “Hey, did you and my sister break up or something?” he asked Damien.

  Damien looked at him helplessly. “I'm not sure.”

  Mekhi swiveled his head around to check out the scene. His classmate and Asshole Extraordinaire, Jaylen Harrison, was sitting on the ground with a white monkey on his shoulder. Jaylen had even brought the monkey to school with him that morning, but the teachers had made him take it home. It was all too bizarre for words.

  Then Mekhi saw something that made him drop his still-burning cigarette in the wet grass. Yasmine was kneeling on the grass ten feet behind Jaylen, her face obscured by her camera. In front of her was the pink plastic UFO toy he'd sent her, whirling and blinking crazily on top of a little fold-up stool. Mekhi could just make out the crazed Japanese pop song emanating from the toy, and it made him
want to dance a happy little jig.

  Not that he was about to go ahead and actually dance.

  Meanwhile, Alexis and Imani had wandered up to pet Jaylen's monkey and spy on Porsha and Chanel's little knitting group.

  “What are they doing?” Alexis whined. She scratched Sweetie behind the ears, and the monkey bared his teeth.

  “He has sensitive ears!” Jaylen warned.

  “Maybe they're knitting things to hide drugs in. I've heard smugglers use babies to smuggle drugs into other countries,” Imani suggested, wishing desperately that she could join the circle.

  “Don't you love how everyone's looking at us like we're…witches or something?” Chanel whispered.

  The other girls giggled conspiratorially.

  Porsha wiped her nose and reapplied her lip gloss. She hadn't missed the fact that Kaliq was among those watching. “They have no idea,” she agreed, even though she and the rest of the girls in the group were absolutely eating up the attention.

  Author's Note

  Will Kaliq and Porsha get back together?

  Will Chanel find someone to love?

  Will Yasmine and Mekhi forgive each other and live unhappily ever after?

  Will we hear more from Mercedes? Do we want to?

  Will Bree and Damien figure it out? Does she want to?

  Find out in the 6th book of the Upper East Side series, which is out now! Also, if you'd like more updates and interaction with me you can always contact me at the following:

  Email: AshleyValentine0@yahoo.coma

  Twitter: AshValentine__

  Tumblr: ashboogiie

  I'd really appreciate your feedback so please leave reviews and tell me what you think!

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