Upper East Side #6 Read online

  Also by Ashley Valentine

  Bridgeport Academy

  Bridgeport Academy #1

  Upper East Side

  Upper East Side 1

  Upper East Side 2

  Upper East Side 3

  Upper East Side 4

  Upper East Side 5

  Upper East Side 6

  Upper East Side 7

  Upper East Side 8

  Upper East Side 9

  Upper East Side 10

  Upper East Side 11

  UPPER EAST SIDE 6

  Copyright © 2016 by Ashley Valentine

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Based on the Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar.

  Table of Contents

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  45

  Author's Note

  1

  "Just talk about how you're feeling right now. You know, with college admission letters coming this week and everything." Yasmine Richards squinted into the camera and adjusted the lens so Porsha's crystal chandelier earrings were in the frame.

  It was a balmy April afternoon and the park was a madhouse. Behind them a group of senior boys from St. Jude's chased a Frisbee up the steps overlooking Bethesda Fountain, cursing and tackling one another in a frenzy of pent-up, pre-college-admission stress. Around the perimeter of the fountain lay sprawled the perfectly manicured bodies of Upper East Side high school girls, smoking cigarettes while the winged bronze lady in the center of the fountain gazed down on them forgivingly.

  Yasmine pressed record. "You can start anytime."

  Porsha Sinclaire licked her glossy lips and tucked the grown-out wisps of her pixie cut behind her ears. She pressed her back against the fountain's rim and adjusted her butt on the folded-up bath towel Yasmine had given her to sit on. Hot weather and thongs were a bad combination.

  "I promised myself that if I got into Yale, Kaliq and I would finally have sex," Porsha began. She glanced down and twirled her ruby ring around and around on the ring finger of her left hand. "We're not even really together—yet. But we both know we want to be, and as soon as that letter comes..." She looked up at the camera, ignoring Yasmine's weirdly intense, shaven-headed, black-combat-boots-wearing stare. "For me it's not just about having sex, though. It's about my whole future. Yale and Kaliq. The two things I've always wanted."

  Porsha cocked her head. Actually, she wanted a lot of things. But except for that exquisite pair of Christian Louboutin platform sandals, those were the two major ones.

  "Nice try, loser!" a boy shouted as he snatched a Frisbee out of the air from under his friend's nose.

  Porsha closed her eyes and opened them again. "And if I don't get in Yale..." She paused dramatically. "Someone is going to fucking pay."

  Maybe she should be required to wear a muzzle this week.

  After all, this was the week everyone found out whether or not they were accepted at the colleges they applied to. It was the most critical thing that had happened to Porsha thus far. You know the saying, today is the first day of the rest of your life? Porsha always thought that sounded so lame and corny, but today it actually seemed sort of profound. From now on everyone would be branded by the school they chose, or rather, the school that chose them: the smarty-pants who got into Yale, the B-student volleyball player bound for Smith, the flaky heiress whose dad bought her into Brown.

  Porsha sighed, reached into her shirt, and adjusted her bra straps. "Some of my other friends—like Chanel and Kaliq—aren't as freaked out about the whole college thing. But that's because they aren't living with their way-too-old-to-be-pregnant mom and their fat, gross stepfather. I mean, I don't even have my own room anymore!" Porsha swiped a tear away and looked up at the camera with a mournful expression. "This is like my one chance to be happy. And I think I deserve it, you know?"

  Cue applause.

  Reaching the end of the tree-lined promenade leading up to the Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, Kaliq Braxton tossed the nub end of the joint he'd been smoking to the ground and walked straight past his Frisbee-playing friends. Not ten feet away, Porsha sat cross-legged at the base of the fountain, talking into a camera. She looked nervous and sort of innocent. Her delicate hands fluttered around her small foxlike face, and her short gray school uniform barely covered her muscular thighs. He squinted his green eyes and shoved his hands into his khaki pants pockets. She was sexy all right.

  Of course, at that very moment every single female in the park was thinking exactly the same thing—about him.

  Kaliq recognized the odd, shaven-headed girl behind the camera only vaguely. Normally Porsha would have nothing to do with her, but she was always up for anything that involved talking about herself. Porsha liked attention, and even after breaking up with her and cheating on her for the umpteenth time, Kaliq still liked giving it to her. He dipped his hand into the fountain, walked up behind her, and flicked a few drops of water on her bare arm.

  Porsha whipped her head around to find Kaliq looking irresistible as ever in a pale yellow oxford shirt: unbuttoned, untucked, and rolled up, so all she could see were his wonderful muscles and perfect face. "You weren't listening to what I said, were you?" she demanded.

  He shook his head and she got up from the towel, ignoring Yasmine completely. As far as Porsha was concerned, they were finished.

  "Hey." Kaliq ducked down and kissed her cheek. He smelled like smoke and clean laundry and new leather—all the good boy smells.

  Yum.

  "Hello." Porsha tugged on her uniform. Why the hell hadn't she gotten into Yale today?

  "I was just thinking about how last summer you were completely addicted to ice cream sandwiches," Kaliq observed. He had a sudden urge to lick all that sweet-smelling gloss off her lips and run his tongue over her teeth.

  Porsha pretended to adjust her new earrings so he would notice them. "I'm too nervous to eat, but lemonade would taste really good right now."

  Kaliq smiled and Porsha tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, just as she always used to when they went around together. The old familiar thrill passed through her. It was always like this when they got back together—comfortable and thrilling at the same time. They walked over to the vendor parked at the top of the steps and Kaliq bought two cans of Country Time lemonade. Then they sat down on a nearby bench and he removed a silver flask from his backpack.

  Cocktail hour!

  Porsha ignored the lemonade and grabbed the flask.

  "I don't know why you're nervous," Kaliq assured her. "You're like the best student in your class." Kaliq felt sort of doubtful about getting into college. He'd applied to five schools and yeah, he wanted to get into one of them,
but he was pretty confident he'd have a decent time wherever he went.

  Porsha took another swig from the flask before giving it back. "In case you forgot, I kind of fucked up both of my interviews," she reminded him.

  Kaliq had heard about her little nervous breakdown at her first Yale interview and how she'd ended the session by kissing her interviewer. He'd also heard about her brief flirtation in a hotel room with her alumni interviewer. In a way, he was responsible for both mishaps. Whenever they broke up, Porsha went completely apeshit.

  He reached over and adjusted the ruby ring on her finger. "Relax. Everything's going to be okay," he told her soothingly. "I promise."

  "Okay," Porsha agreed, although the truth was she wasn't going to stop stressing until she had the Yale acceptance letter hanging above her bed in a custom-made silver Tiffany frame. She'd turn on the new Chris Brown mixtape that always made her horny, even though it was kind of obnoxious, and lie down on the bed, reading her acceptance letter over and over while Kaliq ravaged her naked body—

  "Good." Kaliq leaned in and began to kiss her, interrupting her little X-rated fantasy.

  Porsha groaned inwardly. If only she could have sex with him right there on the greasy old wooden Central Park bench! But she had to wait until she heard from Yale. It was the deal she'd made with herself.

  At the other end of the promenade Chanel Crenshaw was eating a Fudgsicle and minding her own business when she spotted her two best friends on a park bench, devouring each other's faces and looking like an advertisement for true love. Chanel sighed, walking slowly as she licked fudgey drips from the popsicle stick. If only true love was something you could buy.

  Not that she hadn't had a gazillion boyfriends who were totally crazy in love with her and totally fun. There was Perce, the French boy who'd chased her in a little orange convertible all over Europe. Then there was Guy, the English lord who'd wanted to elope with her to Barbados. Conrad, the boy up at boarding school in New Hampshire, who'd kept her up till dawn, smoking cigars. Mekhi Hargrove, the morbid poet who never could find the right metaphor for her. Flow, the R&B singer turned stalker—not that she really minded being stalked by someone that fine and famous. And Kaliq Braxton, the boy she'd lost her virginity to and would love forever, but only as a friend.

  And that was just the shortlist.

  Still, she had never had that one true love, the kind of love Porsha and Kaliq had. She tossed the remains of her ice cream into a trash can and quickened her pace, her pink flip-flops slapping noisily on the paved walkway, her silky jet-black hair streaming out behind her, and her short gray pleated Emma Willard uniform flouncing against her endlessly long legs. As she drew near, the boys cavorting around Bethesda Fountain and skateboarding up and down the promenade pressed their inner pause buttons and turned to gape. Chanel, Chanel, Chanel—she was everything they'd ever wanted.

  Not that they'd ever have the guts to even say hi to her.

  "Why don't you guys just get a room at the Mandarin? It's only a few blocks away," Chanel joked when she reached her friends on the bench.

  Kaliq and Porsha looked up with happy dazed expressions on their faces.

  "Did you do the thing?" Chanel asked Porsha in that way only best friends can understand.

  "Uh-huh," Porsha nodded. "I didn't talk for very long, though, because Kaliq was definitely listening."

  “Was not!” Kaliq protested.

  Chanel glanced at Kaliq. "I just wanted to make sure Porsha wasn't freaking out too much. I should have known you'd be able to calm her down.”

  Porsha took a sip of lemonade. "Did you hear anything yet?"

  Chanel swiped the lemonade away from her. "No, for the fiftieth time today, I didn't hear anything yet." She took a drink and then wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her pale pink blouse. "Did you?"

  Porsha shook her head. Then she had an idea. "Hey, why don't we keep all our letters and then open them together? You know, so we can, like, freak out at the same time?"

  Chanel took another swig of lemonade. It sounded like the worst idea she'd ever heard, but she was willing to risk getting her eyes clawed out to make her friend happy. "Okay," she agreed reluctantly.

  Kaliq didn't say anything. No way did he want to join that little party. He held out his flask to Chanel. "You want?"

  She wrinkled her perfect nose and wiggled her unpolished toes. "Nah. I'm late for my pedicure. See you guys." Then she turned and walked south toward the end of the park, taking the half-empty can of lemonade with her

  Chanel had a habit of picking things up without even realizing she was doing it. Lemonade, boys...

  2

  Yasmine waited patiently as Jaylen Harrision adjusted the red collar around the neck of his pet snow monkey so that it was visible to the camera. Jaylen had wandered up to the fountain right after Porsha left. He didn't even say hello, just sat down on the towel with his monkey and started talking.

  "NYU better let me the fuck in, because I want to stay in the apartment my parents just bought me. And then me and Sweetie can stay together." Jaylen ran his hands over the monkey's short white coat, his monogrammed pinky ring flashing in the sunlight. "I know he's only a monkey, but he's my best friend."

  Yasmine zoomed in on the Prada logo on Jaylen's black leather man-sandals. His toenails were freshly buffed, and a thin gold anklet hung loosely from his butterscotch ankle. She'd been accepted early admission to NYU back in January and the idea that she and Jaylen might be classmates next year was more than a little disturbing.

  "Course I'll rent a place wherever I go," Jaylen continued. "But the decorator just did my apartment up in Armani, and come on, who the fuck wants to live somewhere like Provi-fucking-dence, Rhode Island?"

  Mekhi Hargrove tossed the remains of his Newport cigarette into a pile of wet green leaves on the edge of the promenade. Zeke Freedman and a bunch of his other Riverside Prep classmates were playing roller hockey, and for a brief second he considered joining them. After all, Zeke used to be his best friend—before Mekhi hooked up with Yasmine Richards, his other best friend. Now he was completely friendless, and that all seemed like a long time ago. He turned away, lit another cigarete, and continued his ritual lonely after-school prowl across the park.

  Bethesda Fountain on a sunny day wasn't really his scene—too many stoner jocks running around shirtless and girls listening to their iPods in bikinis—but it was a nice day, and he had nowhere else to be.

  There were his little sister, Bree, and her Emma Willard School friend Elise Wells, giving each other pedicures. There was that asshole Jaylen from his class at Riverside, sprawled at the base of the fountain with his monkey in his lap, talking to—

  Mekhi ran a shaky hand through his overgrown boho-poet haircut and took a long drag on his cigarette. Yasmine hated the sun and hated guys like Jaylen even more, but she'd put up with anything to make a good film. The willingness to suffer for their art was one of the many things she and Mekhi had in common.

  He rifled through his messenger bag and pulled out a pen and the black leather-bound notebook he always carried, jotting down a few lines about the way Yasmine had worn the toes of her boots down until the metal showed through. Maybe it was the start of a new poem.

  Black

  steel-toed boots

  pigeons dirty rain

  "I'm making a documentary, if you want to be in it," Yasmine called over to him, cutting off Jaylen in midsentence. Mekhi was wearing a cigarette-burned white undershirt and baggy tan corduroys. He looked like the same scruffy, disheveled poet she'd always known and loved. After his poem "Sluts" had been published in The New Yorker, Mekhi had started paying more attention to his look, buying clothes at expensive French boutiques. It was right about then that he'd started cheating on Yasmine with that anorexic, yellow-toothed poet-whore Mystery Craze. But Mystery was history, and maybe the old Mekhi was back for good.

  The idea of sitting down and talking to Yasmine face-to-face was kind of unnerving, but perhaps if they just f
ocused on the film, they wouldn't have to dig up all the ugly stuff. Mekhi glanced at Jaylen, who was brushing his monkey with a child-sized pink hairbrush. "Are you—?"

  "We're done," Yasmine dismissed Jaylen. "Come back when you hear something."

  Of course she didn't even have to say that. Jaylen would be back. They all would. They couldn't help themselves. Getting self-absorbed people to dish their own dirt is so easy, it should be illegal.

  "But I didn't get to the part about the publicist I hired for Sweetie," Jaylen pouted. "We're going to get him on TV—"

  "Save it," Yasmine barked. She tugged on the sleeve of her black button-down shirt and pretended to glance at her watch, when Mekhi knew for a fact she didn't even own one. "Next."

  Jaylen stood up and stalked away with his monkey on his shoulder. Palms dripping with nervous sweat, Mekhi took his place. "So what's the film about?" he asked.

  A girl lazing by the fountain dropped her lighter and Yasmine kicked it back with her boot. "I'm not sure yet. I mean, it has something to do with how crazy everyone is right now. You know, about college and everything," she explained. "But it's not just about that."

  "Uh-huh." Mekhi nodded. Nothing Yasmine did was ever that simple. He dug around in his bag for his Newports and lit another one. "I have been kind of anxious about the mail lately," he admitted.

  Yasmine peered into the camera and began to record. Mekhi's dark face looked so vulnerable in the sunlight, it was hard to believe he'd cheated on her—that he was capable of doing anything mean. "Go on."

  "I think the thing that bugs me most is hearing the guys in my class say, 'Bro, I'm gonna miss you next year.'" Mekhi took, a long drag on his cigarette. The brown cinnamon color of Yasmine's inner arm made him forget what he was talking about. Brown cinnamon, that was good.

  "Go on," Yasmine prompted.

  Mekhi blew smoke directly into the camera. "No one's going to miss me, and I'm not going to miss anyone, except for my dad and maybe my sister." He paused and swallowed hard. And you and your brown cinnamon arms, he wanted to add, but decided he'd better write it down instead.