Upper East Side #7 Page 12

  27

  “A Pyrrhic victory,” Mr. Knoeder mumbled in his typical impossible-to-follow manner. “Braxton. Are you with me?”

  Kaliq hadn't done his homework. He wasn't even sure what day it was. He'd woken up, taken a shower, and wandered into school, hoping for some guidance. Now this asswipe of a history teacher wanted him to answer some idiotic question about the Vietnam War, which everyone knew had been a total clusterfuck.

  “Pyrrhus was a Greek king or whatever who kicked the shit out of the Romans in some battle, but there were a ton of casualties,” Kaliq heard himself saying. No wonder I got into Yale and Brown, he congratulated himself. I'm a frigging genius!

  “Actually, it was the Battle of Pyrrhus,” Mr. Knoeder corrected, sticking his pinky in his ear as he wrote something on the board. The St. Jude's boys all called him Mr. No Dick because he wore his pants so high and so tight, he couldn't possibly have had a dick. “But your answer was mostly accurate.”

  Kaliq got out his cell phone and started texting Jeremy, who was seated in the same row as he was, four desks down.

  HEY THKS DICKLESS, he wrote.

  WNT 2 HANG L8R? Jeremy wrote back.

  CANT. GROUNDED, Kaliq replied.

  SORRY 2 HEAR ABT PORSHA & THT KID, Jeremy wrote back.

  Kaliq leaned over his desk and shot his friend an annoyed look that said, “Please explain.”

  KID FRM YALE PARTY THT HOOKED UP W/ PORSHA, Jeremy clarified.

  So that was who was in Porsha's bed last night. Kaliq was too bummed to even reply. He'd left Porsha alone for a little more than a day, and she'd had to go and hook up with some asshole at a stupid Yale party that she probably wasn't even invited to? He ought to have been furious. Instead, he just felt depressed. He was supposed to have been at that party. He could even have brought Porsha with him. They could have talked about the future and then had sex afterwards. It might have been romantic. But as usual he'd messed everything up.

  Well, now he knows—it may not suck to be the cheater, but it definitely sucks to be cheated on.

  Fuck it, Kaliq decided. He held up his hand. “Mr. Knoeder, may I be excused? I think I have food poisoning or something.”

  Oh, come now. You can do better than that.

  Mr. Knoeder didn't even notice. His back was turned as he busily drew a detailed map of Saigon in purple chalk. Kaliq texted a despondent SEE YA to Jeremy, gathered up his things, and slipped out of the classroom, leaving the rest of the St. Jude's senior U.S. history class to stare after him and wonder why they didn't have the balls to do the same.

  Kaliq stuffed his books in his basement locker and slammed the door. Fuck homework, and fuck school. He was already into college, and now that he was grounded, he might as well just stay at home, eating brownies and getting high. He'd cut the rest of the day's classes, light up a big fatty, fill out the appropriate forms, and send in his deposit to Yale. So what that he'd promised Porsha he wouldn't go to Yale unless she got in? Every promise they'd ever made to each other had been broken, and the truth was, Yale had the best lacrosse team and had promised to make him captain his sophomore year. He wanted to go there whether Porsha got in or not.

  With grim determination, he headed home, trying to rid himself of the image of that skinny, snoring, girlfriend-stealing asswipe sleeping in Porsha's hotel bed. Mailing in his Yale deposit wasn't exactly going to be a victory without losses though. Porsha was going to spit fire when she heard about it.

  Unless she didn't care anymore, which was almost even scarier.

  28

  Riverside Prep was housed in a redbrick church built in the late 1900s, the quaintest little schoolhouse on the Upper West Side. The school's main entrance was on West End Avenue—a cute bright red door over which hung a sign that said RIVERSIDE PREPARATORY SCHOOL FOR BOYS, which sounded embarrassingly like some sort of rich boys' finishing school. Thankfully, the upper-school boys entered from the side entrance, a normal-looking black door on 77thStreet, the perfect place to slip into school nearly two hours late.

  Mekhi swaggered into the last ten minutes of first period AP English wearing his baggy pants and black-and-yellow sneakers from the Raves gig the night before, and a dark gray T-shirt given to him by Monique with MR. WONDERFUL stenciled across the chest. Last night he'd drunk his ass off, sung like a sickass motherfucker, and then had crazy, totally undeserved sex with a beautiful French girl on a giant bed in a Plaza Hotel suite. Being a rock star was actually kind of excellent.

  You don't say.

  “Well, if it isn't my most famous student,” Ms. Solomon observed tersely as Mekhi wandered to the back of the room and slouched behind a desk. Ms. Solomon was right out of graduate school and was incredibly ashamed of the major crush she had on Mekhi. Instead of showering him with praise—there was no question he was the most accomplished and intellectual student in the class—she was either snide and critical, or she ignored him completely.

  “The class and I were just discussing whether or not we should have a final essay on our unit on Shakespeare's tragedies instead of a final exam. Any opinion, Mekhi?” She clamped a hand over her mouth and added sarcastically. “I do apologize—perhaps you have a stage name now?”

  Mekhi frowned down at his desktop, where someone had etched the words Bitch Face with a green ballpoint pen. Normally he would have welcomed the chance to write a paper over taking an exam, but papers required research and outlining and hours of writing, whereas an exam required a single two-hour appearance.

  That is, if you have no intention of studying for it, which he didn't. Now that he was a rock star he'd be touring, shooting videos, signing albums, and fending off women and the paparazzi. Two hours out of one day for a stupid English exam was definitely preferable.

  Ms. Solomon was the type of skinny that made her look forty years older than she probably was, and her hair, which she kept pulled back in a low ponytail, was an ashy black color that looked gray under the school's harsh fluorescent lights. She loved lace, and preferred blouses with lace collars and ruffles at the sleeves, paired with black knee-length skirts, black stockings, and bizarrely high, skinny-heeled black pumps. Her skirts were always seriously tight, too, leading the boys to suspect that she probably thought she was the sexiest female alive.

  Ew.

  “Half the class wants a paper and half the class wants an exam. Yours is the swing vote,” she explained.

  Meaning that no matter what Mekhi said, half the class would hate him for it. He cleared his throat. “I think an exam would be a better indicator of how much we've learned over the course of the year,” he declared, sounding like a total schmo.

  “Oh, would it now?” Jaylen Harrison sneered from two desks away. Riverside Prep's dress code was plain colored khaki pants or corduroys, brown or black belt, white or pastel-colored button-down shirt, and brown or black loafers with dark-colored socks. Jaylen Harrison was wearing a black Prada jumpsuit, unzipped so his butterscotch, recently waxed chest was clearly visible, and creamy white leather sandals that showed off his smooth, manicured feet. On the floor beneath his desk, Jaylen's pet snow monkey, Sweetie, poked his fuzzy white head out of Jaylen's orange leather tote bag and bared his teeth.

  Jaylen hardly deserved to be in AP English. He could barely spell, had never read a book in its entirety, and thought Beowulf was a type of fur used for lining coats. But in an effort to get him into college, his parents had insisted he be placed in all the APs, which turned out to be a big fat mistake. Due to the fact that Jaylen preferred to shop and attend fashion shows instead of going to school and doing his homework, he had gotten Ds in all his classes last semester, failed to get into any of the colleges he'd applied to, and was now bound for military school.

  And was he bitter? Definitely.

  “Hey Mr. Wonderful,” Jaylen hissed at Mekhi. “Don't look now, but your days as a Rave are over.”

  Huh?

  Mekhi slouched in his chair and dug at the desk with his ballpoint pen. He was a rock star, h
e didn't have to take this shit. Someone's foot nudged the base of his spine.

  “You're out,” whispered Rashad Paine, one of Jaylen's bullish friends. “Unless your slut of a sister can get you back in.”

  Mekhi's hackles rose. What did Bree have to do with it? As far as he knew, Bree was only going along for the ride, just like she'd always done. After all, if your big brother was in a major band, wouldn't you want to hang out with him and his bandmates, too?

  “I heard she wants to be a singer,” Rashad elaborated. “So she slept with every one of them.”

  Mekhi whipped around and gave Rashad the finger simply because he was too hungover to think of anything intelligent to say. Bree had left the suite by the time he and Monique had gotten up that morning, but what exactly had she been up to while he was getting busy last night? And how come everyone already seemed to know about it?

  “An exam it is, then,” Ms. Solomon announced. She scribbled something in a notepad and then stood up and approached Mekhi's desk. “I'm a bit of a Raves fan myself,” she murmured. “And it's sort of killing me.” She stopped in front of Mekhi, put her palms on his desk, and leaned toward him so that he could smell the everything bagel with cream cheese she'd eaten for breakfast. “Is it true that Kash is married to his high school sweetheart? Some French girl?” she asked loudly, obviously thinking it was totally hip for a teacher to know anything about a cool band like the Raves.

  Mekhi's hands were sweating, and he fingered the pack of Newports in the back pocket of his baggy pants. Didn't Riverside Prep have rules about teachers harassing the students?

  There were only two minutes left before the end of class. Still hoping to hear the answer to Ms. Solomon's question, the other boys quietly gathered their books and zipped up their backpacks.

  The minute hand on the clock over the blackboard crept forward and the hallway outside the classroom buzzed to life. Mekhi stood up, brushed past his nosy teacher, and headed for the door.

  Saved by the bell.

  29

  That afternoon during computer lab, Chanel was tempted to e-mail that melodramatic artist at Brown, those perky sorority weirdos at Princeton, and that lovelorn jock at Harvard, telling them to have nice lives, because from now on she was all about Yale. Instead, she permanently expunged them from her trash folder. At lunchtime she'd actually mailed in her deposit to Yale, and what a relief it was to have finally come to a decision—even if she couldn't tell her best friend in the whole world about it. She skimmed the rest of her e-mail until she came to one from an unknown source.

  From: kash@raver.net

  To: ccrenshaw@emmawillard.edu

  Subject: don't believe everything you read

  So, we're an item. It's all very flattering. Problem is, we've never met. Want to? A bunch of people will be at my place in the Village Friday night. Hope you can make it - Kash

  Chanel giggled and stood up partway out of her chair, searching the Willard computer lab for Porsha's shiny head. But Porsha was working intently at her computer and didn't even notice Chanel waving at her.

  Mr. Schneider, the uptight computer proctor with the deformed nostrils, glared at her, and Chanel went back to her e-mail. She knew from their videos that the Raves' lead guitarist was extremely handsome and talented, and wouldn't it be crazy if they actually hit it off, turning myth into reality? So what if she'd kind of decided to take the serious route and be a full-time student next year? That was next year, and the rest of this year was all about having fun, fun, fun. Who knew—she might even change her mind, defer her admission, become a Raves groupie, and tour with the band for the next five years!

  And only just a moment ago she was all pleased with herself for being so decisive.

  Chanel bit her nails for a few seconds, then hit reply and typed three letters using only her partially chewed-on, partially pink-polished index finger.

  Y-E-S.

  30

  Porsha trolled the Internet for the exquisite Jimmy Choo shoes she'd seen in W but had yet to find in her size. They'd only distributed three hundred pairs of the shoes worldwide, but surely there had to be one size-seven-and-a-half that hadn't been claimed—in Mexico City, maybe, or Hong Kong, where feet tended to be small.

  Next to her, Yasmine Richards was furiously typing, building some sort of feminist Web page or something. Porsha glanced at her neighbor's screen. Roommate Wanted, she read in big, bold letters. Female Only.

  Porsha had never been too fond of her shaven-headed, black-wearing, film auteur classmate. Every word Yasmine uttered in class was said with an air of I'm-only-talking-to-you-because-you-asked-me-a-question, like she was so much smarter and more astute than even the teachers. And she'd always suspected that Yasmine preferred girls to boys.

  “I interviewed this guy this weekend. Turned out to be a serious weirdo.”

  Porsha glanced at her neighbor and discovered that Yasmine was actually addressing her.

  “I decided to stick with female applicants only,” Yasmine added, clicking the enter button on her keyboard for emphasis.

  Porsha pressed her lips together and shifted in her chair. Yasmine really did seem to be talking to her. “I met a guy this weekend, too,” she confessed. She bit her lip and pointed to Yasmine's screen. “Why do you want a roommate anyway? I'd kill to live on my own.”

  Yasmine shrugged her shoulders. It was weird enough conversing with bitchy Porsha Sinclaire, but even weirder still that Porsha's question was actually worth thinking about.

  “My sister's on tour in Europe. I don't know, I guess I get lonely,” Yasmine admitted before she could stop herself. As soon as she'd said it she felt like clamping her hand over her mouth. Why would Porsha Sinclaire of all people even care?

  “What about your boyfriend—that geek—?” Porsha bit her lip and corrected herself. “That boy with the…notebook.”

  “We broke up.”

  Porsha nodded, tempted to explain how she'd just broken up with her boyfriend, and how sometimes she felt lonely too. Discreetly, she sized Yasmine up. She kind of liked how Yasmine didn't gush about what a lame her ex-boyfriend was, complaining about the gifts he'd given her, imitating the stupid way he tied his shoes, and reiterating the whole sad saga. Yasmine was weird, but at least she wasn't predictable. And it was well known that Yasmine's parents lived in Vermont, so if her sister was away, she really was all on her own.

  “So how does it work?” Porsha asked. “Are you, like, interviewing prospective roommates?”

  Yasmine had to wonder where all this was going. “Well, first I screen them through Instant Messenger, and if they sound normal I interview them. But so far, no one's been normal.”

  Porsha couldn't believe she was even considering living with lesbo, baldo, weirdo, no-friends Yasmine, but she really did need a place to live. Her own home was intolerable, and after her run-in with Mrs. M this morning, she was pretty sure she couldn't live at the Plaza for the rest of the school year without completely ruining her chances of getting into Yale. And what if she needed to entertain...a guest? An apartment without parents or nannies or maids or cooks was the perfect place, even if it had to be in dirty, disgusting Williamsburg. She might even convince Yasmine to hire a decorator, and introduce some color to the apartment. Not that she had actually seen Yasmine's place, but after going to school with her for the last one hundred years, she was pretty sure the apartment was done entirely in black. She could make the place over completely, just like the frumpy, bookish Audrey Hepburn was made over into a fabulous fashion model in My Fair Lady!

  “Interview me,” she suggested.

  “But—” Yasmine countered. “I live in Brooklyn.”

  Porsha twisted her ruby ring around and around on the ring finger of her left hand. “I know.” She sighed mournfully down at her black patent leather flats and closed her eyes, trying to picture herself as a hip, artsy Williamsburg person. She'd wear drab T-shirts with ironic decals on them, like WILLIAMSBURG IS FOR LOVERS. She'd take her coffee black. Sh
e'd wear Converse sneakers without socks and carry a vintage plastic handbag. She'd get red highlights and wear black framed glasses. She'd write poetry. She'd get a lip ring and a tattoo! Oh, wouldn't Kaliq just die. A smile spread across her face. “I've always wanted to live in Brooklyn.”

  Yeah, right.

  “No, you—” Yasmine began in an attempt to dissuade her.

  “You have cable, a Blu-Ray player, and a DVD player, right?” Porsha demanded.

  Wait, who's supposed to interview who?

  “I have to watch my movies,” Porsha insisted, like a TV-dinner-eating old lady who couldn't survive without her daily dose of soap operas.

  “Movies?” Yasmine repeated, wondering if Porsha had completely lost her mind. She'd forgotten that Porsha was a huge old movie fan. Back in November, Porsha had even entered a film contest at school. All she'd done was replay the first ten minutes of Breakfast at Tiffany's over and over to different music, because in her opinion it was the perfect first ten minutes of any film ever. Yasmine had lost the contest to Chanel with her version of Natural Born Killers, starring her former best friend Mekhi Hargrove as the psychopath Mickey Knox. That had been before they'd even kissed—what seemed like a century ago.

  “Anything starring Audrey Hepburn. Or Dorothy Dandridge. Or Marilyn Monroe,” Porsha clarified breathlessly. “And of course, Gone with the Wind.”

  If there was one thing Yasmine had plenty of, it was film equipment, TVs, videos, and DVDs. “Don't worry. I'm majoring in film at NYU next year. I have everything,” Yasmine assured her. “All the classics.”

  “And how do you get to school?” Porsha demanded, wondering if she might have to learn to drive. Keeping her eyes on her computer screen, she wiggled her mouse to give the impression that she was hard at work. “Isn't there, like, some bridge you have to cross?”