Upper East Side #1 Page 6

  Porsha was chair of the Social Services Board and ran the French Club; she tutored third graders in reading; she worked in a soup kitchen one night a week, had SAT prep on Tuesdays, took a fashion design course on Thursdays, and on weekends she played tennis so she could keep up her national ranking. Besides all that, she was on the planning committee of every social function anyone would be bothered to go to, and the fall/winter calendar was busy, busy, busy. Her iPhone schedule was always running out of space.

  Yasmine flicked on the lights and walked back to her seat at the front of the room. “It’s okay, Porsha, I wanted a taller girl for Mallory anyway.” Yasmine smoothed her uniform around her thighs and sat down daintily, in an almost perfect imitation of Porsha.

  Porsha smirked at Yasmine’s prickly shaved head and glanced at Mr. Beckham. Would he notice if she pulled Yasmine’s ugly black turtleneck over her eyes and pushed her out the school doors in front of a moving Hummer?

  Yasmine smirked back at her, wondering if she could get the hairbrush sticking out of Porsha’s Birkin bag all the way up Porsha's ass before the bell rang.

  Mr. Beckham cleared his throat and stood up. “Well, that’s it, girls. You can leave a little early today. Yasmine, why don’t you put a sign-up sheet out in the hall for your casting tomorrow?”

  The girls began to pack up their bags and file out of the room. Yasmine ripped a blank sheet of paper out of her notebook and wrote the necessary details at the top of it. Natural Born Killers, a modern retelling of the violently romantic Oliver Stone classic. Try out for Mallory. Wednesday, sunset. Brooklyn Bridge.

  She resisted writing a description of the girl she was looking for because she didn’t want to scare anyone away.

  In the original, Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis were an oddly complementary couple. He was big and strong, while she was willowy and baby-faced. He looked like he could take on ten men and was totally smitten with her. She was the more brutal killer and doubted his fidelity. In her remake, Yasmine wanted to reverse the roles. Mickey would be frail, mentally unbalanced, and deadly. Mallory would be a statuesque beauty, confident and strong, and madly in love with Mickey. Like in the original, her Mickey and Mallory Knox would become icons of their own fucked up world, a serial-killing Bonnie and Clyde. But the more they killed, the more they were doomed. Death hung around their necks like a boa constrictor, choking them. Yasmine wanted her film to be shocking and depressing and graphic and beautiful—like the poetry Mekhi wrote, only grosser.

  The perfect Mallory would be the kind of girl to make Mekhi glow, even though he barely smiled and walked around all day chain smoking and looking half-dead. Mallory would be full of movement and laughter—exactly the opposite of Mekhi, whose silent, caffeine-and-nicotine-fueled energy caused his eyelids to twitch and made his hands shake sometimes.

  Yasmine hugged herself. Just thinking about Mekhi made her feel like she had to pee. Under that shaved head and that impossible black turtleneck, she was just another neurotic, boy-crazy girl.

  Face it: We’re all the same.

  8

  “The invitations, the gift bags, and the champagne. That’s all we have left to do,” Porsha said. She lifted a cucumber slice off her plate and nibbled at it thoughtfully. “Kate Spade is still doing the gift bags, but I don’t know―do you think Kate Spade is too boring?”

  “I think Kate Spade is perfect,” Imani said, winding her thick box braids into a bun on top of her head. “I mean, think how cool it is to have a plain black handbag now instead of all those animal prints everyone has. It’s all such...bad taste, don’t you think?”

  Porsha nodded. “Definitely,” she agreed.

  “Hey, what about my leopard skin coat?” Alexis asked, looking hurt.

  “Yes, but that’s real leopard skin,” Porsha argued. “That’s different.”

  The three girls were sitting in the Emma Willard cafeteria, discussing the upcoming Kiss on the Lips benefit to raise money for the Central Park Peregrine Falcon Foundation. Porsha was chair of the organizing committee, of course.

  “Those poor birds,” Porsha sighed.

  As if she could give two shits about the damned birds.

  “I really want this party to be good,” she insisted, eager to get back to the topic at hand. “You guys are coming to my meeting tomorrow, right?”

  “Of course we’re coming,” Imani replied. “What about Chanel―did you tell her about the party? Is she going to help?”

  Porsha stared blankly back at her.

  Alexis wrinkled her pert little nose and nudged Imani with her elbow. “I bet Chanel is too busy, you know, dealing with everything. All her problems. She probably doesn’t have time to help us, anyway,” she said, smirking.

  Porsha shrugged. Across the cafeteria, Chanel herself was just joining the lunch line. She noticed Porsha right away and smiled, waving cheerfully as if to say, “I’ll be there in a minute!” Porsha blinked, pretending she’d forgotten to put in her contacts.

  Chanel slid her tray along the metal counter, choosing a lemon yogurt and skipping all the hot lunch selections until she came to the hot-water dispenser, where she filled up a cup with water and placed a Lipton tea bag, a slice of lemon, and a packet of sugar on the saucer. Then she carried her tray over to the salad bar, where she filled up a plate with a pile of romaine lettuce and poured a small puddle of ranch dressing beside it. She would have preferred a toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich in the Gare du Nord in Paris, eaten in a hurry before leaping onto her London train, but this was almost as good. It was the same lunch she’d eaten at Emma Willard every day since sixth grade. Porsha always got the same thing too. They called it the “diet plate.”

  Porsha watched as Chanel got her salad, dreading the moment when she would sit down next to her in all her glory and start trying to be friends again. Ugh.

  “Hey guys,” Chanel said, sitting down next to Porsha, smiling radiantly. “Just like old times, huh?” She laughed and peeled back the top of her yogurt. The cuffs of her brother’s old shirt were frayed, and stray threads dangled in the yogurt’s watery whey.

  “Hello, Chanel,” Alexis and Imani said in unison.

  Porsha lifted her head and forced the corners of her glossy lips upwards. It was almost a smile.

  Chanel stirred the yogurt up and nodded at Porsha’s tray, where the remains of her bagel with cream cheese and cucumber were strewn. “I guess you outgrew the diet plate,” she observed.

  “I guess,” Porsha said. She smashed a lump of cream cheese into her paper napkin with her thumb, staring at Chanel’s sloppy cuffs in bewilderment. It was fine to wear your brother’s old clothes in ninth and tenth grade. Then, it was cool. But now? It just seemed...dirty.

  “So my schedule totally sucks,” Chanel said, licking her spoon. “I don’t have a single class with you guys.”

  “Um, that’s because you’re not taking any APs,” Alexis observed. “I'm surprised you didn't have to repeat your junior year.”

  Chanel frowned. “My grades were okay.”

  “You’re lucky you're not taking any APs.” Imani sighed at her untouched bagel. “I have so much work to do I don’t even have time to sleep.”

  “Well, at least I’ll have more time to party.” Chanel nudged Porsha’s elbow. “What’s going on this month, anyway? I feel so completely out of it.”

  Porsha sat up straight and picked up her plastic cup, only to find there was no water left in it to drink. She knew she should tell Chanel all about the Kiss on the Lips party and how Chanel could help with the preparations and how fun it was all going to be. But somehow she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Chanel was out of it, all right. And Porsha wanted her to stay that way.

  “It’s been pretty lame. There really isn’t much going on until Christmas,” Porsha lied, shooting a warning glance at Alexis and Imani.

  “Really?” Chanel asked, disappointed. “Well what about tonight? You guys want to go out?”

  Porsha glanced at her friends. She wa
s all for going out, but it was only Tuesday. The most she ever did on a Tuesday night was watch a movie on Netflix with Kaliq. Suddenly Porsha felt seriously old and boring. Leave it to Chanel to make her feel boring.

  “I have an AP French test tomorrow. Sorry.” Porsha stood up. “Actually, I have a meeting with Madame Rogers right now.”

  Chanel frowned and began to chew on her thumbnail, a new habit she’d picked up at boarding school. “Well, maybe I’ll give Kaliq a call. He’ll go out with me.”

  Porsha picked up her tray and resisted hurling it in Chanel’s face. Keep your fucking hands off him! she wanted to scream, jumping onto the table ninja-style. Hiyeeh-yah!

  “I’ll see you later, guys,” she said instead, and stiffly walked away.

  Chanel sighed and flicked a piece of lettuce off her plate. Porsha was being such a bitch. When were they going to start having fun? She looked up at Alexis and Imani hopefully, but they were getting ready to leave, too.

  “I’ve got a stupid college advisor meeting,”Alexis said.

  “And I have to go up to the art room and put my painting away,” Imani said.

  “Before anyone sees it?” Alexis joked.

  “Oh, shut up,” Imani said.

  They stood up with their trays.

  “It’s so good to have you back, Chanel,” Alexis said in her fakest voice.

  “Yeah,” Imani agreed. “It really is.”

  And then they walked away.

  Chanel twirled her spoon around and around in her yogurt container, wondering what had happened to everyone. They were all acting like freaks. What did I do? she asked herself, chewing on her thumbnail again.

  Good question.

  She plucked at a stray thread dangling from her shirt cuff and bit it off with her teeth. She needed to get happy. Everyone needed to get happy. And she of all people knew just what to do.

  When in doubt, throw a party.

  9

  “Hey, Kaliq. It’s Chanel. Just calling to see if you’re planning to stop by my pajama party tonight. Hope so. There are real torches. Can’t wait. Love you. Bye.”

  Chanel hung up. Some party. She’d spread the word around school and posted an open invite online. She’d changed into a pair of short-shorts and a smiley face pajama tank top she’d had since eighth grade. The cook had filled the bathtubs with ice and pepper-flavored vodka and papayas. The maid had lit tall tiki torches in every corner. Chanel’s favorite party playlist was on, a slow three-hour build from acoustic guitar to dance music. Now, the acoustic part was almost over, but so far no one had shown up.

  Her room was quiet. Even Fifth Avenue was still, except for the occasional passing taxi. From where she sat on her big canopy bed, she could see the silver-framed photograph of her family, taken on a chartered sailboat in Greece when she was twelve. They were all in bathing suits. Her brother Cairo, who was fourteen at the time, was making a big fart kiss on Chanel’s cheek while their parents looked on, laughing. Chanel had gotten her period for the first time on that trip. She’d been so embarrassed, she couldn’t bear to tell her parents, but what was she supposed to do, trapped on a boat? They were anchored off the island of Rhodes, and while their parents were snorkeling and Chanel and Cairo were supposed to be having windsurfing lessons, Cairo had swum ashore, stolen a Vespa, and bought her some maxi pads. He came back with them in a little plastic bag, tied on top of his head, her hero. Chanel had thrown her ruined underwear overboard. They were probably still there, stuck on a reef somewhere.

  Now Cairo was a freshman at Brown, and Chanel never got to see him. He had been in France with her that summer, but she'd spent the whole time chasing or being chased by boys while Cairo chased girls, so they'd never really had time to hang out.

  She picked up the phone again and pressed the speed dial button for her brother’s off-campus apartment. The phone rang and rang until finally the voicemail system picked up, just as it had every other time she'd tried to call her brother at school. Sometimes she wondered if he was avoiding her.

  “If you would like to leave a message for Dillon, press one. If you would like to leave a message for Trey, press two. If you would like to leave a message for Drew, press three. If you would like to leave a message for Cairo, press four.”

  Chanel pressed four and then hesitated. “Hey...it’s Chanel. Sorry I haven’t called in a while. But you could have called me too, you big jerk. I was stuck up in Connecticut, bored out of my mind, until this weekend, and now I’m back in the city. I had my first day of school today. It was kind of strange. Actually it sucked. Everyone is...everything is...I don’t know...it’s weird...Anyway, call me back sometime. I miss your goofy ass. I’ll send you a care package as soon as I get a chance. Love you. Bye.”

  She picked up her MacBook and began to browse through the list of international boarding schools where her parents had offered to send her as an alternative to coming home. One of them was a monastery in Tibet. Another was a “camp” in Uganda. Another was a “tree village” in a rainforest in Borneo. And there was one in the South Pacific called Saint Get Away that sounded strangely like an outcast colony.

  Perfect.

  She closed the laptop and peered around her messy room. There were her favorite brown suede boots on the floor where she’d left them. There was her rumpled school uniform lying askew on the dresser. There was her ballerina jewelry chest and the picture of her and Kaliq and Porsha on the beach behind Porsha’s house up in Newport. Kaliq’s eyes glittered greener than the ocean behind them. Porsha was laughing. Chanel studied her own face. She’d had freckles then, and an easy smile. Could she still smile like that?

  Before Kaliq showed up in second grade, she and Porsha had been the inseparable-since-birth twosome, the pair. In first grade, they’d cut their hands with corkscrews and made a blood sister pact. Their friendship wasn’t supposed to die, not ever. And they were meant to be together—stopping for scones at Sant Ambroeus on their walk to school and buying the same panties at Barneys—not separated by miles and miles. All Chanel thought about all year was how to repair their friendship, and eventually it became clear how much easier things would be if Kaliq were out of the picture. Math wasn’t Chanel's best subject, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he was the constant variable that fucked everything up.

  Again she stared at the photograph. Her carefree twelve-year-old arms were wound around Kaliq and Porsha's shoulders as they laughed. Tiny, happy dimples creased her freckled cheeks.

  The downstairs buzzer suddenly buzzed, knocking her out of her trance. She leapt up to answer it. The doorman announced the arrival of Mr. Kaliq Braxton. He was on his way up.

  “Oh, Kaliq. I knew I could count on you!” Chanel exclaimed, throwing open the door and twining her arms around his adorable neck, breathing in the heady soap and sweat scent of him. Kaliq, her Kaliq. Porsha’s Kaliq.

  “Hi,” he said shyly. Chanel’s breath smelled of pepper-flavored vodka and her turquoise silk bra was clearly visible beneath her smiley face tank top. “Hi,” he said again, chuckling softly as Chanel kissed him on the lips.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she sighed, leading him into the empty, half-dark penthouse. Music played from a distant bedroom. “I didn’t think anyone was coming. Are you hungry? Thirsty?”

  Kaliq held on to her hand. Yes, he was hungry and thirsty. And horny. Fuck, why had he come? He never could control himself around Chanel.

  “Is that the new Bryson Tiller mixtape?”

  She shrugged. “I think so.”

  “Let’s go see,” he said, tugging her toward her bedroom. The black and white tiles of the foyer gleamed with clean familiarity. Growing up, Kaliq had spent almost as much time at Chanel's house as he had in his own home. Chanel and Porsha and Kaliq—always an inseparable, precocious trio. In second grade they’d doused each other with the garden hose out back. In third grade they’d practiced kissing, determined to get it right before they were all cursed with braces or retainers. In fifth grad
e they’d stolen half the bottles in the liquor cabinet and mixed cocktails from a recipe book Porsha had shoplifted from the Corner Bookstore.

  It felt so nice to be at home with her, sort of like it had always felt when they were younger—everything smelling like flowers and smoke, the white canopy bed, the hulking Metropolitan Museum staring at them from across the street, Chanel’s addictive laughter, her big dark eyes and sexy mouth, her piles of silky hair, him wanting to touch her—except this time, they were alone. Porsha wasn’t there.

  She sat down on the bed.

  “I’m glad you came back,” Kaliq said and sat down next to her. He kicked his shoes off and he was wearing those neon Adidas socks he always wore.

  “What a loser,” Chanel could hear Porsha scoff at Kaliq, her voice pregnant with love and longing. “I might finally do it with you if it wasn’t for those horrible neon things.”

  Chanel rested her head on Kaliq's shoulder. The smoky honey patchouli scent of her shampoo mingled with the lavender linen fragrance the maid spritzed on the sheets, overtaking his nostrils and making him woozy.

  “Me too,” Chanel whispered hoarsely into his warm neck. She didn’t want to have a party anymore. This would do just fine. “I’m glad I’m back.” Then, she lifted her head and kissed his closed eyelids, ever grateful for those gorgeous green eyes.

  Kaliq didn’t know why he’d taken so long picking out a shirt. Chanel’s long, slender fingers wasted no time undoing the buttons and throwing the crumpled shirt to the floor. The shirt was followed by her tank top and shorts. Soon they were both naked beneath the covers as Chanel’s iPod crooned out songs of tortured heartache, raging jealousy, and forbidden love.

  Alexis and Imani had decided to drop in on Chanel’s party before reporting back to Porsha. The doorman recognized them from parties past and waved them on to the elevator without buzzing up to the Crenshaw penthouse.

  The elevator doors rolled open onto a dark and empty foyer. Tiki torches flickered and smoked in the corners. It looked like the entrance hall to a wealthy Tahitian palace.