Upper East Side #9

by Ashley Valentine

  “I was thinking of studying law when I start at Yale in the fall.” She could always be a lawyer and a fashion muse at the same time. She could wear couture under her Supreme Court gown.

  “Beautiful and smart,” Trey said. “You’re almost too good to be true.”

  Porsha sipped her wine hungrily. Chanel could have the movie star. Trey was exactly the kind of guy a Yale woman should be involved with.

  At least, the kind of woman a Yale woman should be involved with this week.

  30

  “Fuck you all very much!” The British-born lead singer of the jokingly named Sunshine Experience wiped a hand across his brow and flung his sweat into the crowd. Bare-chested and clad only in tight black leather pants, the scrawny singer, who was better known for squiring models and actresses than actually singing, spat angrily onto the stage and stormed off, disappearing into the thick crowd of revelers.

  “God, I love them!” Tawny cried, squeezing Kaliq’s upper thigh and inadvertently spilling half of her Smirnoff on the banquette and her cheap jean shorts.

  What a pity.

  Kaliq nodded and took a swig of his third pint of Newcastle brown ale of the night. He glanced around the packed main room of Resort, the East Hampton nightclub. The dance floor was teeming with girls in dresses and perfectly groomed stockbroker types in khakis—not exactly the type of crowd you’d normally see at a Sunshine Experience show.

  The Hamptons had been abuzz with word of this “surprise” show by the English boyband for a week now, and when Tawny suggested they go, Kaliq’s enthusiasm surprised even him. He hadn’t made it out to Resort yet that summer—in fact, he hadn’t really done much of anything besides clean out gutters, cut grass, fix shingles, and smoke weed with Tawny. It felt good to get out, to be where the action was, with a cold beer and a sexy blonde and nothing to worry about.

  “Braxton!”

  Tawny nudged Kaliq gently with her elbow. “Is that a friend of yours?”

  Anthony Avuldsen wove through the crowd, lifting his whiskey and soda high into the air to avoid a spill. He’d shaved his hair close to his head and had a deep summertime tan that made his smile seem even brighter than usual. The bouncer—a burly guy with no discernible neck—gave him a quick nod, allowing him to step up onto the platform that doubled as the club’s VIP room.

  “Braxton, you son of a bitch,” Anthony said, knocking his glass against Kaliq’s bottle in greeting. “Where the hell have you been keeping yourself?”

  “Hey,” Kaliq greeted him.

  “Coach working you?” Anthony plopped next to Kaliq on the banquette, nodding his head in time to the thumping bass line.

  “Something like that,” Kaliq admitted.

  “Bro,” Anthony continued, shouting to be heard over the deafening din of the music. “I hear Porsha’s back in town. What’s the story?”

  Kaliq frowned, then draped an arm around Tawny, pulling her even closer. “I don’t know.” He shrugged.

  “I’m Tawny,” the girl said, leaning across Kaliq’s lap and smiling in Anthony’s direction.

  “What’s up?” Anthony nodded in greeting. “Anthony.”

  “You two know each other from school?” she wanted to know.

  “Yeah,” Anthony responded. “How do you two know each other?”

  Kaliq signaled to the waitress. He needed another drink, immediately.

  “Kaliq just fell at my feet one day,” Tawny replied, draining the last of her cocktail. “I guess I’m just lucky.”

  Anthony studied her, then yelled at Kaliq, “You’re the lucky one, bastard.”

  The waitress suddenly approached. “Another round?” she asked.

  “Please,” Kaliq told her. If Anthony was going to ask him any more questions, he’d need to get a stronger buzz on.

  “I haven’t seen you around the city,” Anthony continued. “Where do you go to school?”

  “Oh, I’m not from the city,” Tawny explained. “I live in Hampton Bays.”

  “Cool,” Anthony exclaimed. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a townie before.”

  Kaliq jabbed Anthony roughly with his elbow.

  “What?” Anthony demanded. “It’s cool. No offense, man.”

  “What?” asked Tawny, cupping her palm over her ear. “It’s so loud!”

  “Bro,” Anthony continued, oblivious. “Imani is having a party tomorrow. I heard Chanel’s going to be there. You seen her lately?”

  The last time Kaliq had seen Chanel, he’d been kissing Bree at Porsha’s graduation party. It was just a “for old times’ sake” kiss, but he was pretty sure she and Porsha had bonded over how mad at him they were.

  What else is new?

  Kaliq shook his head. He felt completely out of touch with all the people he’d grown up with.

  “Wait, Chanel?” asked Tawny excitedly, leaning across Kaliq’s lap. From this vantage he had an unobstructed view down her blouse to her pierced navel and could see everything in between. “As in, Chanel Crenshaw?” She leaned further forward, giving Kaliq another glimpse of the Promised Land.

  Is she doing that on purpose? Kaliq wondered.

  Kaliq glanced at Anthony to make sure he wasn’t sneaking a peek as well, but he’d turned to talk to some long-haired beauty Kaliq vaguely remembered went to Grafton and was a year younger than them.

  “I guess so,” Kaliq allowed, enjoying Tawny’s surprised expression. Forget Chanel—Tawny was clearly impressed. He didn’t feel that way often; girls thought he was cute or cool or popular or whatever, but she was looking at him with something he’d never really seen in Porsha or Chanel’s eyes. She looked...awed.

  “We kind of used to see each other,” Kaliq bragged. That was the truth, but it didn’t quite cover it.

  “Kaliq Braxton!” Tawny cried, leaning across the table once more, pushing her breasts together invitingly. “You are such a mystery man.”

  “You know Chanel, too?” Anthony leaned back into the conversation, clearly trying to get a sneak peek down Tawny’s shirt. “There’s going to be some kind of blowout when that movie wraps in a couple days. You should definitely come!” he yelled over the booming music.

  “You mean Breakfast at Fred’s?” Tawny looked like her eyes were going to pop out of her head. “I am, like, Thaddeus Smith’s number one fan. Ever!”

  The waitress returned with their drinks and Kaliq grabbed his greedily.

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head. All of a sudden he felt like he was treading water in a really dark, deep pool. His thinking was a little cloudy from a pre-going-out joint and the three beers, but even in that state he knew it wasn’t such a great idea to show up at Chanel’s wrap party with Tawny on his arm. Porsha would definitely be there, and he didn’t want her to think that he’d already moved on.

  But hadn’t he? And hadn’t she?

  “Please,” Tawny begged. “I’d die to meet Thaddeus Smith. Die!”

  “Dude,” Anthony teased. “Can’t say no to a pretty girl.”

  Kaliq Braxton never could never say no. Period.

  31

  The bang of the slammed door echoed off the walls of the under-furnished apartment. It was hard to stomp in angrily after climbing all those stairs—and in rubber flip-flops, no less—but Chanel did her best, stomping on the wood floor, dropping her oversize leather duffel without a thought for the iPad and glass Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses inside.

  “You home, roomie?” Porsha called from inside the apartment’s one bedroom, which they’d decided to share. They were basically sisters anyway.

  They certainly fought like they were.

  “Yeah,” Chanel called back. She grabbed a Corona from the fridge and perched on the windowsill overlooking the back of the townhouse, her feet dangling out of the window over the fire escape.

  “How was work?” Porsha strolled into the kitchen wrapped up in a massive white towel she’d swiped from her mom’s well-stocked linen closet. She pulled a pack of Merits from Chanel’s abandoned pur
se and used the gas stove to light one.

  “Work was work.” Chanel stared glumly down through the slats of the fire escape at the backyard below. She sighed. “Honestly, Porsha, it kind of sucks.”

  “What do you mean?” Porsha’s workday had consisted of running fabric samples from the tailor on 39thStreet to Bailey Winter’s home, where he was enjoying a “tea” party and private fitting with a Saudi princess.

  Porsha pushed open the window next to Chanel’s and leaned outside. She exhaled a plume of smoke into the wind and glanced over at Chanel. The breeze blew her silky hair gently as she swung her bare feet and frowned.

  “I don’t know,” Chanel sighed, chugging her beer. It had been one of her worst rehearsal days to date. She’d overheard some of the crew members calling her Holly Go Slightly, and then Ken had yelled, “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” right in the middle of her scene. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Tell me everything,” Porsha urged.

  Chanel hesitated. They’d never really discussed it, but she knew Porsha well enough to know that she wasn’t exactly thrilled that Chanel was starring in Breakfast at Fred’s. It was Porsha’s lifelong dream, after all, not Chanel’s. How would Porsha react to hearing Chanel complain about it?

  “I’m having some trouble getting this whole acting thing down,” Chanel admitted sheepishly.

  That’s an understatement.

  “I thought I could do it. I mean, I did it before, but that was different, without lots of experts and people running around on set, watching you, and without that big, huge camera just staring at you like, like...like Darth Vader or something.”

  “Tell me more.” Porsha leaned out of the window, exhaling smoke into the hot summer night. She loved helping other people with their problems.

  More like she just wanted to hear that other people had problems.

  “I can’t do it,” complained Chanel. She frowned down at her Marc Jacobs flip-flops. “It’s just not connecting.”

  “Chanel,” Porsha murmured dreamily, “you know what you look like?”

  “Huh?” Chanel looked up. Porsha was leaning out the window, still clad only in her towel, clutching a cigarette but not smoking it, so her ash was almost an inch long. She looked like a crazed Madison Avenue maven in an alcoholic trance.

  “You look exactly,” Porsha said, “I mean, exactly, like Holly Golightly. The fire escape, the wisps of hair, the light—it’s all perfect. It’s fucking creepy almost.”

  “Thanks,” Chanel uttered. It was one of the nicest things Porsha had said to her in their many years of friendship.

  “I’m serious,” Porsha proclaimed. “I’m an expert. I’m in the business, okay? I know about fashion, I know about looks, I know about glamour, and you’ve got it. I don’t care what Ken Mogul might say: you are Holly Golightly,” she continued determinedly, “if I have anything to do with it.”

  “What do you mean?” Chanel demanded.

  “Who is the world’s greatest Holly Golightly expert?” Porsha asked.

  Chanel laughed. “You are, no question.”

  “Well, you’re pretty damn lucky to know me, then, aren’t you?” Porsha remarked. If she couldn’t be Holly Golightly, well, then she could make Chanel into her. That would be satisfaction enough. “Come on.” She stubbed out her cigarette and grabbed her friend’s hand. “We have work to do.”

  Their first stop was obvious: the sidewalk outside of Tiffany.

  Porsha had thrown on an embroidered cami and a pair of jeans and had insisted that Chanel dress down too. When the cab pulled up in front of the store, Porsha practically shoved Chanel out into the street.

  “Now,” Porsha barked. “Let me see your walk.” Porsha stationed herself in front of the store windows and faced her friend. With the traffic zooming past behind her and the tall buildings rising into the sky, Chanel looked very small and very vulnerable. Very un-Chanel. Very, very un-Holly.

  Chanel strolled awkwardly toward the store, taking funny little half-steps like a flower girl in a wedding.

  “Stop!” Porsha howled. She walked out into the middle of the sidewalk. “What was that?”

  “What do you mean?” Chanel was barely audible over the roar of traffic and the chatter of all the shoppers and tourists milling around.

  “You’re not trying,” Porsha intoned, channeling a tough but lovable coach from some inspirational sports movie she’d seen on HBO. “Show me, show me, show me! I know you can do a more convincing walk.”

  “I feel so stupid,” Chanel admitted. “Everyone’s looking at me and I feel all weird and self-conscious.”

  Miss dancing-on-the-banquette-at-Bungalow-8, self conscious?

  “You can’t feel that way,” Porsha snapped. “You’ve got to feel confident. You’ve got to feel cool. You’ve got to feel like the whole world is at your disposal, like you’re calling the shots, like you’re in charge.”

  And this was called acting?

  “But I’m just supposed to walk?” Chanel asked. This wasn’t like walking in a fashion show—which she’d done, of course. “I feel silly.”

  “Pretend it’s graduation again,” Porsha suggested, remembering Chanel’s irksome, last-minute dash down the aisle of Brick Church, wearing the exact same Oscar de la Renta suit Porsha was wearing.

  “I’ll try,” Chanel sighed.

  Porsha returned to her station in front of Tiffany. She had a lot of work to do, but she had to admit it was kind of fun bossing Chanel around for a change.

  All in the name of friendship.

  32

  With Nils tugging at her left hand and Edgar pulling on her right—or was it Nils on the right and Edgar on the left?—Yasmine remembered why it was never a good idea to have two boys vying for one girl’s attention.

  Like she hadn’t already learned that lesson.

  “Come on, come on,” complained one of the boys—who cared which one anymore? Their tiny hands were sticky, their little-boy voices whiny, and besides that they were strong. They had grips of steel, and since they refused to slow down, Yasmine was half walking and half being dragged along Central Park’s shady asphalt paths. It reminded her of the times she and Tahj had walked his brown-and-white purebred boxer, Mookie, together, except the twins were even more eager to get outside than that dog had been. If they’d had tails, they’d have been wagging them insanely.

  “Christ,” muttered Yasmine. “Slow down, please!”

  Eighteen dollars an hour, eighteen dollars an hour. She’d already made thirty-six dollars that day; not a fortune, but it would go right in the budget for her next project.

  How about her next apartment?

  Yasmine stumbled a little as the boys stopped short in front of an umbrella-covered cart.

  “Can we get ice cream sandwiches?”

  She highly doubted that their mother had ever in her life taken the kids to the park, let alone bought them ice cream. Yasmine hadn’t even set eyes on her since their bizarre job interview, and Ms. Morgan didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would tolerate ice cream dripping on her Chanel suits. The Richards had always kept her and Ruby on a strict sugar-free diet when they were kids, preferring vegetables and fruit to ice cream and candy, but she didn’t care what these two ate.

  “Sure, ice cream sandwiches, whatever, you got it,” she agreed, wriggling free of the boys’ death grips and pulling a crumpled twenty out of her jeans pocket. “Three ice cream sandwiches, please,” she told the vendor, who had a handlebar moustache and was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt circa 1972.

  The boys leapt up and down, grabbing at the ice cream. They tore the wrappers open hungrily, then raced away into the confines of the playground, screaming and laughing through gooey mouthfuls of ice cream.

  “Wait up!” Yasmine yelled after them halfheartedly. She wasn’t sure she cared if they disappeared and she lost her job and went to prison. Had it really been only three days since she’d started work as the principal cinematographer on a major Hollywood production? Or w
as this whole thing some kind of horrible nightmare?

  She sank onto a bench under a tall, gracious oak and watched the twins scarf down their treats and toss their wrappers onto the ground. Oops. Then they started a dizzying game of tag, racing under the slide, between the swings, narrowly avoiding collisions with teetering pre-walkers and their menacing parents.

  “Stay close!” Yasmine called out weakly. She finished her ice cream and leaned back onto the surprisingly comfortable wood-and-concrete bench. Cars whizzed by on their way through the park at 97thStreet, a nice sleep-inducing sound. The sun was strong but there was plenty of shade, and for one brief second she almost didn’t mind that she was there as a nanny, not just as some other adult enjoying the park on a nice Sunday afternoon. Her eyes closed and she tuned out for a moment.

  Then she heard a familiar high-pitched yelp and her eyes flew open.

  Who knew she had a maternal instinct?

  There was a commotion not far in the distance, and Yasmine recognized two familiar heads. She got to her feet and hurried over to where one of the twins was sprawled out on the sidewalk, clutching his skinned knee and crying. His brother stood at his side, pointing an angry finger at a rollerblader lying prone on the sidewalk.

  “What’s going on?” Yasmine demanded, trying to sound authoritative.

  “That big boy ran into Edgar!” cried Nils.

  A girl in hot pink short shorts and a complicated sports bra rolled athletically up to the scene. “What’s going on,” she snapped, “is that you’re not controlling your kids, and we’re trying to get some exercise here!”

  “They’re not my kids,” Yasmine retorted, kneeling to pat the sobbing Edgar on his head. “And you don’t have to be rude.”

  “Yasmine, Yasmine, let’s go home now,” Nils whined, pulling on her arm.

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” Lycra Girl commented, kneeling to tend to her fallen comrade. She looked like she’d rollerbladed right out of a Coors Light commercial.