UPPER EAST SIDE

by Ashley Valentine

  Mekhi threw his cigarette on the ground. “Um, actually, I was thinking I might go back and read through all my notebooks. You know, see if there’s a thematic link to some of the poems. Something I could work into a book.”

  Yasmine had been about to offer her services as a reader, but it didn’t sound like Mekhi wanted any help. “Okay,” she said coolly. “Call me if you need anything or whatever.”

  Mekhi flipped his collar up again and lit another cigarette, experimenting with his new look. “Oh, wait. I wanted to ask you something. Rusty Klein invited me to this thing called Better Than Naked. ‘The Better Than Naked show.’ That’s what she said. Do you know if that’s a band or something?”

  Better Than Naked was the anti-fashion fashion label that Yasmine’s older sister, Ruby, blew all her gig money on. Most of their clothes looked like old thrift-store rags that had been run over by a fleet of street-cleaning machines, which was completely intentional. Very downtown “fuck the trends” fashion.

  “It’s Fashion Week starting on Friday,” Yasmine explained. “It sounds like she’s inviting you to the Better Than Naked runway show, which I only know about because Ruby is totally crazy about their clothes and always watches the shows on TV. I don’t know why Rusty Klein thinks you would want to go, though. What do you care about clothes? And it’ll be full of posers and wannabes—you know, that whole vapid fashion scene.”

  Mekhi looked thoughtful as he puffed on his cigarette. “I think I’m gonna check it out.” He wouldn’t have cared if Rusty Klein had asked to meet him at a pro wrestling match. This was about building his writing career.

  Filming Mekhi at the Better Than Naked show would have been perfect material for her film, but Yasmine didn’t want to butt in if Mekhi was meeting someone as important as Rusty Klein at the show. “Okay, Mr. Hot Shit Poet. Don’t forget your old friends when you’re driving around in a limo drinking champagne with naked models and whatnot.” She reached up and mussed his neat little haircut. “Congratulations.”

  Mekhi grinned widely back at her. “It’s pretty amazing,” he agreed happily. Then, with one last sweet kiss, he turned and walked up Riverside Drive toward home, the Adidas logo flashing on his heels as he went.

  Yasmine smiled fondly at the spring in his step. “See you later, alligator.”

  12

  “I’m looking for one of those new men’s jackets in a funky Day-Glo color like bright green or yellow,” Chanel told the salesgirl in the Les Best boutique on Tuesday after school. During French that day Chanel had remembered admiring the new Les Best men’s golfing jacket in the latest issue of W magazine and decided it was the perfect gift for Tahj. She never got tired of giving Tahj gifts. Everything she bought just looked so cute on him. It was like dressing a doll, her own adorable life-sized, dreadhead, guitar-playing, Harvard-bound doll.

  The boutique was on West 14th Street in the meat-packing district, where the streets actually smelled like carcasses and manure from all the old meat warehouses. Leave it to Les Best, creator of the most beautifully tailored leisure wear in the world, to think that the rawness of the neighborhood was so cool, he just had to open up shop there. The space was huge and decorated all in white muslin with only one or two brightly colored tennis dresses or polo jackets hanging from giant steel hooks sticking out of the walls. The idea was that unless you really knew enough about the clothes to ask to see more, you had no purpose shopping there.

  “We’re all out of the golfing jackets, I’m afraid,” the bleached-blond salesgirl answered in an English accent. She was dressed all in white, too. Even her sneakers were made of white pony fur. “My manager nicked the last one for himself.”

  Chanel examined a gorgeous red-and-white-striped silk dress hanging on a hook nearby. “Damn,” she said under her breath. “I keep seeing that jacket in magazines and I thought it would be the perfect thing.” Les Best was her favorite new designer, but maybe the clothes were a little too haute couture for Tahj anyway. He was more of a lowkey kind of dresser. She hitched her leather bag onto her shoulder. “Thanks for your help,” she called, hoping to make it over to XLarge—a store on Lafayette Street—before it closed.

  “Wait!” someone called out.

  Chanel paused in the doorway and turned around. Were they talking to her?

  A tanned white guy with a bleached-blond crew cut wearing the exact bright green golfing jacket she’d been hoping to buy for Tahj was holding open a white door in the back of the store. He smiled as he walked toward her. “I hope you don’t mind my asking.” He cocked his head and gave Chanel the once-over. “Les asked me to look for a ‘real girl’ for his show in Bryant Park on Friday. I only caught a glimpse of you as you were leaving, but I just know you’d be perfect. I’ve seen your picture in the society pages. You’re Chanel, right?”

  Chanel nodded, unfazed. She was used to being recognized from photographs in gossip columns. She’d even had an unnamed body part photographed by the famous Remi brothers in October. The photo had been picked up by a New York Transit Authority arts project and had wound up being pasted all over the city.

  “Are you interested?” the guy asked, raising his blond-tinted eyebrows hopefully. “You’re just what we’ve been looking for.”

  Chanel fiddled with the ties on her white cashmere earflap hat. This Friday she and Tahj had planned to spend the whole night together, drinking at a bar on the Lower East Side, watching late-night TV in her bedroom, and...hanging out.

  Whatever that means.

  Yes, I am interested, Chanel thought. She and Tahj could hang out any time. They had the rest of their lives to hang out together! Getting asked to be in Les Best’s show during New York Fashion Week was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It wasn’t like she wanted to make a career of modeling or anything, but this was her chance to show Les Best how much she truly appreciated his clothes. Plus, it would be fun. Tahj would understand that. In fact, he was such a wonderful guy, he’d probably encourage her to do it.

  “I’d love to,” Chanel answered finally. She pursed her not-too-full, not-too-thin lips and then grinned at her own ballsiness. “But only if I can have your jacket. I was looking for that exact one for my boyfriend and a little bird told me you took the last one.”

  “Oh my God, totally.” The blond guy whipped off the bright green jacket and folded it expertly. Walking over to the register, he wrapped the jacket in black tissue paper and tucked it into a prized white Les Best shopping bag. “There you are, darling.” He offered the bag to Chanel. “I’ve only worn it for like, an hour. And it’s on us, gratis. So, we’ll see you in Les’s tent in Bryant Park on Friday at 4 P.M. sharp, okay? You’ll be on the list and you can invite four friends. Look for the girls holding clipboards and wearing headsets. They’ll tell you exactly where to go.”

  Chanel took the bag. Score! “Don’t I need to be fitted for anything, or practice walking on the runway, or whatever?” she asked, pulling her white cashmere cap down over her ears.

  The guy rolled his eyes in a don’t-be-silly way. “Honey, you’re a natural. Trust me, you’ll look good no matter what you do.” He handed her his card. Guy Reed, Chief d’Affairs, Les Best Couture, it read. “If you have any questions, just call.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Hey, what is that scent you’re wearing?”

  Chanel smiled. She was used to people asking about her scent, too. “I mix it myself,” she told him, fully aware that her answer was just as mysterious as the scent.

  Guy closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “Mmm. Dee-lish.” He opened his eyes again. “I’m going to have to tell Les about that, too. He’s been searching for a signature scent.” He reached up and gave Chanel’s hat strings a playful tug with his tanned fingers. “See you Friday, doll. Stay warm. And don’t forget, the after-party is even better than the show!”

  Chanel gave him a quick air kiss and then headed out into the cold. She couldn’t wait to give Tahj his present and tell him the news. He could wear the jacket to the show and
then they could drop by the after-party together so she could show him off.

  Outside, she no sooner lifted her mittened hand than four cabs on West 14th Street screeched to a halt and honked for her attention.

  See how difficult it is to be so beautiful?

  13

  Ruby was on another Martha Stewart spree, and the tantalizing scent of freshly baked brownies wafted into Yasmine’s bedroom as she sorted through submissions for Rancor, the Emma Willard student-run arts magazine of which she was editor-in-chief. Heat blasted from the steaming radiators, and the sounds of ambulance sirens and car horns wailed through the two open windows. Yasmine’s bare wooden floor was scattered with the usual Rancor submissions: twenty black-and-white photographs of clouds, feet, eyes, or the family dog; three short stories about learning to drive and feeling the tug of independence despite the writer’s appreciation for her parents and all they’d done for her; and seven poems discussing the meaning of friendship.

  Boring.

  After the third short story, Yasmine retrieved Ruby’s sugaring kit from the bathroom. Sugaring was an extremely messy, all-natural, and “virtually painless” way of removing the hair on your legs. You covered your legs with sticky brown goo, applied a strip of white cloth, and then ripped the strip of cloth away from your leg, taking the hair with it.

  Painless? Yeah, right.

  Yasmine kicked her black leggings onto the floor, laid a black bath towel over her bedspread, and sat down on top of it. She basted her stocky calves with the sugary stuff, feeling like a giant glazed donut. Usually she was extremely low-maintenance, but if Mekhi was going to be hanging out with supermodels and agents and fashion designers, she thought she should at least try to make an effort and do something about the hair on her legs. Besides, spring was just around the corner. She might even go crazy and try sporting a miniskirt.

  “Fuck!” she yelped, ripping off the first strip of gauze. Who’d come up with the idea that women were supposed to be all smooth and hairless like babies? What the hell was wrong with a little hair? Most men were covered with it.

  She ripped off another strip. “Christ!” Okay, this was officially insane. Her skin was so raw and red she wouldn’t have been surprised to see blood gushing from the hair follicles.

  Her phone rang and she snatched it up and growled into it, “If this is you, Mekhi, I want you to know that I’m frigging ripping the hair off my body with my bare hands right now, and I’m doing it all for you, which is pretty fucking poetic if you ask me!”

  “Hello? Yasmine Richards? This is Ken Mogul, filmmaker. You sent me your New York film essay a few weeks ago. We met in the park on New Year’s Eve?”

  Yasmine sat up straight and adjusted the phone against her ear. Ken Mogul was only, like, one of the most famous alternative film directors ever. At Christmastime he’d happened upon a clip of Yasmine’s work on the Web and had been so impressed he’d flown all the way from California to look her up. The problem was, he’d found her at exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve, which had been exactly the same moment Mekhi had shown up to give her a big fat New Year’s Eve kiss. Needless to say, Yasmine had sort of blown Ken Mogul off, although she had made the effort to send him her New York film essay when it was finished.

  “Yes, I remember,” she answered quickly, completely amazed that the director even wanted to speak to her again. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I hope you don’t mind, but I showed your film to Jedediah Angel, who’s a personal friend of mine, and he wants to use it as a backdrop for his Fashion Week show this weekend.”

  Yasmine wrapped the black bath towel around her legs. It was sort of embarrassing talking to Ken Mogul when she was practically naked and covered in sugary brown goo. “Jeremiah what?” she asked. Ken always seemed to speak in Hollywood terms, and this time she had absolutely no clue what he was talking about.

  “Jedediah Angel. He’s a fashion designer. His label is called Cult of Humanity by Jedediah Angel? Very hot. Jed says you’re the next Bertolucci. Your film’s like the anti–La Dolce Vita. You really rocked his world.”

  Yasmine grinned. Why did people have to sound so cheesy just because they’d made it? She’d rocked his world? “Great,” she replied, unsure of what to say. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

  “Just come to the show and enjoy. I’ll be there of course, and there are some people I want you to meet. You’re already a moviemaking goddess, babe. You totally rock.”

  “Cool,” Yasmine replied, slightly appalled that he’d actually told her she rocked not once but twice. “So what’s the designer’s name again?”

  “Cult of Humanity by Jedediah Angel,” Ken repeated slowly. “Six P.M. Friday at Highway 1. It’s a club in Chelsea.”

  “I’ve heard of it.” It was the type of place Yasmine normally avoided like the plague. “I guess I’ll see you there.”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic!” Ken enthused. “Ciao!”

  Yasmine hung up and rubbed at a glop of dried sugaring paste on her wrist. Then she picked up the phone and dialed Mekhi’s number without even looking at the keypad.

  “Hello?” Bree answered on the first ring.

  “Hey Brianna, it’s Yasmine.” Yasmine always called Bree Brianna because she had asked her to.

  “I’m not sure if Mekhi will talk to you. He wouldn’t talk to me, and he’s been locked in his room ever since he got home. It’s so gross—there’s cigarette smoke, like, pouring out from under the door.”

  Yasmine laughed and flopped back on her black pillows. Everything in her room was black, except the walls, which were dark red. “How do you know he’s not in there brushing his hair? That new haircut looks pretty high maintenance.”

  The two girls snickered. “I’ll go see if I can get him. Hold on.”

  “What’s up?” Mekhi picked up the phone a minute or two later. He sounded distracted. “Bree said it was an emergency.”

  Yasmine lifted her leg in the air and tugged at another sugaring strip. It appeared to be glued permanently to her skin. Talk about emergencies!

  “I thought you’d want to know that Ken Mogul just called. He said some designer named Jedediah Angel who has this fashion label called Culture of Humanitarianism or something is using my film essay as a backdrop for his fashion show on Friday night. Ken said I really ‘rocked’ Jedediah Angel’s world.” She snorted. “Isn’t that hilarious?”

  “That’s fantastic,” Mekhi responded earnestly. “Seriously. Congratulations.”

  Fantastic? Since when did Mekhi Hargrove use words like fantastic? Yasmine didn’t know what to say. Mekhi hadn’t caught the sarcasm in her voice at all. As if she’d only called him to gloat about her success.

  “Okay,” she said evenly. “I just thought you’d want to know. I’ll let you get back to work now.” She thought of cracking a joke about how one day when they were both rich and famous they could buy big-ass mansions next door to each other in Beverly Hills. But then she decided against it. Mekhi would probably think she was serious. “Call me later if you feel like it, okay?”

  “Okay,” Mekhi replied, obviously distracted by whatever new poem he was working on.

  After hanging up, Yasmine scooted off the bed. A corner of the black towel was now glued to the back of her left knee. She waddled into the bathroom to try and shower off the sugaring crap. Maybe one day when she was disgustingly rich and famous she’d have her own personal waxing and sugaring staff, but for now she’d have to get rid of the rest of the hair on her legs the old-fashioned way—with a pink plastic razor.

  14

  “Five more minutes, ladies,” announced Ms. Crumb to her Emma Willard ninth-grade creative writing class. She pulled her hair out of the way and prodded the wax in her right ear with the eraser of a number two pencil. “Remember, it’s not what you’re writing about but how you describe it.”

  None of the girls looked up. They were too busy writing, and besides, they really didn’t want to see what Ms. Crumb was doing when she
thought they weren’t looking. They’d already been grossed out enough times.

  According to the girls, all the female teachers at Emma Willard were lesbians, but Ms. Crumb was the only teacher at Willard who was officially out. She wore a rainbow pin to school every day, shared a country house in New Paltz with five other women, and often referred to her “partner”—as in, “The other night my partner was drinking Amstel Lite and watching Barbara Walters, who she has a total crush on, while I sat in the kitchen and graded your papers.” Every year the ninth graders looked forward to having Ms. Crumb’s creative writing class, assuming she’d be cool and down-to-earth since she was so forthright about her sexuality. But after a day in her classroom her students realized they weren’t just going to sit around for forty-five minutes talking about girl stuff with a woman who liked girls—they were going to have to write things every day in class, read them out loud, and then listen to Ms. Crumb and their classmates criticize what they had written in a sometimes not very nice way. Ms. Crumb was a major hardass, but as far as subjects went, creative writing was still a hell of a lot better than geometry.

  Today Ms. Crumb had asked the girls to pick a partner— in the platonic sense—and write a paragraph describing a part of their partner’s body. Of course Elise and Bree had picked each other. They were beginning to do almost everything together.

  It’s odd that we decorate our ears with earrings and don’t try to cover them, Bree wrote. They’re just as indecent as the parts we do cover, like bare holes that go straight into our heads. My friend Elise’s ears are small. She has good hearing, too, because she never says, “What?” and asks me to repeat myself. I guess she keeps them pretty clean.

  Bree looked up and decided to erase the last line and replace it with something else. Ms. Crumb might get offended, since she obviously had some kind of ear-cleaning fetish.