UPPER EAST SIDE

by Ashley Valentine

  Fuck this, Tahj mumbled under his breath. But he couldn’t just get up and leave while Chanel was still onstage. He glanced at Porsha in the seat next to him. She was biting her lip and clutching her stomach like she had gas or something.

  Porsha wanted to cover her diamond-studded ears to block out the sound of everyone whispering Chanel’s name. Those eyes! Those legs! That fantastic hair! It was completely nauseating, and the after-party was bound to be just more of the same. As soon as Chanel skipped down the runway path marked TO GRANDMOTHER’S HOUSE and off the stage to change outfits, Porsha stood up to go.

  “I think I’m going to take off before the snow gets too fucking deep,” she announced to Tahj.

  “Yeah?” Tahj jumped to his feet. “I’ll help you find a cab.” Chanel didn’t need him around. She’d probably be so surrounded by admirers during the after-party, he wouldn’t even get a chance to see her. She wouldn’t mind if he just quietly took off.

  Outside in Bryant Park the snow was already ankle deep. The lion statues on the steps of the public library looked even larger and more menacing blanketed in white.

  “Think I’ll just hop a train up to Scarsdale,” Tahj said, referring to the Westchester suburb where he’d lived with his mom before deciding to move in with his dad’s new family in the city last fall. He flicked open his Zippo and lit an herbal cigarette. “My boys and I always get together out on the golf course when there’s a big storm like this. It’s a good time.”

  “Sounds like a fucking blast,” Porsha replied disinterestedly. Fat, frozen flakes of snow landed on her mascara-coated lashes and she squinted her eyes, burying her hands in her black evening coat pockets as she searched for a cab. Fuck, it was freezing.

  “Want to come with me?” Tahj offered, even though Porsha had been a total bitch lately. They were still stepbrother and stepsister—they could at least try to be friends.

  Porsha grimaced. “No, thanks. I’m going to call this man I met. See if he wants to meet me somewhere for a drink or something.” She loved how the word man sounded so much more sophisticated than guy.

  “What man?” Tahj asked suspiciously. “Not that old dude from Yale you were with last night?”

  Porsha stamped her feet to keep her toes from getting frostbitten inside her totally-wrong-for-the-weather flats. Why did Tahj always have to act so infuriatingly superior? “First of all, I could be meeting someone else. Second of all, what do you care anyway? And third of all, if it is him, so what?” She flung her hand in the air and waved it impatiently. It was only nine. Where the hell were all the fucking cabs?

  Tahj shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just guessing he’s like some big investment banker who gives lots of cash to Yale, and you’re flirting with him or whatever because you want to get in so badly. Which is pretty lame if you ask me.”

  “Actually, I didn’t ask,” Porsha snapped back. “But maybe I should listen to Mr. Accepted-Early-At-Harvard-Even-Though-All-I-Do-Is-Sit-Around-In-My-Underwear-Drinking-Beer-And-Pretending-I-Play-In-A-Really-Cool-Band-Which-Actually-Sucks, since you obviously know everything.” A taxi screeched to a stop at the corner of 43rd Street to let someone out. Porsha made a dash for it. “Don’t fucking make judgments about something you know nothing about!” she shouted at Tahj, before jumping into the cab and pulling the door shut.

  Tahj shivered in his thin cotton jacket and hunched his shoulders into the bitter wind as he walked east on 42nd Street to Grand Central Station. It would be good to just hang with the guys for a change. Women were a monumental pain in his vegan ass.

  But we’re oh, so worth it—right?

  18

  Mekhi tried not to stare at the models as they came out onto the runway during the Better Than Naked show wearing only pleated brown corduroy miniskirts with no tops on at all. Their skirts were so short he could even see the frilly white panties they were wearing underneath, which happened to be little girls’ vintage underwear from the 1950s and fit so snugly on the models that their butt cheeks were busting out of them. Instead of sitting down in the front row, where Rusty Klein had managed to snag him a seat between Mariah Carey and Pharrell Williams, Mekhi stood at the back of the Harrison Street Club, clutching his black leather-bound notebook and trying to look writerly in case Rusty Klein was somewhere nearby and was secretly studying him.

  The show was set to strange German folk music and there was straw scattered on the runway. Little boys with pageboy haircuts led bleating white goats around by leather leashes as impossibly tall models stomped by them, their bare breasts bobbing.

  Bestiality, Mekhi scribbled furtively in his notebook. The goats were crapping all over the place and he noticed that the hems of the models’ skirts had been shredded on purpose. Tears were drawn on their cheeks in iridescent blue eye pencil. Ruined milkmaids, Mekhi wrote, trying not to feel completely out of place. What the hell was he doing at a fashion show anyway?

  The twenty-something-year-old brunette next to him leaned over and tried to read what he was writing. “Who are you with?” she demanded. “Nylon? Time Out?” She was wearing pointy rhinestone-studded glasses fastened old-lady style to a gold chain around her neck and had the thickest bangs Mekhi had ever seen. “Why aren’t you seated with press?”

  Mekhi closed his black notebook before she could read any more. “I’m a poet,” he said importantly. “Rusty Klein invited me.”

  The woman didn’t seem that impressed. “What have you published lately?” she asked suspiciously.

  Mekhi tucked his notebook under his arm and smoothed down his new set of sideburns. One of the goats had gotten loose and jumped off the runway. Four security guards ran after it. “Actually, one of my more recent poems is in this week’s issue of The New Yorker. It’s called ‘Sluts.’”

  “No way!” the woman gushed in a loud whisper. She pulled her lavender leather Better Than Naked tote bag into her lap and retrieved her copy of The New Yorker. Flipping through it, she turned to page forty-two. “You don’t understand. I read this poem over the phone to all my girlfriends. I can’t believe you wrote it.”

  Mekhi didn’t know what to say. This was his first encounter with an actual fan and he felt simultaneously embarrassed and thrilled. “I’m glad you liked it,” he replied modestly.

  “Liked it?” the woman repeated. “It changed my life! Would you mind signing this for me?” she asked, thrusting the magazine into his lap.

  Mekhi shrugged and retrieved his pen. Mekhi Hargrove, he scribbled just beside his poem, but his signature looked a little plain and impersonal so he added a squiggly little flourish underneath it. He’d scribbled over a few lines of the Gabriel Garcia Rhodes story, which seemed kind of like sacrilege, but who really cared, when he’d just signed his first autograph. He was famous—a real, genuine writer!

  “Thank you so, so much,” the woman said, taking the magazine back. She pointed to his notebook. “Now you go ahead and keep writing,” she whispered reverently. “Forget I bothered you.”

  German folk music morphed into opera and the little boys left the runway leading their goats. Models floated in wearing long black wool capes, peacock blue suede thigh-high boots, and ostrich feather headdresses. They looked like characters out of a Lord of the Rings sequel.

  Mekhi flipped open his notebook and began to write. Good and bad witches, he scribbled. Hunting hungry wolves. He bit the end of his pen and then added, Wish I could smoke a fucking cigarette.

  19

  For her appearance at the Culture of Humanity by Jedediah Angel show at Highway 1 in Chelsea, Yasmine broke her tradition of wearing only black and borrowed Ruby’s red scoop-neck top with three-quarter-length sleeves. It was the same top she’d worn once before and gotten a lot of compliments on, probably because it was so low it revealed her soft cleavage and a hint of her black lace bra.

  Yasmine had arrived late because her sister had insisted she take a cab, and of course the cab had gotten stuck in the snow near Union Square. While the driver yelled at the
towing company on his cell phone with Hot 97 blaring from the speakers, Yasmine had jumped ship. When she’d finally made it to the club, her ears had been frozen solid and she’d looked like a walking snowball. The fashion show had already started and she’d been sure they’d turn her away at the huge garage door that served as an entrance, but when she’d given her name to the girl at the door, a security guard with a flashlight had been appointed to personally escort Yasmine to her seat in the center of the front row. The chair had a card taped to it with JADA PINKETT crossed out in black marker and YASMINE RICHARDS written in instead. Yasmine had never felt so special in all her life.

  The room was dark except for burning white foot-high candles lining the runway on either side. Models dressed in navy blue above-the-knee sailor dresses with white piping and gold buttons at the lapels held foghorns to their lips as the sound of a terrible storm at sea boomed out of the sound system. The white wall behind the runway was lit with a single spotlight, and on that wall was projected the New York film essay Yasmine had sent to NYU. The film was black and white and it took on a sort of 1940s classiness paired with the models’ sailor dresses. And even though everyone there seemed to be taking this whole bogus fashion-at-sea thing way too seriously, Yasmine had to admit it was pretty cool to see her film up there in lights.

  The wafer-thin woman next to her flipped open her iPhone and typed in, Brilliant backdrop, with a long red fingernail. She was wearing an ID tag on her cashmere sweater with the word Vogue printed on it, and her brown hair was cut in a short bob with thick, bronze-highlighted bangs. She continued to type. Note: Ask Jed where the film came from.

  Yasmine considered nudging her gently and saying, “I made it,” but she decided it would be more fun to stay quiet and see what happened. Maybe someone would detest the film and make a big stink about it and Yasmine would become known as the infamous filmmaker whose bitterly honest portrayal of New York had been a real downer at Fashion Week. She wondered how Mekhi was doing at the Better Than Naked show. She imagined him asking that hot new Brazilian super-model—Anike, or whatever her name was—for a light without even knowing who she was. That was the thing Yasmine most loved about Mekhi, his divine innocence.

  The film came to the part where she’d filmed two old men wearing matching red-and-black plaid jackets and black wool caps playing chess in Washington Square Park. One guy’s head bobbed against his chest, his burning cigar perched precariously on his sagging lower lip as he began to fall asleep. The other guy snapped his fingers to make sure his partner was asleep before moving the chess pieces around and nudging his sleeping friend awake again.

  Inside Highway 1 the sounds of the storm faded and boisterous big-band music began to play. A giant cardboard boat was hauled onto the stage by muscular male models pulling thick white ropes and wearing only simple navy blue briefs. The boat came to a stop and the gangplank was lowered. Out came the models, two at a time—there must have been a hundred of them, and how had they all fit into that boat?—all dressed in navy blue satin bra-and-panty sets, with white fish-net over-the-knee stockings, white elbow-length gloves and white suede over-the-knee boots. After marching down the gangplank with military-style efficiency they began a complicated dance that looked like a cross between air traffic control and water ballet. Suddenly the neat rows of models parted to reveal a dapper dude with curly, shoulder-length hair, wearing a white three-piece suit, carrying a jewel-encrusted gold cane, and tap-dancing.

  No joke.

  Curls bouncing, he tap-danced right up to the end of the runway, stopped on a dime, and began to applaud the audience. Behind him the models stood on one leg, with the other knee raised high, like flamingos, applauding, too. Then the music stopped and the audience went wild.

  Every Fashion Week Yasmine found herself asking, Why are all the models in the shows wearing space suits, or dressed like Hansel and Gretel, or basically naked, when I wouldn’t be caught dead looking like that on the street? Then she had to remind herself that the shows were really a spectacle and that the whole point of fashion is to entertain and spark the imagination and make the world a better place. Fashion is art, and art imitates life; there’s no reason to it.

  The curly-haired guy had to be Jedediah Angel, Yasmine decided, and he was standing directly in front of her. He took a deep bow, looking a bit like the Wizard of Oz in his tight white suit. Suddenly he pointed at her and began to whoop and clap, motioning for her to stand up. Yasmine shook her head, alarmed, but Jedediah Angel kept on beckoning to her. “Stand up, baby! Stand up!”

  The crowd was going crazy now. They didn’t even know who the hell Yasmine was, but if Jedediah Angel wanted her to bow, she must be somebody. Giving in, Yasmine stood up, her face burning with embarrassment and her shoulders shaking in an uncharacteristically nervous fit of the giggles as she bowed her head to acknowledge their applause.

  She could already hear Ken Mogul whispering in her ear, “Get used to it baby, you’ve rocked their world!” And even though it was kind of cool to have so many people acting like they worshipped her, she couldn’t wait to trade stories with Mekhi about what a farce the whole thing was.

  Unless of course he’d already eloped to the south of France with a nineteen-year-old Brazilian supermodel.

  20

  “So how come Mekhi didn’t invite you?” Elise asked as she rolled a steamed dumpling around in a puddle of soy sauce.

  To weather the snowstorm, Elise and Bree had gathered a feast of Chinese food and Oreos and videos they’d never heard of, since everything else at RedBox had been rented out. Now they were watching the New York Fashion Week coverage on the Metro Channel in the living room of Bree’s sprawling, ramshackle Upper West Side apartment. Bizarrely enough, the camera had just panned over the audience at the Better Than Naked show, zooming in on Mekhi for a moment as he scribbled away furiously in his stupid black notebook.

  “Because I’m his little sister,” Bree answered, stunned that she’d actually just seen her brother’s sallow, sideburned face live on TV. She’d known Mekhi was going to the show, but she hadn’t even bothered to ask if she could accompany him. He was so obsessed with being Mr. I’m-The-Next-Keats that he barely even noticed her existence anymore.

  The camera shifted to the Les Best tent in Bryant Park, where Chanel Crenshaw strutted down the runway wearing a cropped white baby tee with I LOVE TAHJ printed on it, her gray Willarduniform skirt, a red wool cape, and Les Best ankle boots. It looked like she was supposed to be a sexy version of Little Red Riding Hood or something.

  Not that anyone would ever pay money for a school uniform.

  “Hey, isn’t that our peer group leader? Chanel Crenshaw?” Elise pointed out.

  Bree stuffed an entire Oreo into her mouth and nodded, her cheeks bulging. It was Chanel all right. Looking as perfect as ever.

  “Quick, change the channel! There’s no way I can eat anything while I’m looking at those legs,” Elise squealed, tossing a beaded velvet throw pillow at the television.

  Bree giggled and turned off the TV altogether. She picked up her I LOVE NY mug of Coke, glancing warily at the feast spread out on the old steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. The apartment was so filthy, she worried that at any moment a disgusting lobster-sized cockroach would drop out of the crumbling plaster in the ceiling, right into her cold sesame noodles. She noticed Elise hadn’t actually ingested any food yet. “You don’t have a problem eating in front of me, do you?” Bree picked up a pair of chopsticks and twirled them around in the cardboard container of noodles. “I promise I won’t even look at you.”

  Elise picked up her dumpling with her fingers and bit it in half. “That’s just in the lunchroom at school,” she said with her mouth full. “I can’t eat with all those skinny girls looking at my fat.”

  “You’re not fat,” Bree responded, even though being around Elise actually gave her an appetite because she felt so tiny in comparison. Still, it was kind of a relief to see that Elise didn’t have a
real eating disorder, she was just insecure.

  That was the thing about making a new friend—you were never quite sure if you totally knew them or not.

  “Did you paint that?” Elise asked, pointing to the oil portrait Bree had painted of her father, which was hanging over the mantel. Rufus was wearing a white V-neck undershirt with cigarette burns in it, and he hadn’t shaved in days. His wiry gray hair stuck out in all directions, and his eyes were wild with caffeine-induced excitement and from doing too much acid in the sixties. It was a pretty accurate portrait.

  “Yup.” Bree wound more noodles around her chopsticks. She hadn’t painted anything since the portraits she’d done of Kaliq in December. She’d painted his face in every style she’d studied. There was Picasso Kaliq, Monet Kaliq, Dali Kaliq, Warhol Kaliq, and Pollock Kaliq. But when Kaliq had broken her heart, she’d burned them all in a metal trash can out on West 99th Street. It had been a moment of release—their love turned to ashes. Actually, now that she thought about it, she should have saved the ashes and made something with them—a self-portrait or a calming seascape—but it was too late now.

  Elise reached for yet another dumpling. “Will you paint me?” she asked.

  Bree glanced out the smudged living room window. The snow was so thick, it looked like someone was exploding giant pillows in the sky. “Sure,” she said, standing up to get her paints. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do.

  “Cool!” Elise tossed the remains of the dumpling back into the container and unbuttoned her too-tight jeans. Then she pulled her pink Gap turtleneck over her head, taking her pull-on crop-top bra with it. When Bree returned with a clean white canvas and her palette of oils, Elise was sprawled out on the couch, her hair dusting her freckled shoulders, completely naked.

  “What are you doing?” Bree demanded, mystified.

  Elise stretched her arms over her head and settled her head back against the throw pillows. “I’ve always wanted to pose nude,” she said. “You know, like that scene in the movie Titanic.”