“No, Mr. Hargrove, you’ve been too kind already!” Gabriel smiled graciously and turned to Mekhi. “Your dad’s a riot.”
Mekhi took a deep breath and used the remote control to crank the volume on the Hargroves’ battered old television, which was tuned to a documentary on the Beat poets. Though he had no memory of it, he’d apparently extended a drunken invitation to Gabriel to watch it together.
Who knows what else he offered up in his drunken state?
“Um.” Mekhi thoughtlessly shoveled popcorn into his mouth, eager to have something to do with his hands. “Thanks for bringing this.”
“No problem.” Gabriel reached into the plastic bowl, his fingers brushing against Mekhi’s as he grabbed a handful. “You mentioned that your dad isn’t much of a cook, so I thought I should come prepared.”
I did? “Yeah, well, it’s a good thing.” Mekhi chuckled nervously, noticing now that his dad had displayed the freaky penis vase on a book-laden shelf. The paint on the crumbly living room was looking particularly water-stained.
“In vino veritas,” Gabriel giggled.
Mekhi recognized the Latin phrase suggesting that people are more likely to say what they really feel when drunk. In wine there is truth. His dad said it all the time before downing a whole bottle of Merlot.
“Dude, look at Kerouac. He’s so...electric,” Gabriel observed.
Mekhi studied the famous writers on the flickering screen. He was electric, wasn’t he? He was almost...handsome. Was it totally gay to think that? Mekhi felt his stomach lurch. There was something uncomfortably familiar about this scene: sitting on the couch, the warmth and weight of another body next to his, a cerebral documentary on the screen. What did this remind him of?
What? Or who?
Mekhi might have been totally clueless, but he knew what was coming next: the lights were turned down low, the television was alive with stories of rollicking, devil-may-care outlaw writers, the evening was warm, the couch was cozy: there was only one way this could end, and that was with a make-out session.
Another make-out session, to be more specific.
“I can’t see very well. Can you?” Mekhi reached to his left and switched on the chipped ceramic table lamp, helping to break the room’s romantic mood a little.
“Now I can see you better.” Gabriel smiled coyly at Mekhi.
“Right.” Mekhi took the oversize plastic bowl off of his lap and wedged it into the small space between him and Gabriel. “That should give you easier access,” he explained.
Mekhi patted at his pockets anxiously. He was dying for a cigarette...but did he dare risk it? Mekhi was pretty sure there was nothing sexier than smoking: the little burst of flame as you struck the match, the lackadaisical exhale of long plumes of smoke. He didn’t want to send Gabriel the wrong message.
Yeah, we all love smoker’s breath. Not.
There were a few minutes of silence, during which Mekhi tried to focus on the television but couldn’t stop monitoring Gabriel’s every movement in his peripheral vision. Gabriel kept running his hand over his hair and chewing on his slightly chapped bottom lip.
“You don’t like the movie?” Gabriel caught Mekhi’s eye. He reached for the remote control and turned the volume down enough to make the television nothing more than ambient background noise.
“No, no, it’s not that,” Mekhi stammered. “I was just...thinking about what we should do at our next salon meeting.”
“I think we should do the Beats.” Gabriel pulled his feet up onto the couch and rested his chin on his knees. He had a layer of soft-looking stubble on his face. “We could even screen this documentary...I mean, if you want to.”
Mekhi looked at the black-and-white footage of a couple of shirtless poets drinking bottles of beer and smoking cigarettes. He nodded miserably. There was no use fighting fate, was there? He was gay now—everywhere he turned there were signs from the universe telling him to just go with it. So why couldn’t he just put his arm around Gabriel’s shoulders and nuzzle into his neck? It didn’t seem wrong, but it didn’t seem quite right, either.
“Kerouac! Christ, it just doesn’t get any better, does it?” Apparently, Rufus Hargrove had entered the room unobserved. He was standing behind the couch, breathing over their heads.
Thank goodness for nosy dads.
Rufus leaned in to murmur in Mekhi’s ear. “It was a different time, I tell you.We didn’t have any regard for rules or the rigid definitions of society. We all just...were. You know what I mean?”
“Sounds amazing,” Gabriel agreed, leaning in closer to Mekhi. He smelled like popcorn and laundry detergent. He smelled delicious. In a non-gay way.
“Dad! Join us!” Mekhi jerked away, grabbing onto the sofa’s arm as though it were a life preserver. He grabbed the bowl of popcorn and patted the empty space on the couch. “Plenty of room for one more!”
“Really?” Rufus exclaimed. Then, in a surprisingly graceful move for such a massive man, he leapt over the back of the couch and landed squarely between the two boys. “Don’t mind if I do!”
Mekhi exhaled. He’d never been so happy to see his dad before. “Yeah, watch with us. And maybe after you can tell us all your stories about the good old days?”
Rufus studied his son suspiciously. His neon green tank top was pulled tight over his belly and tucked into a pair of Mekhi’s navy blue school gym shorts. “You want to hear my old stories?”
“Definitely.” Mekhi nodded excitedly. “I’m sure Gabriel does too!”
“Sure.” Gabriel nodded politely.
“Yes, tell us everything.” Mekhi smiled. His dad’s stories were always endless and nonsensical. And totally unromantic.
23
“So.” Porsha exhaled sexily, her voice husky and low. She’d lost count of how many cocktails she’d had, but she felt completely sober now. I love you. I love you. He loved her. She leaned back on the pale yellow pillows on the bed in the Crenshaws’ quiet master suite. The pumping music downstairs and the sounds of drunken revelers outside were hushed by the gentle hum of the A/C.
“So.” Kaliq stood at the foot of the bed, grinning at her excitedly. His cheeks were flushed and his green eyes gleamed. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking more like he was waiting in line for the bathroom than waiting to pounce on her.
Porsha patted the soft feather duvet beside her. “Get over here,” she said with a knowing smile.
Yes, ma’am.
Kaliq kicked off his shoes and leapt up onto the bed. He bounced tentatively to check if the ceiling was high enough for him to jump up and down without hitting his head. Then he started bouncing around crazily.
“Stop! Stop!” Porsha shrieked. She stood up and took Kaliq’s hands, and they bounced together like a couple of demented, overgrown kids.
Then Kaliq stopped bouncing, suddenly serious. “So, um, does this mean something?”
Porsha held on to his hands, swinging them from side to side. “Mean something?” she asked. “As in, are we back together?”
Kaliq shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah.”
Porsha blushed again, more deeply this time. “Well, we better be, because I love you too.”
Kaliq grinned and took a bouncy step forward so that his chin brushed her forehead. Porsha tipped her head back. His gold-flecked green eyes sparkled. And then he kissed her.
It wasn’t like they had a lot more to say.
24
“Happy birthday to me,” Chanel whispered, her voice hoarse and scratchy. She slipped out of her rumpled canopy bed and yawned miserably. She’d been miserably half-asleep and half-awake all night, unable to doze off soundly with Hakeem cuddled up next to her. Kaliq’s words kept repeating in her head: I love you, I love you, I love you.
Sliding her feet into her hot pink rubber flip-flops, she thwacked out of the bedroom. There was no need to tiptoe—Hakeem was snoring heavily enough that she could probably do an aerobics routine on the bed without disturbing him.
&nbs
p; The hallway was quiet, and pale early morning sun peeked in through the massive windows. She lingered by the glass momentarily, taking in the view: the green expanse of the wide lawn, the calm glimmer of the swimming pool, the clear blue sky without even a suggestion of a cloud overhead. It was going to be another gorgeous day, but somehow the beautiful weather just made her feel more miserable.
Who knew she had a secret dramatic streak?
Hugging her bare arms, Chanel descended the grand main staircase down to the marble-tiled foyer, surveying the party damage: glass tumblers with the sticky remnants of mostly finished cocktails lining the entryway table, stubbed-out cigarette butts strewn on the floor, abandoned paper plates filled with half-eaten hamburgers strewn absentmindedly on the coffee table. Heading into the living room, she glanced around at the sleeping partygoers lolling listlessly on the leather sofas, empty liquor bottles lying defeated at their sides.
Hope the maid’s coming in today!
She studied the faces of the sleeping revelers—dozing and peaceful, not yet mindful of the horrid hangovers that were their immediate future. Everyone looked so sweet and innocent. Only a few hours before, they’d all joined in a rousing drunken chorus of “Happy Birthday.” She’d pretended not to notice how they mumbled when they got to the “dear Chanel” part. Besides Cairo and Hakeem, the only other people at the party who knew her name were too busy upstairs to sing.
She found a clean tumbler in the kitchen and filled it with cold water, sipping it greedily to wash the taste of morning breath from her tongue.
Yum.
Hopping up on the counter, she perched for a while, feeling like the last person alive after a nuclear bomb or some other disaster. But the quiet helped her clear her mind. Today was her eighteenth birthday, but she wasn’t thinking about what was ahead. For the first time in a long, long time, she couldn’t stop thinking about the past.
Everyone always assumed that she was as happy-go-lucky as she acted, but the truth was, she was acting. At least, some of the time. After all, even she looked liked crap when she’d been crying. And during those early days at Hanover she’d cried a lot.
She hopped off the counter and padded back into the library, sliding open the many small drawers of her father’s heavy wooden desk until she unearthed some stationery. Then, instead of taking a seat in his giant leather office chair, she tucked herself under the desk. It had been one of her favorite hiding places when she was little. Dark and cozy and safe, with the scent of antique wood. She tucked the swivel chair in so she was completely hidden and started to write. By the time she’d said what she needed to, she’d filled three pages of the ivory-colored writing paper.
Climbing out of her hiding place, Chanel stuffed the pages into an envelope and sealed it with two quick licks. She scrawled a name across the front of it, and then, moving quickly so she wouldn’t lose momentum or second-guess herself, she hurried out of the house and into the driveway. Dozens of cars were parked half on and half off the lawn, but it was easy to spot the vintage green Aston Martin, top still down, dewy and shining in the gray-gold morning light. She strode toward it purposefully, popped open the glove compartment, and left the envelope inside, faceup.
Somebody’s in for a big surprise.
Air Mail - Par Avion - July 14
Dear Mekhi,
Wow—that’s some big news! Maybe we can go shopping together when I get back? Or ice-skating? Do you like stuff like that now? I was talking to Mom about it and she said that when you were little you were always hiding in her closet, trying on her sequined dresses from the seventies. Isn’t that funny? Congratulations on finally coming out of the closet!
I love you!
Bree
25
“I’m home,” Yasmine whispered as she quietly shuffled into Mekhi’s sprawling Upper West Side apartment. She carefully deposited her backpack on an armchair laden with winter coats even though it was July. It was only eight o’clock in the morning and it didn’t seem fair to wake the whole household just to announce her definitely untriumphant return. How many times would she slink back here? It was basically the only place she had in the world to call home, and already she’d had to retreat there a distressing number of times in the past few weeks: first, after being evicted from the Williamsburg apartment, then after being fired from her first real job working on Breakfast at Fred’s, and now after narrowly escaping a stint as a careless nanny and then vapid muse to the maniacally enthusiastic Bailey Winter.
Some summer!
“Who’s there?”
Slightly startled to hear Mekhi’s voice—at least it sounded like Mekhi—so early in the morning, Yasmine squinted into the still-dark hallway. “Mekhi? It’s me. Yas.”
“Yasmine,” Mekhi muttered sadly. He was darker than usual, and his cheeks had a dusting of irregular stubble over them, like he’d started to shave and then changed his mind. Circles ringed his eyes, and he was clutching an unlit cigarette in his hand as if he’d forgotten to light it and then forgotten it was there.
Wow—someone really isn’t a morning person.
“Mekhi? You look like—” She paused, taking in the oily sheen of his unwashed, matted hair. She was suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to draw him a bath and make him some oatmeal. She vaulted forward, sweeping him up in her arms. He smelled like musty cigarettes and armpit, but for some reason Yasmine still found it comforting. But just as she leaned in a little closer, smelling his spottily shaven neck, he stepped out of her embrace. “Are you okay?” she demanded, concerned.
“I don’t know.” Mekhi stuck the unlit cigarette into the corner of his mouth and patted his pockets miserably. “I can’t find my lighter.” He sounded almost on the verge of tears.
“Your lighter?” It didn’t sound like that was his only problem. Poor Mekhi, sometimes he took imitating Keats a little too much to heart.
“It doesn’t matter.” Mekhi removed the cigarette from his mouth and tucked it behind his ear, where a mass of his dirty hair kept it in place. “I’m going to make some coffee. You want some?”
Really, all she wanted to do was collapse into bed, possibly with Mekhi, but he was acting entirely bizarre. Plus he smelled weird.
“Coffee sounds good.” Yasmine placed her arm gently around Mekhi’s shoulders, as though he was a delicate waif in need of comforting. She led him down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Maybe I’ll make it, and you can just sit and tell me why you’re such a mess.”
Mekhi shuffled down the hallway after her but hadn’t even made it to the kitchen before the words exploded out of him. “I let this dude I met at the Strand kiss me. We started a salon together. I’m gay. My dad said he did some gay stuff when he was hanging out with poets back in the day, but me—I’m really gay.”
Yasmine brushed past him and into the kitchen. She unscrewed the lid on the commercial-size jar of Folgers crystals on the counter. Mekhi sat down at the worn table and sank his head in his hands.
“What do you mean you ‘started a salon’?” she demanded, totally ignoring the gay part of the equation. “You’re Mr. Never Get a Real Haircut. What do you know about salons?”
Mekhi had to smile. “No, a literary salon. A salon,” he repeated with the correct intonation. He stopped smiling. God, he sounded gay. “There were lots of girls at our first meeting, and they were kissing each other too.” He frowned, totally confused. “But I kissed Gabriel.”
Yasmine microwaved a pitcher of water and poured it out into two mismatched mugs, stirring in spoonfuls of instant coffee. She took a sip and made a face. Christ, Folgers fucking tasted like dog piss after all the amazing coffee she’d been drinking in the Hamptons.
“So let me get this straight.” She took another sip of the acrid coffee and looked across the room, past the mountain of unwashed dishes and the bowl of decomposing bananas to the rickety stool where Mekhi was perched miserably. “No pun intended.”
“Ha,” Mekhi said joylessly.
“S
o...you’re gay. You. Mekhi Hargrove. Gay. Not gay happy-gay. Gay-gay. Gay, I-like-to-kiss-boys gay.” Yasmine raised her dark eyebrows doubtfully.
“I wouldn’t exactly say I like to kiss boys.” Mekhi frowned. “But I did.”
Jesus. She’d only been gone three days and Mekhi had already met someone else. Girl, boy, monkey. It just seemed kind of fast. “Well, I ate a salad once. Doesn’t mean I’m a vegetarian.”
“It’s not that simple. I got a postcard from Bree that said my mom said I used to wear dresses when I was a kid.” Mekhi ran his fingers through his hair, inadvertently destroying the cigarette he’d tucked behind his ear only a few minutes before. “Shit.”
“It kind of is simple, Mekhi. Look, you’re either gay or you’re not. Or...” Yasmine paused, considering this third option. “You’re bi. Maybe that’s what it is.You’re just...exploring. Discovering yourself.”
“Do you think so?” Mekhi’s face brightened momentarily. “I mean, Gabriel’s nice. We like the same things. But last night, when he was here, it totally freaked me out. And I didn’t kiss him again. I just couldn’t.”
Part of Yasmine still wanted to be annoyed Mekhi had been kissing someone else while she had been, ew, considering Jaylen Harrison as a substitute for Mekhi, but she couldn’t help but be moved by his pathetic state of total confusion. The little furrow in his brow looked like it had been there for days, and the defeated slope of his shoulders made her want to carry him to his room and tuck him in like a baby. And then do it with him.
But she brushed that thought aside for a moment. Mekhi was gay, or maybe bi. But he’d also been a lot of other things at different times: a literary sensation, a one-night-only rock god, a rebellious senior graduation speaker, a fitness freak. Now he was gay. It couldn’t possibly last longer than any of his other phases, and when he got tired of being gay or he realized that being gay would mean actually kissing guys and not girls—her in particular—well, she’d be in the bedroom right next door.
Upper East Side #10 Page 11