If I Ruled the World (fast-paced, juicy debut)

Prologue

I was a live-for-the-moment twentysomething, like every other twentysomething I knew, until one rainy Friday night in the Krispy Kreme on Twenty-Third Street in Manhattan.

I was licking raspberry jelly from the fingers of a very rich, very fine, and very married man, when I looked up to see my parents, shaking rain off their huge umbrella and laughing.

I might have been able to salvage the situation if my date—his trademark salt-and-pepper locs unmistakable from any angle—had been a stranger to my parents.

No such luck. He was my mother’s childhood friend from suburban Chicago.

The bond they’d formed as the stray chocolate chips in their high school’s huge snickerdoodle had lasted decades, with Mom even toasting the brides at both his first and second weddings.

Dad spoke first, an uncharacteristic curse word exploding from his mouth: “What the fuck is this, Al?”

My date, Alonzo Griffin—husband, father, and, until that moment, oblivious finger suckee—had his back to the door. But he whipped around at the sound of my dad’s voice.

“Jesus, what are you two doing here?” he asked, the slight tremor in his voice belying his expressionless face.

“Getting a doughnut, I think,” I whispered, shocked into stupidity.

“No shit, Nikki,” Alonzo said. He looked at Mom and implored, “Ann, please…”

Hearing her name thawed my frozen mother, who strode over to our table and poked a finger in Alonzo’s chest. In a furious tone, she said, “How could you, Al? This is my daughter.”

Alonzo winced but clearly thought better of rebutting my enraged mom. “Annie,” he spoke in a low tone, my mother’s name both a question and a warning.

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped, then turned to me. “And you, what were you thinking? Tell me, please, what were you thinking?”

I had no response because I honestly hadn’t been thinking at all—unless having a torrid affair with my married boss who was almost twice my age and just happened to grow up with my mother was evidence of deep consideration.

The situation was made worse by the fact that six months prior Mom had called Alonzo, the publisher of Revolutions—a venerable music magazine owned by the even more venerable Park Avenue Publishing—to ask him for help with her wayward daughter.

“Black folks rarely make it to the top, so you’ll likely get stuck near the bottom where the salaries are dreadful.

And most magazines are asinine anyway,” she’d wailed when I first brought up my dream of being an editor in chief.

After I graduated from college, my English professor mom had begged me to find a job in a respectable and secure field—in her mind, journalism, even as an EIC, did not qualify.

But after watching me quit a job in finance, drop out of law school, then waitress while trying to get someone to pay me for my words, I think she began to fear I’d never move out of their Harlem brownstone.

What Mom and Dad didn’t know was that, during my interview process, Alonzo and I had gone out for drinks, one thing led to another, and I’d found myself in a discreet Midtown hotel watching my mom’s old pal unlace his Ferragamo shoes, peel off his Armani suit, and unbutton his Valentino shirt.

I’d made love to a few boyfriends by then, but this was something different.

Alonzo Griffin had pulled my hair and grabbed my throat and bent me over every piece of furniture in the hotel room, all while whispering that he was going to enjoy taking care of his “good little bitch.” As we were getting dressed afterward, Alonzo had tilted my head up to look into my eyes.

“Babygirl, keep this up and you’ll be the editor in chief in no time,” he’d said with a smirk.

“But next time I see you, Daddy wants you to have a Brazilian wax. It looks like you sat on a fucking Chia Pet.”

I was tall, wiry, and bookish—the child of two professors—with a residual penchant for denim and kicks.

I hadn’t yet figured out the right products for the wild reddish-brown curls that haloed my narrow shoulders, and my newly acquired contact lenses were still a daily struggle to pop in over backlit brown eyes that matched my hair.

I had never even heard of a Brazilian wax, and I didn’t know there would be a next time.

But Alonzo’s declaration had left zero room for debate.

After a few months of working at Revolutions—and having clandestine rendezvous with Alonzo—I’d moved into my own studio in Brooklyn.

I bought a computer and had even stopped asking my parents for the occasional twenty bucks.

At Alonzo’s request, I’d made regular waxing appointments, found a local Dominican salon for my blowouts, upgraded my wardrobe to tight skirts and heels, and wore lipstick and mascara to work every day.

I wasn’t worried about the thousands I’d racked up on newly acquired credit cards because Alonzo promised he’d pay them off.

I’m sure my parents thought I’d finally found my way—until six months later, when they stopped for a doughnut and witnessed their only child literally biting the hand that feeds her.

“Annie, just calm down a second.” Alonzo reached out and tried to touch Mom’s tensed up shoulder with his sticky fingers.

“I said don’t call me that.” She glared at him.

“You know, I’ve been watching the music industry do a number on your head for years.

I was trying to give you some grace because I remembered that puny kid the white boys beat up after school.

I figured you were just sowing your wild oats, making up for lost time, but I was so very wrong about you.

” Then she turned to me, eyes blazing. “And you, I definitely don’t know you anymore. ”

The smell of baking doughnuts turned syrupy and thick as I watched my mother gather herself, grab my dad, and head for the door.

On top of being “stubborn” and “irresponsible” in her eyes, I could now add “homewrecking slut.” Wonderful.

I expected Alonzo to look contrite, to apologize for the situation, to run after his friend.

Instead, he watched them leave, dipped a pinkie back into the raspberry filling, and purred, “Well, that was exciting.”

I stared at him. “Jesus, Alonzo. That was not exciting. That was humiliating and awful—for both of us.” I let my chin fall to my chest. “And what if Mom tells your wife? You consider that?”

“She won’t, Nikki. Trust me. Dr. Ann Rose believes in sacred Black love too much to break up my marriage.

” Alonzo lifted my head and smeared a little jelly on my lip while giving me the authoritative, sexy, boss-man look that got me into this mess in the first place.

“Oh, come on, Nikki, you know you like the thrill of danger.”

Was he right? I let myself be ushered out of the Krispy Kreme and into Alonzo’s silver Range Rover, conveniently parked on a deserted side street. I let him toss me into the back seat while he insisted, “You’re going to be Daddy’s good girl, aren’t you? Get those jeans off now.”

It didn’t matter to him that I had tears in my eyes, that my shoulders were quivering, that I mumbled, “No, I don’t think I want to right now.”

It was easier to let him keep going as he yanked off my sweater and pulled down my underwear, as he put my hand inside his jeans, as he ripped open a condom with his teeth.

It was easier to let Alonzo remain who he’d always been in our relationship: the initiator, the lead-footed driver of our liaisons.

That way, I could continue to hide behind my role as the ingenue, the eager explorer.

When Alonzo grabbed a handful of my hair, yanked my head back, and told me, “You’re going to take it all now,” I did, only because I couldn’t figure out a way to make him stop.

I had no idea how to get out of that Range Rover without causing a scene and making it worse.

So, I let Alonzo do everything to me that he wanted.

And that night, I was everything my mother was afraid I had become.

Any shred of excitement disappeared by Monday, leaving only humiliation, guilt, and rage.

Mom had refused my calls, and even my dad, who’d always been reliably on my side, wouldn’t talk to me.

I pictured them sitting close together on their tatty jacquard sofa, thighs touching, clutching cups of ginger tea, softly bemoaning their only daughter who was once so promising but was now ruined.

I imagined them turning the pictures of me on top of their piano face down, throwing away my boxes of childhood mementos, writing me out of their wills.

I’d never seen my mother’s eyes look that cold or my dad’s look that disappointed, so I let myself spiral.

Meanwhile, Alonzo was ringing me every hour to say how turned on he was by the whole situation, illuminating a dirty old-man-ish quality I’d been trying to ignore.

Over the past several months, I’d gotten off on his dominance, on acting as if I didn’t want him when I did.

But instead of feeling satiated and naughty after that night in the Range Rover, I’d cried in the shower when I got home while scrubbing my skin raw.

“Why don’t you be a good little girl and meet Daddy in a hotel?” Alonzo repeated some variation of this every time I picked up my phone.

“Alonzo, my parents think I’m a terrible person, and one of your oldest friends believes you’re a monster. I can’t see you,” I finally hurled back, slamming the phone down with what I hoped was enough force for him to leave me alone.

But we worked on the same floor in the Park Avenue Publishing building; it was impossible to avoid him, which was torture because every glimpse of Alonzo’s face took me back to that rainy night when I realized how deeply I was fucking up my life.

Meanwhile, Alonzo kept leaving Krispy Kreme doughnuts in my cubicle, like this was all a big joke.