Chapter 4
FOUR
On Monday morning, I ditched my usual bland, monochromatic uniform and dressed with extra care.
My StyleList colleagues were world-class experts in all things fashion, with honorary PhDs in cattiness to match.
I already stood out like a Day-Glo sign in that office, so a fresh silk press and highlights were guaranteed to spark conversation—both to my face and behind my back.
The last thing I needed was for them to turn their razor-sharp eyes on my outfit too.
I shimmied into white Marc Jacobs cargos that were cinched mid-calf with gold snaps, added a matching cropped blazer over a silky tank, and slipped on tan Prada heels that strapped up my ankles.
One advantage of working at StyleList was the huge designer discounts that the fashion and beauty editors would sporadically allow the features department nerds to use.
Plus, I occasionally scored “rejects” from the magazine’s fashion closet.
Although technically a closet because it was where the fashion department stored clothes for photo shoots, StyleList’s looked like no closet I’d ever seen.
It was a massive storage space, bigger than my Brooklyn studio, that housed racks upon racks of dresses and pants and tops and jackets, a kaleidoscope of cashmere, silk, leather, and fur.
Today’s outfit was courtesy of the closet and one benevolent shopping trip to Prada’s Fifth Avenue mecca.
Gazing at the walls lined with framed pictures of StyleList’s past covers, I hiked down the interminable hall toward my office.
It occurred to me that every one of the covers featured a white woman whose hair looked like mine did now: straight, parted on the side.
Even though Lucinda liked to stand out in a crowd, her cover taste was remarkably conventional and consistent.
Fighting the urge to scrape my hair into a ponytail, I hurried to my cubicle and pulled out an article I needed to edit for the February issue, comparing five of the most popular diet fads.
As far as I could tell the diets were all the same, with different celebrity endorsers.
I needed a break from working on the sex survey, but this wasn’t the fun respite I’d hoped for.
After reading a few sentences, I felt like someone had taken a frying pan to my cranium.
I was so focused on rewriting the bland copy that I didn’t immediately hear Natasha Gustavsson, StyleList’s director of the sacrosanct fashion department, swing around the corner and park herself on the edge of my desk.
Natasha leaned over until her nose was inches from mine.
Normally, wide age-range speculation was reserved for Black women since we tend to have taut, wrinkle-free skin until gravity finally gets us in our late seventies.
Despite her pallid skin, no one knew if Natasha was forty, fifty, or sixty; she had access to the best cosmetic dermatology in the world, and her Swedish-toddler hair color hid any hint of gray.
Up close, though, I could see the difference in skin texture between her face and neck along with a few age spots sprinkled over her bony hands.
“Nikki, darling, I need an enormous, humongous favor.” Natasha was always very dramatic, so it was impossible to tell if her request was truly urgent.
“Tonight, the president of Saks Fifth Avenue is throwing a cocktail party for Lucinda, and I just found out that I am to give the main toast,” she said, voice quavering, standing to pace the tight hall next to my cubicle.
I understood why she was stressed; there was no telling how upset Lucinda would be if the toast to her was not appropriately adoring.
“We’re shooting a punk-princess fashion story at Chelsea Piers in an hour, and I still don’t have all the looks,” she moaned, not caring that people were craning their necks to see why Natasha was deigning to talk to a jumbo shrimp.
“So, you need me to write you a short speech,” I offered gently.
“Oh, would you? Would you?” She ran over and air-kissed my cheek, then turned abruptly at the sound of rolling racks making their way down the hall.
Before she sped away to yell at the browbeaten junior editors pushing the racks, Natasha crossed her arms and took me in for the first time.
“The hair is to die for, Nikki. You look like you could be in the magazine. Wait until Lucinda sees you,” she said, giving me a rare nod of approval.
“The party starts at seven. Do this for me and you can come.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, then continued boldly, “but I also want to shadow you at a couple cover shoots.”
I could see her debating whether it was worth it to ask why a features nerd would want to check out a cover shoot. I didn’t feel like risking her laughter if I explained that I’d have to know how to put together covers if I wanted to be an editor in chief one day.
Mercifully, she decided that questioning my motives wasn’t worth her time. “Whatever, fine.” With that, she spun around and dashed down the hall.
I look like I could be in the magazine. Of course, it was flattering.
But I felt as if what Natasha really meant to say was that I finally looked like I belonged at StyleList. The idea that I was now deemed worthy of that honor because I’d lightened and straightened my curls made me want to dunk my head under the faucet in the bathroom sink.
Needing air, I ventured down the hall of framed white women once more to grab a latte from the Starbucks on the corner. The weather had turned cloudy, and as I stepped outside my hair lifted off my shoulders and flapped back and forth like a white flag in the wind.
The party invite was in the back of my mind as I wrote Natasha’s toast—Lucinda, your sartorial sixth sense has amazed and inspired us all …
blah blah. Only the most senior fashion and beauty editors had been invited, and I knew the crowd would be an insular flock of designers, socialites, and celebrities, all dressed to outdo one another.
I rarely got invited to events this exclusive and decided to fly solo.
I didn’t want it to be yet another party where Joseph scoured the room for important people he could convert into clients, or where Teresa would pinch my arm every time she saw someone famous.
The town car pulled up in front of Park Avenue’s most exclusive address, a building made famous because the co-op board was among the strictest in the city.
The board had turned down several music artists, athletes, and newly rich moguls for the penthouse that the Saks president eventually bought, because they didn’t feel the other prospective owners would “fit into their mix.”
The doorman led me down a hall that ended in brushed silver doors, where a uniformed elevator operator was waiting to escort me to the penthouse.
When the elevator opened into a massive foyer, a Black maid took my coat, a Black waiter offered me a glass of champagne, and another uniformed Black man whose exact purpose I couldn’t discern ushered me into the living room.
I half expected him to announce me like a herald at court: All rise for Ms. Nicole Rose, jumbo shrimp from StyleList.
It took me a second to orient myself, partially because I’d chugged that champagne to calm my nerves.
To my surprise, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was playing in the background.
I had listened to that brilliant album hundreds of times since it came out, and the familiarity of Lauryn’s rich contralto allowed me to relax enough to take in a deep lungful of oxygen and survey the room.
If Teresa had been there, my arm would have been black and blue because you couldn’t have thrown a paper airplane without hitting an actor, a supermodel, or an infamous heiress.
Trying to appear blasé, I squinted at a squiggle of writing at the base of one of the paintings.
Yup, Picasso. The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over Central Park was almost more spectacular than the museum-quality art.
At the end of the room, there was a series of French doors that opened onto the biggest deck I’d ever seen in New York City, big enough to have trees and fountains and a sizable bar with a bartender crafting custom cocktails.
As I stepped onto the deck, a cloud of red hair became visible in the center of a gaggle of StyleList editors and boldfaced names.
My intention had been to circle the perimeter of Lucinda acolytes, pass the flowery toast I’d written to Natasha, and keep it moving.
But Lucinda swung around and recognized me.
I could feel her trained eyes passing over my shoes, clothes, and hair like a CT scan.
The crowd parted as she moved in my direction, and then collectively gasped as she grabbed me by the shoulders and yelled, “This is the best makeover I have seen in a long time. You, doll, hit the nail on the head.”
Lucinda reached a bejeweled hand up and started flipping my mane back and forth over the top of my head. She clearly didn’t know to never touch a Black woman’s hair.
“Has everybody seen our own intrepid Nikki?” she yelled into the crowd. “So mousy before, and now look! This is what StyleList is all about!”
Mousy? So what if I’d worn a ponytail or bun almost every day for the last three years? I’d just about had enough of Lucifer for one night when she grabbed Mary-Kate, who was somehow always within arm’s reach, and told her that she wanted an appointment with me tomorrow.