Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Sitting in the editor-in-chief chair meant being the center of attention all the time.
I’d frequently lift my head from my computer to see someone scurry off, or I’d round a corner to find a few people huddled in a conversation that would immediately stop when they saw me.
I began to wonder if I was unknowingly collecting enemies in every corner like the dust bunnies I had cleared out of my office.
It didn’t matter that I had grown up in the long shadow of the Apollo Theater or that I now bought incense and bean pies on the street in Bed-Stuy, I still had to earn their respect.
I came in with no street cred and my name had been dragged through the mud. I was getting zero passes.
Someone leaked the new mission statement I had written to Robert Jameson, a journalist who covered Black media brands with the intensity of a New York Times ombudsman.
When he added it to his weekly newsletter, the reaction was instantaneous.
There were a few haters and Luna loyalists who questioned my background and Blackness and motives.
But it mostly got love from supportive women who sent me encouraging letters and emails.
A few singers and actresses caught wind of the growing buzz and publicly expressed their excitement, which took the furor to new levels; I had more visibility than I’d ever experienced, and I understood how much I was under a spotlight.
Unlike at StyleList, where no one cared what I did, my success or failure at Sugar would be playing out in the public eye.
And I didn’t have a lot of time to get it right.
After two sixteen-hour days, I finished the June issue story lineup and gave it to Barbara.
She pushed back on a few concepts, but had to admit that my presentation was more thorough than anything she’d ever seen.
By the end of the first week, I’d produced a draft editorial outline for the entire year and had started outreach to music labels and Hollywood PR firms about album and movie releases for future cover subjects.
I kept the file on my desktop, and the printouts were in a locked drawer so no one could leak the covers and editorial specials I had planned.
Though the Sugar staff was taking their time warming up to me, even the hardest among them couldn’t deny that generating cool ideas was my sweet spot.
Luna hadn’t been doing regular editorial meetings with the team, so that was the first thing I changed.
The team couldn’t be invested in a magazine they didn’t have a real hand in creating.
The first meeting was awkward and unproductive, with most of the team gaping at me, arms crossed, not believing that I was actually interested in their input.
The more daring among them popped their heads up to voice a few thoughts.
But the minute I questioned an idea or asked for more information, they’d retreat like crabs on the beach, leaving me staring at bubbling holes in the sand.
I ended the meeting early and asked everyone to bring story ideas the next time.
It was during the second brainstorm that I saw glimmers of what the team could be.
I’d decided to put on some music in the background and caught the surprised yet appreciative looks when I chose BDP.
I’d figured KRS-One rapping would mean less weird silence to fill.
I didn’t consider that it might give me a shred of cred.
The meeting started on a much more energetic note.
“Okay, I think we have a bomb FOB for the July issue!” I exclaimed after thirty minutes.
Almost everyone had offered an idea, and they let me work with them to refine them until we’d put together a smart, cool, and buzzy front-of-book section filled with emerging artist miniprofiles, fashion shopping pages, new tech products, movie and book reviews, and album releases.
“Let’s work on the well. Who’s got a feature concept? ”
An associate editor with red glasses perched on top of a dense mass of wiry curls and a thick Trinidadian accent raised her hand.
I remembered Lucinda making the StyleList team crack up by asking me if “I’d like to come to the blackboard to write down the correct answer” when I did the same thing in an editorial meeting.
So I gently told her, “No need to raise your hand, Felicia. Just jump on in. What do you have?”
She nodded gratefully. “I was thinking about how women get treated on the street. Like, I can’t take two steps down Flatbush without some dude yelling out his car.”
I knew exactly what she meant. The catcalling in Brooklyn was almost as prevalent and creative as it was in Harlem. “Yep, I bet a few of us here can relate. Tell me more.”
“Well, we’re working on a summer issue, which is catcalling season. What if we did a roundup of the, um, best lines we’ve heard?”
“Whew, I’ve heard some crazy lines on the street—” I began, but I was interrupted by a salty copyeditor.
“Oh, okay, Nikki. It’s hard to imagine dudes were hangin’ out the passenger side of their best friend’s ride, trying to holla at you on Fifth Avenue or wherever Park Avenue Publishing is,” she said, quoting TLC with a smirk. “Tell us where exactly you’ve heard these crazy lines?”
There were a few low snorts. “Mostly in Harlem, where I grew up, although it’s open season on the streets of Bed-Stuy, where I live now,” I said calmly.
“In high school, I used to take the train at 145th. I was tall and looked older than I was, so every day, I’d walk down that long-ass block between Convent and St. Nicholas, hearing a new and even more creative set of lines.
I think my fave was ‘Hey, white chocolate!’”
“You grew up in Harlem?” someone else asked.
I ignored the skeptical question and continued, “Although I also enjoyed ‘How am I supposed to admire all your beauty when you walkin’ faster than a fat kid looking for fried chicken?’”
The whole room had to laugh at that one. Then every woman chimed in.
“I’m partial to the ol’ classic, ‘Hey baby, you’d look prettier if you smiled.’”
“What about ‘I’m married, but I’m sure the good Lord would make an exception for you.’”
“Someone once yelled ‘What’s up pumpkin spice?’ to me.”
“But there are also the creepy lines like ‘Screw the gym, baby, I’ll give you a workout,’” another editor added. “Or ‘You look like a filet mignon I’d like to sink my teeth into.’”
“That’s true, it can be really disturbing. I think we need more than a roundup of lines.” I thought for a minute. “What if we deep dive into the history of catcalling? Where did it come from? Why is it more prevalent in communities of color?”
“Oh, I like that! We could add a debate on whether catcalling is good or bad. I bet some of those dudes don’t think they’re being disrespectful.”
“What if we interview a notorious catcaller?”
“And we could add a service sidebar on how to react if you’re getting catcalled on the street.”
“Love this! This was such a great idea, Felicia!” She beamed back. Maybe I’d promote her to senior associate editor so she, too, could be a jumbo shrimp.
The Sugar staff basically fell into three categories: teacher’s pets competing for my attention, skeptics willing to be converted, and Luna devotees who couldn’t believe their queen had been deposed.
The first category was easy to deal with: I gave them tasks and let them slug it out.
The second was my favorite because they kept me on my toes and made my game better.
I didn’t mind when they asked question after question because this was the group that truly loved Sugar and the women we were trying to reach.
I knew they only wanted the magazine to be the best, and I respected that.
The last group was an enormous pain in my ass.
I’d catch them whispering in groups, smirking over every editorial change they didn’t agree with, secretly calling Luna to fill her in on the dirt.
At least they were obvious enough that I knew within weeks which staffers I had to replace.
Barbara had given me free rein to fire whomever I needed, and some folks had to go before they poisoned the whole team and any chance I had to save the company.
I found a new art director quickly. She’d been at a cool indie magazine for the past few years and would bring an edgy sensibility to Sugar.
Just as I finished negotiating that hire, the beauty director, QT Jones, started to act out.
Luna had brought her from Hot Hair, and she had the models in Sugar’s beauty stories looking like they were auditioning to walk in one of those Detroit hair shows, in massive beehives shaped like a helicopter or the Chrysler Building.
When I gently suggested to QT that she focus on hair and makeup that the average girl would want to rock, she had wiggled her neck and said, “Maybe at StyleList y’all like the models to look like bankers, but at Sugar we supposed to keep it real.
” Then she had looked at me defiantly, like: What you gonna do about it?
Clearly, homegirl had a short-term memory problem.
I put both hands on her desk and leaned in.
“You see anybody walking around the Sugar office with hair shaped like a skyscraper on their head?” I looked around for emphasis.
“Yeah, me either. So why don’t you think about it and let me know whether you still want to work here. ”
Luckily, Hot Hair offered QT her old position, so she left without too much drama.
But I soon found out how few Black beauty editors there were.
I finally remembered a lissome bay-brown associate editor at a teen beauty magazine whom I’d met at a journalism conference.
She’d been in the game way too long not to have a senior position, so I lured her with a director title and the promise of an office with a door.