The Bold World Page 12

  “Jodie…?” She prompted me again. My throat clenched, holding hostage the words I’d memorized the night before in my bathroom. The woman sitting across from us, staring at me, had it easy. All she had to do was listen, ask a few questions, listen some more, then say either yes or no. She held all the power, and she knew it—looking at me, arms folded across her chest, swiveling in her swivel chair. My boss did nothing to help, either.

  “Jodie?” Still, no words would come, not a partial sentence or a phrase. Only a grunt, and then another grunt.

  Quickly and dismissively, Carolyn began filling in the silence with all the numbers and humor and insight I should have had. I disappeared into the chair, as if I weren’t even there and as if I hadn’t just royally screwed up, until they finished talking and shook hands goodbye.

  Outside our office building, on the street, I gave my best apology to my boss.

  “Carolyn, I just want to say I promise to work harder, to be more focused. I’ll memorize everything and pull it together. This will never happen again.”

  She looked down at her watch. “It’s got to be better than just memorized. You have to know it, Jodie.” She was right. I excused myself and went back inside, directly to the handicapped, single-stall bathroom, where I could be alone. I locked the door behind me, bent over the toilet, and sobbed like a child over the predicament I was in.

  There wasn’t a month at VIBE that I didn’t fall short of my sales goals, or a day when I didn’t scramble trying to catch up. I can’t remember one time at the magazine when I felt at ease. At some point they’re going to fire you, Jodie, and you will have nothing to fall back on. I prepared myself for the worst but I stuck with it, failing and trying, then failing and trying again. I’d coach myself: Watch long enough and you will see something. Study long enough and you will become. I knew I wasn’t ready to master anything, but I also knew I had to keep trying my ambitions on, even if they didn’t fit quite yet.

  I came to work every day because on some level, I knew that from my efforts, something good would come, it always does. We have to keep facing the sun, as Mama taught us. I also came to work every day because it was one of the few things in my life that brought an ounce of weight to me. I felt so tiny, so fragile, so alone, that borrowing a bit of substance from VIBE was a blessing. I was, if nothing else, two important things: Georgia’s mom and the fashion director at a major magazine.

  I went out a lot during those months to escape, taking advantage of the free time I had when Georgia was with Serge. I’d work in the office until late, then find something to do that usually involved eating, dancing, and drinking lots of red wine—just so I wouldn’t have to go home. I stayed busy and social and slept very little, deciding that motion, even when frantic, was always better than being curled up under the covers, broken for the rest of my life.

  It was in that place, where I had just about convinced myself that running was a sustainable state of being, that I met Joe.

  * * *

  —

  It was summertime, just before Georgia’s third birthday, and I’d left my summer rental in the Hamptons to venture out on the town with a girlfriend. It was not long after Serge and I had separated—just twelve months prior—and I had vowed to take every opportunity to go out and meet people, refusing to sit at home and cry another day. I walked around the crowded room, scanning for someone interesting to talk to.

  And then I felt someone tug at my elbow.

  After spending so many years in Atlanta, I was very familiar with the elbow grab—it was the signature Black male move to get a woman’s attention without causing a scene. More intentional than a tap on the shoulder, which could be easily misinterpreted as a signal to let someone pass—but far less brazen than a pull at the waist, way too risky. A move like that could earn you a slap across the face. The elbow grab at a party is at once very intimate and holds its own form of formality. It’s an odd place to be touched by a stranger, but not an altogether unwelcome one. Slightly intrusive, but not; slightly sexual, but not. And if nothing else, it at least commands you to turn around and make eye contact with the pursuer. Regardless of whatever variation of “Ma, can I talk to you for a second?” follows, I had always found that initial move endearing—private, sweet, a little bold. Ripe with the kind of physical language Black folks happen to be fluent in. It was an old familiarity I’d come to miss.

  So, lucky for Joe, the moment I turned around to look at him, I already had an enormous smile on my face. I’m so very glad you found me, it seemed to say. And I was. In Joe, I saw the promise of something familiar, I saw our whole story foretold.

  That night, we stayed up late talking for hours. He described growing up in a family that put African solidarity first. He grew up with Kwame Nkrumah, too, the African nationalist who believed all Black people around the world, throughout the diaspora, should unite.

  “My mom was this petite white woman from Canada who’d never been to Africa,” Joe said to me, leaning forward in his chair, laughing a little as he said the words. “But when my dad asked her to move all four of us to Ghana, alone, to raise us there while he stayed in Boston developing his eye practice, she did it.”

  Joe was proud of his mom’s commitment to his dad, and to the family. She said yes because she knew how important culture was to family life. She also said yes, perhaps even mostly so, because she was devoted to her husband and believed in the traditional structure of families—where a man leads and a woman follows. Joe and his siblings learned to speak Twi, ate traditional foods from roadside stands, grew up going to local schools with their cousins, and then eventually made their way into the Ivies—all the while understanding fully and completely that Black family is everything.

  It was as though he was seducing me with his enthusiasm for Black nationalism and that A-team mentality that I was raised on. Where other people might not have paid much attention to these stories, or might have written them off as having sexist undertones, I was drawn to them and thought they were sexy. I could already see Joe leading our future family. It was in the way he spoke of men, women, and commitment all in the same breath, in how he conjured family memories with an emphasis on what parents did for their children. It was his body language and his eyes, and mostly it was his strength—both physical and mental—that got me. He looked like the type of guy who would move the world out of my way if ever I needed a little help.

  It took two years for us to officially start dating, given that I was coming out of a marriage and he was coming out of an on-again/off-again relationship. But the seed was planted that night in the Hamptons.

  * * *

  —

  I had used my months at VIBE to gain some time—allowing me to move away from my old life and toward something new. After an intense year there, just when the long days were starting to get the best of me, a friend recommended me for a position at a fashion company—the director of PR for the fashion designer Zac Posen. It was a dream job in many ways, tapping back into my work experience in PR and publishing and into the relationships I’d developed over the years with writers and editors. I believed I could actually bring value to Zac and his team, a feeling I’d been missing at VIBE. And so I took the job without hesitation.

  I was impressed with how Zac and his family ran the business. His mom was the CEO and my day-to-day point person. His big sister and head of the design team worked with me on the wording and branding around each season. And even Zac’s dad, a well-known local artist, strolled through the offices, giving his input. It was a family affair, which had begun several years back in the living room of their downtown loft. Now, many seasons and runway shows and accolades later, Zac Posen was a globally recognized name.

  The upward climb, the success, the determination, even the attitude (of which Zac had a ton) were alluring to me. He was King Entrepreneur. I paid attention to how he kept close to every aspect of his business, from i
nspiration to design to manufacturing to PR to sales to runway. Everything went through Zac’s hands. He was only in his twenties, ten years my junior, barely out of school, and yet he’d accomplished way more than I had, leading a multi-million-dollar operation.

  What impressed me most was how connected Zac was. One of his most surprising partnerships was with Sean “Diddy” Combs, a lead investor in the company. The two were like brothers in some ways, and polar opposites in others. Both were extroverts who could switch on their inner light and charm so brightly that entire stadiums of people would be under their spell. But Puff was forward and brazen, while Zac was sophisticated and highbrow. Diddy was all Harlem, Zac all SoHo. Both had a temper that could ignite in a second if things didn’t go their way.

  I often found myself caught between two kings.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Combs, but Zac’s schedule won’t allow him to present at the MTV Awards this year in Miami. He’s so very honored that you’ve extended this opportunity. However, Mr. Combs, we need to respectfully decline.” I sounded like someone’s B-level secretary, but Zac’s instructions were clear and we would not be going to Miami under any circumstances. We had the new collection to focus on.

  There was a long pause over the phone.

  “Baby girl. Baby girl.” The tone was familiar. “You ’bout to slip on the banana, baby girl. Don’t slip on that banana.”

  Weirdly, I understood what Diddy was saying. You have to see what’s in front of you, both the obstacles and the opportunities. If you can’t see it—the banana or the blessing—you will fall, fast and hard.

  * * *

  —

  I leaned into the job, keeping my eyes open and my time busy from the moment I woke up, to the second I fell asleep. I reminded myself to stay on my toes and keep a “Yes I can” outlook. But I was always feeling overwhelmed—by the constant zigzag between work and Georgia, by coparenting and dating, by the sixty-hour workweeks and the five-hour-a-night sleeps. By just about everything.

  “You got this,” I’d push myself. If Grandma Gloria survived the loss of her daughter and succeeded in her academic career, if Auntie Lurma raised her son alone while juggling a career as a high-powered mayoral press secretary in Washington, then I had what it took to get the job done, too.

  At the end of particularly exhausting days, I’d make lists of questions I wanted to ask my dad: “If you were me, Dad, how would you master this moment?”

  I thought often of a conversation we’d had when I was about ten, Daddy in his favorite chair in our study while I sat on his lap. “Things happen when you’re ready for them, Jodatha. At forty, I had bill collectors ringing my doorbell.” No matter my age, Dad would always talk to me as if I were an adult. “I thought I was smarter than most people—definitely smarter than those white boys who had made millions. But my businesses had all flopped. One day a friend asked me, ‘If you’re so smart, John, why aren’t you so rich?’ That’s when I got serious. If you want something, baby girl, you’ve got to study it, visualize it. Then grab it. It’s yours.”

  All these years I’d been close to bosses and leaders and men at the center of things. I’d watched my father the Trailblazer, Dr. Cole the Motivator, my boss Carolyn the Ice Queen, Zac the Boy Wonder, Diddy the Dictator. I even hung Joseph Cinque on my wall because I admired his will to fight and wanted to feel close to that kind of power. But I never, not once, thought to be like those people or to grab the same things any of those people had. It took for the king to die, for everything to fall apart around me, for me to pick myself up and begin putting Jodie back together again, to realize that. Dad was never coming back. Truthfully, nothing external was ever going to rise up and fix me.

  I went back to Daddy’s words: “Study it.” “Visualize it.” I had done that, all my life. Since I was a little girl I had spent my time looking and absorbing. But what I hadn’t done was grab the things I admired—fully and unapologetically.

  “Grab it. It’s yours.” My father’s words rang differently in my ears this time.

  SEVEN

  As It Were

  “MAMA, YOUR BELLY IS SO BIG—Is there a baby in there?” I looked down at Georgia as we walked hand in hand down Lafayette Street in SoHo one afternoon, trying to give my best show of surprise. Four months into my second pregnancy, and I was obviously beginning to show.

  “Wouldn’t it be great if there were? You could have a little sister!”

  “Nope,” she said, shaking her head. “I want a brother. A sister would ruin my whole princess thing.”

  “Well, then—we should find out!”

  “Is Papa the daddy?” Georgia’s question was so innocent. Joe and I had been seeing each other seriously for a year now, and although we lived separately, we were spending most of our available time together.

  “No, Ladybug.” I smiled at her. “Joe would be this baby’s daddy.”

  Her eyes got wide, still fixed on my belly, and mine went to my reflection in the window of the storefront beside us. I squeezed Georgia’s hand and we continued walking down the street, excited by our “discovery.” I wanted Georgia, now five years old, to feel in control of the life we were embarking on. There had been a lot of change for both us: a new job, a new boyfriend, a new coparenting schedule with her dad, and now this, a new baby. It seemed important to keep Georgia feeling central to everything. So I didn’t tell her I was pregnant; I waited for her to tell me.

  Well into my second trimester, I went in for a regular checkup with my OB/GYN, bringing Joe and Georgia with me to hear the baby’s heartbeat. They all gathered around the table where I lay, and my doctor, who specialized in “at risk” births, began the ultrasound. Technically, my pregnancy was risky because of my age, an over-the-hill thirty-five.

  He spread the jelly on my belly and searched for the heartbeat. Georgia, the eager big sister, stood close to Joe, beaming as soon as she heard the thump-thump of the baby’s heart.

  “My brother sounds so good, Mama. And I’m still the princess!”

  While Georgia babbled away, excited as could be, I looked over at Dr. Wenschel, who was looking intently at the monitor. He was quiet, not saying a word, just looking at the screen.

  “I think it’s best if your daughter leaves the room now.” Joe quickly walked Georgia, visibly annoyed that she had to leave the room, out into the waiting area, then came back in and held my hand.

  “There is limited blood flow to your baby. He’s not getting enough from you, Jodie.” Dr. Wenschel’s voice was clear and direct. “His growth rate is slow, well below the size he should be at this point.” My mind raced back to all the extended hours I’d put in at work—not eating lunch until dinnertime, sitting in rooms full of cigarette smoke while designers and stylists and models frantically raced against the clock to meet the next day’s deadlines. These past months with Zac, trying my best to conceal both my pregnancy and my fatigue, had been intense, to say the least. I scrambled to keep up with Sales Week, Fashion Week, Anna Wintour, the goddesses at Vogue, the socialites from Dubai, and the ever-growing list of “it” models and their agents. And I really scrambled to keep up with Zac, a zealous, demanding boss who could work fervently until midnight, partially because he had no kids waiting for him at home.

  “You’ve got two options,” my doctor went on. “You can continue with everything you’re doing just the way you’re doing it, and your baby will not make it. Or, you can rest.”

  “What do you mean by ‘rest’?” I needed specifics. Was it shorter days, or shorter workweeks? Did it mean I’d take taxis everywhere and not carry another heavy bag for months? All of that sounded great. But Zac was going to need details—in fact, he needed me back in the office in less than an hour. My mind raced trying to imagine resting and working at the same time.

  “Complete bed rest for the next three months, and your baby will survive. It’s that simple.”

 
; When he put it that way—literally life or death, work or baby, one or the other—the answer seemed pretty clear. If keeping the job meant losing our son—“the next Ghartey king,” as Joe’s family constantly reminded me—I didn’t need anything more to make the decision. I would stop working immediately. I returned to the offices on Laight Street later that week only to tell them I could no longer work, at least not until after the baby was born.

  It was all a bit awkward and abrupt. There were lots of back-and-forth emails from my bed, trying to tie up loose ends. But it was also a relief, knowing that I was no longer responsible for editors or deadlines or fittings, or anything other than this very important, singular mission: making a healthy baby boy.

  Week after week, propped up with pillows all around me, my laptop as my sole companion during the day, I realized that I’d have to be patient. The idea of having both a family and a career was important to me, and I knew it was possible. So I promised myself I’d return to my career as soon as our son was born.

  To help me pass the time, my niece sent me a link to a five-part documentary on the Black beauty industry. I casually pressed Play, not knowing how important it would be for the next decade of my life. The doc started with Madam C. J. Walker, a Black female entrepreneur who was raised in Southern cotton fields and went on to make millions creating and selling hair product to her community. These were products made by a Black woman, for a Black woman. She focused her attention locally, yet had a massive impact on an industry—Black hair care—that would eventually become a multi-billion-dollar industry. An industry that is now dictated primarily by big (white) corporate entities. I watched all five episodes, back to back—and had a breakthrough.

  What if I launched a beauty company? It was something I knew well: the countless hours with Grandma Gloria, Mama, and now Georgia in front of mirrors, brushing our hair behind closed doors, loving each other and admiring ourselves. I could turn what Mama had taught me, and what Walker had started decades ago, into a business.