Page 1 of The Virgin Playboy

CHAPTER ONE

Jaq

“For the past eight years, I have had the prestigious honor of bringing you not just the news, but being a long-term guest in your homes. Your viewership has given me the privilege of offering you with bias-free coverage—sometimes—while also giving me the confidence to evolve into a new journey, where my words will still live on, just not in front of the millions who have loved, hated, or mildly tolerated me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for allowing the space to earn your trust. Thank you for making my journey and place here so remarkable. I am Jacqueline Fields. Good all, and good night.” The lighting dimming for me for the very last time, my closing remarks the last thing my Atlanta audience would see from me.

A gathered round of applause filled the newsroom, the lighting returning, as a crowd full of producers, directors, editors, people I considered family, or even just anyone I'd ever shared an elevator with, all joined in the celebratory Martin show version of “It's so hard to say goodbye to my mama bird”, even though I was neither a pet nor dying.

“You did it, champ,” my work husband, Charlie Moore, gave me the whitest high five, as I met him with a smirk that gave, “you goddamn right, I did that shit.”

The level of maturity I'd gained being a news anchor? For ten long years? It was humbling. It’d been the longest from home I’d ever been. Forced to learn a new environment, adapt to a new way of living, all while starting out as Atlanta’s freshest darling face. I’d done a lot of growing up being away from my native New York. But in these ten years, it’d become a home away from home, and even though a part of me would miss it, I looked forward to calling Brooklyn home again.

Walking through the parted hallway, the crew’s attempts to create a spirit tunnel, to the tune of Uptown Girl, I was celebrated by the folks who had helped me grow during my time here. It was my hope that I’d do them proud with the venture that was more of a calling for me. My journey in journalism might have been ending, but in my writing career, it was just the beginning. My younger self couldn’t have dreamt up a career as fulfilling.

“Aw, you guys shouldn’t have,” I squealed, impressed with the going away cake waiting for me in the green room. “But really, y’all should have,” I boasted. Having spent some of my best and worst years in front of a tv screen, if I didn’t get a worthy sendoff, I would’ve been riding at dawn.

The catering offered some really good Senegalese food, a surprising new favorite of mine while spending so much time here. That cake was calling me though, and as soon as I bit into it, I instantly knew why.

Biting into a lavender and white chocolate cream cake with a mini-map detailing my trip from Atlanta to New York City, a little happy twerk escaped me to know I'd not only be missed this much, but made an impact on so many lives. A cake this good couldn’t have meant anything less.

By the time I’d left the news station, media outlets swarmed me until I could safely make it to my car, as I struggled with the custom bouquet my station had pitched in for.

Good luck with your debut, you seven-figure bidding war queen, Charlie's message, among others, I read through, packing up my Atlanta apartment. It was scary leaving a six-figure job to pursue a career in publishing, but I credited the fact that being hyper visible had granted me the bidding war deal I so rightfully deserved, for my debut.

Through ten years of serious, heartfelt, dangerously comical, unapologetically unserious, viral moments, I had gained a reputation for being bold, yet apolitical, a move that had got me in many places, whether welcome there or not. It was both a blessing and a curse to find yourself in spaces that showed how they really felt about you, but ones I’d never regret, given that I wanted to walk through life knowing most of these establishments weren’t shit. Somehow, I had managed to guard how liberal leaning I’d actually been in my career, but that choice had impacted my visibility, to where I was even being offered seven figures despite the climate of publishing.

But I’d had to hide parts of myself to get where I was, and I was done hiding the kind of woman I was behind non-disclosure agreements and safe choices. Even my debut was anything anyone would expect. For those thinking it’d be a memoir of my time as a news anchor, or some gritty political drama, showed how little the world knew about me. I’m sure many even thought I’d pen a thrilling romantic suspense novel, but I was being paid to write something I’d always dreamed of.

A YA horror debut, featuring Black and brown kids, with a Black Alt girl at its center. This was the version of myself I’d lost in my twenties. The version of myself I’d never revisited in my thirties, and the version of myself I wanted to get back to in my forties. The person who was fuck fascism, punch Nazis, and pro eat-the-rich. Obviously, I was seventeen then, and had so little concept that I was indeed the rich I’d been referring to.

But my love for punk music never died, just...the aesthetic I was forced to change that came with growing and leveling up. When I had opened up the email featuring mock ups of what my future cover could look like, I swear, I almost dropped my phone the first time.

Outside of getting older, that Black girl with the septum piercing, black lipstick and resting bitch face was all me. So, this career switch had not only been an open door for me professionally, but a chance to return to the part of me I’d abandoned.

***

Deciding against a two-and-a-half-hour plain ride, I’d been happy in my decision to trade off for a twenty-hour train ride. It gave me moments to admire scenery and sights that a plane ride would have never given me. Plus, after living in a state where you needed to drive everywhere, I was relieved I was about to be back in a state where I could rely on public transportation again.

Between my advance, and the selling of my former condo, I’d treated myself to a rustic brownstone in the heart of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Between moving trucks and home goods stores, it took about two weeks for the place to finally feel like I’d never left. Entering the state a two-time Emmy winner, I was sure to have a room centering my many celebratory milestones, so I put in a bookcase that I manifested would host my future bestsellers. Yeah, it was raggedy and empty now, but I was only forty-one, so there was still so much time to fill it.

“Hey, bitch!” familiar voices entered my living room, about a week late, because those bitches knew I asked them to help me come unpack when I first got here. It was cliché, but I’d made two of the bestest friends from college, and even after twenty plus years later, I was grateful to still call them that.

Yenory Colón, my soror bestie, was the Afro-Honduran Nola native you didn’t know you needed in your life. Not that she should have had to hold this burden, but we would’ve gotten in a lot more trouble had it not been for Yenory holding us back from the even more shit we used to get into back in college. She was very “Bless Your Heart” when she thought you were doing or saying something stupid, but would go from “God Bless” to “You got me fucked up,” in a heartbeat. She basically dealt in crisis management with what she had to deal with as a highly sought out sports agent.

It wasn’t all bad, at least not for her. Her biggest client, turned husband, was her rock and even though his family was little bit more hood than she was used to, she adapted well.

Carly on the other hand…we shouldn’t have bonded as fast given her different sorority, but that girl could debate. That was how I met her, being on the same debate team, it surprised me she didn’t go into law, becoming a corporate marketing specialist instead. For years she got to be at the table that told folks what to buy, who to market to, until it became too…routine. Having a kid had definitely shaken that up, but having a kid made her realize she was following money and not her dream.

Hailing from Nebraska, she’d always wanted something of her own that the world would one day notice, and in time I think she was achieving that with a Black owned brewery that distributed throughout the United States. She even had a spiked kool-aid that I could totally get down with, something I hadn’t even known was native to Nebraska.

These heffas should have showed up a week ago when I first invited them, but we all had busy lives, so I wasn’t holding it against them. Especially since they brought wine, tequila and some of Carly’s signature products, as she laid them on my kitchen island. “Great time, you two. Now you can help me unpack my living room,” pouring myself the first glass of a mixed drink under Carly’s line called a red beer. It had the smoothness of a soup but the taste of a bloody Mary, something I could fuck with.

“If you can pick up a shot glass, you can pick up a box,” I teased, as each of them grabbed an appropriate container for their drink of choice, sitting down in front of a box in the living room.

“This is a nice little place. Not bad for Brooklyn prices,” Yenory made note. She was far from a NY native, but her husband, the recently retired shortstop, Octavio Ramirez helped her get acquainted with New York and all its transports taking over the area.

“It’s still a ways away from being put together, but since y’all are here, I’m considering it an unofficial housewarming. My parents have yet to visit, but you know they’re getting up there in age, so they told me not to invite them until there’s a suitable place to sit,” I joked.

“I can see why,” Carly side eyed. “You a raggedy bitch for not hiring movers, when ya’ know damn well you can afford it.”