Winona, Inc.

I’m having lunch today with my buddies Heidi Klum and Chanel Iman at Ladurée on West Broadway. We hee-hee and kee-kee as they watch me shovel in crab cakes and lobster linguini and wash it all down with champagne. Heidi sighs.“The way you eat is disgusting. Why don’t you ever gain weight?” I shrug. “High metabolism. That’s why cigarettes were never a big deal for me.” Heidi throws shade. Right about now she’s jonesing for a ciggie. I know it and she knows I know it, but proud Mommy Chanel makes us swipe through twenty pics of her baby girl while bragging about the hubs, Sterling Shepard, snagging that fat-ass deal with the Giants. 25 years old. Forty-one mil. I ain’t mad at her. Not one bit. But I order a dozen macarons to go. And we stick her with the bill.

Outside the restaurant, a young cop is leaning against a patrol car. He’s East Indian. That’s not something you see every day. I can feel his eyes on us as I say goodbye to Chanel and Heidi, who hop into a taxi together heading downtown. And just like that, the young cop is in my face. “Hello beautiful,” he says. “I’d love to take you out for coffee sometime.” I remain silent and start stepping. But now he’s following me.

Heidi is wearing DELPOZO | Chanel is wearing VERSACE

“I can’t take you out for coffee?” he asks. “Not even one cup?” I look both ways and skip across the street. But my feet are barely on the curb before I realize that the son-of-a-bitch is right behind me. He grabs my arm and spins me around. “Don’t you know that jaywalking is illegal?” he asks. “I’m afraid I’ll have to write you a ticket.”

Winona is wearing CUSHNIE

When he hands me the “ticket”, it’s a blank sheet of paper with just a phone number on it. And a name. Ali. “Call me tomorrow,” he says. “We’ll discuss your fine over dinner.” Now, I could just let it go. I know that. Accept the paper and just walk away. But when do I ever just let things go? Especially with smug mofos like this? I hold the paper up to his fat mug and slowly, dramatically, rip it to shreds. His cocky smirk fades as the pieces flutter out of my hands and down the street.

I turn to walk away again. He grabs me from behind and shoves me towards the building. I stumble like a ragdoll, dropping the box of macarons before catching myself against the brick wall. My handbag hits the ground and everything tumbles out. People around us stop in their tracks as he presses his full weight against me. He’s grinding into my ass and forcing my arms behind me. He puts me in handcuffs. “Playtime is over, Superstar,” he growls. “Now you’re under arrest.”

At the 1st precinct, I get a light pat down by a blonde, female officer. “Nice dress,” she says. But she can’t look me in the eye. The desk sergeant, also a woman, can’t either. Why? They know the charges, resisting arrest, jaywalking, littering, are bullshit. They empty my bag and make a list of my possessions. iPad, iPhone, wallet, card case, key ring, the contents of my makeup bag, and a smashed box of macarons. They hand me a voucher, photograph me and then fingerprint me. With ink! I thought this was all digital now? I’m careful not to touch anything until the blonde officer hands me an alcohol wetnap. Swabbing at the ink on my fingertips, I keep my lips clamped and remind myself over and over that I am a Black woman in America.

There’s a phone in the cell and I get three calls. First is to Victoria Ruiz, my attorney. She’s not in. I keep calm and leave a message with her secretary. Then I call the office. My manager, Marc, goes into a full-blown panic. “What did you do?? What should I do?” I tell him first to get a grip. “I got arrested because I hurt an officer’s feelings. But Victoria will be here soon to get me out. Just hold it down and I’ll see you sometime this afternoon.” I disconnect that call and start to dial Riccardo’s number. But I stop myself. Do I really want him down here? Who knows what level of pissed-offness he’ll bring through that door? Same with Desi. I can’t risk either one of them. I call Belle. Oh boy. She’s gonna raise big hell when she gets here. But coming from a silver-haired white woman? They’ll take it.

I finish my phone calls and sit down on the metal bench. The cell is too small not to eavesdrop on the conversation between two chicks sitting just a few feet away. I listen for awhile. The older one is in for prostitution. Look at her. No secret there. The other is in for shoplifting. “This was only my fourth or fifth time,” she confesses. What an amateur. I shoplifted almost every weekend for two whole years without a pinch. There’s a fourth person in the cell, sitting in a corner like a pile of dirty laundry. You would never know it’s a woman. I can barely separate her from the dingy beige wall.

The cell door opens and an officer enters. She uncuffs a slender young Black woman wearing a tank top, booty shorts and yellow, ass-grazing micro braids. Clearly another working girl. But what a stunner. Laces on her high-heeled Roman sandals are wrapped around long, shapely legs. She can’t be a day over seventeen. Eighteen maybe. My gut begins to churn like it does when untapped potential is staring me in the face. I see this doll on the runway for Valentino. She sits across from me and nods in my direction. “That’s a nice dress,” she says. I nod back. “You’d look great in it.” Her eyes grow wide. She wasn’t expecting that. “Sheee-it,” she sneers, crossing her arms in a huff.

I ask the other women in the cell. “Don’t you think she’d look great in this dress?” I stand up and give them a spin. “Oh yeah,” the older prostitute jumps right in. “She’d wear the hell out of that!” Baby Girl is glaring. She’s this close to jumping me but I keep going. “Sure. She’s got the height, the body, the face. She’d be dope—“ Finally she snarls. “Look bitch. Whatever you’re sellin’, I ain’t interested, okay?” Of course. She thinks I’m on the take. Why wouldn’t she? The cell goes silent until a raspy cackle slips out from the bundle in the corner. She’s laughing at the young girl. “You don’t know who that is, do you? Winona, Inc.? The top modeling agency in New York?”

All mouths drop open. “You don’t remember me,” the bundle says. “We worked together a long time ago. My name is Sarah Cato. I did makeup for Charlie Jones.” I take a step back. OMG! The Charlie Jones!? He was one of the hottest photographers on the planet in his day. Always in high demand. But Charlie got hit by a car during a photo shoot in Miami five years ago. And this is where his star makeup artist lands? Homeless and in a jail cell?

But I can’t focus on Sarah and my Next Great Face, too. I sit next to the young girl. She’s more open now and tells me her name. Corky. After some idle chit-chat I confess to my own sticky-fingered past. Her eyes are wide as I regale her with being discovered while ripping off the Versace boutique on Madison Avenue. By Gianni Versace himself. She has no idea who that is but it doesn’t matter. She’s frying in my butter now. The blonde officer appears at the cell door. “Winona Warner? Come with me. You’re being released.”

My attorney, Victoria, is here. And so is Belle. She’s shouting. “Why was this woman arrested?” They return my handbag and I count my loot before handing the hundred dollar bill that I keep tucked away for emergencies to Belle.”Can you break this?” I ask her. She usually carries her tips from the club and stuffs six tens and two twenties into an envelope. I write SARAH across the front. In another envelope, for Corky, I leave a ticket to Jeremy Scott’s show tomorrow night. The cops are extra-cooperative. All smiles. Until Victoria drops the bomb. “With outdoor surveillance we’ll see exactly what happened on West Broadway this afternoon,“ she says. “And tell Officer Ali to lawyer up. If it’s anything like what my client says, he’s in big trouble.” Well…nobody’s smiling now.