No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel (35 page)

You are fucking nuts. You are a crazy person. You should be
locked up.

I got back to Milan and picked up where I left off. Work is great, the ultimate escape. I flew to Rome, Berlin, Prague.

Then back to Milan, with barely time to catch my breath before it was off to Santo Domingo. This was a biggie. The legendary Horst P. Horst would be taking my picture. He’d been working for
Vogue
since the early 1930s. Horst P.

Horst, Dear Reader, had shot Marlene Dietrich.

“Tell me about Marlene,” I said during a break.

“She was very sensitive about her wrinkles,” he said.

“She made me put the light below her face, here, like this, and, presto!—the wrinkles disappeared.”

I asked him about Maria Callas. “Horrible,” he said, his face darkening. “Absolutely horrible. I was lucky to escape with my life!”

Next assignment was Normandie, with another great:

George Hurrell. I met him on the infamous beach, surrounded by assistants. He was wearing a silly little safari hat, a vest with hundreds of pockets, and khakis with white knee socks. He looked like a caricature of himself.

“This is where our boys kicked their asses,” he said by way of introduction. He was referring to World War II, of course. The sand below our feet had once run thick with 264 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

blood. Then he smiled at me and patted his camera. “You see this camera? I shot Marilyn Monroe with this camera.”

I don’t even remember the shoot. I vaguely remember the wind and the crashing surf, and the hair and makeup people fluttering about like nervous birds. Mostly I remember this strange feeling of dread, a feeling I couldn’t for the life of me understand. That was George
Hurrell
on the far side of the lens. It didn’t get much better than this. So why did I feel like I was standing on a precipice, looking down into the abyss?

Back in Milan, I couldn’t shake the feeling. It was as if some dark, evil demon was following me around. I could sense its lurking presence everywhere.

I tried taking long walks through the city, but that didn’t help, either. I would notice couples arm in arm or kissing at cafés, clearly very much in love. I had no one to kiss, and I wanted to be in love. Most of all I began noticing children.

I suddenly found myself aching for a family of my own. I wanted the whole Norman Rockwell nine yards. Twenty happy people around a Thanksgiving table. Laughing, eating, loving, being a family; a
real
family. The kind of family I’d never had. The kind that was held together by love, not fear.

One afternoon I got back from one of my walks to find a note from a friend in Manhattan telling me that Way Bandy had died of AIDS. Then I heard that Ara Gallant had blown his brains out in car. Then Gia died; AIDS again. I was frozen, stymied, stunned. I loved my friends. I didn’t know what to do.

Debbie called from New York and started listing the names of people who were dead or dying. I went numb. I couldn’t listen. I didn’t want to hear more. Bill King.

Rubell. Perry Ellis. There was even a rumor that Capote had died of AIDS.

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 265

“Janice? Janice, are you there?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m not here.” And I hung up.

But the calls kept coming, and I’d get off the phone, numb, and open my address book and X out another name.

It was devastating. And impossible to escape: One afternoon in Florence, wrapping up a shoot, the photographer asked if I’d be willing to come back the following week for another session. He wanted to pair me up with Joe McDonald, one of the original Zoli models, a wonderful human being. “You’re too late,” I said. Joe had died the previous week.

I was afraid to be with people, and afraid to be alone.

Peppo called me, worried. Daniela called me. Alberto called me. My director friend called and sent flowers and told me how much he wanted me.

Sex. Christ. Who knew it could be fatal? I thought about the men I’d been with. Yeah, there’d been a few, maybe more than a few, maybe too many, but I was nowhere near as promiscuous as people imagined. Then I heard that sex wasn’t just about your partner anymore, but about every partner your partner had ever had. I thought about Warren Beatty. I thought about Mick Jagger. Jesus. Was I in trouble?

I felt like running away, but I didn’t know what I was running from or where I’d go. I filled every minute of every hour. I went to visit the Vatican, and found it frightening. All that ostentatious display of wealth and power—

was that what Catholicism was about? I went again and again to the Duomo, the most magnificent gothic cathedral in the world. One afternoon I found myself on the

Duomo’s rooftop, looking out over Milan, crying. I went to see Da Vinci’s
Last Supper
at Sante Maria delle Grazie. I went to the art gallery at the Brera Palace. I visited the Sforza Castle, on the outskirts of the city, and felt the demon’s presence more intensely than ever.

266 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

I remember that particular afternoon as if it were only yesterday. I was frightened and tired and it was late, so I left the castle and took a cab back to the city. I was supposed to be at Daniela’s place at seven. She was having a few friends over for drinks and then we were all going out to dinner. She had begged me to come. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

The traffic was horrendous. The cab’s air conditioner was broken. I was sweating, trapped. I couldn’t stop thinking about Way and Ara and Gia and all the others; people I knew and loved, dying before their time. I was sad and frightened and felt like screaming. I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself that my life was
good.
I was alive, for God’s sake. I was at the top of my game. I had more offers than I could handle. I had just done back-toback shoots with Horst and Hurrell. So why was I feeling such dread? I should have been on my knees, thanking God in total gratitude.

By the time the cab reached Milan, it was too late to go to the hotel and change and return to Daniela’s. Her place was closer than the hotel, so I went directly there.

“Janice! Darling! How are you? Thank you for coming!” Daniela was very theatrical. Her hands flew this way and that and her voice rose and fell with operatic fervor.

“I need to borrow your shower and some clean clothes,”

I said.

“But of course!”

“Is everybody here already?”

“Almost, but take your time. The champagne’s on ice.”

She took me back to the master bedroom. I got out of my sweaty clothes and into the shower, and I stood there under the hot water, leaning against the tiled wall for support. Suddenly I began to cry. Huge, wracking sobs, as if I were opening the door to some bottomless void inside N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 267

me. Maybe that was the abyss I’d been looking at, me—

Janice. I was a beautiful, empty shell. There was nothing inside.

What did it all mean? What the fuck did it mean? Good wine and friends and laughter and fancy dinners and hard work are all well and good, but suddenly they aren’t enough. It occurred to me that I was like a drug addict.

These amusing diversions no longer had the kick they used to have, didn’t numb me the way they used to numb me, didn’t provide the escape I longed for. . . .You always need a bigger hit, a little more and a little more and more and more and more.

Interesting, I thought. That’s what Lewis Carroll must have meant in
Alice in Wonderland.
What was it the Queen told Alice? “It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

So there I was in the shower, at Daniela’s place, the hot water beating against me, and I couldn’t stop sobbing. I didn’t know who I was or what I was doing with my life or whether I was ever going to get it right. And then I heard a man say, “
Scusi,
is everything okay?”

And I stopped sobbing long enough to say, “I’ll live.”

Which of course sounded ridiculous.

And he said in his broken English, “I am sorry. I do not mean for to pry. I am hearing crying, and I just see if for maybe I can help.”

I drew the curtain back a bit. A big teddy bear of a man was standing there, peering at me through Clark Kent glasses. He had thin, gray hair and smooth skin and round, soft-edged shoulders.

“I am Alberto,” he said. “I can help maybe, yes?”

“I’m depressed and lonely and more lost than I’ve ever been in my life,” I said.

268 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

And he said, “You are so gorgeous! You must not be

depressed! And I will not let you be lonely.”

“Come here,” I said. I threw my naked arms around him and pulled him into the shower and got him sopping wet.

But he didn’t seem to mind. He held me close and tight and patted me on the back and made me feel like I was the best little girl in the whole wide world.

So of course I moved in with the poor guy. My new daddy, a very rich new daddy. An international soda magnate. A very wealthy man indeed.

For a while, it was a real honeymoon. We went sailing.

We went to Tuscany for long weekends. We stayed at his family’s villa in Elba. We summered in Sardinia. We went to Saint Moritz in the winter and skied with Princess Caroline and her family.

And everywhere we went there were children. From

rosy-cheeked babies to mischievous adolescents.

“Alberto,” I said. “I want a child.”

“No,” he said. No
bambini
for him. Absolutely no interest in
bambini.

So the honeymoon started to wind down. We fought.

The Ultimate Daddy was denying me the one thing I really wanted. So what did I do? I got pregnant, of course. And Alberto went ballistic.

“You are not having this child,” he said. “I don’t even know if it’s mine.”

I couldn’t believe he could say that to me. “You bastard!” I shouted. “How dare you!?”

“I will arrange for an abortion,” he said.

“If you don’t want to have a child with me, if you don’t think I’m good enough to have your baby, then say so. But goddamn you—don’t tell me I’m cheating on you, because I’ve
never
cheated on you!”

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 269

He took a beat. “I don’t want this child.”

I fell apart. I couldn’t get out of bed for days. Alberto carried on as if nothing was wrong. He went to dinner, visited friends, traveled. I stayed in his big opulent place, alone and frightened. I didn’t want to lose him. I felt the evil demon’s lurking presence. I agreed to the abortion.

Afterward, I was crippled by depression. Alberto tried to cheer me up, but as the days turned into weeks he got tired of trying. He began to ignore me. He behaved as if I’d outlived my usefulness. We had reached that stage where we both knew it was over, but neither of us had the energy—or, in my case, the courage—to do anything

about it.

One night we were out to dinner with a few people,

including that Italian film director and his beautiful wife, a celebrated actress. The director was across the table from me, and he could see that I was in a foul mood. I kept pestering Alberto, and he began to treat me like a child. “What do you want?” he snapped. “You sit there and whine and demand my attention, and when I ask what you want you don’t know.”

“I want you to pay attention to me. That’s all.”

“I’m supposed to just look at you?”

“You can talk to me,” I suggested. “Or try smiling with your eyes.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

“Let me know when you figure it out,” he said, popped his cigar back in his mouth, and turned his back.

Suddenly I felt something jabbing my knee. I looked down. It was a foot. The director’s foot. He had taken off his shoe and was holding a slip of paper between his toes. I took the slip of paper, discreetly, and unfolded it next to my plate. “Meet me in the bathroom,” it said. I crumpled 270 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

up the paper and tried not to look at him, then I got up and made my way to the bathroom. Alberto didn’t even notice.

The director got up a few moments later and met me in the corridor, near the rest rooms.

“I want you,” he said.

“Take a number,” I said.

“No, I’m serious. I need to see you. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“I’m going to Rome tomorrow. I’m doing a shoot for

Italian
Vogue.
”

“Rome is perfect! I know a marvelous little church in Rome. Nobody knows about it.” Then he went on to tell me that I should meet him there at noon sharp, as the bells were tolling. And that he wanted me to dress like a nun.

“You’re crazy,” I said.

“Don’t let me down,” he said.

I went back to the table and sat down and told Alberto I wanted to leave. “So leave,” he said. He was having a good time. He blew cigar smoke in the air and reached for his cognac. I got up and went outside. There was a beautiful red Ferrari in front of the restaurant, with the keys in the ignition. I got in and drove away. I looked in the rearview mirror. The poor valet chased me halfway down the block.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I half-expected the police to come after me. But I knew Alberto would fix it.

Money fixes everything. (Well, almost everything.) I turned toward home, but then changed my mind and made my

way to the
autostrada.
I decided I would drive to Rome, and I did. Like a maniac. In high style.

I reached Le Grand Hotel before daybreak and left the Ferrari a block away.

“You are early, Miss Dickinson,” the clerk noted.

“Yes,” I said. “Is my room ready?”

N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 271

“Absolutely. I’ll have someone show you the way. Any bags?”

“None,” I said. “But I need a favor. Could you wake me at ten? And would you be good enough to find me a good costume shop.”

“A costume shop?”

“Yes,” I said. “A costume shop. You know. To dress up.

We Americans do that from time to time.”