A Song for You

by Robyn Crawford

  Boy, was I glad to see him! The presence of order and cleanliness in the kitchen gave me a glimmer of hope. Ian was put-together, polite, professional, and engaged. I couldn’t wait to hear where he came from and how he’d found his way here. He told me he was a blend of black and Jewish, a graduate of Columbia Law School, a jack-of-all-trades, and a lover of cooking. Bobby’s mother had asked Ian if he could help Bobby straighten out his finances. She’d also asked him to come by and prepare a meal for Bobby’s return from LA. Ian was happy to do both.

  I wasn’t sure how honestly I should answer Ian’s question about the house. “It’s fine but not my style. It’s okay.” I told him about the cereal bowl and asked about the Jaguar. Ian said it belonged to Leolah, Bobby’s sister, known as Lea Lea. He went on to say that the house belonged to Bobby, but that his family pretty much lived there and that Bobby provided for them all. While Ian and I were talking, Whitney entered and asked what I was doing.

  “Sitting here talking to Ian about some interesting things,” I said.

  She sat down and said, “Like what?”

  “Tell her, Ian,” I answered, totally putting him on the spot.

  Ian looked at Whitney and without skipping a beat said, “So, have you figured out what you’re going to do with Bobby’s family?”

  Nip said, “What do you mean?” But before he could answer, she continued with, “This is Bobby’s house, and this is how things go down here in Atlanta. But at my house in Jersey, things go down differently.” Ian managed to maintain a stiff half-smile. And in a beat, the next thing I heard was Whitney saying, “Come on, let’s get out of here.” I can’t say exactly what was behind Nippy’s obvious agitation. It was clear she didn’t care to hear whatever Ian had to say. Perhaps the house itself said it all.

  I slid the chair out, stood up, and said to Ian, “Really nice meeting you, and good luck.”

  That was our first and last time at that house. The next time Ian and I saw each other was at the wedding.

  As maid of honor, I threw Whitney a bridal shower at the RIHGA Royal Hotel in Manhattan. We were regulars there, so we were very comfortable and they took good care of us. The hotel is now the London, and even nowadays when I happen to walk by, those valets who are still there from the time of the RIHGA greet me warmly with hugs.

  The shower was fairly intimate, as I invited only people who were in her life at that time: Cissy; Michelle; her cousin Felicia; my mother and Bina; makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin; Natalie Cole; Sue Simmons; Rolonda Watts; bridesmaids CeCe, and L.A.’s wife, Perri Reid; and, of course, Dionne Warwick. There was a joyful feeling in that room. We were all laughing, celebrating womanhood. Whitney was beaming. The shower remained private and nothing leaked out to the press. The shower gift was a silver Tiffany frame and I later sent all guests a print of a group photo commemorating the day.

  I wasn’t involved in the planning of the wedding, but I started hearing about the tents—how many tents and how big they were—and then I received a fax about the enormous cake. I had nothing to do with the guest list. When I saw the design for purple bridesmaid dresses with fluttery sleeves, I told the stylist, “I’d rather not wear that. It’s just not me.” I preferred a fitted jacket and skirt.

  My hair was easy, since I’d cut it quite short while we were on tour. During the stop in New Orleans, where it was hot and sticky, everybody was in the pool at our hotel. I was sitting on the side, my blowout losing shape from the humidity. I was sick of being ruled by my hair and I wanted to swim. I went in search of Carol and said, “Cut it off.”

  “How short do you want it?” she asked.

  “Short enough where I won’t have to come back and see you any time soon,” was my reply.

  When she was done, I felt so free. I came out to the pool and everybody stopped talking. I dove in that cool, exhilarating water, and when I emerged into the sunshine, I felt born again! I wished Whitney could have joined me, but water had a bad effect on her weave, so she wasn’t swimming like she used to.

  When I got out of the pool, everybody was exclaiming about my new look. I heard Cissy say, “I told you she was crazy! She cut off all that beautiful hair.” For the wedding, I wore a clutch of lavender satin flowers in my hair that matched my dress.

  As Nip sat at her vanity getting ready for the ceremony, her private phone line rang. When Silvia answered, she heard a male voice say, “Whitney?”

  She said, “No, this is Silvia. Who’s this?”

  “Eddie,” the man said.

  “Eddie who?” Sil asked.

  “Eddie Murphy. Is Elizabeth there?”

  While Silvia told him she was busy, Whitney mouthed, “Who’s that?”

  Hearing who it was, she asked, “What the hell does he want? Is he crazy? He’s calling me on my wedding day?”

  Whit took the phone and Silvia heard her say, “Yes, I am. I am getting married today. Yes, I am.” She hung up the phone and told Silvia that Eddie had called to tell her that she was making a mistake and not to marry Bobby.

  The fabric of my dress wasn’t as fussy as the others’, and though I felt comfortable, I was still nervous walking out of that gazebo and down the aisle in silk shoes still wet with dye. I didn’t want to break down into tears and be messy. Everyone was looking and smiling as I took my position. When I saw Whitney walking with her father, I was very emotional. And then I looked right at her when I took her bouquet filled with Sterling Silver roses. I was looking into her eyes—taking one last look.

  I felt our dynamic-duo days fading away. She was doing it. She was connecting her life with someone else’s, and I hoped it would be what she wanted it to be. She deserved to have a family of her own. She deserved the freedom to do what she wanted to do with her life. That’s all I ever wanted for her.

  The morning after the biggest celebration of their lives together, Whitney and Bobby flew to Italy for their honeymoon, which they were spending on a private yacht with Whitney’s brother Michael and his wife, Donna—the first double-date honeymoon I’d ever heard of. They were going to sail down the Amalfi coast to Capri together. I thought that was weird. If I had tied the knot in front of all those people, I would want to be alone with my new spouse.

  A few days into the honeymoon, I heard talk around the office about an altercation between Whitney and Bobby. Someone on the yacht had placed a call to John Houston telling him that something had gone down, and when the lovebirds returned, Whitney had a visible scar on the side of her face. The cut was at least three inches, running in a straight line from the top of her cheek down to the jaw. I asked Nip to tell me what happened, and it went like this: “We had a disagreement. I threw a glass, the glass hit the wall, shattered, and that’s how the cut happened. Couples argue all the time and it’s never a big deal. Except when it’s me.”

  Did I believe her story? No. Until the scar finally disappeared, Whitney’s makeup artist Roxanna Floyd had to work her magic to conceal it. I said, “Roxanna, she says flying glass scraped her face and that’s pretty much the story. What do you think?”

  Roxanna looked at me, disgusted, shook her head, and said, “I covered it as best I could.” Even after it healed, you could still see a faint line.

  Sixteen

  The Bodyguard World Tour

  The first time I saw The Bodyguard was also the first time I met Lisa Hintelmann. Warner Bros. held a screening in New York, and I was eager to see how the film had turned out. Knowing Whitney would need specialized representation for her burgeoning film career, we had engaged the largest and most prestigious entertainment PR firm in the country. Lisa was a young publicist who worked with Lois Smith, a legendary partner at the firm.

  Lisa and I had talked on the phone a number of times, but before the screening, we had yet to meet in person. Already in the city for a meeting, I told her that we could meet outside the Arista building and walk over to the screening together. The
Warner Bros. screening room was less than a ten-minute stroll away.

  I wore an Armani blazer accessorized with a red beret and a generously sized chenille scarf. Lisa arrived in an eggplant Romeo Gigli suit. As she and I walked to Warners, she looked chilly, so I offered her my scarf, which she happily accepted.

  After the screening, I was eager to hear Lisa’s thoughts. After all, movies were her specialty. She saw the film as an entertaining mainstream movie that had the potential to make a lot of money, and also described Whitney’s on-screen debut as perfectly respectable. “What did you think?” she asked. I agreed with most of what she said, but what jumped out at me was Whitney’s relationship with the camera. In every scene, she just lit up the screen like she was made for it.

  Later that week, I met Lisa at Arista for a meeting with the head of publicity. On our way to her office, I asked her how many Whitney records she owned. “None,” she replied honestly, “but obviously I’m familiar with her hits and know what a big star she is.” In the meeting, we were going to listen to the first single, “I Will Always Love You,” which Lisa had yet to hear since the early screening hadn’t included the final soundtrack. Whitney’s voice filled the room. When the song ended, the publicity director stared at us from behind her desk, looking as proud as if she had sung it herself. For a minute, Lisa was silent. “Wow,” she said. And after a long pause, “I’m speechless. That was unbelievable.” Now she had heard Whitney Houston.

  A few months later, in the wee hours of Thursday, March 4, 1993, I was asleep in my Fort Lee apartment when I was awakened by a phone call from Silvia: “Whitney is on her way to the hospital. Gotta go!” Click! As I lay in my bed, now wide awake, I wished that I could be there for the birth of her first child, but Whitney hadn’t asked me to. So before rolling over, I said blessings for her to have an easy delivery and a healthy baby.

  That night, Whitney and Bobby welcomed their little girl into the world, naming her Bobbi Kristina Brown. I was really excited to meet baby girl and experience what it would feel like to hold her in my arms. But I thought it best to delay my visit and give the couple some space to settle into parenting together.

  When they came home, Bobbi Kristina’s bedroom was on the other side of what had been my room and was now Silvia’s. When she was about a week old, I had my chance to rock Krissi in my arms in the glider I’d gifted the family.

  Whitney had approximately four months of downtime, toward the end of which she had rehearsals before hitting the road for the Bodyguard World Tour.

  When I went to the house, I rarely saw Whitney or Bobby. They spent nearly all their time on lockdown in the bedroom suite. The two of them spent day after day after day at home, and then when he joined her on the road they did the same thing inside her hotel suite. Eventually only Bobby would surface, typically looking one nasty mess, with Whitney still out of sight. Not even the arrival of Bobbi Kristina would alter this pattern. In front of the cameras at award shows, they behaved like Cissy and John, presenting a united front, though really nothing was farther from the truth.

  Thankfully there was always plenty of work. My ace assistant Maria and I prepared for the tour, putting together radio and television promo spots, and selecting photographs and licensing them for artwork, tour books, and other merchandise that would be sold at the shows.

  Finally, in July 1993, it was time for the tour to kick off in New York. Opening night was buzzing, and it felt to me as if all of New York City were blazing with excitement. We were poised to enjoy five sold-out shows at the legendary Radio City Music Hall with a long list of celebrities in attendance every night. My room at the Four Seasons Hotel was a few doors down from Whitney’s suite. It was my routine to check in on her before and during hair and makeup to ensure that she was comfortable and that everything was on course.

  As the show began, I was in the wings on the right, facing the stage. Whitney entered from the back of the house, walking slowly down the aisle then toward me as she approached the stairs to the stage. As people sitting in the darkness caught the energy surging through the theater, one by one, they zeroed in on the single spot burning bright on Whit. Soon everyone rose to their feet, where they remained until she was well into the first verse, center stage, one mic and a spot of light.

  Seventeen

  Four-Letter Word

  Mom received a call from Marty saying he needed her to come pick him up from the hospital in Newark. I went with her, and as directed at the hospital, we took the elevator down to the basement. It felt as if we were being sent to the morgue. As the doors opened, we saw a sign on the wall: Infectious Diseases. We pushed through two solid metal doors to an open ward of lined-up cots and hospital beds.

  The space was the size of an elementary school gymnasium, but the ceilings weren’t very high, which made the air still, and sticky, and sweaty with fever. I don’t recall seeing medical staff in white coats or scrubs, and as we moved farther into the room, searching for Marty under yellow fluorescent lights, I realized two things: First, there were no women there. Not one. Second, most of the men were brown. It seemed as if the hospital didn’t know what to do with everyone, so they kept them in a makeshift holding area, like refugees. Many of them stayed put in their beds, and some slumped over to one side, staring blankly, while others dragged IV poles across the floor. They looked as if they were already gone. Marty spotted us, and after helping him gather his few belongings, we left in haste. We didn’t have to sign him out.

  Just when I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, the least expected, most terrible thing happened: My mother collapsed on her way up the stairs at work and had to be rushed to the hospital. Whitney and I were together that day when I got the call, so we immediately drove over. We walked into the room, where she was lying in her hospital bed, eyes wide with fear, wearing an oxygen mask. “I’m here, Mom,” I said softly. They kept her there for three weeks, running a series of tests.

  Everything came back normal, and the doctors were baffled. After they exhausted all possibilities, they transferred Mom to another hospital. I drove right down and met with the head doctor. They had their own tests to run, which he said included an HIV test. In the three weeks Mom had been at the first hospital, no one had thought to test her for HIV. She didn’t fit the profile.

  Two weeks later, the doctor called to ask if I could come down and talk with him. Marty and I entered his office, while Bina stayed with Mom in her room. He told us that everything had come back except one test, and that in most cases, when negative, the HIV test comes back quickly. This one took a much longer time, which had raised a red flag. The doctor said, “Your mother has full-blown AIDS.”

  I sat speechless, in a daze, my brother next to me while the doctor explained the difference between HIV and AIDS. I watched him put an X-ray of my mother’s lungs up on the light box. “See these spots right here?” he said, pointing out a series of clusters of little black dots speckling the cloudy gray of her lungs. Marty and now Mommy. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t.

  “Do you want to tell your mother, or shall I tell her?” the doctor asked. Marty remained silent, immobile, so it was up to me to go back into the hospital room and listen to the doctor tell our mother his findings. As he spoke, I remember thinking, Don’t you cry, don’t you dare cry. I needed to be strong for her, to let her know somehow that it was all going to be okay. And after he did his doctor thing, that’s exactly what I said: “It’s okay, Mama. We got you, Mama.”

  Late that night, I drove home, crying and howling the entire way. I bet you could hear it for miles. Then I was ready to fight.

  A couple of months later, I was finally able to drive Mom home. I can still see her in the passenger seat of my Mercedes, crying softly. It was a solemn, heartbreaking victory for us all. When I asked, “Why are you crying, Mama?” she said, “I thought I would never leave that place.”

  I continued giving her all my kisses and
nibbling on her cheeks, even though she was hesitant, worried it might be unsafe. She would say to me, “I want you to keep working. Do your thing, Robyn.” Janet Marie Williams Crawford, my biggest fan. I moved my mother and brother into my three-bedroom condo so we were close, and I did whatever I could to make them feel comfortable.

  Marty was following conventional medicine and for a time did well on an AZT regimen, but my mother wouldn’t touch the drug. She knew that it turned your fingernails black, and her research had indicated that it was toxic. She chose to go the other way, pursuing a holistic route that incorporated juicing, healing hot stone treatments, and vitamin C shots administered in Harlem for $200 per dose. Not until my mother was prescribed interferon and an inhaled medicine called pentamidine did she begin to improve, and vastly. She bought herself a new car and began attending church, shopping, and living her life. I got first-class plane tickets for her and a health aide to go to Jacksonville, Florida, to visit her brother Robert and his wife, Joyce.

  Still, she was now watching her T-cell count while witnessing her son waste away. I didn’t have half the strength Mom and Marty had, and they were always citing me as the strong one. I wasn’t. They were so much stronger.

  I have to say that kissing my mother’s cheeks and the other forms of tenderness I showed her were very different from how I cared for my brother. But the way Marty dealt with his illness was also different. He was quite close to my cousin Gayle. In fact, in many ways their relationship was more like brother and sister than ours was, in terms of closeness and spending time together. Nevertheless, Marty never told her he was sick.