Walking with the Muses

by Pat Cleveland

Somehow, I managed to talk one of them into taking me back to my hotel in Milan. On the way, I noticed in my side-view mirror that we were being tailed by a very cute guy on a Harley-Davidson who kept making indecipherable hand gestures to me whenever my driver was otherwise occupied (the car actually had a phone—in 1971!—and he yakked on it in Italian all the way into the city).

  I know this story sounds crazy, but it’s one of those stranger-than-fiction episodes that seemed to occur with regularity in my life back then, leaving me to make split-second decisions based on instinct alone. But there I was on the road when my driver stopped at a tobacco shop to buy cigarettes, and the motorcyclist rushed up and told me to hurry and get on his bike because I was in danger. “He’s a bad guy!” he said. I had a second to make a decision, and as usual, I let my gut make it for me. This Botticelli angel on a bike is someone you can trust, my gut told me. I jumped out and hopped on, clinging to him for dear life. “I’m Marco,” he said as we peeled off.

  It turned out that Marco knew who I was and had heard I was in town from a friend of his who ran another modeling agency. Marco had been out riding his Harley when he saw me in the car with that man and knew he had to save me. “He and his friends are bad guys!” he kept shouting at the top of his voice as we sped down several small one-way streets. “Girls like you—he and his friends sell!”

  “Sell?” I yelled. His Italian accent was adorable, but between it and the noise, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.

  “Into slavery! Capito? Understand?”

  Slavery? I thought blankly, just before it dawned on me what Marco was saying: sex slavery. Good Lord. Thank you for saving me, Marco, my handsome Italian knight in shining armor. That was a close call.

  I phoned Antonio that very evening and took up his standing invitation to stay with them. The next morning I was on one of the first flights out of Milan. Juan met me at the airport.

  We hurled my big pink suitcase into the back of the small convertible he was driving, top-down, and off we went. Our destination was 3 Rue Bonaparte, which was on the Rive Gauche, or Left Bank, of the Seine, Juan informed me. As we drove, he gave me a quick tour, which I was almost too excited to listen to. All the way into Paris, the red, white, and blue of the French flag seemed to wave a personal welcome to me.

  I noticed a huge, ancient-looking church with a tall white tower poking into the perfect blue sky. “That’s L’Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” Juan said. “Parts of it date from the sixth century.” Wow, no wonder it looks old, I thought, marveling at the way it sat there serenely, smack-dab in the middle of a busy intersection in Paris. Juan was quite knowledgeable about the neighborhood, which was also called Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

  “We sometimes have breakfast there,” he said, gesturing to an outdoor café opposite the church that seemed to wrap itself around the street corner and spill out all over the sidewalk. On this beautiful June day, Parisians sat languidly, faces forward, under the dark green awning imprinted with the words “Les Deux Magots,” sipping wine and smoking cigarettes. It looked like a scene from a movie. “That café has been there since the nineteenth century,” Juan said. “It used to be a favorite hangout for intellectuals in Paris, like Hemingway and Jean-Paul Sartre.” I formed a pretty picture in my mind of Henriette Metcalf lunching there with her dear friend Isadora Duncan, the two of them looking impossibly chic and sophisticated as they clinked wineglasses. I remembered the Madeline book Henriette had given me, with the Eiffel Tower on the cover, and thought, I’m finally here!

  We turned off Boulevard Saint-Germain onto Rue Bonaparte, and the movie set became even more charming and quintessentially Parisian. The street, paved with worn cobblestones, was barely wide enough for the car to get through. On either side were exquisite old buildings, none taller than about four stories, stone facades painted white like new gesso canvases, except with a few peeling surfaces that highlighted their beauty, like a gracefully aging face. Farther along, I noticed a courtyard flanked by two colossal stone carvings. Juan told me it was the home of the École des Beaux Arts, a famous school for painters and sculptors. Beaux Arts? That was the name of the costume balls in New York City that my mom and Auntie Helen used to attend. I felt a stab of sadness that Mom wasn’t here with me to experience this enthralling city.

  “We’re here!” Juan belted out, bringing me back from my reverie. He seemed excited, which was unusual for him. But he knew how eager I was to see Antonio.

  We stopped in front of a dark green lacquered door and piled out of the car, dragging my baggage with us. The bright light coming off the Seine, which I glimpsed just at the end of Rue Bonaparte, made everything around us glisten in tones of gray and violet that I would come to associate with the city. Juan pressed the buzzer, and we entered a dark hallway that led to a narrow stairway. We climbed up to the second floor, huffing and puffing from the suitcase and my assorted “dingle-dangle bags,” as I called them. When Juan set my suitcase down, it took up most of the space in the room.

  I sat on my suitcase, feeling a bit awkward. What a tiny place, I thought. Where am I going to stay?

  I peeked into the other room, and whom did I see? None other than Donna Jordan! She was posing next to the wall on a daybed, sitting on a bolster-type pillow, straddled from behind by this handsome, boyish-looking blond guy. I stuck my head farther around the corner and saw Antonio. He was breathing the way he did when he was about to finish a sketch, his hand sliding across the page as though slicing it to shreds. It’s a wonder the paper held up under the force of his creativity. Often at such moments, watching the way he would suck in air as he worked, as though taking energy from the entire universe, I’d imagine what he would be like while making love.

  He stopped. The drawing was finished, and for a moment absolute silence prevailed. Then Juan said loudly, “Fini! The angels just passed by!” He used a playfully annoying voice, pronouncing the word “fini” with an exaggerated French accent to bring everyone down to earth.

  Donna unwrapped herself from the erotic pose and beamed her bright green eyes right at me. “Hey, girl!” she screamed. That big smile of hers just lit up my heart.

  “Hey, girl!” Antonio echoed, putting his work aside. As always, he seemed almost to be awakening from a dream. And as always, Juan was there to catch his drawing as though it were a precious treasure.

  We all hugged and Antonio introduced me to the blond boy. “This is Joe Macdonald,” he said. “The model.” That was pure Antonio—adding an ironic little tag to someone’s name.

  He disappeared into the small room, then came out in a flash wearing three freshly pressed shirts, one layered over the next, pointy collars turned up. That, too, was pure Antonio.

  “C’mon, guys,” he said. “Let’s get something to eat. I’m starving.”

  We walked exactly one hundred steps, including the stairs, to the Bar Bonaparte, which was situated in a small square facing the Seine. The bar was practically an extension of the boys’ apartment, which had no kitchen. As I entered the bar, thrilled to be with my new Paris-based tribe of expats, I felt as if I had wandered into a Toulouse-Lautrec world. The walls were decorated with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and huge posters in bold red, yellow, and black. I was gawking at everything from the worn tiles at my feet to the ceiling fan turning slowly overhead. Antonio nudged me and said, “Keep moving.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the posters, especially one of a beautiful young woman dressed as a goddess, holding a drink up to the gods. It was signed Henri Privat. I’m living in art, I thought, again flashing to my mom.

  We settled into a dark leather banquette, and Antonio, never much of a drinker, ordered a Coca-Cola. I noticed another beautiful poster with the word “Absinthe” printed across it, and I decided I simply must try the “drink of the green fairy.”

  Both Antonio and Juan discouraged me. “It can make you crazy, or cuckoo,” Antonio said, twirling his finger beside his ear.

  “Muy loco,” Juan added with a knowing nod. “It�
��s like a psychedelic drug.”

  I didn’t doubt that they had my best interests at heart, but I ordered it anyway, just to get a taste of the legendary liqueur.

  “They say you get inspired if you drink absinthe,” Antonio said. “That’s why the poets in the 1890s drank it—to get inspired, to die!”

  The bartender prepared the drink, putting one sugar cube in the glass, adding the emerald-green liquid, then pouring the bottled water over it until it magically turned a beautiful pale green. I took a little sip, then Juan removed it from my hand because I liked it—a lot. He took a sip and passed the glass to Antonio, then Antonio to Donna. We all had some, and after a few minutes, everything in the place seemed to brighten. All my senses were heightened, and I felt I could hear every word that everyone was saying, even if it came from the other side of the room.

  Was it the absinthe? Probably. But it may have been Paris.

  chapter 33

  THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR

  Getting cozy at the Rue Bonaparte flat with Karl Lagerfeld (center), me (top), and Antonio Lopez, 1971.

  Courtesy of Juan Ramos.

  Over the following days, I quickly adapted to the boys’ routine, staying up until the wee hours, posing for Antonio to the strains of Erik Satie; sleeping late (Juan and Antonio in sleeping bags on the floor and Donna and I in the daybed, positioned head to foot); and then heading out at around three o’clock in the afternoon to the Café de Flore, another nearby restaurant with a long history of patronage by writers and artists. As in New York, Juan didn’t want food in the apartment, which was provided by a mysterious man named Karl whom everyone was constantly talking about. I fell instantly in love with croque-monsieurs—so much more delicious than the humble American ham and cheese sandwich—and my new favorite comfort food, croissants. The first time I bit into one—all flaky and buttery, with sweet confiture inside—I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I’d devour them for breakfast at any time of day, and wash down the jam-filled pastry with piping-hot café au lait. Goodbye, cornbread, biscuits, and fried eggs!

  At the Flore, we were occasionally joined by another of Antonio’s pals by way of Karl, Paloma Picasso, the daughter of the great Pablo (who, ironically, was one of the famous artists who’d frequented the Flore decades earlier) and the sister of Claude, whom I’d met in New York on the same day I’d first visited Wilhelmina’s offices. I used to wonder how Paloma felt about having artists for parents. Had she ever drunk turpentine when she was little, like I did, or eaten clay? I never really found out, because Paloma was interested only in Antonio and never paid much attention to me. The fifth “regular” in our core gang was Corey Tippin, a makeup artist who was an old friend of Antonio’s and Andy Warhol’s. It was Corey, who shaved Donna’s eyebrows and bleached her hair platinum white, creating her signature look.

  After eating our fill, we’d order red wine by the glass. And after a few glasses, we’d get pretty boisterous. Antonio would always end up drawing on the paper tablecloths and even the cloth napkins—that’s what artists do, after all—and then Juan and I would start drawing, too, covering one another’s sketches as in a game of tic-tac-toe, laughing our heads off, until we’d filled the paper tablecloth all the way to the edges with our creations.

  Corey’s art was makeup, and he was always checking up on Donna and me. We’d apply lots of red lipstick, peering into our knives like narrow mirrors, with Corey directing us how to get the important upper (not lower) lip just right. Sometimes he’d get impatient and snatch the lipstick out of our hands and roughly pull our heads back, as if he’d just caught a squealing piglet, and apply the color himself.

  Corey was mysterious, even a bit Gatsby-like, and Greek-god handsome, with golden hair and light eyes outlined in heavy black kohl. I asked him once how he got so good at doing makeup, and he told me he used to paint the faces of the corpses in a funeral home. “Honey, I’d pile that makeup on, and they wouldn’t say a thing,” he said.

  As for Donna, the art she’d perfected was in not taking herself too seriously. It always tickled me that she could be so glamorous and high-fashiony one minute and in the next be so down-to-earth and hilarious. At the Flore, Donna would talk to the waiters in English, knowing full well they didn’t understand a word she was saying. Like many French people, those waiters in those days had a snooty attitude toward Americans who spoke poor French. But Donna believed the world belonged to everyone. “We have a right to be here,” she’d say. “We kicked ass for these guys during the war. There wouldn’t be a Paris if it weren’t for us Americans.” She’d wink at us and shout in her loudest voice to the waiters, “Garçon! Knucklehead! Come here!” She’d gesture for a waiter to come closer, then turn to us and whisper, “He’s so stupid, he doesn’t even realize I called him knucklehead.”

  “Donna,” I’d whisper back, “don’t you think he might find out what you’re saying?”

  She’d just laugh and say, “Confidentially, honey, they’re just a bunch of jerks. Try it with me.”

  I just couldn’t. But waiters would be falling all over her even as she teased them—albeit with a coquettish manner. I have to admit it was funny to see people’s reactions to Donna. She could really stir the soup, and Antonio loved it when she did. I was always afraid we’d be thrown out for being rude. I’d hear my mother’s voice in the back of my head: Trish, you must be a lady at all times. Still, the fact that Donna got away with what she was doing was pretty entertaining; it was like watching a naughty three-year-old who’s just learned to say no to everything. I guess she was saying no to the French attitude toward us gauche Americans. She toyed with them until she had them wrapped around her little finger.

  Naughty or not, Donna was always the most glittering star in the room. She exuded this flamboyant tomboy confidence that contrasted dramatically with her bombshell movie-goddess appearance; she was a sort of modern-day combination of Mae West and Marilyn Monroe. After Warhol made her a superstar (she’d just finished his movie L’Amour, in which Corey also appeared), Antonio made her a fashion star. Next to her sun, I was the moon. Slowly, some of her bold radiance began to rub off on me, and we became best friends. We were like salt and pepper, like Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. I was the brunette, and she was the blonde—“just two little girls from Little Rock, born on the wrong side of the tracks.”

  One of our great bonding experiences was posing together for the photographer Guy Bourdin. As usual, the booking came through Antonio, who was a friend of Bourdin’s and wanted us to do test photos with him. Donna and I took a taxi one cold summer night—the shoot was scheduled for after midnight—to Bourdin’s out-of-the-way studio, but the driver dropped us at the wrong address. After being caught in a torrential downpour, we finally found Bourdin’s studio, which was a kind of modified garage, and we staggered in, drenched to the bone and dripping big puddles on the floor. No one greeted us, and the entryway was dark. Eventually, we saw a light coming out of what was possibly a dressing room. “Hello?” Donna shouted.

  A girl came out and introduced herself as Christine, the makeup artist. She took us to a dressing room and gave us each a bathrobe to put on. It was such a relief to get out of those soggy clothes. Christine did our makeup and pulled our wet hair into tight, side-knotted chignons, using lots of hairpins and K-Y jelly (yes, the sexual lubricant—hairstylists often used it instead of hair gel back in those days) until our hair was rock-solid. It was really uncomfortable, but I didn’t care, because I knew we were going to wear something wonderful and that Antonio would be proud if the photos came out beautifully.

  “You are ready,” Christine said.

  “What do we wear?” I asked. “I don’t see the clothes.”

  “You dress in just the shoes.”

  “Just shoes?” Donna didn’t look pleased.

  “Guy wants to do nudes tonight,” she explained.

  Hmmm. This is not fashion, I thought. I suppose it was Art with a capital A. But in my h
ead, I heard Mom’s voice again: Never take off your clothes to do naked pictures. True, I’d done it for Antonio, but he was like family, and the pictures weren’t for public consumption.

  “Are you ready?” Christine said in her sweet Swiss-French accent.

  “I guess so,” I mumbled, my mom’s voice falling away.

  Donna and I walked in our six-inch heels into the garage space, which was pitch-black except for the light on the set. The aluminum front door was partially open, and outside, the rain was still pounding down. Donna and I stood there shivering for what seemed like forever, waiting for Guy Bourdin to arrive. When he finally got there, we couldn’t even see him.

  “Hello,” he said from behind the camera. “Thank you for coming.” All I could see was his jacket and the outline of his shoulders behind a Nikon camera, which was sitting straight ahead of us on a tripod. He had us lit with a giant spotlight, rendering me all but blind, but I knew he was looking through the lens. Then, without saying a word, he walked away.

  Christine came over. “I have to take your robes,” she said. And there we were, nude as plucked chickens—or should I say geese, since Christine then put oil on our bodies and sprayed us with water so that both of us were soaked to the bone and covered from head to toe with goose pimples. We waited like that, in our birthday suits, wearing only high heels, until Bourdin finally returned to his position behind the camera. He directed us from out of the darkness, telling Donna and me to stand close and hold on to each other. We held the pose and he walked away again. He seemed to disappear into the darkness whenever he wanted to. I still hadn’t seen his face. When he returned, I could tell he was smoking a cigarette by the orange glow. Then he put it out on the floor, and we went back to the posing.

  “Bend back, holding each other,” he said politely.

  While we were executing this move, Donna and I conducted our own dialogue, as models often do when they’re working. “Cover me up,” she said anxiously. “You stay in the front.”