Walking with the Muses

by Pat Cleveland

  “Okay,” said Apples, whose adorable Dutch accent was identical to her brother’s, “we’ll see you guys later.” She and Todd walked swiftly away, leaving Paul and me alone.

  Paul seemed ready for whatever I had in mind, so I said, “You’re coming with me.” I was fearless: I was single (Martin and I were legally separated, and I’d filed for divorce); it was spring; it was Paris. What more is there to say? To seal the deal, I pushed him up against a garden wall and kissed him on the lips. I pulled back and then kissed him again. This time he kissed me back. And even though he was seven years my junior and I was supposedly the worldly woman of experience, Paul was more mature than any man I’d ever kissed. He knew what to do and when to do it. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in my hotel room, breaking only to meet up with Apples and Todd for a little picnic dinner by the Seine.

  Todd brought his guitar, and Apples and I brought the wine and cheese. It was like a scene by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. As we ate, drank, and sang American folk songs along the banks of the most romantic river on earth, I felt happier than I had in years. Paul moved out of Apples and Todd’s hotel room and stayed with me in my little room at the Hotel Boétie, and we made love between the shows day and night until it was time for me to return to the United States. We made plans to meet again for the next fashion season, in autumn.

  In the meantime, I carried on with my life and career in New York. Lukas was one of those mistakes a woman makes when she lets her hormones make bad decisions for her. A woman I knew who’d once been his girlfriend tried to warn me about him. “Steer clear,” she said. “He’s bad news.”

  Smart girl. Me, not so smart. Sometimes I wonder how I could have been so naive. In retrospect, Lukas’s violent mood swings—which would be rectified after he disappeared for a few hours—were clearly a function of his addiction to heroin, though it took me an inexplicably long time to put two and two together. In desperate need of a fix, he’d raid my pocketbook, leave without telling me where he was going, and come back calm and smiling. Until he’d get twitchy again. It was a nightmare that for some reason I felt I couldn’t reveal to anyone, not even Mom. She and I would talk for hours on the phone, but I never let on how despondent I was or how much Lukas mistreated me. I simply couldn’t tell her; it would have caused her too much pain, and the last thing I wanted was to add to her many woes. If I’d confided in her, she surely would have recognized the symptoms of heroin addiction and advised me to get help. Instead, I bottled up my misery and pretended that things were fine.

  I finally wised up and broke it off—or at least I tried to. Every so often Lukas would show up at my apartment and I’d have a hellacious time getting rid of him. I’d refuse to buzz him in, but he’d wait until another tenant opened the door, then sneak up to my apartment and beg me to let him in. I wouldn’t, and eventually, he’d go away.

  There were a couple of other men in my life around that time (including a very nice podiatrist who gave the best foot massages ever!) but no one who made my heart leap. I started to make peace with the idea that perhaps the kind of true love and companionship I’d long craved just wasn’t in the cards for me. For some reason, I still regarded the beautiful Dutch boy as a lovely diversion, not a potential life partner.

  My third encounter with Paul came in autumn 1981, when I went back to Paris for the collections. He was there as a freelance photographer, taking photos of the runway shows. We decided that after the shows ended, we’d go to Normandy for the weekend. We rented a car in Paris, and Paul drove. We spent the journey talking, laughing, and kissing. He was so young, sexy, and alive. There was something absolutely energizing about him. It sounds corny and melodramatic, but I’ll say it anyway: I’d look at him and my life would feel brand-new. Plus, he was so much fun. I don’t think I stopped grinning the entire weekend.

  We spent the night in Normandy in a hotel room decorated entirely in orange. The next day we made a pilgrimage to the fortified rock island of Mont Saint-Michel, which appeared out of the ominous gray sky like a Gothic mirage. I was dressed in a black Thierry Mugler jacket, Issey Miyake leather pants, and knee-high boots, and the autumn chill encouraged us to be cozy. We were nearly the only tourists there because it was off-season. It got dark early and rather abruptly, and because the tide was coming in fast, we had no choice but to find a place to spend the night. There was no way off the island. So we cuddled up in a little room overlooking the bay, drinking beer and eating crepes.

  We left in a hurry the next morning, because I had a flight to catch at Charles de Gaulle. We returned our rental car and I grabbed a taxi. As it pulled away, I saw Paul standing on the curb, looking abandoned and sad. Tears streamed down his cheeks. I was shaken to the core. No one—no one—had ever cried because I was leaving.

  He stayed in my mind. In January 1982, just after my divorce from Martin became final, I went to Brazil to film Rio Babilônia. I brought along a gay friend as security, but he kept going off with a guy he met on the film set, leaving me alone. I would take solitary walks on the Copacabana and see Paul’s face in every guy I passed. It was eerie and like nothing I’d ever experienced. This young man had gotten under my skin, and I realized I didn’t want to go through life without him.

  A friend of mine has a theory that you must be with someone seven separate times before you can know for sure that the two of you are destined to be together. I think Paul had me at four, when we took the train from Paris to Amsterdam to visit his big, happy, wonderfully welcoming family (he’s the youngest of seven children). For our fifth and sixth times together, he was able to accompany me as a photographer on fashion shoots to the Caribbean and to Greece. He was such a joy to work with. So often in my career, I’d had to hang off rooftops or worse, always to please the photographer, to help him “get the picture.” All I had to do to please Paul was relax and let him do the rest. At the end of the day, he would take the hundreds of hairpins out of my hair, which would be pulled into a tight chignon, and set it free into its loose and natural state. It was though he released me from the character I was playing on the outside and let me know he accepted without qualification the person I was inside.

  It was in Greece that I asked Paul how he felt about kids. I was deliberately casual in my phrasing and braced myself for the answer, expecting to be disappointed, as I had been so many times before, with Martin. “I love kids,” Paul said instantly. “I can’t wait to be a dad.” Oh my God, I thought. Be still, my heart.

  Our seventh time together, when he accompanied me to New York for the spring collections, solidified our union, though not in the way I would have scripted. Nevertheless, Paul came through an ugly episode with flying colors.

  When we got to New York, we discovered that Lukas had taken over my apartment. Evidently, he had convinced my friend Robert—a painter friend who was staying there while I was away in Europe—that he was my still my boyfriend and needed a place to stay. Now Robert had left and Lukas was in residence. I didn’t know what to do and was afraid of confronting Lukas; by then I knew about his heroin addiction and had realized that all the bizarre occurrences and erratic behavior were signs that he was scoring drugs.

  Paul and I decided to check in to the Gramercy Park Hotel for a couple of nights until we figured out the next step. In the morning, I went to my bank and made the horrifying discovery that Lukas had emptied out my accounts, stolen my checkbook, and bounced dozens of checks in my name. From there, I set off for the garage where I kept my car and found it missing. He had stolen it. (I never saw it again, and months later, I was billed for thousands of dollars’ worth of parking tickets he’d received.)

  By this time, I was really starting to panic. Lukas had now made his biggest score: my home. Paul and I took a cab over to 100 Central Park South. My hand was shaking so much that I couldn’t get the key to work in the lock. Paul got the door open and we switched on the light. The place was empty except for the piano in the living room. Every window was open and the curtains torn off. My
white wooden floors and white walls were covered with threats and profanities inked in red Magic Marker: “YOU’LL GET YOURS!” “YOU BITCH!” “YOU ASKED FOR THIS!” “I HOPE YOU DIE IN HELL!” Every surface was defiled.

  Paul and I could tell that no one else was there, so we walked into the bedroom. My television had been ripped from the wall, and all the stereo equipment was missing. The bed was turned over along with every drawer. All my designer clothing was gone. All twenty of the beaded dresses that Halston had given me (he’d said, “One day these will be worth something”)—gone. All my jewelry, including diamonds from Halston—gone. The Versaces, the Kenzos, the Fendis—all gone. (Fortunately, I still had most of my Stephen Burrows clothes because I’d taken them with me to Europe.)

  Paul held me close. I told him about Lukas and how he had come into my life and wreaked havoc. I was close to bursting with despair. Paul listened and stroked my hair, exuding his usual tranquility and quiet competence and bringing everything into perspective. A feeling of peace settled on me and I turned to him. “You know what?” I said. “This has set us free. Now I have nothing to take care of.”

  “You’re right,” Paul said. “Still, you should still report it to the police, so you can make a claim on your insurance.”

  We went to the police station, where we spoke to a Lieutenant Larkin. As I did, I kept seeing the threats Lukas had scribbled all over my wall: “IF YOU REPORT ME TO THE POLICE, I’LL HAVE YOU KILLED!” and “I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!” Maybe he was bluffing, but I was scared. I happened to look up just then, and there on the wall of the police station was a picture of Jesus Christ. Jesus had said to His followers, “Turn the other cheek,” and now it was as if He were speaking those words directly to me. Walk away. Move on. Forgive and forget. The message was powerful and I heeded it. “I can’t,” I whispered to Paul. And he understood. We left the police station without filing a crime report.

  That week I worked the New York collections, staying with Paul at the Gramercy Park Hotel. I arranged to give up my apartment. The lease was coming due soon anyway, and the management company was encouraging tenants not to renew because the owners wanted to renovate the building and turn it into a luxury residence. Paul and I booked a flight to the Netherlands. We’d stay with his parents for a couple of weeks before going on to London, where I had several editorial bookings and Paul would be photographing runway shows. Together, we’d figure out our next steps.

  The day before we left for the Netherlands, we returned to 100 Central Park South. We packed up the few books and pictures that remained—all the bastard had left behind were items with no conceivable street value—and took them to the post office to mail to my mother’s house in New Jersey. Movers had already picked up the piano, which we shipped to Mom as well. (I told her merely that I was moving and giving up the apartment; I’d spared her the gory details about Lukas before, so I certainly wasn’t going to burden her with the even gorier ones now.)

  After the post office, Paul and I went back a final time to make sure we’d left nothing behind. The apartment was utterly barren and almost unrecognizable. Already, the pain that Lucas had caused was receding into a past that I was all too happy to put behind me.

  In front of me—or should I say beside me?—stood my much rosier future. Paul took my hand, squeezed it, and flashed me a smile that said, We’re in this together, kid, from here on out. I squeezed his hand in return. Then we let ourselves out of the apartment, closed the door behind us, and didn’t look back.

  epilogue

  AT LONG LAST LOVE

  Finally, a dream come true: in Bali with Paul, 1983.

  June 23, 1983. Paul leaned over my sleeping form and kissed me as our plane landed at the Kuta airport. “Happy birthday, darling,” he said. I was turning thirty-three, and after months of nonstop work, Paul and I were about to embark on a much-deserved vacation.

  I smiled at him, drowsy but exultant. “My prayer to the Lakshmi Murti has been answered,” I said, reaching up to cup his face in my hands. “I’m in Bali with my true love.”

  The next eleven days in paradise passed like a dream as Paul and I walked, holding hands, along the beach or on dirt roads scented with the divine fragrance of frangipani and cooked simple meals by candlelight on an ancient wok. One lazy afternoon, at a little bar we stumbled upon, we sat beside trumpet-shaped hibiscus, drank coconut water, and played with the bar owners’ pet monkey, which sat on my shoulder and got lost in combing its fingers through my curly hair, which I’d let go completely natural. For the first time in years—maybe for the first time ever—I felt myself truly, and totally, relax. In that moment I thought, “Finally, I have it all.” And I did.

  Vacations, of course, can’t last forever, and the real world soon intervened, as it inevitably does. My agent in Paris sent a telegram informing me it was “urgent” that I fly to Milan to walk the collections. So Paul and I packed our things and off we rushed, still hand-in-hand, to catch a plane to Europe. It was a scene that we would find ourselves repeating many times over the next three decades as we entered into a shared, full-to-bursting life that has proved to be equal parts love and work and, eventually, family—a combination that continues to enrich and surprise me on a daily basis.

  Grandma Nancy Edwards, 1910.

  Grandpa Albert Cleveland, 1914.

  My father, Johnny Johnston, 1948.

  My mom, Lady Bird Cleveland, 1948.

  Aunt Helen dancing onboard the Queen Mary, en route to Europe, 1950. Mom was supposed to go but gave her ticket to her sister when she got pregnant with me.

  Living in Muskegon, Michigan, with my uncle Randolph, aunt Emily, and cousin Gregory, 1953.

  Mom posing for Carl Van Vechten with her self-portrait, New York, 1953.

  Courtesy of Carl Van Vechten

  Me, age four, at home, watching the yellow birdie and posing for my first professional photo.

  Mom and Henriette Metcalf in Madame Metcalf’s garden in Connecticut, 1954.

  Carl Van Vechten shot this photograph of me and Mom, 1957.

  Courtesy of Carl Van Vechten

  My school photo in second grade, 1957.

  My mother painted this watercolor of me at age eleven.

  Courtesy of Lady Bird Cleveland

  The champ Muhammad Ali and me, on the Ebony Fashion Fair bus, early morning, Miami, 1966.

  Backstage at the Ebony Fashion Fair 1966, getting ready for the bathing-suit number.

  My first appearance in Vogue. I am wearing my own design.

  Courtesy of Berry Berenson

  Stephen Burrows, 1970; I’m wearing his “lettuce dress.”

  Courtesy of Charles Tracy

  Who wouldn’t feel glamorous in this Stephen Burrows dress with a train, 1970?

  Courtesy of Charles Tracy

  My first editorial for Harper’s Bazaar, 1969.

  Courtesy of Neil Barr

  Working with Antonio Lopez in the green room at Vogue, 1969.

  Courtesy of Juan Ramos

  My first photo shoot with the great Irving Penn for Vogue, 1971.

  Courtesy of © Condé Nast, photograph by Irving Penn

  Wearing Dior for my first European magazine cover, L’Officiel, Paris, 1971.

  Courtesy of Guégan

  This photo was shot by Norman Eales for a photo book he put together. London, 1971.

  Courtesy of Norman Eales

  Me in a studio pool in Milan, for a shoot for Linea Italia. I used Vaseline to keep my makeup from getting washed away.

  Courtesy of Gian Paolo Barbieri

  Vanity Fair cover, London, 1971.

  Courtesy of David Montgomery

  This shot for British Vogue was styled in London by Grace Coddington, 1971.

  Courtesy of Norman Parkinson, Ltd.

  Here I’m posing as a Vargas Girl, London, 1971.

  Courtesy of Hans Feurer

  Donna Jordan and me, near Café de Flore, Paris, 1971.

  Me wearing Chloé for a photo shoot at K
arl Lagerfeld’s Paris apartment for Vogue Italia. Grace Coddington did the styling.

  Courtesy of Guy Bourdin

  Helmut Newton’s wife, June (also known as Alice Springs), took this photo of me at the Newtons’ Paris apartment, 1971.

  Courtesy of Alice Springs

  The boys who crowded into my room at Karl Lagerfeld’s St. Tropez vacation home, 1972: Jacques de Bascher (top); Sylvain, Peter Lester, Billie Hall (middle row); Pelito Galvez, Joe MacDonald, and Kenzo’s favorite model in the 1970s, Jaime Santiago Closa.

  Cover shot for Harpers & Queen, London, 1972.

  Courtesy of Barry McKinley

  Me in Peter Lindbergh’s second shoot for Vogue Italia, Rome, 1972. The image was later part of an exhibition of Lindbergh’s photography that COMME des GARÇONS sponsored at Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou in 1986.

  Courtesy of Peter Lindbergh

  Me, being chased by the photographers Helmut Newton (holding camera) and Jean-Paul Goude (wearing the white suit, at far left) on the way to Yves Saint Laurent show, Paris, 1972.