by Jill Dodd
“Let’s go for a walk, chérie, and have some tea.” He places his hand on the small of my back, leading me outside. My heart races as we stroll down rue Tronchet toward the Champs-Élysées. I’m so happy and feel so special! I imagine how different my life could be with Gerald in it. First of all, I wouldn’t be alone. And the whole work situation would be solved instantly. He’d book me for the best jobs in Paris—covers of Vogue, Elle. . . . I’m jittery and nervous. He is so damn handsome too! The violence of the other night has faded, put away in the face of sudden belonging and the comfort of being wanted.
It’s spring, the air is crisp, but the sun feels warm. We sit at an outdoor café on the Champs-Élysées, sharing a pot of tea and watching the parade of people pass by.
“People are really ugly, aren’t they?” he says, crinkling his face.
“What do you mean?”
“Just look at them!” he says.
“They’re just people.”
“I spend so much time in the agency, I guess I never see regular people . . . they’re horrible-looking.”
“I think you need to get out more,” I say laughing.
“Maybe.” He shrugs, moving on. “Anyway. You know, maybe I should have a girlfriend. You could be my girlfriend, Gilles. I am ready to be monogamous. One woman. What do you think?”
“Sure, I guess we could try it.”
“Oui, okay then, garçon—” He pays the bill, and we stand up. He hugs me tight and holds me close all the way back to the agency.
While I gather my mail, I whisper to Pepper, asking for the phone number of a doctor who could give me birth control. On my way out, Gerald hands me a note that reads,
Be good while you’re gone!
Love,
Gerald
I go to Pepper’s doctor, who gives me a prescription for a diaphragm. I haven’t had a period since arriving in Paris, so he also gives me a pill that is supposed to give me my period. At the time, I think the lack of a period is due to the change in drinking water, but in reality, I’m not eating enough.
I do some of my best thinking on airplanes, and on the flight to Saint-Tropez I think about Gerald. One minute I’m excited, the next I’m wondering if he is actually serious about a relationship. I flash back to the night in his bed, hoping that over time he could become a better lover.
A crew member drives me from the airport to the hotel in warm, sunny Saint-Tropez. I push open the wood shutters in my room to take in the view of the harbor filled with boats and the hillsides covered in orange and purple wildflowers. Even the floral bedding is sunny and bright.
I plop on the bed to enjoy my gorgeous surroundings when the unrelenting questions invade my peace: Am I pregnant? What was that pill the doctor gave me? If I’m pregnant, my career is over. How will I survive? Who can I lean on? I can’t run home to my parents. Would Gerald be there for me?
That evening, I meet the film crew and other actors in the hotel restaurant downstairs. While I sit among them, I feel like my world is slowly caving in. Tunnel vision takes over and I start to obsess over the conversations that I cannot fully understand.
I become paranoid, thinking they are saying bad things about me. Insecurity takes over, and when they laugh I think they are laughing at me. I feel like a total outsider and can’t shake this awful state of mind. To top it all off, the other actress there has every physical trait that I not only want but need, from her narrow hips and long hair to her perfect white teeth. It drives me crazy. As filming begins, I suck it up and work as a professional, singing and dancing my heart out in that stupid black-and-white waitress costume. But inside I’m a mess.
After a week of shooting, I am relieved to return to gray, rainy Paris. When I walk into our hotel room, Scarlett is standing in front of the open windows, smoking. She only smokes when she’s stressed. She turns around and says, “Look, I don’t have to tell you this, but while you were gone Gerald tried to sleep with me. I didn’t do it, but next time I might. Just giving you a heads-up.” She turns back around to face the city.
Scarlett’s honesty made Gerald’s character immediately obvious, and in a split second my heart ricochets from excited to see him, to I never want to see his fucking face again.
“You know what, Scarlett?” I spit. “If that’s how he is, I don’t want him. Help yourself.”
How could she put a man before our friendship? Does she want sex or help with modeling? And was Gerald trying to play us both at the same time? Maybe he thinks it’s fun trying to pit us against each other? It doesn’t matter either way. I’m not here for love. I’m here for tear sheets from Vogue Paris.
Next time I’m in the agency, I make it clear that I’m not going to play Gerald’s games. After thinking through my various options, I decide to totally ignore him because I don’t have the guts or self-confidence to tell him how I really feel. My inner rage must have filled the entire room.
The next day, Pepper motions me to her desk and says, “I’ll be handling you. Empty your book.”
“What? Why?”
“Take your pictures out. You’re getting a ‘Talents’ book.” Talents is the name of their amateur agency. I go from a bright white Paris Planning portfolio to a cheap brown Talents one.
I’m humiliated and feel like I’ve been stabbed in the chest. Gerald obviously doesn’t like being ignored. Now my own agency is working against me. I feel powerless.
Paris courtyard, 1980
BROKEN BOUNDARIES
I was a wide-eyed girl, excited to grow up and be independent. I didn’t have a clue that my natural instincts and protective inner voice had been destroyed. I didn’t know how to stand up for myself or say no—especially to someone in authority. I didn’t even realize I had been traumatized and needed to heal. My traumas sat brewing and stewing inside me for years, coloring and influencing my decisions as I unknowingly brought myself into duplicate scenarios. My friendly, trusting, and naïve nature was instantly apparent to the wrong kind of men, the ones who would use love to take advantage of me.
I justified Gerald’s horrible behavior. I didn’t know what else to do. Today, I understand. Living day after day and year after year in an environment where rules change by the hour and personal boundaries are never respected has a profound result. Children growing up in oversexualized homes or who are physically or emotionally abused (many much worse than me) are damaged and, many times, forever affected.
While researching for this book, I read laws from child welfare government websites, such as the Child Welfare Information Gateway and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. I learned that sexual abuse includes both touching and non-touching behaviors. When I read about the effect this has on children, everything finally made sense. It has helped me to stop beating myself up over my bad decisions, lack of healthy boundaries, character misjudgments, and re-victimizations. With shame clouding my view I was two separate people—a bold, free-spirited girl on the outside and an easily manipulated girl on the inside.
Pretending I smoke in Paris, 1980
THE ROAD TO PUERTO BANÚS
On Friday night Pepper calls my hotel, something she never does. “Jill, it’s Pepper. You’re going to London right now!” she screams.
I switch into work mode. “I don’t have much cash and the banks are closed until Monday!”
“You’ll be fine. Swing by the agency. I’ve got your ticket. See you soon.”
I race over in a taxi, and Pepper hands me a plane ticket through the car window, mentioning the job is for an English trench coat company. The taxi speeds toward the airport, but we hit a huge traffic jam on the freeway from a Bob Marley concert. I sit stressed out in the backseat for two hours and miss my flight. I don’t have money for another taxi home and back, so I wait in the airport overnight for the first flight to London in the morning.
Airport terminals have become kind of a second home to me. I know that’s weird, but I’ve got my rituals. I buy a magazine and a decaf café au lait for dinner.
I know where the comfortable chairs are. I sit and write in my journal and study French.
I decipher the magazine, while trying to ignore the staring perverts. I’m getting good at tuning them out. I’m always ready now to get up in their face and challenge them: “Do you have a problem?” or “Why are you staring at me? Please stop.” In French, in a super-serious tone. I even tell them off in crowded restaurants, which they seem to find embarrassing. The other men in the restaurant usually giggle. Serves them right, I say.
When I first arrived in Paris, there was a wall isolating me from the people I lived among. It took so much energy just to get food or water or find a bathroom. I wasn’t working in an office with a coffee machine, a sink that provides water, or a bathroom for employees. I basically worked outside, walking the streets all day to go-sees and interviews, among unfamiliar surroundings and a total language barrier.
The French in 1980 didn’t have the patience to deal with me and my lack of fluency. Learning to properly say “water” or “egg” was such a challenge. Those two simple words that could sustain me were so hard to pronounce. Even if the café employees knew that I wanted an egg, if I mispronounced it, they would shake their heads and ignore me.
But now, after breaking the French code, I find pleasure translating and learning my new language. I carry a tiny French-to-English dictionary, smaller than a pack of cigarettes. I write words I don’t know in the margins of magazines and look them up later. If it’s an article I want to understand right away, I translate as I go. I write down the word and definition, tear the pages out, and carry them with me until the words are memorized. It’s no longer a burden. I actually enjoy it. Becoming more comfortable and fluent gave me a stronger sense of confidence and freedom to live my new life in Paris—and what I didn’t fully realize then was how huge that was toward my independence and self-worth.
Finally, I curl up on the floor, under a row of chairs in the waiting area, and sleep with my bag as a pillow like the homeless do.
London is covered in fog, exactly how I expect it to be. I pay the cabdriver and rush to the address Pepper has given me, where the office door opens to two men. “You the girl from Paris?” the man behind the desk asks.
“Yes.” I’m tired.
“We’re flying to Spain,” he says.
“Are you the photographer, Brian Westley?” I ask.
“Who else would I be?” he says in a thick British accent. Smart-ass. I’m not ready to deal with his attitude. I just want to do my job and go home.
“My agent said the job was here in London. I missed my flight last night and had to sleep in the airport.” It felt odd to speak English with a client.
“Well, I’ve changed my mind—working on my pilot’s license. We’re shooting in Marbella, Spain. You’ll fly with me,” he says.
An alarm goes off in my head. “No, thanks. I don’t fly in small private planes. I’ll catch a flight and meet you there.” Oh shit. Here we go again.
He looks pissed. “You’re not getting it, sweetie. Part of the job is to fly with me.”
I’m ready to walk out on this whole thing, but give him one last chance. “Just give me the name of the hotel and I’ll meet you there. Oh, and I’m out of money, so can I have cab fare to the airport, please?”
For some reason, he backs down and hands me the hotel address in Spain, picks up the phone, and books me a flight. He even gives me cab money, and I return to the airport, where I sit for hours practicing my French, waiting for the night flight to the Málaga airport.
I arrive in Spain around 2 A.M. Riding in a taxi along the coast, I see an enormous silhouette of a black bull on top of a hill. I wonder why this ominous beast is up there. Maybe it is my mood, or the lack of food, or sleep, but it feels like a bad omen. (Now, I know it is a forty-six-foot-high billboard for Osborne Spanish brandy, and these advertising bulls are all over Spain.) The cab radio keeps repeating “Puerto Banús . . .” over and over, but I can’t understand the rest of what is said. I pay the driver with my remaining change, surely shortchanging him.
I ask for a room key at the front desk.
“I am sorry, señorita, we have no reservation for you. A different name perhaps?”
“Brian Westley? But I have my own room,” I say, exasperated.
“The reservation says two people in one room. Will you like me to show you your room?” he says.
Should have seen that coming. “No, gracias. Can I have another room under his reservation? I’ve been traveling for two days and really need to sleep.” I am at the end of my rope.
“I am sorry, we are fully booked. When he arrives, you speak with him.” I give up.
I just curl up in a chair in the lobby when I overhear a group of people speaking English—American English. They’re in the bar, so I decide to go over, hoping for food. “Hi, I’m so happy to hear someone speak English.”
“Oh, are you American too?” the only girl asks.
“Yeah, I’m from California.”
“Do you wanna sit?” one of the men asks.
I’m trying not to stare at the sandwiches. “Yes, thank you. What are you all doing in Spain?”
“We work on a boat, but the port’s been evacuated. Bomb threat,” one of them says.
“What?” What could possibly happen next?
The man who seems in charge says, “The prince of Belgium is supposed to arrive, and a terrorist group wants to bomb his boat. I’m Captain Terry, by the way. Help yourself to the sandwiches.” The captain looks to be in his mid-forties, tanned, weathered from the sea.
Food, thank goodness. “I’m Jill. That’s terrible!” I carefully take a sandwich and bite into it. “So, do all of you work on the boat?” There are around a dozen in the crew, and the handsome one with dark hair and blue eyes says, “Yeah, we work for the prince, driving the boat port to port, wherever he wants it. And what are you doing here? Oh, and I’m Mark.” He looks preppy in his navy polo and khaki shorts. I feel comfortable and safe with them, having grown up around waterskiing boats. It feels like a common thread.
The man from the front desk runs over to the captain. “The hotel has just received a bomb threat. They know the prince’s crew is here.” He starts panicking, waving his arms. “You all must leave immediately!” I tell Mark I’m waiting for a photographer but don’t want to stick around for a bomb.
“Mark, could I come with you guys, please?” I beg.
“Gotta ask the captain.”
The captain has overheard. “Okay. Act like you’re part of the crew.”
Machine gun–toting soldiers lead us in the dark through mud and bushes to a different hotel. We crouch down and walk low to the ground to avoid being seen, all while tripping on branches and rocks and getting stuck in mudholes. The only lights are a few flashlights that the soldiers carry. It is totally surreal. We go directly to the bar, down shots of tequila, and dance like this is our last night alive.
At about 4 A.M., Mark says, “You can sleep in my room. . . .”
The captain must have seen the panic flash over my face, and he jumps in, “There’s a spare bed in my room, Jill. That might make you comfortable.”
“That sounds good, thank you,” I say.
When I awake in the morning, the captain is dressed and heading out the door. I call Brian, the photographer, to see if he’s arrived at the other hotel.
He is irate. “Where are you? Why weren’t you in my room last night?”
“There was a bomb threat. I had to leave the hotel,” I explain.
“I want you here now. I’ll be at the pool.” He hangs up.
Oh boy, here we go. . . .
The sun is scorching already, so I throw on my shorts and walk back to the first hotel, on the road this time, not through the bushes. Every single car honked at me the entire way, probably thinking I was a prostitute, which is a nice way to start the day. Brian is at the pool, sunbathing with his flight instructor, Todd, and Todd’s girlfriend.
“When ar
e we shooting?” I’m all sweaty.
“Errr, I don’t feel like shooting today. Get changed and come lie by the pool.” He’s sprawled out in a stupid red Speedo and mirrored sunglasses. His bald head and big, hard belly are slathered and shiny with tanning oil. His teeth are jagged and tobacco-stained. A wide scar stretches under his chin along his neck and up to his ear—like a knife wound.
“Why don’t you go to the hotel shop and buy yourself something? Charge it to my room.” He guzzles a beer.
“No, thanks, I’m good,” I say.
“Go ahead. Buy yourself a swimsuit or a dress. Bill it to the room, lovey,” he pushes.
He is gross and disgusting, and I say, “Nothing’s free,” and walk back to the lobby.
Later in the day, he promises to get me my own room after we eat dinner. I dress for dinner, leaving my bag in his room for the time being. “You know I won’t be sleeping here, right?” I repeat.
It is so hard to understand their thick British accents over dinner. Brian keeps ordering drinks for me, and by the end of dinner I am thoroughly trashed. My lack of sleep isn’t helping either.
Back at the hotel, I follow him to his room to grab my stuff, saying, “Don’t forget, I still need you to get me my own room.”
“Yeah, I will. . . .”
Once we’re in, he closes the door and says, “You’re being ridiculous, Jill. It’s late. Just sleep here. I won’t touch you. Look, we have two beds.” I’m drunk, tired, and tired of fighting, so I slip into one of the beds.
Just as I’m nodding off, he startles me awake by sitting on top of my ass with his hairy, disgusting ball sac dangling between my thighs. He digs his hands into my shoulders in a pseudomassage. I freak out. Some crazy, superhuman strength comes over me, and I thrust him off.
“Give me my fucking ticket!” I yell with a force I didn’t know I possessed. My words feel like lightning bolts jolting out at him. He looks as though something has shoved him against the wall.