Miles later, numb, lost, I find myself at a gas station near a freeway off-ramp. There’s a heavyset truck driver getting ready to hop aboard and pull out. He’s looking at me more with lust than sympathy. I open my mouth to talk, but no words come. I’m having an anxiety attack. I lean against the side of the truck, trying to draw breath. He doesn’t know what to do. He pats me on the back—pat pat pat—and the tears come. Those fucking buckets of tears again.
“You okay, miss?” the trucker asks me. He seems like a decent guy. I shake my head from side to side. No, I am not okay. Do I look like I’m goddamn okay?
He gives me a ride to Manhattan. I don’t say much. I listen. He tells me he’s married. He has a boy, seven. He and the wife had trouble getting pregnant, which is why he looks like he could be the boy’s grandfather. I take my cue and tell him he doesn’t look like a grandfather. He loves his boy, he says. He says that until he had his boy, he didn’t really understand what it meant to truly love someone. But now he understands.
Weird. This guy just does not look like the New Sensitive Man type. I mean, if you were going to cast him in a movie, he’d be the truck driver with a weakness for doughnuts and bondage porn, maybe even in that order.
We get to Manhattan. I thank him. We shake hands. He tells me—I kid you not—that he knows good things are in store for me. Maybe even in the next day or two. He has this feeling, see. His mother was a Hungarian gypsy, a psychic, and he seems to have inherited a little of the old knack; that’s what his friends tell him, anyway. I give him a kiss on the cheek and tell him I hope he’s right and get out of the truck.
I walk up the street. It’s three in the morning. I still look like a hooker, a miserable fucking hooker.
I remember that I have two hundred dollars in tips in my purse and hail a cab and make my way to my friend Alexandra King’s apartment, on 72nd Street near Madison. The cabdriver asks me how business is. I tell him to fuck off.
Alexandra is home. Yes! I go inside and collapse on the couch and and tell her everything. She’s my buddy. My bosom bitch. A fellow model. Gorgeous. Her fucking parrot wakes up and starts squawking the one phrase it knows: “Fuck me Fuck me Fuck me.” No, fuck me.
“Love sucks,” Alexandra says.
“Yes,” I say. “But what else is there?”
“Fuck me Fuck me Fuck me,” the parrot says.
We look at each other and laugh. Yeah, there’s that.
I got back to 14th Street late the next morning to find Ron passed out on the floor. He had a bed and a couch to choose from, but he took the floor. His mouth was open. He was snoring. Someone had bandaged his thumb.
“Wake up, you fuck,” I shouted.
He didn’t move. I kicked him. He opened his eyes and looked up at me like he was in a coma.
“Hey.” That’s what he said. Hey. No apology. Nothing.
“I hate you,” I told him.
I locked myself in the bedroom and popped a couple of sleeping pills and went bye-bye. As I drifted off, I began to wonder who the fuck I’d married, and—more to the point—why. He’d wanted me, right? Really, truly wanted me. And to be wanted like that—well, it can go to a young girl’s head. Or maybe—God help me—maybe it was the orgasm. An orgasm can make a believer out of any girl, especially a first orgasm.
“Fuck me fuck me fuck me,” I moaned, burying my face in the pillow. I felt about as intelligent as Alexandra’s foul-mouthed parrot.
When I woke up, it was early evening. Ron was gone. There was a note taped to the fridge. Shows how little he knew me: I never went near the fridge. He was off to Atlantic City for a week; the band had a gig. Call you in a day or two. Not a fucking word about what happened. Not even a hint of an apology.
I spent the next few days eating junk and watching TV. Sometimes, just to get my heart started, I’d add a shot of Courvoisier to my morning coffee.
I began to understand the appeal of television. Brady Bunch reruns. Kojak, with that old lollipop-sucking perv Telly Savalas. All in the Family. Baretta. (Robert Blake! Jesus, even back then, any fool could see the guy wasn’t all there.) Barney Miller. Happy Days. Mary Tyler Moore. Rhoda.
Pretty soon I was talking back to the TV. “Hi, Rhoda. Love that dress.” Who needed a life? Who needed a family? By the third day I thought I’d never seen anyone as handsome as the fucking Fonz.
Then the phone rang. I couldn’t believe it. Three days had gone by and this was the first time my phone had rung. I was really popular. My own fucking husband wouldn’t even call me. I was in such shock that by the time I picked up the receiver the person at the other end was gone. I put the receiver back in its cradle. I willed it to ring again. It did.
“Hello?”
“Janice?” It was one of the assistants at Wilhelmina.
“Yeah?” I said.
“Don’t forget. Those two guys from Christa are coming in this afternoon.”
Shit! It was next week already!
“Don’t worry,” I said, trying not to panic. “I’ll be there.”
I hung up. Oh my God! The Silverstein brothers, from Willie’s sister agency in Paris. They were looking for hot new faces. They needed girls in Paris.
I ran into the bathroom and saw my face and freaked. I mean, it was like a cartoon. Yaaaaaaargh! I looked like a hooker after a high-profit holiday weekend. I mean, tired as hell and totally fucked. Then I thought, No. This is not possible. That isn’t my face staring back at me. I shut my eyes real tight and said a little prayer, and when I opened them again I was still there.
I was hosed. I had an hour to pull myself together. One lousy hour.
No problem. I’d been bullshitting myself into action my whole life:
“I am Janice Dickinson, motherfucker! I am unstoppable. I’ll show them. I’ll fucking show all of you!”
“Shut the fuck up!” It was the asshole in the apartment across the alley. Scared the shit out of me. “People are trying to sleep around here!”
Two hours later I arrived at Wilhelmina for the cattle call. The place was crowded with desperate girls. You could smell the flop sweat.
When it was my turn, I put the last three days out of my mind—wasn’t hard; couldn’t remember much anyway—and entered the room slowly, long legs first. I guess I’m a bit of a Drama Queen at times. The Silverstein brothers introduced themselves. Jacques and Dominick. A pair of good-looking French guys, very pleasant, with warm, Cheshire-cat grins. I could have done without the gold chains and the pointy shoes, and the pants—so tight you could tell their religion. But who was I to judge? Wait a minute! Let’s back up here. I’m Janice Dickinson. And don’t you forget it!
There was a woman with them. Face like an angel. Lorraine Bracco. She was Jacques’s girlfriend. She’d been modeling for Wilhelmina since she was thirteen, but she was destined for bigger things.
Dominick opened my portfolio, turned the pages slowly.
“Stop!” Lorraine hollered. “I love that one!” This in that wildly nasal Long Island Sopranos voice. She was pointing at one of Patrice Casanova’s photographs of me. Very Lauren Huttonish: I’m leaping through the air with my alligator grin. “I like this girl!” Lorraine said. “Let’s take her to Paris. She’s hot.”
Jacques laughed. Dominick laughed.
“Okay,” Jacques said. “Done.”
I literally fell to my knees, bowing and scraping. “Thank you thank you thank you thank you!” I told the men. Then I turned to Lorraine and actually curtsied. “And thank you, kind stranger, whoever you are!”
THE GIRLS IN THE ATTIC
Here’s the advice I got from Lorraine the day before my flight to Paris: Drink a lot of water; you get dehydrated on the plane. Don’t eat the airplane food; it’s salty, and it’ll puff you up. Pack light. They’ve got plenty of stuff to wear in Paris. “If you’re good, you might get to bring some of the clothes back,” she said. “Of course, if you’re bad, you’ll bring all of it back.”
She also taught me a few important French
phrases. Ou est l’ hotel? C’est trop cher. Encore du vin. And, in times of trouble, a simple English phrase everyone understands when properly delivered: “Go fuck yourself, you pig ass ugly frog motherfucker!”
Ron got home the morning of the day I was leaving for Paris. He was a mess. It was obvious he’d been on some sort of binge, and just as obvious that I hadn’t wanted to see it. After all, this was the man who had told me, repeatedly, that I was the best thing that ever happened to him. What did it say about me that he was a junkie?
“About that night—” he began.
“I don’t have time for this,” I said. I went into the bedroom. He followed. He saw that I’d started packing. He looked like a whipped dog. No, he looked worse than a whipped dog. He’d lost weight and his teeth were rotting and his skin had a sickly, yellowish pallor.
“You’re leaving me?” he asked. “Jesus, Janice, don’t tell me you’re leaving me.”
“I’m going to Paris, you dumb sonofabitch. If you really want me, I’m sure you’ll find me.”
“Paris?”
Just then, the phone rang. You’d think a normal husband, pleading for his life, would have ignored it. His wife was on her way out the door. But Ron wasn’t a normal husband—not anymore, anyway. He looked at the phone, next to the bed. It rang again. He hurried into the living room, for the other phone. He wanted privacy.
“Hello?” He was whispering, but I could hear two things in his voice. The first was desperation; the second was relief. It didn’t take a genius to see he was talking to his dealer. He hung up and came back into the bedroom and told me that he had to go out for a minute. Business; very important. He’d be right back. Please wait.
I told him I’d wait. The minute he was gone, I finished packing, hurried outside, and hailed a cab to JFK. I cried my eyes out all the way to the airport. I cried at the Air France counter when I was checking in. I cried when I boarded the plane.
“Are you okay, miss?” one of the flight attendants asked me shortly after takeoff.
Sure I’m okay. My marriage is over. I’ve never felt more alone in my life.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m fine.”
I was on my way to Paris, goddamn it. Going abroad for the first time in my life. This was the break I’d been waiting for. I should have been beyond fine. So I got up and made my way down the aisle to the bathroom and locked the door behind me and really fucking bawled for a good five minutes. Then I pulled myself together and took a few deep breaths and washed my face and went back to my seat and told myself I was fine, goddamn it. Life is good, motherfucker. And the black cloud began to lift.
I began to think only of the future. I fell in love with the idea of the future. I fell in love with my French fellow passengers, with the sound of their oh-so-refined language. With the French airline wine. With the gorgeous flight attendants and their perfect makeup and the way they had their hair up in those elegant chignons. I fell in love with every word in my little French phrase book. I was sitting in my seat smiling at nothing, giggling, laughing out loud, out of context, out of control…. And by the time the plane descended into Paris, I was ready for My New Life.
Dominick Silverstein met me at Orly airport, carrying fresh daisies and a sign with my name on it. He gave me a big hug and kiss and we went outside and hopped into his Peugeot and drove to Paris.
It was early morning—I’d been on the red-eye—and Dominick took a few detours to point out the sights. The Arc de Triomphe. The Champs Elysées. The Pont Neuf. The Louvre. The Picasso Museum. Notre Dame. The goddamn Eiffel Tower! Me, Janice, a rube from backwater Florida—and I’m standing in front of the Eiffel Tower. Yeah, I know, call me Mary: If I’d been wearing a beret, I’d have tossed it with gay abandon. But I couldn’t help myself. Every cell in my body was being fed. The architecture, the monuments, the weird little cars, the weird little dogs, the Vespa motorcycles, those big baguettes people carried under their arms…
“I love it already,” I told Dominick.
“And it loves you,” he shot back.
He parked near the agency and we stopped briefly at a little café across the street for espressos and croissants. It looked like a movie set. Unreal. Perfect. Perfect little waiters with perfect little curled mustaches. I started laughing, giddy with happiness and hope.
Then he took me into the magnificent six-story building that housed the Christa agency. There was a kitchen on the ground floor. A short, red-faced Frenchman approached, smiling broadly. “C’est Janice Dickinson,” Dominick said, introducing me. “This is Raphael. He takes care of us. Anything you need, ask Raphael.”
“A votre service,” Raphael said, and snapped his heels together smartly. I’d only seen that done in the movies, by German SS officers. Evil omen?
The agency itself occupied the next three floors. Dominick took me through, introducing me to everyone. They fawned beautifully. I felt like a homecoming queen. People shook my hand warmly. Some of them kissed me on both cheeks. Everyone welcomed me in French and bad English.
Finally Dominick walked me to the top floor—the goddamn attic. Five flights up, me dragging my bags. There were three little rooms up there, tiny, and a bathroom the size of a broom closet. He led me to one of the rooms. There were five mattresses on the floor. It was like they figured it out mathematically: If you put this one here and this one just so, well—you can squeeze another bitch into the far corner. The last futon on the left was mine. I was the “other bitch.” I tried to hide my disappointment. I don’t know what I was expecting exactly…the Plaza Athenee?
Dominick could see the horror in my eyes. “I know it’s not much,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“No no no!” I protested. “It’s perfect.”
“You will have your own place soon,” he assured me. “You are beautiful. You are perfect. Now freshen up and come downstairs and we’ll talk about your future—yes?”
My future—yes!
I spent the rest of the day meeting the staff, discussing my (sadly lackluster) portfolio, and talking about the days ahead. Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending on your point of view—the agencies were in the middle of a bitter war with some of the top magazines, including European Vogue, Marie-Claire, and Elle. The issue, as usual, was money: They felt their models were getting the shit end of the stick. I oohed and aahed and expressed deep concern over the horrible working conditions, but I would have posed anytime, for anyone, in any state of dress or undress, for two bucks an hour. Of course, I didn’t tell them that.
Everything will be magnifique, I was assured over and over again. Absolument magnifique. I wanted desperately to believe them. I’d been grinning my big old alligator grin since I landed, and my jaw ached. But I didn’t give a shit. I was in Paris. I’d do my shuck-and-jive for anyone who asked.
As I was making the rounds, moving from one department to another, a very handsome Frenchman walked through the front door. He had dimples, which I immediately liked, and a coarse five o’clock shadow. His name was Guy. I had heard about him in New York. He was a very talented illustrator, only twenty-four, and a magician with the airbrush. He had a great smile. He told me to call him. He said he’d be glad to show me around Paris. “I know how hard it is when you know no one,” he said. “But now you know me.”
That first night, Dominick took me and a few of the other girls to the Maison du Caviar, a wonderful restaurant on the Place de la Madeleine. He ordered the best beluga caviar and kept the champagne coming. An hour into it, I was very contentedly buzzed. The other girls seemed downright pleasant.
I went to bed that night drunk, happy, and full of hope. So what if I was sharing a room with four struggling models! They were darling girls! What a darling attic! Life itself was darling!
In the morning, I waited for my turn in the bathroom—last, of course—and then worked my way downstairs to the booker’s office. An elderly French woman told me I was expected at Marie-Claire. I had no idea where it was. She gave me the address and turned h
er attention to other things, dismissing me. I was a little taken aback, to be honest. It’s not as if I’d been expecting a limo, but a little friendly direction would have been nice. It didn’t happen. People were busy. I was invisible.
I went to the nice café across the street and tried to get help from a waiter. He told me, in broken English, where to buy a Metro map, where the nearest station was, where to get off. I wrote down all the strange names. Braced myself. Hurried off.
It was simultaneously terrifying and exciting. I was walking walking walking, as I’d walked in New York. I hoped the results wouldn’t be the same.
I bought a map at the entrance to the Metro station. Got on the right train. Found the right stop. Walked some more. Arrived at the Marie-Claire building, where I was greeted with profound indifference. Attendez. On vous vera tout suite. Wait. We’ll be with you shortly. Shit! Just like New York, only in a foreign language.
An editorial assistant appeared a while later, smiling a tired smile, and took me out back. She looked at my portfolio. She seemed profoundly unimpressed and did nothing to hide it. She said something in French. I told her I didn’t understand French. She said something else in French, and I don’t know what it was, either. But I look back on that first day now and I’m glad I didn’t understand. I’m sure she was saying, Sorry, we have nothing for you. We’re looking for a thin-lipped all-American blond.
I got lost on my way back to the agency, but I didn’t care. I liked the way people sounded. I liked the way they looked. Everyone seemed so fashionable and cultured, like something out of a nineteenth-century novel—not that I’d ever read a nineteenth-century novel, but you get the idea.
The sidewalk cafés were overflowing with chic people at tiny tables, slurping oysters and shelling shrimp and drinking endless amounts of wine. They laughed big French laughs. Gesticulated grandly. Spoke with great passion about God knows what.
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