No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel (7 page)

“It’s not me, Mom,” I said. But I knew she knew. “I never let him get near me. It was Alexis from the start.”

My mother began to cry, but her sorrow was lost on me.

Was it my job to comfort her? What I felt like saying to her was, “Where the fuck have you been all my life?” Instead, I didn’t say a word.

A handsome young doctor stitched Mom up. He knew

her from the hospital, of course, and treated us especially well. He said head wounds had a tendency to bleed like a motherfucker, though I believe he used the word
profusely
.

My mother didn’t say anything. This was her own hospital; this is where she had worked for a decade; these were her
friends.
But she couldn’t bring herself to tell any of them the truth. She told the doctor she’d slipped and fallen. I stormed out in disgust. What hope was there?

I cooled my heels in the waiting room for half an hour.

When she reappeared, she looked at me and said, “You don’t have to worry about your father anymore.”

I didn’t know what she meant. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t believe her. I just got up and walked toward the exit and she followed me to the car. We drove home in silence.

It was only when we reached the driveway and I cut the engine that she finally spoke. “I know I haven’t been much of a mother,” she said. I swear to God—if she had started crying, I would have strangled her then and there. To put that kind of shit on a kid. But she didn’t cry. And we got out of the car and I said, “You’re right. You haven’t been much of a mother.”

Still, something happened that night. I don’t know what exactly, and I don’t understand it to this day. But clearly she said something to Ray; maybe she had something on him, some evidence, something concrete. Maybe she even threatened to go to the police. I really don’t know. All I N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 41

know is that he pretty much stayed out of my way for the rest of the year.

And that’s how I got through my senior year in high school. I told myself I was going to make it. I decided to believe that Real Life would start as soon as I graduated.

And Real Life meant modeling, of course. Getting the hell out of Florida. And away from
him
.

I was still a fixture at Publix, still gleaning what I could from the magazines. Though of course now I’d added

Rolling Stone
to my reading. After all, models and rock stars—that was a hard combo to beat. So I’d sit there on the cold floor, whiling away the hours, dreaming, lost in those fantasy pages. The management didn’t seem to mind; they knew me by name. Even the blue-haired Jewish ladies came over with their shopping carts and stopped to chat.

“Hello, Janice,” they’d say in their New York twangs.

“How are you, dear? What’s new? What’s cookin’? Who’s hot this month?”

Then I’d go home and preen in front of the mirror. “Yes, Mr. Avedon,” I’d say. “I’m almost ready, Mr. Avedon.” I’d sigh a lot, and suffer gracefully through my shoot—I was wonderful, almost painfully beautiful, a delight to work with—and as the day grew long I would have to beg off.

“You’ll have to hurry, Mr. Avedon,” I’d say. “Hendrix is waiting for me at the Plaza.”

Then I’d snap out of it and realize that it really
was
late and that the only thing waiting for me was my homework.

And I’d buckle down and do it. Because I had to graduate.

Nothing could stop me. I couldn’t afford a single
F.

That’s when Wendy Gralnick came into the picture. She was this real smart Jewish girl with a pear-shaped butt and beautiful hazel eyes and the longest lashes I’d ever seen in my life. “So how ya doin’?” she said to me one day in 42 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

front of the school lockers. “Me?” I said, pointing at myself. I couldn’t understand why this brainiac would even bother with me. “Yeah,” she said.
“You.”
Suddenly we were studying together. And liking each other more and more. And of course I loved her for loving me and thinking I was smart, too.

I began spending less time with Pam Adams and less

time with Eric and men in general—all that sweating and grunting, what was the point?—and more time at Wendy’s house. It was a goddamn mansion, near the water. She was from a really rich family. Or
half
a family, anyway. Her father had been a hugely successful dentist who died and left them a small fortune. But Edna, her mother, was going through the money awfully fast—she had no self-control—

and for years now her accountant had been begging her to slow down. Unfortunately, she couldn’t help herself. And now they were in trouble. They were going to sell the house, Wendy told me. It was already on the market. And they were going to take the money and move to New York, where—thanks to rich kids with bad teeth—they had a huge co-op on the Upper East Side. I was so jealous I could’ve died.

I went home that night in a funk. Debbie and I got dinner ready and washed up afterward and watched TV till bedtime. Debbie knew something was bothering me. She kept asking me why I was so sad. I told her I wasn’t sad, I was just tired. But just looking at her, at her perfect little body curled up on the couch next to me, made me even sadder. She was not yet a teenager, and already turning into a real beauty. I wondered how much longer my father would be able to resist.

The next day, after school, I was back at Wendy’s house, studying for finals, when the phone rang. It was the realtor, N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 43

calling for Edna. They had an offer on the house, a
good
offer. We could hear Edna in the other room, discussing it with the realtor. After a few minutes she hung up and came into the dining room. We had our school books spread out in front of us on the mahogany dining table.

“I guess we just sold this dump,” Edna announced.

“We’re leaving this backwater as soon as school’s out.

We’re going to New York.”

I got tears in my eyes. I couldn’t help it.

“What’s wrong, Janice?” Edna asked.

“Nothing,” I said. But she insisted on knowing and I broke down. The tears came in earnest now. Buckets of tears, rivers of tears. “You and Wendy are so lucky,” I said.

“I love New York. I wish I could move to New York, too.”

Hell, I would have stowed away on the Apollo moon rocket to escape the rat bastard.

“So come with us!” Edna said. Everything she said

ended in an exclamation point.

“You mean it?” I said. I thought I was dreaming. I was prone to out-of-body experiences, after all.

“Why not? The place has five bedrooms. We used to be rich!”

And that’s how I got to New York.

FREEDOM

ªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªªª

We drove to New York in Edna Gralnick’s big silver Cadillac. It was a Saturday, in mid-August. She pulled up outside at noon, right on time. Though of course I’d been waiting by the open front door since eight a.m., hoping she’d be early.

“Mom,” I said, “they’re here.”

My mother floated out of the kitchen; she looked out the open door and waved at Edna and Wendy, then turned to face me. Debbie was at gymnastics class; my father had gone fishing. I hadn’t said good-bye to either of them, not properly, anyway. I don’t think Debbie wanted to believe that I was really leaving. And my father—he didn’t give a shit.

“Oh, honey,” my mother said, and tears welled in her eyes.

“Please don’t cry, Mom. Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Promise me you’ll be a good girl,” she said, hugging me. “Promise me you’ll go to church every Sunday.”

“I promise,” I said, and I grabbed my suitcase and ran down the driveway toward the waiting Cadillac.

Edna was a terrible driver, but she wouldn’t give up the wheel. She didn’t trust either Wendy or me. We entertained ourselves with silly road games, stopped at all the worst fast-food places, and spent two nights in motels.

Edna taught me how to play poker. I only had fourteen

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

MULTITASKING IN NEW YORK CITY—BOOKING JOBS, CLEANING

GUMS, SNAPPING PICS.

dollars to my name, so I played aggressively. I won four bucks the first night, three the next. And I needed every last penny of it, believe you me.

And then there we were, in New York City. Lexington and 63rd. A regular goddamn palace! Five bedrooms. Marble bathrooms. How could I
not
make it, living in a place like this?

I kept thanking Edna and Wendy for being so good to me. I couldn’t believe I was really in New York. What’s more, it felt like home. I’d wake up in the morning thinking,
Here I am, where I belong.

So, okay, it took a little getting used to. There were the garbage trucks that roared through the alley every other day at the crack of dawn; the crush of humanity on the streets; the honking horns and the squealing brakes and the lumbering buses that seemed determined to mow me down at every turn . . .

I walked everywhere. Me and my pathetic “portfolio”—

four cheesy photographs of little Janice in the most amateurish poses imaginable. I walked like a speeding bullet, 46 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

hyperaware, hyperanxious, hypertense. I loved the city but I was afraid of it, too. I would jump like a frightened thoroughbred when men hissed at me on the street, jump when construction workers whistled, jump if a man so much as smiled at me on the bus.

I carried my keys in my hand, with the sharpest one wedged between my fingers like a weapon. I’d read in one of the magazines that the streets were full of predators, and that one should always go for the eyes. And that’s what I was going to do. Any man who fucked with me would

regret it for the rest of his life.

Eventually, the fear began giving way to desperation. I had knocked on the doors of every agency in town, but nobody gave a shit. I was invisible. You had to be blond and blue-eyed and all-American to get any attention at all.

And me? I was a Polish mutt.

“You’re not what we’re looking for,” I was told.

“What are you looking for?” I once asked.

“Well, we’ll know it when we see it—but you’re definitely not it.”

This does something to you.
Duh.
Beyond making me feel like crying, or beheading the fucking messenger, it fueled my insecurities—and they didn’t need fueling. I was still that lost, cripplingly self-conscious kid from South Florida. People had no idea how hard I worked at appearing
normal.
I swear to God, I would wake up mornings and have to talk myself out of bed.
You’re great, Janice. You’re
wonderful. You’re smart. No, really. It’s true.
And sometimes I even believed it. Sometimes I went
overboard.

Sometimes I’d swagger into the noisy streets of Manhattan, convinced I was the hottest thing in town. But not often.

Not often enough. Mostly I felt like a goddamn pinball, caroming between emotional extremes—up, down, sideways, down the fucking drain—with absolutely no control N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 47

at all. So, yeah—I was crazy. But I knew one thing for certain: I had a great body.

So one day I took that great body to a place on 7th Avenue that was advertising for a fitting model. The ad had been placed by a middle-aged Russian couple who were building up a little sportswear line. They had me out of my clothes within five minutes, and I spent the next two hours modeling those tacky little “casuals” you find in cheap stores in all the worst malls in the country. The husband loved pinning me, and he spent plenty of time in and around my crotch. Tucking, marking, straightening,
sniffing.
But hey, I was making seventy-five bucks an hour, a fortune in those days. They could only afford me for a few hours a week—and they worked me like a demon when

they had me—but it was well worth it.

The rest of the time I concentrated on becoming a model.

People tell you to do your homework if you want to be a model. You’re supposed to look at the magazines and how you might fit in and get to know your strengths and play to them. I’d already looked at the magazines; I had them goddamn
memorized.
I thought I was nothing but
strengths
; I thought I could do anything. There wasn’t anyone who looked even remotely like me. I mean, there was Ginger on
Gilligan’s Island,
if you were looking for nonblonds on TV. And I’d seen Bianca Jagger in
Rolling Stone.
She was pretty damn exotic. But even so, I was different. That’s what made me special. I was an original. Then I got this horrible, sinking feeling that maybe the business didn’t want an original, wasn’t interested in what I had to sell. I was a breed apart, and maybe this breed was destined to
remain
apart.

It was driving me crazy. I had to fight that kind of defeatist thinking. I kept telling myself I was going to 48 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N

make it. Surely someone would see what I’d been working so hard at believing: that I was a fucking star, greatness personified. So I took a closer look at the magazines. At the fine print. At the names and addresses. And I bypassed the agencies and went directly to the photo studios.