Walking with the Muses

by Pat Cleveland

  chapter 16

  SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

  With Mexican matador Antonio (Tono) Lomelín in Alcapulco, 1967.

  It was strangely peaceful at the Villa during the daytime. I’d been there only at night, when it was packed with raucous party people. Now it was empty, probably because everybody who was anybody was out on a boat. I was sitting by the pool, daydreaming about how much I’d like to come back to Acapulco someday for a real vacation, when Jamie Mestizos, the actor in Hair, came over. He was at Villa Vera to meet a friend who worked in the kitchen. Once again, Jamie was gentle and deep, and we talked easily and then just looked at the water in silence for a while. He invited me to the opening-night party that evening. He said we could meet up at the theater.

  I was excited about going to an opening night. I asked Agneta if she wanted to come, but she had a headache from too much sun. I smoothed some Bonne Bell After Sun lotion on her back, gave her an aspirin, then met up with some other young people I’d met at the Villa—the ones from the wealthy side of the tracks, you might say—and we all walked to the theater, which wasn’t far.

  “Premier de Gala/Enero 3 1968/HAIR” was printed on a huge flag strung between two tall trees in front of the theater. The poster, with the sun shining behind an angel in the center and the nude figures of a man and a woman on either side, reminded me of the illustration for the lovers tarot card. Unfortunately, the play was almost over by the time we got there; the people I was with just laughed it off, as VIPs do when they’re fashionably late. We sat in the front row next to a very special guest, the daughter of Mexico’s president, who looked about seventeen, the same age I was. For the show’s finale, we were invited onstage, where my group and I sang and danced like maniacs to the song “Aquarius.” Jamie and I danced together, the peace sign around his neck flapping as he moved, and everything was just like the song: “Harmony and understanding / Sympathy and trust abounding.” Off we went to the after-party for more of the same, complete with fireworks.

  It was close to dawn when I got back to my hotel. My new friends went on to the Villa Vera, and I took the stairs to the third floor. I hummed “I Believe in Love” from Hair all the way up. When I reached the room, I noticed the door was ajar. Agneta must have fallen asleep and forgotten to close it, I thought. I was desperately tired, but I could hear the sound of someone tossing and turning. The room was dark except for the moonlight coming in through the terrace window. I saw the shadow of a person much too large to be Agneta. My knees went weak. “Agneta,” I whispered. No answer, and for a fleeting second I thought I’d imagined the large figure. Then I heard sounds like someone struggling and Agneta’s muffled voice. I reached inside the door and switched on the light, and as I did so, I felt a rough hand cover my mouth and a man’s voice say, “Don’t make a sound.” I saw Agneta, wedged underneath two men. One of them pushed Agneta’s legs over her head. Oh my God, I thought, my heart and mind racing wildly. He’s raping her. I saw Agneta looking at me in despair, like a gazelle caught by a lion. In that split second, I felt the man whose hand was on my mouth pull me into the bathroom. The bathroom door was near the door I had just come through, which was still slightly open.

  I remembered the trick of the mouse, from a children’s book my mom used to read me. I didn’t squirm or make a sound, though my heart was beating so loudly inside my head, it seemed impossible that no one else could hear it. This man, who reeked of cheap cologne, noticed I was calm and loosened his grip on me enough to grope other parts of my body. Just when he thought he had me, I wrenched out of his grasp, slid out the door, and ran for my life out onto the terrace, down all those flights of stairs, taking them two, three at time, not stopping once to look back.

  Then I was on the road, crying like a waterfall, sprinting up the hill in the darkness to the Villa Vera, where Bobby would help me. But once I was there, I couldn’t find him anywhere (I’d forgotten that he was spending the night on Ghighi Cassini’s boat), and I didn’t know where anyone else was staying. Not a soul was around at this hour. Frantic, I ran to the pool to look for someone, anyone, who could help Agneta, but that area was empty, too. Feeling defeated, I sank into a lounge chair, where sleep overtook me.

  I came to as the sunrise was just lighting up the pool. Then I saw Jamie. At the party, he’d kept asking what I was doing in Mexico with such terrible people—terrible because to him they were rich and superficial, and he valued peace, love, and the soul. Now he rushed over and said, “You look upset.” I burst into tears, and he took me in his arms.

  “I’m so worried about Agneta,” I said, explaining what had happened. “Jamie, can you come with me to check on her?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said in his sweet Mexican accent.

  When we got to my hotel room, there was no trace of Agneta. Her things weren’t there, and the maids were cleaning. I asked if they’d seen her, and they said she’d left with her bags. I found my plane ticket and passport and quickly packed. After leaving a note for Agneta in case she came back, Jamie and I hightailed it out of there. I was afraid for my life, but I knew instinctively that I could trust Jamie.

  Bobby was still on the boat, so I scribbled a note and left it for him at the Villa Vera’s front desk: “Left with the cast of Hair. I’m fine. I’ll see you in New York.”

  We threw my suitcase in the back of Jamie’s tiny car and took off into the desert, where he said some people involved with the production had a ranch. As we drove, Jamie filled me in on what had happened. The Mexican authorities had shut down the show, on the president’s orders. They said it was obscene because of the onstage nudity, and if the cast didn’t leave town the next day, they’d be put in jail. They were accused of bringing marijuana into Mexico.

  How absurd, I thought. Isn’t it the other way around? Isn’t Mexico where the marijuana already is? Jamie was angry and worried about going to jail. He claimed that what really happened was that the president of Mexico didn’t want his daughter getting any crazy hippie ideas from the play.

  When we got to the ranch, the sky was ablaze in an incredible desert sunset. I met some of the other cast members, about a dozen in all, who’d arrived earlier by bus; the remaining cast had gone somewhere else to escape arrest. While the others were partying at a long wooden table outside the house, Jamie and I went to one of the bedrooms, which had twin beds, and fell into a much needed sleep. He didn’t touch me; he was my friend, beautiful, young, peaceful, and loving.

  As it got darker and the stars came out, Jamie and I joined the others. He started playing the guitar, and everyone was laughing, singing, and talking in Spanish. Someone lit candles, and the ranch’s owners brought out roast chicken and corn. Then Gerome Ragni and James Rado, the co-authors of Hair, arrived. Everyone there was a fugitive, including me, simply by being with them. But I felt great and tried hard to blend in because I didn’t want anyone to send me away.

  Wine was poured, and joints were lovingly rolled and passed around. I didn’t smoke or drink, and neither did Jamie. I felt okay just naturally. I mean, here I was in the desert with the creators of Hair. The air was fresh and I felt free. Then the music stopped, no one was chatting, and everyone was staring up at the sky. Jamie and I laughed, and he said, “What is it?”

  They pointed up at the sky, and I felt like I was in a science-fiction movie. I’d experienced lights like these once before—round, flat, saucerlike—as a child in New York City during a blackout. There were five of them in a V formation, like geese. And they were hovering, very close and very big.

  Jamie grabbed my hand and we ran from the lights and hid under the table. Everyone else fled there, too, except for James and Gerome. I guess they were too stoned to be afraid, and when the shapes zipped away, everyone got out from under the table except me. I’d neither smoked nor drunk a thing, and what I’d seen had looked ominous.

  James and Gerome started to sing very loudly, “Come! Come! Flying saucers, come!” I figured it was okay to crawl out from under the tab
le. Within moments, everyone was singing along with James and Gerome, like primitives around the campfire they’d started. “Come! Come! Flying saucers, come!” It was like a chant, and all I could think was: Will I ever make it home?

  Jamie saw how scared I was, but everyone was having such a good time that I started to relax. After all, there was no such thing as flying saucers—right? I kept saying to Jamie, “Did that really happen?” And then the saucers reappeared! They came in closer this time, and bigger. Everything got silent as they zoomed in, then zoomed away. This went on for about fifteen minutes, though I can’t say for sure, because time stood still. The entire cast, except for Jamie and me, was jumping around with arms stretched out to the sky, singing, “Come, flying saucers, take me with you!”

  All night long, everyone danced in circles, falling down and getting back up—stoned, drunk primitives, waving down those lights until the ships finally left. Everyone except Jamie and me, that is. By now I was flat-out terrified, and he and I huddled under the table, sleeping fitfully until dawn, when we woke to a car speeding up to the house, trailing a huge cloud of dust.

  Out jumped a member of the Acapulco cast, screaming in Spanish to the others, who were asleep in the open under blankets. “Let’s go! Let’s go! The police are after us!”

  Jamie was on his feet instantly, and within seconds we had our stuff and were racing off in his little car. From the rearview mirror, I saw the rest of the gang hurrying to get on the bus. James and Gerome were just standing there.

  By the time we got to Mexico City, we were nearly out of gas. After Acapulco and then the desert, it felt strange to be in a place with so many cars, people, and traffic lights. I was covered in dust head to toe from the ride and looked like a desert rat. My plane ticket had a date on it, and my only goal was to be at the airport on time. I had lost all contact with Bobby and had no idea where or how to call him. I had no money and no other way home. So Jamie and I carried on, driving to the airport on fumes.

  Hordes of newspaper reporters and photographers were waiting for us there. Evidently, we were the hottest scandal in Mexico. Arrest warrants had been issued for the whole cast of Hair (I was now considered a member, since James and Gerome had asked me to join the New York production), and as flashbulbs popped, Jamie and I were arrested and held overnight at the airport. The next day’s front page carried a story that said we were trying to escape Mexico, but because we had no drugs on us, the authorities ended up dropping the charges.

  Jamie was set free, and I was put directly on a flight to New York City. I blew goodbye kisses to him as the police escorted me to the plane. I knew I’d never see him again, but I considered myself lucky to have met him, and to have gotten out of there in one piece.

  As for Agneta, I never saw her again in person, but she was an extremely successful model whose image appeared in all the major magazines and on more than a hundred covers. As fate would have it, something even more terrible than rape awaited her: In 1971 she fell (or, it was speculated, was pushed) from the top floor of a hotel in Paris and died in a hospital ten days later. She was twenty-five years old.

  chapter 17

  HIGH HOPES

  Wearing my own design in a test photo on Park Avenue, 1967.

  Courtesy of Rex Joseph.

  The wet, slushy cold of New York City made the Mexican desert seem like a distant memory. And if the weather wasn’t discouraging enough, I got a call from Eileen Ford almost as soon as I got back. She asked me to come up to the agency because she wanted to speak to me personally about my career.

  I waited in the lounge until she arrived, wearing a classic tailored blouse and a straight skirt, along with reading glasses and a rather old-fashioned 1950s hairstyle. “Come in,” she said with a tight smile. I felt like a misbehaving schoolgirl who’d been summoned to the principal’s office.

  The room was dark, like a gentleman’s library. I sat in a big leather chair, and she proceeded to ignore me for several minutes. Finally, she removed her glasses and turned in my direction. “Patricia, you realize we have very few colored girls in our agency. And do you know why? I’ll tell you why. Because there is no work for colored girls. This is not to say that you don’t have good bone structure, and you do have a long neck. But as you may not know, this is the first time I’ve—” The phone rang. She answered, put the caller on hold, and left the room. I was feeling pretty uneasy with what she’d said so far, and by the time she came back, I was nearly jumping out of my skin.

  “Patricia,” she continued, “the only reason I took you is because Oleg Cassini recommended you. But what I really think is that you will never make it in the modeling business.” She paused. “And that’s the truth.” She stood up, came over, and peered right into my face. “You see, you don’t look like an American. Your face is not pretty. Your nose is strange. The beautiful girls in this agency have smaller noses, like mine—straight noses. If you want to work at all, you should consider shortening it.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. Not that words would have come out of my mouth. But after the shock wore off, I felt a bit sorry for her. You’re not perfect, either, I thought. You’re a human being, and I’m a human being, and this is my heritage. I can be a cup of coffee, and you can be a vanilla milkshake, and it’s okay. Then, more uncharitably: Besides, you’ve had a nose job.

  “You can go now,” she said, making a shooing gesture, as if I were a pesky cat.

  “Thank you,” I said. My mother had certainly trained me well.

  I left her office with a broken heart, yes, but also with a determination to prove her wrong. And with my own nose, at that!

  I walked to the office of the young man who’d signed me. Hurt as I was, I had to tell him what Eileen had said. He was sympathetic and told me that he had a different perspective. He believed that times were changing, along with aesthetic standards, and that I and some other girls he’d signed—not one of us a blond, blue-eyed, all-American type like those Eileen loved—were part of the plan to keep pace with those changes. He asked me to stick it out and said he’d book me as much as he could.

  In the meantime, he urged me to volunteer to model for photographers whenever possible, to give them a chance to test their lighting and me a chance to get a variety of fashion shots to fill out my portfolio. Those tear sheets helped the photographers, too, because having their work displayed in a model’s portfolio meant it got seen by other photographers, editors, and advertising agencies. It was win-win, one hand washing the other. Or that was the logic, anyway.

  From that point on, I was like a worker bee out to get the pollen. In pursuit of the best tear sheets possible for my portfolio, I launched into a near-constant round of what we in the business call go-sees, which are basically, as the name implies, appointments with people who might hire you or help you get hired at some point down the road.

  During my final year in high school, I’d leave school, then walk up and down one block after another, all over Manhattan. At night I’d come home and collapse, dead tired with an evening full of homework ahead of me. Mom would be at work, but she’d leave food on the stove for me. I kept going even when my portfolio got really heavy, thanks to the extraordinary test photos I now had from a new breed of up-and-coming black photographers like Hugh Bell, Rex Joseph, Jim Hadley, and Owen Brown.

  I went to test with every photographer Ford booked and some they didn’t. One day, feeling particularly gutsy, I went on my own to Richard Avedon’s studio without an appointment, since Ford refused to send me. He was supposed to be the best, and I wanted to find out why. I walked into the reception area of his studio and took a seat. The secretary was out of the room. When she got back, she said, “What are you doing here? Do you have an appointment?”

  “No,” I said. “I just want to meet Avedon.”

  “That’s not possible,” she said haughtily. “That’s not how it’s done. Who’s your agent?”

  I told her. She got on the phone, called Ford, and bawled them o
ut for sending a model without an appointment. She told them never to do it again.

  Then she went back to her work. I was mortified but didn’t let on. I placed a photograph of myself on her desk as I strode, head held high, toward the door.

  Luckily, there was another facet of my life that kept me optimistic about my future in fashion: Vogue. Three years after that first encounter in the subway, I received a phone call inquiring about my designs. Before I knew it, I found myself at the Vogue offices, dressed in a tightly belted, ankle-length bright periwinkle maxi-coat, and knee-high loden-green zip-up leather boots. If that wasn’t a fashion statement, nothing was.

  I’d learned to tailor from my mom, and that coat, with its forest-green satin lining, was our masterpiece. We defied any fashion-conscious person not to fall in love with it. Mom had taught me that when it comes to clothes, there’s no such thing as timidity. The point is to show yourself off. My mom and my aunt had always done that; now it was my turn. If I could get people to love the clothes I made, then maybe my mom and aunt could have the fashion house they’d always fantasized about, like the ones my aunt saw when she was in Paris. Those were the days before Sonny, when the sisters dreamed together, and my mom would draw her dreams every single day.

  Amanda Crider, the young woman who’d stopped me in the subway, led me from the reception area into one of the offices and told me that Carrie would be in to see me shortly. Then off she went, closing the door gently behind her.

  One of the office walls was covered with large black-and-white photos of slim, poetic-looking men and long-legged, statuesque women in mod clothing, laughing, hugging, and socializing at parties in exotic places. The photos were marked with X’s and arrows pointing to one person’s eyes or another’s hair. I was shocked that anyone would mark up such beautiful photographs. Corkboards on another wall held swatches of fabric and sketches of clothing pinned between them. I sat down in a stiff-backed chair, just in front of the desk, and waited. On a coffee table, a dark green candle with a subtle woodsy scent flickered in a crystal glass beside a potted live orchid (something I’d never seen before). Both items would soon become familiar to me in the fashion environment as symbols of wealth and elegance.