Walking with the Muses

by Pat Cleveland

  As for me, I was quite shaken up. I knew that Antonio and Maning respected each other and, deep down, even liked each other. If not for the politics of the business they were in, they’d have been fast friends, as they had been earlier in their careers. So often, it seemed, success came down to ego, ego, ego. It was a rude awakening for me, and as I gradually became more worldly-wise, I began cultivating a healthy ego of my own. It was the armor I needed to fend for myself in the often cutthroat environment of high fashion.

  chapter 30

  THE SONG IS ENDED

  With Halston, who always watched out for me. He gave me the roses.

  Courtesy of Ron Galella.

  I’d just finished a show with Halston for his new cruise-wear collection, and that night he threw a party at his studio for some of his favorite editors, designers, and models. I arrived with Marina and Elsa, feeling on top of the world. I noticed new wallpaper with a jungle design, with palm leaves that seemed to come together into an H. So I started to call Halston “H,” which stuck as his new nickname.

  The room was filled with society ladies (most of whom were dressed in Halston’s clothes) and lots of other cool designers. Halston was in the corner of the room, leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette and talking to Berry Berenson. Everyone was mingling and having fun—it was like my perfect dream of a marvelous party—and then I saw Matthew right across the room, standing in the dark by the door that led to the elevator lobby. He looked dirty, unkempt, and sweaty, like someone who’d been living on the streets, which in all likelihood he had been. With his Ramtree bass flute wrapped in its rough goatskin, he might have been a latter-day John the Baptist in the wilderness, coming to preach the word.

  I noticed some of the guests sidestepping to avoid him, and an arrow pierced my heart. I ducked behind a curtain, hoping he wouldn’t see me and would go away, but when I peeked through a crack, I saw he’d moved farther into the party and was standing near a table covered with orchids. How did he find me here? I wondered. My head started spinning. I couldn’t tell if I was excited to see him or afraid of what his presence meant. My heart pounded over the sounds of the Jackson Five: “Never can say goodbye . . .”

  One of the guards spotted Matthew and started elbowing him out of the party. That was when I knew I had to go to him and face the consequences. As I walked toward him, I saw Halston eyeing him curiously with a hard-to-read expression. When I reached Matthew, I said, “What are you doing here?” I heard my voice, and it sounded as ice-cold as the champagne I’d been sipping.

  The guard stepped in. “Do you know this person?” he asked.

  I do know him, I thought, but from another time, another place. He doesn’t belong in my life now. These heavy feelings hit me with a force that left me panting as I stood there in front of him. I was caught at a fork in the road and knew I had to make a decision.

  I couldn’t speak. But my face must have signaled something to the bodyguard, because he stepped away. “I’m glad to see you,” I said to Matthew. I wanted to kiss him on the cheek, but he reeked of traffic exhaust, cement dust, and a homeless smell that even a Rigaud candle couldn’t disguise. How I missed the lemony-lime smell I’d fallen in love with all those years ago.

  As if possessed, he whispered raggedly, “You could have invited me to this party.” He fell silent, peering out into the distance.

  “I didn’t know where to call you,” I said.

  He didn’t answer.

  “You never give me your phone number.”

  Silence.

  “What could I do?”

  He whirled around to look at me. “You could leave this place,” he hissed.

  “Why?”

  “These people are fake.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  And then it was as if a dam broke and he started spewing all sorts of crazy gibberish about hell and sinners. I was used to his mystic proclamations, but this was a new, dark side he was tapping in to. For the first time, I had to confront the possibility that he was genuinely out of his mind.

  “I’m going to play in the key of F, and then we can leave this place forever.”

  Maybe he’s tripping, I thought. No way is he going to play his flute here at Halston’s. And why would I leave with him? What does he think he’s offering me? A life in the gutters, suffering the slings and arrows of street poetry, just to prove our worth?

  Before I could even figure out how to answer him, he grabbed me, holding my arm so tightly that I felt I might break into pieces, and pulled me toward the door. I looked back into the room and met Halston’s eyes. The look on my face must have done the screaming for me, because Halston rushed over. When he reached us, he instantly sussed out the situation. “Excuse me,” he said. “I don’t remember inviting you here. Please take your hands off her.” Halston’s fashion mask had dissolved, and he was somber. Matthew began pulling me again, but Halston blocked him. “You’d better let her go.”

  Then the situation exploded. Matthew pushed Halston across the room, and everyone in that area jumped to his rescue. Halston came right back at Matthew, with his assistant right behind him. “She doesn’t want to go with you, she wants to stay here,” Halston said, his face right up against Matthew’s. “Can’t you see that? Isn’t that so, Miss Cleveland?” I was dumbstruck and stunned that Halston was defending me like this. “Let her go right now and leave. Or I’ll call the police.”

  Matthew gave me a deranged look, then pulled my arm again. Halston took me by the other hand and waved his big bodyguard over. The bodyguard grabbed Matthew, and I fell into Halston’s arms. My two worlds were colliding with me in the middle, and I felt crushed by the impact: This is my poet boyfriend, a gentle soul whom I love deeply, and Here is my new friend.

  Everyone at the party was watching as the bodyguard, who was much larger than Matthew, pulled him toward the elevator and got him off the premises. Then they were gone, and the party continued as if nothing had happened. Halston went back to chatting with Berry, and the only memory of what had happened was carried in whispers.

  Most of the guests kept a polite distance from me, but an older woman came over and said, “I wish I had a handsome, possessive boyfriend, honey. Nobody’s ever fought over me.” I wasn’t sure whether she was talking about Matthew or Halston.

  Finally, Halston came over. “He’s dangerous,” he said.

  “He’s not usually like that,” I said, fearful that the world I’d worked so hard to build around me was about to crumble.

  “I can press charges against him for disturbing you,” Halston said. “Shall I do that?”

  “No, no. Please don’t.”

  “If I were you, I’d stay away from him. He’s crazy.”

  The bodyguard came back and told us that Matthew was in the lobby and refused to leave until I talked to him.

  “Do you want to do that?” Halston asked. “You’d better watch out, Miss Cleveland.”

  He was right, but I had to talk to Matthew—for his own good, I told myself. So the bodyguard and I stepped into the bright light of the elevator, and my mind ran in circles: I saw Matthew and me watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon; living in the commune; tripping out; playing flutes; going to jazz clubs and poetry readings; listening to Coltrane and Ravi Shankar; making love as moonlight streamed across the bed . . . The elevator stopped. The door opened. And there he was, in the lobby. The black-sheep son of Billy Eckstine, the love of my life, trying to get me to return to his world, where we’d wander with no money or place of our own.

  He looked roughed up—had the scuffle upstairs actually hurt him?—and I felt guilt and sorrow wash over me. I walked over to him, the bodyguard at my side.

  Matthew nodded at him. “You have to have a bodyguard to talk to me now?” he asked with an ugly sneer that I’d never seen before.

  “You can’t push people—” I began.

  “These people don’t care about you.”

  “Yes, they do.”

&nb
sp; His eyes were tired and red, and he looked completely worn out, as if the whole universe were warring against him. Standing there, he seemed to shrink in my eyes, like something from an imagined past or a Gothic romance novel I’d read as a girl. Well, I wasn’t that girl anymore; I’d grown up. And I realized with absolute certainty that I couldn’t be with Matthew. We were face-to-face but worlds apart. I gasped and said, “I’m not going with you.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” he said. He sounded like a wounded animal. The bodyguard was watching him closely, ready to pounce.

  “You have to go,” I said. “Please don’t follow me like this. It’s not good for either of us.”

  Matthew moved toward me one last time, but the bodyguard stepped between us. There was a struggle, and then the bodyguard literally shoved Matthew out the door. I couldn’t stand to stay any longer, so I backed up into the elevator. As the doors closed, I saw Matthew’s face through the glass windows. Then I was alone.

  That night, after the party, Halston took me home. He’d never been so far uptown, and he was curious, looking out the limousine windows, about the neighborhood.

  “Thank you,” I said as his driver opened the car door for me.

  Halston put out his cigarette and leaned toward me. “Never let that guy near you,” he said. “You could be hurt, and I can’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  I was surprised and gratified to hear him say that. Halston was an important person, and I was a nobody. That was my first inkling that this compassionate man, who would eventually become a dear friend and confidant, saw me as more than just a billboard for his clothes. I walked to the front door of my building, and when I looked back, he was still sitting in his limo. He waited until I was safely inside, and then he and his driver disappeared into the night.

  chapter 31

  LEAVING ON A JET PLANE

  This photo was on the first page of my portfolio, which I took to Europe in 1971.

  Courtesy of Charles Tracy.

  By May 1971, all roads began pointing toward Europe. For starters, I never forgot what Wilhelmina had told me when she signed me—that I’d have to be a success abroad before I could make it big in America. In addition, I was getting fed up with the way my career was stalled in the States. I was working with major photographers like Bert Stern, Bill King (who shot me for Harper’s Bazaar), and Irving Penn (whose exquisite photos of me appeared in Vogue, a major coup), but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quite break through to the top of the heap. I continued to get passed over for the best bookings. The photographers loved the portraits they shot of me, but the higher-ups at the various magazines kept saying no. Time after time, I was photographed for the cover of American Vogue, but time after time, the cover was given to a blonde or a foreign girl instead. It wasn’t the fault of the editors, really, but of society as a whole. If people weren’t ready to buy high-fashion magazines with black women on the cover, what could the magazines’ staffs do about it? They needed to move copies on newsstands.

  Even Hector, Stephen’s assistant, was urging me toward Europe. One day when I was up at Stephen’s World and Stephen was out of the room, Hector said, “You have to do photos with foreign photographers.” He leafed through several magazines, then handed a few to me. “They have more magazines over there. The girls there look better; they have better style.” His glasses kept slipping off his nose as he turned the pages of the French magazine Elle. “They really know how to put themselves together,” he said, pointing at some fashion spreads. “You have to dress in other clothes, you know, not just Stephen’s.”

  I giggled, but his comment bothered me. Does Stephen know how Hector feels? I wondered. Personally, I thought there was nothing better than dressing in Stephen’s clothes. To wear his latest creation was what I lived for. I was Stephen’s flagpole, his clothes my flag. I was part of his team. Now Hector was suggesting I leave the team?

  No, not really. He was simply suggesting that I needed to branch out. And he had a point.

  Antonio had left for France a couple of weeks earlier and was now living in Paris. He’d invited me to stay with him if I ever came over there. I’d managed to save three thousand dollars and wanted to visit—I was keeping up with the French lessons I had started—but I didn’t expect that to happen any time soon. Still, it was tucked in the back of my mind as a possibility.

  Then I got a call from Wilhelmina, who asked me to come in. She said she wanted to talk to me personally. She sounded so serious on the phone that I wondered if I’d done something wrong.

  When I got to her office, she was in a good mood. A bunch of photographs of me were arrayed across her desk, and it looked as if she was rearranging the portfolio she kept of me at the office. “It looks like you’re ready to go,” she said. I had no idea what she was talking about. “Let’s look at your portfolio.”

  I handed her the new portfolio I’d just purchased, with the recent test shots that I’d put in it the previous night. Immediately, she began rearranging the photos, carefully slipping the pictures out of the plastic sleeves and placing them on her desk, then putting aside the photos she didn’t like. I sat quietly and watched her. “I have some good news for you,” she said. “I contacted an agency in Milan. It’s better for you to work in Europe at this time.”

  What did she just say? Did I hear her clearly?

  “I like this photograph here,” she said, patting my pictures as if they were precious treasures. I loved that about Willy; she was so gentle with me and my things. “So what do you think? Are you willing?”

  “Yes, I’d love to go,” I wanted to say immediately, but the words seemed to take forever to form, and it took a while before I actually responded.

  Wilhelmina swirled around in her chair and pushed one of the numbered buttons on her phone. “Can you please get me the Milan agency on the phone?” she said to her assistant.

  She spoke to the Italian agency and finalized all the details while I sat there nervously. I had to get my ticket and travel documents—passport, visa, and working papers—as soon as possible. I would need to visit the Italian consulate, since I’d be leaving in just five days. I could scarcely believe how quickly it was all happening!

  The following Tuesday, there I was with my mom and stepdad in their new Cadillac, on our way to JFK International Airport. Sonny was in the driver’s seat, my mom sat in the front beside him, and I was in the back like a child. We drove across the Queensboro Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge, suspended high over the East River, and passed the island where I was born, Welfare Island (whose name would soon be changed to Roosevelt Island). I looked back at Manhattan, and the Empire State Building seemed to duck under the skyline and recede into nothingness. The traffic flowed through Queens, past Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, with the twelve-story Unisphere, the enduring monument of the 1964–1965 World’s Fair.

  At JFK, there was no way to miss the TWA terminal (though my mom was sure we would). With its sculpted abstract form, it looked like a futuristic spaceship in smooth white cement. We stopped at the entrance, and Mom got out with me while Sonny parked the car. We made our way to the long white check-in counters just under the soaring, intersecting concrete ceilings, which looked like seagulls in flight. My heavy pink suitcase was tagged and sent down the conveyer belt while I got my ticket and boarding pass. Sonny returned, and all three of us headed toward the gates where we would say goodbye. Mom was so excited for me, and I concentrated on what she was feeling instead of the fact that Sonny was standing beside her. She looked so helpless next to him. She didn’t know, would never know, how much I hated him and that his toxicity—as much as my career—was one of the reasons I had to cross the ocean.

  She hugged me, and he tried to, but I pulled away. I started down the long tunnel-like walkway toward the gates and turned back to look at her. As I smiled and waved, I could hear myself saying, “Oh, Mom, please come with me. Please don’t stay with him. He’ll hurt you.” I could feel her heart breaking, just as mine was;
the threads of our lives were that intertwined.

  I quickly walked on, looking down at my feet. My Goody Two Shoes were holding on for dear life. As I picked up the pace, I was trying not to cry. The bright red color of the carpet bathed my senses, making me feel as though I were being born into my own future.

  Aboard the brand-new Boeing 747, I settled into my first-class seat, eagerly accepting the champagne the flight attendants offered. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, we were flying over the snow-covered Alps. Incredible; it was already the next day. The pilot announced that we would be landing in Milan. I looked out the window at tiny terra-cotta rooftops in villages nestled in the foothills of mountains. As we made our descent, I prayed that we would land safely. When we did, the Italian passengers in the back of the plane applauded and shouted out “Bravo!” In my heart, I did the same.

  chapter 32

  I LOVE PARIS

  Donna Jordan, me, and Corey Tippin at the corner bar on Rue Bonaparte in Paris, wearing our new Chloé coats designed by Karl Lagerfeld, 1971.

  Courtesy of Juan Ramos.

  I always like to say that whenever I’m confronted with the dark, I turn away and move toward the light. Four days after landing in Milan, that was literally what I did, escaping a bad situation in Italy by taking off for . . . yes, the City of Light.

  The Italian agency I was booked with was in fact one rather sketchy guy in a nearly empty office in what looked like a deserted area of Milan. The day after I arrived, this guy insisted on driving me far outside the city to meet his financial backers in a big secluded house in the woods that reminded me of a safe haven like you see in spy movies, where the CIA hides spooks who need to lie low for a while. Then my agent took off, leaving me there alone, still jet-lagged, in the middle of nowhere, with these strange men.