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Dickinson; Janice
along, I could see that her day was broken down into hours, starting at seven in the morning and going through till eleven at night. At any given moment, at a glance, you could see where Deirdre was or what she was doing next. “Deirdre is a tester,” the secretary explained in her dull monotone. “Testers don’t get paid. If she does well, though, she’ll move up a notch, to the Big Board, and start in editorial. Those are the photographs that run with the fashion articles. If Cosmo decides that pink is suddenly the hot color, for example, they’ll run a piece on, say, ‘New York Pink,’ accompanied by shots of a beautiful model dressed in pink from head to toe. Editorial doesn’t pay particularly well, maybe a hundred a day, but if you’re noticed and you’re lucky it might lead to advertising. Of course, you won’t be starting with Revlon.”
60 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N
A hundred a day? Not much? Are you kidding me? Give me fifty dollars and I’ll work for a month!
“Then it gets exciting,” the secretary droned on, her voice betraying no excitement whatsoever. “Giant billboards, your face all over the subway station, runway shows, television, maybe movies even. Who knows?”
Who knows indeed!
I walked back to the apartment, floating. I was in love with Wilhelmina. She represented hope. And that bitch Eileen Ford—well, who gave a shit? I’d show her soon enough. I am it, baby. Different? You bet your skinny ass I’m different; I’m better. So, hey—I’m beyond crazy. I’m manic, okay? I go from the pits of despair to the peaks of elation. In the space of a day, of an hour, of a look. Doesn’t everyone?
Edna was out, trolling for rich older men with a weakness for middle-aged Jewish women. Wendy was in the shower, getting ready for work. When she got out, I told her I’d just been signed by Wilhelmina. She jumped up and down,
screaming and giggling. She was genuinely happy for me. I didn’t tell her I was just a tester or that “signed” was a pretty broad definition for what had actually happened. It wasn’t as if Willie had put a contract in front of me and told me that she absolutely positively had to have me. But hey, I was happening, right?
I went down to the club with Wendy and sat at the bar.
Two businessmen were sitting nearby, checking me out.
They were talking about some big deal that had gone down in their Wall Street office that afternoon, trying to sound important and rich for my benefit, and when they were done talking business one of them said something about getting tickets for B. B. King. My ears perked up. It turned out B. B. King was at Carnegie Hall at that very moment. I N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 61
finished my drink and got my too-ethnic ass over to Carnegie Hall.
I waited by the back door. When one of the grunts came out for some fresh New York air and a cigarette, I slipped inside. I was stopped by a security guard who wasn’t going to be easy to charm. He must have been seventy years old, and—from the way he cocked his head and squinted—
half-blind.
“Excuse me, miss. You’re not allowed in here.”
“You don’t understand,” I told him. “Ron asked me to meet him.”
“Ron?”
“Ron Levy,” I explained. “The piano player. The white guy.”
There was some hemming and hawing, but just then the musicians took a break and he sent someone to get word to Ron Levy. A few minutes later, I was told that Ron was waiting for me in the dressing room.
I went in. Ron came over and hugged me. “Janice!
Jesus, it’s nice to see you, girl!” I wondered if he was bullshitting me. “I guess you’re back for that drink I offered you in Florida!” He wasn’t bullshitting me! He remembered me!
I stayed for the last set and then Ron and his intense green eyes and I went over to the Plaza for drinks. He was gorgeous—my Jewish Jim Morrison. We closed the place down and he took me back to his hotel, where there was some coke. I’d