No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel by Janice Dickinson

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 N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 77
    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 foulmouthed parrot.
    When I woke up, it was early evening. Ron was gone.

    78 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N
    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.

    N O L I F E G UA R D O N D U T Y 79
    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