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

possible. That isn’t my face staring back at me. I shut my eyes real tight and said a little prayer, and when I opened them again I was still there.
    I was hosed. I had an hour to pull myself together. One lousy hour.
    No problem. I’d been bullshitting myself into action my whole life:
    “I am Janice Dickinson, motherfucker! I am unstoppable. I’ll show them. I’ll fucking show all of you!”
    “Shut the fuck up!” It was the asshole in the apartment across the alley. Scared the shit out of me. “People are trying to sleep around here!”
    Two hours later I arrived at Wilhelmina for the cattle call. The place was crowded with desperate girls. You could smell the flop sweat.
    When it was my turn, I put the last three days out of my mind—wasn’t hard; couldn’t remember much anyway—
    and entered the room slowly, long legs first. I guess I’m a bit of a Drama Queen at times. The Silverstein brothers introduced themselves. Jacques and Dominick. A pair of good-looking French guys, very pleasant, with warm, Cheshire-cat grins. I could have done without the gold chains and the pointy shoes, and the pants—so tight you could tell their religion. But who was I to judge? Wait a minute! Let’s back up here. I’m Janice Dickinson. And don’t you forget it!
    There was a woman with them. Face like an angel. Lorraine Bracco. She was Jacques’s girlfriend. She’d been modeling for Wilhelmina since she was thirteen, but she was destined for bigger things.

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    Dominick opened my portfolio, turned the pages slowly.
    “Stop!” Lorraine hollered. “I love that one!” This in that wildly nasal Long Island Sopranos voice. She was pointing at one of Patrice Casanova’s photographs of me. Very Lauren Huttonish: I’m leaping through the air with my alligator grin. “I like this girl!” Lorraine said. “Let’s take her to Paris. She’s hot.”
    Jacques laughed. Dominick laughed.
    “Okay,” Jacques said. “Done.”
    I literally fell to my knees, bowing and scraping.
    “Thank you thank you thank you thank you!” I told the men. Then I turned to Lorraine and actually curtsied. “And thank you, kind stranger, whoever you are!”

    THE GIRLS
    IN THE ATTIC
    (((((((((((((((((((((((((((((
    Here’s the advice I got from Lorraine the day before my flight to Paris: Drink a lot of water; you get dehydrated on the plane. Don’t eat the airplane food; it’s salty, and it’ll puff you up. Pack light. They’ve got plenty of stuff to wear in Paris. “If you’re good, you might get to bring some of the clothes back,” she said. “Of course, if you’re bad, you’ll bring all of it back.”
    She also taught me a few important French phrases. Ou est l’ hotel? C’est trop cher. Encore du vin. And, in times of trouble, a simple English phrase everyone understands when properly delivered: “Go fuck yourself, you pig ass ugly frog motherfucker!”
    Ron got home the morning of the day I was leaving for Paris. He was a mess. It was obvious he’d been on some sort of binge, and just as obvious that I hadn’t wanted to see it. After all, this was the man who had told me, repeatedly, that I was the best thing that ever happened to him.
    What did it say about me that he was a junkie?
    “About that night—” he began.
    “I don’t have time for this,” I said. I went into the bedroom. He followed. He saw that I’d started packing. He looked like a whipped dog. No, he looked worse than a 82 J A N I C E D I C K I N S O N
    whipped dog. He’d lost weight and his teeth were rotting and his skin had a sickly, yellowish pallor.
    “You’re leaving me?” he asked. “Jesus, Janice, don’t tell me you’re leaving me.”
    “I’m going to Paris, you dumb sonofabitch. If you really want me, I’m sure you’ll find me.”
    “Paris?”
    Just then, the phone rang. You’d think a normal husband, pleading for his life, would have ignored it. His wife was on her way out the door. But Ron wasn’t a