Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [11]
Far or not, Jack acted so rashly in jumping ship that he didn’t give himself time to pack and boarded without a tuxedo for the liner’s first-class restaurant. Obliged to eat alone in his cabin, he’d plead with us to join him, but we never did. Throughout the journey home, he continued to make passes and was always trying to separate me from the others, but it didn’t work. Not only was I seasick but I was practically still a bride. When we docked in New York, Jack introduced me to his two beautiful Weimaraners, which had been brought to meet him. In truth, I liked his dogs more than I liked him. Jack also introduced himself to Bob. “You must be Barbara’s husband,” he said, shaking Bob’s hand. Kissing me on the cheek, Jack gave Bob an enigmatic smile and walked away. It would be more than ten years before I’d see him again.
When my nausea didn’t stop even after I reached terra firma, I realized I was in trouble. It wasn’t seasickness after all. I didn’t dare tell a soul I was pregnant, especially not Eileen Ford, who’d agreed to take me on at her Ford Modeling Agency after Lily and Marilyn recommended me.
“Fashion photography, not runway, I think,” she said, examining me with the precision of a biologist. “And of course, you’ll need to lose weight.” I could have laughed and cried all at once. Within days, I was offered work with Vogue and Life magazines, although not quite what I’d imagined. In one shoot for Noxzema sun cream, I was plastered in bright red makeup to make me look sunburned. The caption read: “Don’t Fool with Sunburn!” I was so embarrassed by the results, but Bob cut out the advertisement and proudly showed it to everybody in his favorite West Side bar.
As our baby grew inside me, so did my nausea. Work became a disaster because I kept throwing up or passing out. In the end, Eileen Ford peered at me through her enormous spectacles in her brownstone offices on Fifty-fourth Street and informed me that no one else would hire me. She offered me dry congratulations when I finally admitted my condition and bade me a brisk farewell. Bob and I had no choice but to head home. He was so mad at me for getting pregnant and cutting short his freewheeling nightlife, while I was mad at him for flirting with my modeling friends. Not only wasn’t he ready to be a father, but he wanted to stay in New York even though he hadn’t found any work and spent most of what I’d earned on booze and horses.
Back in Long Beach living above the Rose Room, we had no money and quarreled about everything. Bob tended bar downstairs until 2:00 A.M. closing, and I fed myself from the restaurant kitchen. Not that I could cook anyway. His grandmother tried to teach me how to make pasta once, but I told her, “Good luck with that!” I never mastered the art. One day I came up with the idea of starting my own modeling school. Anyone interested in fashion would surely be eager to know what I’d learned about posing and lighting, makeup and trends. If I opened a school and shared my experiences, I could work until the baby was born, and besides, I liked the idea of mentoring younger girls.
So did Bob suddenly, who styled himself general manager and could hardly wait for my pupils to arrive. With a three-thousand-dollar loan from the bank (which Marge guaranteed), I found premises at Seventh and Alameda streets. After fitting it out with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and painting it in peach hues (kinder to the complexion), the Barbara Blakeley School of Modeling and Charm was up and running. On the opening