“Wiesbaden.”
“Ah. I’m in Frankfurt. Do you want me to send a car for you?”
“No, that’s okay,” I said. Because I knew Frankfurt was at least thirty minutes away for any respectable limo driver. In this situation, I could count on Mama to drive it in twenty minutes flat.
“Bring more tapes,” he said before we hung up.
On the way to Frankfurt, Mama drove with a controlled urgency while Jan and I took turns hyperventilating and freaking out when we thought she had missed the exit.
Jan was in worrywart mode. “How is this going to work? We can’t just walk in and say we’re here to see Prince. I mean, what if they won’t—”
“Everyone just stay calm,” I said, even though I was still screaming inside.
Something I was about to learn about Prince: He would never allow anyone to be left hanging. If he invited someone to visit, he went to great lengths to see that they were comfortable and well cared for. When we arrived at the hotel, we saw a large black man standing out front, and because you don’t see a lot of black men in Frankfurt, we immediately knew that he was waiting to meet us. We were escorted down a sky-high hallway, with windows looking out over the city lights, to the presidential suite.
From the moment the bodyguard opened the door, I felt like I was floating somewhere between the Grand Bazaar and Madame Abla’s salon. The air was heavy with candles, flowers, and perfume. Plush rugs covered the standard hotel carpeting. Veils covered the doorways and were draped over lamps and light fixtures, creating a softly diffused glow.
This is called “foo foo,” I learned later, and Prince had a staff member dedicated to it. Wherever Prince went, it was the foo foo master’s job to go ahead of him and make sure the hotel suite would be a place where he could feel at home, recover from the dehydrating hard labor of a performance, and use what little downtime he had to rest, relax, and work on whatever he was working on next. The foo foo master would reconfigure the furniture and make sure the floor was layered in fluffy area rugs—purple or whatever color he was currently into. They used scrim and linen to swath anything that looked ordinary or sad and covered the windows with aluminum foil so it would be dark enough to sleep in the room during the day.
One all-important task of the foo foo master was to make sure that there was a grand piano in the room, which was sometimes a challenge. I remember hearing about a hotel in London where the management, given the choice of figuring it out or letting Prince stay elsewhere, had the piano hoisted up to the presidential suite with a giant crane. It was a pretty major hassle, but when Prince walked into the hotel room, he immediately sat down and played for two hours. When Robbie, the foo foo master at the time, told me about this, he was glowing. These people took a lot of pride in caring for Prince. He was conscious of the many people whose living depended on his stamina, and they understood the grueling physical and emotional demands he put on himself while he was touring. The foo foo was not about a pampered star’s outlandish demands; it was about this hydraulic engine being well maintained, fed, and rested enough to pull an entire train.
To have that sense of comfort in unknown lands—this was a perk I dearly appreciated during the years when we were a couple. I looked forward to walking into a dressing room that had been preset with all the big and small things that made me feel cared for. It was lovely to check into a hotel and feel like we were coming home to our own life, at least, even if we were far from our own home in Minnesota. After our marriage ended, it took me years to get used to checking into a nondescript, neutral-toned hotel room.
That first night in Frankfurt, Mama and Jan and I stood in the center of the room, trying to take it all in. Prince came out to greet us.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
In Germany, Jan and I were both of legal drinking age, but we were incapable of processing the question. Mama said she would like some water. We sat and made small talk for about twenty minutes. He was respectful of Mama and seemed eager to let her know that nothing inappropriate was going to happen.
“I’m a night owl,” he said to me. “I hope your mom understands.”
“Oh, she does,” I assured him. “Dancers are used to the night shift.”
He asked Mama, “Would it be okay if we hang out for a while? I’ll send her home in a car later.”
Mama was still scoping out the situation. “You’ll make sure she gets home in one piece,” she said pointedly.