After the Dance: My Life With Marvin Gaye by Jan Gaye Page B

me?”
    “You know I will.”

Topanga
    F rom his perch on top of the world, Marvin was tired of seeking. He wanted to be sought. And though there were times when he loved the spotlight, this was a time when he assiduously avoided it. After the triumph of What’s Going On , he had worked for years to develop a follow-up that would create as great a furor. He had accomplished just that with Let’s Get It On . Yet rather than welcome the accompanying acclaim, he ran from it.
    I couldn’t help but wonder if he was running from himself. Even though I remained in awe of his talent, I had seen that his insecurities, hidden under a veneer of cool, were potent. Those insecurities alarmed me. While Marvin was gratified that his new album was an immediate hit, he worried that it might soon stop selling. Because Anna was furious with him—and because Anna had such influence with Berry—he worried that Motown might work against him and cut off promotion. He worried that his fans would lose interest in him. He also worried that, in order to bolster sales, he would have totour. Performing in public was something he dreaded. He had long suffered from stage fright.
    I didn’t like seeing Marvin scared. I didn’t like seeing him as anything but perfect. Yet every day his imperfections, in tandem with his seductive charms, became more obvious. This was especially true when we escaped to the rural retreat he called our romantic paradise.
    Topanga Canyon, across Highway 1 from the Pacific Ocean, was less than an hour’s drive from Mid-City LA, but a world away. It was that part of the Santa Monica mountain range that, only a few years earlier, had been home to a large colony of hippies, including the Charles Manson family. Marvin’s rustic mountaintop A-frame home was built on three levels. It was all pinewood and glass. It smelled fresh and clean. Its remote location didn’t bother me in the least. In fact, it excited me. I’d have Marvin all to myself.
    “Is it too hippie for you out here?” he asked.
    “You forget that I grew up with hippies. My mom’s a hippie. I’m a hippie. We’re all hippies. Groovy! Peace! Far out!”
    “I hope you won’t be offering any invitations to your mom to visit us anytime soon.”
    “I won’t be offering invitations to anyone. I just wanna be with you.”
    “And the dogs, of course.”
    Marvin had bought two handsome Great Danes, Shad and Caesar, to safeguard us from any outside intruders. He loved them a little more than I did. Uninvited guests and curiosity seekers would not be able to find the house. There was no paved street or address. The only way to reach the place was to call from a gas station on Highway 1 and have either Marvin or me drive one of his two jeeps or his green pickup truck down the mountainside. The visitor must then follow the jeep through a series of twisting roads. Thank God, I reflected, that Marvin had taught me to drive. Before long he bought me a black Porsche 911 that zoomed through the canyon like a rocket.
    Marvin had also taught me to make his favorite dish: mashedpotatoes, hamburger patties, gravy, and mustard cabbage cooked according to a special recipe from Marvin’s mom. There were frequent trips to the little health-food market. There were blissful evenings by the wood-burning stove with Marvin at his little portable keyboard. There were long and languorous lovemaking sessions in every part of the house—on the living room rug, in the loft, in the kitchen, outside on the balcony, under the stars above. In the morning he and I awoke to a chorus of birds. At night the coyotes howled. Time stood still. Love deepened. The real world was remote, but the real world never stopped calling.
    For weeks Marvin kept the outside world away. For our protection he had an AK–47 assault rifle and a shotgun. We hunkered down, but that didn’t stop Motown from knocking at our door. Requests poured in. As Let’s Get It On became the sensation of the summer and one