Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,68

Edition had a big gig at the Universal Amphitheatre. Naturally, Zoro got passes for me and Rockwell (aka Kennedy Gordy). Getting ready for the show, Rockwell couldn’t decide what to wear. He tried on at least four different outfits. I grew impatient; I was dying to see Zoro play. Although he was an emerging star—“Somebody’s Watching Me” was already a smash—Rockwell was insecure about his look. He finally put together an ensemble, and off we went.

This was the era of New Jack Swing, a staccato-styled variation on straight-up R&B. Studio masters such as Teddy Riley—who’d go on to produce Bobby Brown’s solo smash “My Prerogative” and Michael Jackson’s “Jam”—were changing the game. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis were crafting Janet Jackson’s breakthrough album, Control. No one could ride these New Jack grooves better than Zoro.

The show was a knockout. When it was over, I took my backstage pass and headed to the private elevator that led down to the dressing rooms. The elevator doors opened, I stepped on, and just as the doors were closing, a man stuck his arm inside. The doors reopened. The man, sharply outfitted in a suit and tie, stood aside and allowed his date to step in before him. His date was Lisa Bonet.

My heart started racing. I didn’t know what to say, but I had to say something. I knew this chance meeting was my only opportunity. I couldn’t blow it.

“I like your hair,” I said to her.

It was a lame line, a stupid line, one of the worst lines in the history of bad lines. But I said it.

“I like your hair, too,” Lisa said with a smile. A smile! Lisa Bonet smiled at me!

A little later, while everyone was milling around the dressing room waiting for New Edition to emerge, I approached her. I introduced myself as Romeo Blue. We vibed immediately. Time stood still. Without a lot being said, there was magnetism. I’d never had an encounter like it before. We were from the same tribe.

Before I left, I got her number.

* * *

I started calling her, and we slowly built a relationship over the phone. After her long days on the Cosby set, we’d talk late into the night. I knew she had a boyfriend, or boyfriends. I had Mitzi.

Lisa and I saw each other simply as friends. It was a reemergence of my old pattern of platonic relationships with women. As an only child, the brother-sister dynamic had brought me comfort and companionship throughout my early life. In this case, it was an older brother–younger sister dynamic: I was twenty-one; Lisa was eighteen.

In the back of my mind, of course, was that moment when, pointing to Lisa’s photo on the cover of TV Guide, I’d told Alvin Fields that she was the girl I was gonna marry. But that was a fantasy. In reality, it was amazing enough just to meet her and feel the connection between us. I didn’t need to push it, and I didn’t.

* * *

Lisa went back to Kaufman Astoria Studios, in Queens, where the Cosby show was taping. I was back in New York City as well, with Mitzi and the band.

Lisa accepted me and knew I saw her for who she was. In her Norma Kamali and Betsey Johnson outfits, top hats, and psychedelic granny glasses, she was her own breed—brilliant, soft-spoken, and mysterious. I liked that she didn’t shave under her arms. I liked that she wore tattered old dresses from thrift shops. But, most important, I loved her mind and spirit. She was free.

Lisa Bonet was one of the most desired women in the world. But that didn’t matter to me. We’d established this instantaneously powerful rapport, and we understood each other clearly. The fact that we were each in a relationship with someone else only facilitated our friendship.

Mitzi seemed satisfied that Lisa and I were just pals. Between me and Lisa, there was none of the energy that comes up when a man hits on a woman or a woman pursues a man. For all her commercial success, Lisa was a pure soul who, like me, had adopted the peace-and-love ethos of an earlier era. She was willing to explore uncharted territory. She was daring and unafraid yet, at the same time, fragile and tough. She was a waif, but also a rock.

Our biracial backgrounds—Lisa’s mother was white and Jewish, and her father was Black—were another bond. We were both comfortable in different cultures. And the fact that I had