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.As much as Ross thirsted for a shot at solo fame, for nowshe had no desire to upset the girls and genuinely wanted them to tastethe nectar of success together.Attempting to re-cement her delicate bond with Mary, Dianeagreed to go with Mary to Chicago where the latter s cousin was to bemarried.They hopped a Greyhound, on their own dime, and had sucha good time they stayed on, living with Mary s relatives.Time flew, andthey were still there two weeks later, happily isolated from the brain-scrambling Peyton Place on West Grand Boulevard. We were running away from Motown.We really needed to getaway, Wilson said of the brief sabbatical, during which they hadquickie flings with two members of the Chicago soul group the Dells,whom they met at a club.When they came back to Detroit, Diane wasoff again, hitching a ride with the Temptations, who were as spectacu-larly unsuccessful in their three Motown years as were the Supremes.They had gotten a gig in Atlanta, and they took off for their nativeDeep South, with Diane in tow. We were very close friends with Diane from way back, OtisWilliams says. She was like our kid sister.She said she wanted to govisit her relatives in Mississippi.We said sure, come with us; we ll dropyou off, then pick you up on the way back. He continued:We were very protective of Diane.For all her reputation as adifficult person, to us she was always real vulnerable, breakable.Because we saw that side of her, which she didn t let others see.We would never let her walk anywhere alone on that trip.We dbe like her security guards.It was kind of refreshing, too, to see her in that context.She was just a confused 20-year-old girl, a sweet girl, not some-one trying to be, y know, Miss Diva.She spoke about howscared she was that the Supremes wouldn t make it.She thoughtshe might have to quit the business and go to college like herdaddy wanted.Hey, we knew how she felt.The possibility of failure wasbeating us all down.So we d cheerlead for her and she d do the 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 146146 THE SUPREMESsame for us.We d say, You re gonna make it big! And she d go, No, you re gonna! But Diane was really questioning herself.People rarely saw her that way.During this abyss, Ross seemed to have convinced herself thateveryone at Motown, with the sole exception of Gordy, was conspiringagainst her.A particular foil, she openly stated, was Billie Jean Brown, ayoung woman Gordy had hired while she was still attending Cass HighSchool to write liner notes before he promoted her to no less than thegatekeeper of all recorded songs. She was Creative Control, EddieHolland says. Meaning she d listen to whatever tapes the producershad made and if she said, That needs remixing or It sounds too slow,you d have to redo it.You can imagine how much she was either lovedor hated, but Berry trusted her because she had really great ears.Shedidn t know anything about how to make a record but she knew if itsounded like a hit. It was a thankless task, a monumentally unfair one to hang on anovice, and Ross s complaints that Billie Jean had it in for her were notatypical especially since all Motown acts cut more records than wereneeded and very few were ever released.(By Wilson s estimation, forevery Supremes release there were at least five others that sat in the can,where they sit to this day even though the acts themselves were dockedfor the expenses of recording every one.)Diane even moaned about it to Gladys Horton, looking anywhereshe could for sympathy.Horton, stunned that her old rival was cryingon her shoulder, of all people s, recalled her saying that Billie Jeanhates me. As Horton told author J.Randy Taraborrelli, Next thing Iknew I was comforting her, and crying with her. Don t worry, I toldher, you ll have your hit too, just you wait. In her assessment, Di-ane was really complicated.She d be runnin your ass down with a carone day and then have you cryin your eyes out feelin sorry for herthe next. Horton was so sorry for her that when Diane, still wet-eyed, askedif Gladys would let the Supremes get star billing over the Marvelettes atone show, she acquiesced. To me, it was nothing but a show, she re-called.Not so blasé was Esther Edwards, who Horton says got angry atme because I begged her to let them star the show and the Supremesdidn t have a hot record. But that s how it went down, another small victory for Diane.If Ross could use tears to connive, she had hardly lost her bravado,all her worries aside.This was always evident when the Supremes were 0306815867_ribowsky:6.125 x 9.25 4/22/09 11:06 AM Page 147A LOUSY SONG 147on tour with hotter acts, making her want to cut down the other per-formers by aggrandizing herself.Increasingly, her new obsession wastorturing Martha Reeves, who d replaced Gladys Horton on her own hit list. Not by coincidence, of course, the Vandellas had taken offunder the tutelage of HDH.But adding fuel to Ross s ire was the factthat there wasn t a soul at Motown who didn t think Reeves was a farsuperior singer with a brighter future.This was the prologue when, just before an engagement at the Ho-ward Theater in Washington, D.C., at which the Supremes were bookedas the opening act for the Vandellas another source of anger forRoss Diane did some nosing around and found out where the Van-dellas had bought their dresses for the show.Placing a call to the dressshop, she ordered three identical frocks in the Supremes sizes, thenwent and picked them up, paying with the money Gordy had wired heras a clothing stipend after she cried to him that they needed new stagewear.Wilson and Ballard, who knew nothing of the circumstances andalways deferred to Diane s educated sense of style and fashion, excitedlyslipped into them minutes before the lights went up.This thievery went beyond Ross s dance-step-stealing.And whenReeves saw them out there opening the show in the same dresses theVandellas were already wearing while standing in the wings, the steamcoming out of her ears could have melted her wig.After the Vandellasset, which as Diane no doubt hoped was less polished because theirconcentration was disrupted by the dress issue, the Vandellas raced tothe Supremes dressing room.There, Reeves banged on the door, thenkicked it open and glowered at Ross, sputtering You did us dirt. Mary and Flo were too startled to move in and defend Diane, andbesides they were terrified of Reeves, who with her oversized beehivewig, long bony frame, and angry jut-jawed face was no one to messwith.As they cowered, once more a fight loomed between Diane andanother woman in the Motown clan.But rather than get her back up asshe had with Sharon Holland, Ross almost by rote picked up a phoneand began calmly dialing Berry Gordy s personal line.Probably thinking What now? when he picked up, Gordy lis-tened to Diane s latest spin on an outrageous caper.When she stuck thephone next to Martha s ear, he wearily intoned, Now Martha, Dianedidn t mean you no harm.Just leave her alone, and defused furtherfireworks by telling them with a sigh that he d buy them all new dresses.Reeves could only walk away shaking her head at Ross s childish-ness.Nor did it end with this incident
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