Dating Big Bird (24 page)

It was after five by the time we were finished. We called two cars to take us back to the city—one for Annette, who wanted to go straight home to Queens, and one for the
three of us to go to the hospital. When Renee and Simon and I arrived at the maternity ward just after eight o’clock, Gail told us the good news: It had been a quick and easy birth (vaginal); mother and newborn were resting comfortably; proud father and little big sister were having a snack in the cafeteria.

I got the phone network in motion—calling a few friends of Gail’s and Annette at home and asking them to start making calls, too—and jotted down a few notes for the press release our public relations firm would write and start faxing out early the next morning: the exact time of birth and weight of baby, and the correct spelling of new baby’s full name: Eli Daniel Klein.

Sometime after nine, Gail came out again to tell us apologetically that Karen and the baby were too exhausted for visitors. “It’s been a long day,” she said, and while Renee and I understood and were even relieved—it had been a long day for us, too—Simon’s face dropped.

“But—but I simply must see the baby,” he said, desperate, I knew, for a few details to feed his waiting columnists.

“Tomorrow,” Gail said. “The baby isn’t going anywhere.”

“Yes, but you see, tomorrow’s too late.”

“Not for
The New York Observer
,” I said, taking him by the elbow and leading him toward the elevator. “They put the paper to bed on Tuesday.”

“No wonder she was so huge. She didn’t have a C-section, did she?” Amy said, her eyes bugging out of her head when I told her about Karen’s baby. She and I had had a long-standing dinner date for the Monday night after the shower, and though we hadn’t seen that much of each other during my month of racing to the gift finish line, we’d spoken on the phone regularly through it all. By the time we sat
down at our favorite booth at L’Acajou, she was dying for the Marv Albert
mammo
blow-by-blow.

“No. Can you imagine?”

“No. And I don’t want to try.”

So I told her all about the necklace instead—prebestowal, bestowal, and postbestowal. But when I told her about Karen’s surprisingly good reaction and Demi Moore’s wanting to order one for herself, she immediately switched into her legal mode.

“You don’t want anyone competing with
mammo
,” she said sternly.

“Yeah, like who? The people who invented mammograms?”

“I’m serious. If you protect the word, no one else can use it. Obviously copyright or trademark infringement is not my specialty, but there’s someone at my firm who you should talk to.”

“Well, maybe, but I really don’t think it’s going to be an issue.”

“Don’t be so sure. With Demi Moore running around wearing it, you might very well have a situation on your hands, and if so, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Especially if you want to start up a little side business making
mammo
jewelry in your spare time.”

“What spare time?”

Demi Moore’s assistant did call me a few days after Karen’s shower to place her boss’s order, and she told me, confidentially of course, that Demi was considering doing another naked
Vanity Fair
cover. “Demi thinks wearing only the
mammo
necklace would be fantastic,” she said, in that breathy reverential ironyless way twelve-year-old assistants to famous people do. “She’s been looking for a way to promote
her being a mother instead of just being pregnant ever since she and Bruce, you know, split up.”

Demi wanted one necklace for herself, in platinum naturally, with a diamond in the
o
of
mammo
, and four others for close friends who apparently were “in desperate need of moral support in order to transform themselves from mommies into
mammo
s.”

But when her assistant asked me how much they’d cost and did I want to take a credit card number now, over the phone, I panicked, told her I’d call back, and ran into Renee’s office.

“What am I supposed to do with this order for a gazillion dollars’ worth of platinum and diamond necklaces?” I said, still gripping the little scrap of paper I’d written all the information down on—my pathetic excuse for an order form.

Renee, who’d been holding for someone on the phone when I walked in, hung up immediately.

“How
many did she order?”

“Five,” I said, then told her the specifics.

Her eyes widened. “The first thing we’re going to do is call the designer who made Karen’s necklace and tell her to get started on five more. Of course, this time we’ll have to pay for them—you know, with
money
.”

“Speaking of money,” I interrupted, “how much do we charge for them? A thousand each? Two thousand each?”

She looked at me as if I were an imbecile.

“The
cord
practically cost that much.”

“So what then?”

She thought a minute. “I’ll call around, but I’m thinking somewhere in the vicinity of fifteen.”

“Fifteen
thousand
? For all five, you mean.” I started to do a little quick division—
fifteen into five, I mean, five into fifteen was …?
—but before I could finish calculating, she was on me again.

“Fifteen thousand
each
,” she said. “Or $12,500 each and $15,000 for the one with the diamond. We’ll have to see.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“If you charge less, they won’t want it.”

I knew that.

“You’re going to clean up on these, believe me.”

And so would she, since she’d helped me design it in the first place.

A few days later the necklace was mentioned in
WWD
. It was in an item about Karen’s shower and the star-studded guest list of invitees and the shock of her water breaking and the birth of Eli Daniel a few hours later. Then it reported Demi Moore’s enthusiastic response to the necklace and the concept behind it, and then the feminista feeding frenzy that ensued.

A week or so later, another mention appeared in
W
.

And then one in
The Intelligencer
.

And on “Page Six.”

And in Liz Smith’s column.

And in Cindy Adams’s column.

And as the mentions in the trades and in the columns came in, so did more orders.

Once or twice a day, Jennifer would buzz to tell me another famous person was on the line calling about
mammo
—someone who had either been at the shower or who hadn’t been at the shower but had heard about it from someone who had been. Or maybe they’d read about it in some newspaper or magazine. One by one the calls came, with women ordering two, sometimes three necklaces at a time for themselves or for their sisters or for their mothers or for their best friends. After a few weeks of running to Renee with my little slips of paper, I was afraid we might
have to replace the path of carpeting that ran between our two offices.

Then one morning two weeks later, Jennifer buzzed me with another necklace-related call.

“It’s Jay Tipparini III, from Tiffany’s?”

“I don’t know any Jay Tipparini. Do you?”

“No, but he said it’s in reference to
mammo
?”

I speed-swiveled over to my desk phone and picked up.

“Jay Tipparini III, vice president of marketing and development, Tiffany & Company,” he said, as if he were reading his entire business card into the phone.

“Ellen Franck, director of marketing, Karen Lipps New York,” I said, idiotically, doing the same.

“Am I correct in assuming that I am speaking to the creator of
mammo
?” he said.

“Yes.”

Me and some anonymous, dyslexic birthday-cake-icer in Maine.

“We’d like to discuss with you some ideas we’ve had in relation to your aforementioned
mammo
. At your convenience, of course.”

“Right now is a good time.”

“Yes, fine.” He cleared his throat. “Tiffany & Company has been most impressed by what it has read in the trade publications and columns of late. And we understand that there has been a groundswell of enthusiasm building from Demi Moore’s initial order to you for several necklaces—and that quite a few other well-known women have placed orders with you for necklaces as well. As there is talk of Ms. Moore’s doing another
Vanity Fair
cover wearing this necklace—and
only
this necklace,” he continued, “we are, well, we believe she may inspire other women to follow her lead in this
mammo
trend as well.”

“Really?!” I said, though I was surprised that Tiffany would be aware of—let alone interested in—trendiness.

“Yes, well, we are fully aware of the fact that we, too, along with the rest of the retail world, are in a new millennium, and as we are not able to change that fact, we are looking to become—how shall I say?—more contemporary. To appeal to a younger jewelry-wearing clientele. And so, to that end, we would like to talk with you about an arrangement of sorts.”

I blinked. “What kind of arrangement?”

“Well, it’s best we save the particulars for a lengthier conversation at our offices, but until then”—he paused before continuing—“we would like to explore the possibility of an exclusive arrangement with Tiffany & Company, through which a complete line of your
mammo
pieces would be produced and sold. Much in the same way that the lines designed by Paloma Picasso and Elsa Peretti are produced by and sold exclusively through Tiffany.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” I said, as if I could actually see him paving the way to my financial future. For a second or two between sentences, I suddenly realized what a deal like this could mean:

I could really afford to have a baby
.

I could quit my job for a while to raise it
.

I felt my stomach drop with excitement and panic, then forced myself to return my full attention to the generous little man inside the phone.

“Perhaps it would be easiest if I put something together in writing—a proposal of sorts,” he said.

“Yes. That would be helpful.”

“Shall I send it to you directly or to your lawyers?”

“To … my lawyer,” I said, thinking how funny it sounded. “Amy Jacobs.”

The first thing I did after my close encounter of the Tiffany’s kind was tell Renee, of course.

Then I called Lynn.

And my parents.

And finally I called Amy.

“Remember what you said about protecting
mammo
in case I wanted to start a little side business?” I then told her about the unbelievable conversation I’d just had with Jay Tipparini.

She and I got together the next day in her office during lunch to go over some research that she and an associate had started to put together—the most important piece of it being that a preliminary title and name search for the word
mammo
had turned up nothing. This, apparently, in the copyright and intellectual property business, was fabulous news, since it meant that we were free to register
mammo
as a trademarked product name. Amy told me she’d complete the paperwork in the next few days so we could move on to the next stage of things.

In the meantime the proposal arrived from Tiffany, and when it did, an associate of Amy’s, Ward Coakley, went through it. The following week the three of us met in Jay Tipparini’s imperial climate-controlled conference chamber high above Fifth Avenue. Introductions were made, seats were taken, proposal papers were passed, and cool water was poured into crystal glasses. Incomprehensible legalese ensued. Which Amy tried to explain to me over drinks immediately afterward across the street at the Oak Room in the Plaza, once we’d parted company with Ward.

I would retain the rights for the
mammo
word and the design, she told me, and Tiffany would produce the jewelry
and sell it. Their initial proposal would be to make the signature
mammo
necklace available in several sizes and materials: sterling silver; eighteen- and twenty-two-karat gold; white gold; as well as the original platinum. Gemstones such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds would be made available upon request. In addition, the
mammo
series would be expanded to include a matching ring, a matching bracelet, matching earrings—studs, most probably—and matching pen—fountain, roller ball, and ballpoint.

“What, no
mammo
nose ring or
mammo
belly ring?” I asked.

Amy laughed. “We’ll see. Let’s give it a year.”

“No, seriously,” I said. “Bottom line.”

“Bottom line what?”

“Bottom line—how much time will I be able to take off from work if the deal goes through?”

She took her glasses off and pushed her pads away, and I nervously felt the need to clarify my question.

“How much time will I be able to take off from work if I decide to—”