Chapter 12-Rascal Redux

REMEMBER RASCAL? When last we heard about our furry rodent he’d survived the $700 surgery and the plastic cone.
One morning, the day that Frances and I were scheduled to fly to Dallas again, I heard Ruby screaming, “Mommy! Mommy! Rascal’s disappeared into the wall. He’s going to get lost. We’ll never find him.”
Kendall, who is two years older than Ruby, and very street wise for her age, said, “Mom, he’s going to crawl up there and die and then he’ll stink up the whole house.”
Obviously, Kendall wasn’t as attached to Rascal as Ruby was. To Ruby, he was a friend. To me, he was rapidly becoming an investment.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s think this through logically. What can we do to lure Rascal back out?”
“I know. Let’s get some of those yogurt balls he loves so much and we’ll put them by the hole and when he comes out, I’ll grab him,” Ruby offered.
Humh…very good idea.
So we put two yogurt balls, the blueberry flavored ones he loved, in front of the hole and tried not to stare for fear we’d scare Rascal back. We then adjourned to the dining room and waited. I left the girls there and went upstairs to pack. Our flight was leaving in four hours.
When I returned, Rascal had retrieved the treats, and slipped back into his new hiding place. By the time we noticed, another hour had passed and so I told Ruby that we’d have to take a more proactive stance—I would take a large butcher knife and saw a bigger hole around the opening in the drywall, thinking I could then just reach in and grab him.
Unfortunately, the hole I cut was just next to a stud, so I couldn’t reach him. Then Ruby started to cry, and knowing I needed reinforcements, I called Frances to come over and help assess the situation, telling her I was afraid I was going to be late, and how we couldn’t leave with such an emergency transpiring.
By the time Frances arrived, we were down to two hours.
“What am I going to do, Frances?”
“I’ve got it. Unless you put the food further back away from the wall, he isn’t going to have to reach out much. So, let’s put his treats about four feet out. Then we’ve all got to go into another room so he doesn’t know we’re here.”
“Yeah, but then how are we gonna know when he comes out so we can grab him?” I asked.
“Well, aw... I know. We’ll use the baby monitor.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“We’ll put the baby monitor speaker down near the cabinet and then we’ll put the receiver in the living room with us, and when we hear him come out, we’ll quick, come in, and nab him. Hurry now. Get the monitor. We cannot miss this flight.” Frances said.
I ran upstairs and got the two monitors and did as she told me. The four of us went into the living room and sat huddled around the receiver waiting for the telltale pitter-patter of little feet. Nothing.
Another hour passed and we gave Ruby the job of keeping her ear close to the monitor while we made last minute cell phone calls. We had only an hour left.
“You know what? I’m just going to tiptoe in there to check and see if he’s eaten any of the goodies,” I said. Sure enough, the yogurt balls were gone. When I told Frances what a dumb idea I thought she’d had—after all, how much noise does a hamster make—Ruby broke out in tears again.
Well, there was no way we were going to miss our flight on account of a hamster. I didn’t want Ruby to be upset, so I decided she would be in charge of catching Rascal while we were away on a short, two day trip in the hopes that having a mission would calm her. She relished the assignment.
Fortunately, I was packed, which gave me just enough time to run to the pet store and buy a humane cage. I brought it back, showed Ruby and the sitter who was staying with the kids that weekend how to use it, and Frances and I were off.
There followed at least 10 Rascal sightings that Ruby was kind enough to report one by one via cell phone. Whenever I see my home number light up in caller ID, I always answer. With three children, you never know what’s going to be happening next.
The first call came when we were in a meeting with Doris and some top executives from Manheim’s. Now, you have to picture this staid boardroom with these executives, Doris, me, and Frances sitting in large imposing high-back, black leather chairs, talking very seriously about upcoming orders, marketing strategies, and whatnot, when the Chinese Dance ring tone blares out of my purse.
“Hi, honey. What’s up?” I said, knowing it was Ruby.
“Mommy, we saw him! We saw him! He was behind the toilet upstairs,” she said, very excited.
“Behind the toilet?” I blurted. “Did you catch him?”
All heads turn to me. I smile. I can hear Frances tapping her foot under the table.
“No, Mommy. He got away.”
“Okay, honey. Well, you just keep trying to catch him and I’ll be home tomorrow night.” I flipped the phone closed and smiled again.
Within 10 minutes, the chime was going off again, but by now, our meeting was over and we were in the hall. This resulted in hourly reports of Rascal sightings from the bathroom, the dining room, the kitchen and back.
By the time I returned home, Rascal was still on the lam and then Frances had another great idea.
“Jude, why don’t we just go buy another hamster that looks like Rascal and put him in the cage? Ruby will never know.”
“That’s a great idea!” I said. So the following morning, Frances and I took a picture that Ruby had taken of Rascal and went to the pet store to find a clone. Most of them looked very similar, but we found one that was just right. We put him in the cage when Ruby was outside playing.
When Ruby came in, she was ecstatic. She grabbed the hefty hamster and gave him a big hug while Frances and I held our col¬lective breaths to see if she was going to be able to tell that it wasn’t Rascal.
All was well and we went back to our normal routines until one morning, about a week later, while Rascal #2 was running on the treadmill in his cage, Ruby yelled, “Mom! Mom! Rascal’s found a friend.”
What?
When I went into the dining room, sitting there as sassy as you please was Rascal #1 sniffing at the intruder that was in his home. Turns out Rascal #2 was a female. Why didn’t we think of that in the first place?
Upshot?
We almost missed a very important flight because of a hamster.
I paid $125 for a humane cage, and it cost me $250 for a handyman to repair the drywall where I’d carved out a three foot wide hole.
But all in all, it turned out well. We used the humane cage to put Rascal #1 in until we could slowly introduce him to his new girlfriend, and they could share one cage. And, most importantly, Ruby was happy and her mother hadn’t let her down.
Aw, the little memories in life. There are so many things that go on with our business; the frantic dashing for airplanes, the lost IDs, the incessant cell phone calls, the successes we enjoy in our business, the failures…but the ones that I remember most are always about my children and the things they are going through as I watch them grow up.
Frances mentioned that our work energizes us, and it does. I know she would agree if I added here, that our children also ener¬gize us. That’s not to pretend they don’t wear us out mentally, emotionally and physically as well because, let’s face it, kids do that too.
However, there are times when, as the old TV program proved, Kids Say The Darndest Things. After we’d been on several whirlwind business trips and Frances and I had both shared our elation and our successes and tried to explain why we weren’t always there for them, Colt, my oldest, came into the living room one night as I was holding a cold compress to my head. He was 11 at the time.
It was nearly midnight and Frances and I had just finished another 15- hour day. I was exhausted, I couldn’t sleep.
“Mom,” he said.
“Hi, sweetie. You should be in bed. What’s up?”
“Yeah, I know. I couldn’t sleep, either.”
“Well then, how did your day go?”
“Fine. You know what, Mom? I just wanted to talk to you.”
“Sure, sweetie,” I said, pulling myself up and preparing for something bad.
“Well, I just wanted you to know that I’m really proud of you and I love you.”
With that he bent over and gave me a huge hug, turned, and went back to bed like a young guardian angel. I was breathless for a second. Colt had always been kind and thoughtful, even as a pre¬schooler, so it wasn’t out of character for him to make that gesture. Still, it was a surprise—a very pleasant one.
And then the tears started.
Talk about getting energized.
By April of 2003, we had nearly a full line of designs. People were calling it “edgy but elegant.” One magazine reviewer wrote: “JudeFrances Jewelry is progressive enough to appeal to the modern woman’s ambitious independent side, yet delicate enough to express her romantic feminine side.”
Wow! The writer had captured exactly what Frances and I had been trying to create, though we had summed it up with the word “fun.” We knew in our hearts that no one has to buy jewelry; it isn't exactly a survival staple.
However, being marketing savvy, I explained to Frances that the psychology of buying jewelry was much more sophisticated than just having fun. The right piece can actually make you feel more independent, elegant, or ambitious.
The funny thing is, when we started designing in the very beginning, we didn't give much thought to such lofty Madison Avenue psychological factors.
Then, just when Frances and I thought we had our audience nailed as the “every woman,” who should walk into our trunk show but the most powerful woman in the world—or at least one of the most influential—the big “O”, Oprah.
Frances and I were at one of the Manheim’s trunk shows when I spotted her. I was so excited I just started stammering to Frances, “Oh my gaw-w-w-d. Look, it’s Oprah,” I said in a high-pitched, excited voice that I’m so grateful she couldn’t hear. Frances stopped what she was doing and began gawking as well. There she was in the flesh and then she started walking toward us.
“Oh, these are fun,” she said picking up a pair of hoops.
I have to admit, although I’ve always wanted to meet the woman who, in my mind, is the empress of self-reliance and the goddess of our philosophy of Just Go for It, the first thing that crossed my mind, being the marketing person that I am, was expo¬sure, sales, sales, sales. If Oprah bought something, and then this was an even bigger stretch—she actually wore it on her show, and then in my dream, she mentioned our company—
we would still be filling orders when all of our kids had grad¬uated from college.
The second thing that came to mind was Danielle McCourt, the woman who charged us $500 for the privilege of being told we’d never make it. You remember, the one who said we were West Coast Wannabes.
I faded into a vision of Frances and me being on TV, inter¬viewed on Oprah’s show. Oprah says, “So, tell us one of your worst experiences…”
“Yes, yes,” I blurted to Oprah as I jerked out of my daydream.
“They are fun, aren’t they? That’s pretty much how we design. We consider ourselves the Ford of the jewelry world, and we pride our¬selves on creating for every woman…” Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my shin where Frances had kicked me. I was babbling like an awe-struck teenager.
“Yes, these are very nice. I love the cross. How much is it?” she asked, and I thought that’s funny; here is the wealthiest woman in the world and she’s shopping retail, just like everyone else.
“That’s $3,000, Ms. Winfrey.” I didn’t feel it was appropriate to call her Oprah, or at least not just yet.
“Oh, I love the Fleur de lis hoops, too, but I don’t have pierced ears. I would like the cross, though, girls,” she said.
I pounced on the opportunity. “Ms. Winfrey…”
“No, dear. Call me Oprah, please.”
“Okay, Oprah. We could make some hoops for you with clips, so you wouldn’t have to pierce your ears.”
“Really? That would be great. Here’s my address and number. Call me when they’re done. Can you send them to me when they’re ready?”
“Of course. Of course.”
Oprah Winfrey was giving me her address and phone number? This was just too good to believe. I looked up to the ceiling and muttered a short thank you to God. In that serendipitous minute, I knew down in my bones that we were going to be hugely suc¬cessful and I could quit worrying about it. I felt a warm flow of peace come over me and just smiled, not just because Oprah was buying some of our pieces, but also because I could just feel it.
We did very well at the event and, of course, Oprah was the coup de grace. Aside from actually buying our jewelry, she’d single handedly attracted a huge crowd around us. When the hoops were done, I called her and had them shipped and then two weeks later, when I had a break, I tuned into her show one afternoon.
“Oh my gaw-w-w-d,” I yelled out to Frances, holding my hand over my mouth. “Frances, come in here. We’re on TV,” I yelled into her office.
“What? What do you mean we’re on TV? They weren’t filming me when I got that ticket, were they?”
“No. No, we’re on Oprah. She’s wearing our charms and the cross. I can’t believe it!” I was so excited I had goose bumps run¬ning down both arms and legs.
“Oh God, you’re right. Look at that. I can’t believe it. Do you think she’ll mention us?” Frances said.
I kept saying, “Come on, O, let’s hear it. Who made the jew¬elry? Come on. Come on.”
I couldn’t believe I was talking to the television as if Oprah would divine my voice and give us a plug. She eventually did men¬tion us and within days we began to get calls about our line. We were astounded, and oh-so-grateful.
That’s when I had a brilliant idea. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. We had a large gold circle pendant with a hug and a kiss in the center of it. We should send one to her. Who better to wear an O around her neck than Oprah? Surely she would remember us. Frances got to work on it the very next day and within two weeks we had the piece. I put a card in with the box with a short note, sent it, and then we waited.
About two weeks later, I got a two-page letter, not a thank you card, but a handwritten letter with the ABC studio return address on it. Just the sight of it took my breath away. As I slowly unfolded it, I had visions of grandeur. I imagined how she would be thanking me and wanting to order hundreds of the Os to hand out to her audience, how she was going to tout JudeFrances Jewelry as the next coming in the accessories world, how….
“Dear Jude and Frances:
Oprah loves your hoops and the cross and if you
haven’t been watching the show, she’s worn them con
¬stantly. The O necklace is just lovely, really. She loves
it. However….”

That was how Oprah’s assistant’s letter started, however…the dreaded word. Whenever anyone says, “However,” you know that what’s about to come next negates anything said before. Just then, I turned and the necklace fell out of the envelope.
“However, she just can’t accept this beautiful gift of yours. Ms. Winfrey makes it a strict policy not to accept gifts. If she likes something, she pays for it. But thank you for your kind thoughts; we all wish the two of you great success and harmony,” she finished.
I handed the letter to Frances. I was a little disappointed, but elated just the same. Here we were corresponding with the most influential woman in the country as if we were buddies. We were glad she found our work appealing and hoped that connection would turn into something very important.
In late May, we had our first opportunity to be in The Luxury Show at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. It was a real stretch coming up with the $25,000 entry fee, but Doris had told us it was not to be missed if we were really going to grow.
She continued to help our careers in the most unexpected ways.
First, she’d given us a free loan. Next, she gave us an exclusive. After that, she provided referrals and information to help us grow and finally, for the time being anyway, she continued to pay for any jewelry we sent that was supposed to be on consignment.
Doris, wherever you are today, may the retail gods smile down on you!
Most of the people who exhibit at The Luxury Show bring in literally millions and millions of dollars worth of precious jewelry, the kind you see hanging around the necks of only celebrities or the wives of celebrities.
Our entire line, the case that we wanted to bring, amounted to a paltry $20,000 worth, and none of it was precious or “fine” as they call it in the trade. Nevertheless, it might as well have been millions because we’d have to pay to have it all made and we still couldn’t afford to have more than one set of everything made at a time for shows. If we lost that, we could kiss the $25,000 entry fee goodbye (non-refundable, of course) as well as an enormous opportunity, not to mention the jewelry.
The first decision was obvious, at least to us. Let’s not take the chance of shipping it, or even carrying it with us on a plane. We were both paranoid about it; so much so, that Frances suggested we drive it there, even though Las Vegas is a hot 6-hour drive.
That’s when Frances came up with the brilliant idea of hiring a bodyguard, which turned out to be perfect, because he came with his own limo.
The bodyguard told us to be ready promptly at 8:00 a.m. the morning of our departure, and though there weren’t any airports involved, we still managed to be late.
While Frances was getting ready, Sophie, her Great Dane— think Marmaduke—got out of the house once again. She’s basically harmless, but if you happen to be walking down the street and see her bounding in your direction, your first thought is to quickly find a tree to climb.
Frances was still in her bathrobe and slippers, about to get dressed, when she noticed the front door open and realized Sophie must have gotten out—freedom is one of Sophie’s fun things to do.
Out the door ran Frances, down the driveway, and around the corner. One slipper had come off and her robe was beginning to come untied when she saw a horde of people milling about.
Apparently, a local boy, the son of a prominent local politician, had been arrested and there were no less than five TV network satellite trucks with all their accompanying crew and newscasters out in front of this neighbor’s house.
With all the cameras running, the newscasters with micro¬phones at the ready, Sophie came bounding through the morass of cables and wires, tail wagging gaily, eight-inch tongue flapping from one side of her face to the other, and Frances chasing after her.
Just about the time Sophie was collared and the two of them were walking back up the driveway, the limo appeared.
If there had ever been any man born to be a bodyguard, Guido Spantoni was him. He could block the sun standing 20 feet from you. He was the largest person I’d ever seen. He bulged with mus¬cles to the point they stretched all the seams in his black suit to the bursting point.
In addition, he had a face only a mother could love. One of his front teeth was solid gold and his eyebrows were as bushy and as thatched as Jamaican beach umbrellas. He was bald, had a long deep scar running down the left side of his face from his eyebrow to his chin, the result he later told us, of a knife fight where he’d killed a guy in a bar in self defense.
“Good choice,” I said to Frances as he offered to open the doors of the limo for us. He’d arrived in a stretch Lincoln Continental that could have accommodated 15 people.
The entire scene was so absurd. Frances and I came strutting down the sidewalk with our bags and the keys to the kingdom— our one little jewelry box with all our samples—as if we were royalty.
The ensuing scene at the Venetian was even more ludicrous. Guido did not use the valet parking at the hotel. Instead, he just brazenly parked the ridiculously long Lincoln right in front of the lobby doors, totally ignoring the valets.
As we sat inside, he promptly came around to the side of the car, opened the doors, asked for the box of jewelry, and then let us out. We followed him, not knowing exactly what to do about the car and our luggage, as he now had fallen into full character as our portable bouncer.
His stature alone would have cleared a path through all those waiting for cabs, but that wasn’t sufficient. He pushed people aside left and right like they were rag dolls. He shouted, “Don’t move. I can see everything. I have 360-degree peripheral vision. You, you there, that little man to the right, I can see you with that funny hat on,” he said, referring to a guy who indeed was standing nearly behind us. I was amazed.
When the valets at the Venetian began to unload our bags, he turned around and said, “Don’t touch those. I’ll be back. Stand away from the car.”
The thing that really made it all so funny, if not embarrassing, was the fact that here was this man about six feet, six inches tall, tipping the scales at a conservative 300 pounds shoving and shouting at people, but the prize he was protecting was only a dainty little box, about 15 inches square—think makeup kit. He had dubbed the box, the football in honor of the presidential nuclear trigger in a briefcase.
While the limo was still idling in front, blocking some of the taxis, we followed Guido inside and then he followed us to the check-in desk. Once we’d secured our keys, he followed us duti¬fully up to our room, made sure we were okay alone with the box and then and only then, did he proceed back downstairs to park the limo himself.