Play Dates (49 page)

MARSH:
Not on your life. In fact, I think that living in New York

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keeps me grounded, despite the fact that we’re actually several stories above street level here. New York is where I
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grew up and where I prefer to raise Zoë. The pulse of the city is in our blood. I can’t imagine what we’d do in L.A., in fact.

ZOË MARSH
: Swim a lot.

CELEBRITY:
So you like to swim, Zoë?

ZOË:
Uh-huh.

MARSH:
Speak in real words, please, Zoë.

ZOË:
Yes. I like to swim a lot. And in California we would have a lot of sunshine. But all my friends are here and so is my Aunt MiMi.

CELEBRITY:
But your Aunt MiMi—Mia Marsh—has become something of a Hollywood darling herself of late, hasn’t she?

MARSH:
Yes, her own cosmetics line took off like a shot, too. So between that and her film gigs, it’s true, she’s out in L.A. a lot. She just finished designing the special-effects makeup for
Halloween XXVI
and she’s about to start on
Titanic 2:
Let’s Haul Her Up
for James Cameron. But she’s still pretty much a newlywed and her husband adores New York.

Mia’s a real East Villager at heart. I think her brain would atrophy in Hollywood.

CELEBRITY:
And yours?

MARSH:
My brain? [she laughs]. I’m kind of a culture vulture, I must admit.

ZOË:
What’s a culture vulture?

MARSH:
Somebody who likes art and ballet and museums and theater . . .

ZOË:
You never go to the theater. Well, hardly ever. [she turns to the interviewer]. She used to work in a museum, though.

That’s how she got discovered. Sort of.

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CELEBRITY:
Why don’t you talk about that a bit, Claire?

MARSH:
I think I need to set the scene. Any single mom can

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attest to the fact that if you need to work for a living, doing so while raising and caring for a child can make you feel like a hamster in a cage. That wheel just never stops turning. After my divorce, I needed to find a job that was flexible enough to bend into the pretzel that was Zoë’s schedule. Believe me, her social life was much more exciting than mine. And affording professional, even para-

professional, child care was a complete non-option. In fact, I’d like to thank my parents in print for contributing to our upkeep. If it weren’t for them, Zoë and I would have been living in a cardboard refrigerator box in Central Park.

ZOË:
It would have been a cool view, though.

MARSH:
Zoë, why don’t you start your homework now?

ZOË:
I can’t.

MARSH:
Why?

ZOË:
I need your help. We have to redesign the solar system because of the new planet they discovered. I need Styrofoam balls, too, and we don’t have any.

MARSH:
Why don’t we walk over to the Rose Center [the planetarium affiliated with the New York City Museum of Natural History] and see what they came up with?

ZOË:
We’re not allowed to do that. That’s copying.

CELEBRITY:
[laughing]. We’re getting a little off track here.

Claire, you were telling me about how you worked in a
museum when you got your start as a jewelry designer.

MARSH:
Sorry about the digression there. So I had a day job at one of the reproduction jewelry counters at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and when I had a little time on my hands, I started to look at some of the pieces to see how they were made, and thought I could do at least as good a job. I always designed jewelry as a hobby when I was younger . . .

CELEBRITY:
You’re still pretty young now! If you don’t mind my
asking, how old are you?

MARSH:
I do mind. As Oscar Wilde said—and I paraphrase, “A

woman who will tell someone her age will tell them anything.”

CELEBRITY:
[coyly] Then how
young
are you?

MARSH:
As Oscar Wilde said—actually he has Cecily Cardew say it in
The Importance of Being Earnest,
“I admit to twenty at dinner parties.”

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CELEBRITY:
I give up.

MARSH:
Good. I never understood this mania people have, par-Avon

ticularly the press, for needing to know someone’s age.

Honestly, who the %@$*^* cares?

ZOË:
Mommy, you used the F-word!

MARSH:
Anyway, one afternoon I had a rather fortuitous visit from a customer who happened to be the mother of one of Zoë’s classmates. Actually, before that, Zoë and I had attended another classmate’s birthday party—

ZOË:
Lissa isn’t a classmate. She’s in my Museum Adventures after-school program.

MARSH:
I stand corrected. Lissa had a jewelry-making party—

you know, all the kids’ parties are themed these days—last year we went to one in an O.R. at Mount Sinai because the kid wants to be a doctor when she grows up. I swear, all the kids were in scrubs and watched a liver transplant.

Sorry about that. Back to the jewelry party. My designs were a big hit among the other moms, and it spawned a cottage industry. Shortly after that, Nina Osborne—the woman I referred to a minute ago—visited me at the Met Museum and gave me the business card of a friend of hers who happens to be a buyer at Barney’s. I went to see her, she gave me a contract, and the rest, as they say, is history.

CELEBRITY:
Actually, it was your sister, wasn’t it, who got your
designs into the consciousness of the Hollywood
cognoscenti?

MARSH:
Definitely. I wear Mia’s makeup exclusively and she wears all my jewelry designs. The Marsh family has always encouraged cooperation over competition, so there was never any major sibling rivalry between Mia and myself.

ZOË:
That’s not what you and MiMi used to tell me.

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MARSH:
Zoë, I baked some Kahlua brownies and left the plate in the kitchen. Why don’t you run in and bring it out for our

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guest?

ZOË:
Okay. [she leaves]

CELEBRITY:
You were saying . . .

MARSH:
Right. So Mia was working on
Taste Me
with Sharon

Stone, and Stone admired Mia’s jewelry. She was the first Hollywood star to buy one of my pieces. And she’s always been a style setter. She loves to go for that classic

Hollywood but with a twist look. Remember the time she wore a Gap tee-shirt with a long skirt to the Oscars? Well, several of my pieces combine that eclecticism, so she really took to them. Then of course Catherine Zeta-Jones had to have one. Arnold bought a few pieces to appease Maria after some sort of domestic squabble, I was told. Mel wanted me to design a unique pendant for Monica Bellucci to wear as Mary Magdalene in
The Second Coming,
his sequel to
The Passion of the Christ,
but I said it was a no-go unless he donated five million dollars to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

CELEBRITY:
And now all of Hollywood—well, except Mel—is
wearing Claire Marsh Originals! How does that make you
feel?

MARSH:
That’s kind of a silly question, Leslie. I mean, it’s the obverse of asking a grieving mother how it feels to find out her kid was killed in Iraq. How does it make me feel to have a multimillion-dollar jewelry business within such a short space of time? It feels $%)^&^$%$) fantastic.

ZOË:
[reentering the room precipitously balancing a large platter of the aforementioned brownies] You said the F-word again, Mommy. You never use the F-word and you used it two times today. You sound like MiMi. [to the interviewer]

My Aunt MiMi uses the F-word a lot, even though Mommy always tells her that she knows lots of other words and she could use more variety in her enthusiasm.

CELEBRITY:
[to Marsh]. You really said that?

MARSH:
[blushing a little]. Well, maybe not in so many words.

ZOË:
Yes, those words, Mommy, that’s how I know them.

MARSH:
Why don’t you offer Leslie a brownie, Zoë?

CELEBRITY:
[taking a brief break to scarf down a brownie].

These are delicious.

MARSH:
Thanks. They’re a secret family recipe.

CELEBRITY:
So, not to change the subject or anything, but which

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celebrities will you accessorize on the red carpet next
week?

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MARSH:
Nicole, certainly. Catherine and Sharon, of course. I hear that Meryl has asked to see two different pieces that I designed based on Fabergé eggs, since she’s nominated for her performance as Catherine the Great. Haley Joel Osment’s date will be wearing my earrings. Oh, and Alice Finnegan—she’s a new client—couldn’t be a nicer woman—she’s become a real friend—she promised to wear something as well. She dropped a hint that she’s always wanted to wear a tiara, and I’ve never done one, so this could be new territory for both of us. She wants to conjure the image of old-fashioned Hollywood glamour, particularly since she had to look like such a wreck through most of her film.

CELEBRITY:
As long as she doesn’t end up looking like the
Queen of England.

MARSH:
That’s not likely to happen with my pieces. It’s funny, isn’t it?

CELEBRITY:
What is?

MARSH:
That the actresses who have to ugly up or dress down in their pictures are the ones who win the Oscar that year.

CELEBRITY:
Are you saying that it’s Alice Finnegan’s wardrobe
and makeup that should win the Academy Award?

MARSH:
Hell, no! And don’t make me look like that’s what I was saying. That’s another thing you journalists love to do. Put words in our mouths and make us look catty or stupid.

CELEBRITY:
We would never . . . !

MARSH:
No, you blame it on your editors for cutting out the parts that reflected what we really said!

CELEBRITY:
I’ll ignore that. So . . . you’ve got a thriving new
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business that seems to know no limit. Do you ever run out
of ideas?

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MARSH:
Are you asking if my creative wells run dry? Sure. I think that’s got to be true of any artist. But you know who my main inspiration is? Zoë.

ZOË:
Me?

MARSH:
You, kiddo. When you’re lucky enough to have an inquisitive young child and you try to experience life through their eyes, where every day is filled with myriad

delightful discoveries, it tends to recharge your artistic batteries.

ZOË:
Would you like another brownie, Miss . . . I forgot your name.

CELEBRITY:
Carroll. Ms. Carroll. But you can call me Leslie.

ZOË:
Do you want another brownie, Leslie? [interviewer helps herself to a second brownie.] Do you have a boyfriend?

CELEBRITY:
Newspaper writers get to
ask
the questions, they
don’t have to
answer
them.

ZOË:
Oh. My mommy has a boyfriend. His name is Dennis. I think they’re going to get married like my Aunt MiMi did.

I have a new uncle now. His name is Owen. He’s very nice.

MiMi taught him how to dress nice, too, because I think he was color blond.

CELEBRITY:
Excuse me?

MARSH:
Color
blind,
Zoë. And I don’t think Owen is. I think he

was just sartorially confused.

ZOË:
What’s “sartorially” mean?

MARSH:
It means pertaining to someone’s clothing or sense of style, or the way they dress.

ZOË:
Oh. [to interviewer]. You’re sartorially nice. I like miniskirts, too. And your shoes are really pretty. Mommy won’t let me wear high heels like that.

MARSH:
Because you’re still in grammar school. And will be for quite some time.

CELEBRITY:
Thank you, Zoë. So, Claire, tell us about Dennis.

MARSH:
He’s a New York City fireman—

ZOË:
My mommy is dating a hero.

MARSH:
[blushing]. I don’t think Dennis thinks of himself that way. [she lowers her voice to a near whisper.] He was down at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Lost a lot of bud-dies from his engine company.

CELEBRITY:
Wow. That must still be very hard on him.

MARSH:
I think it is.

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CELEBRITY:
Zoë seems to think there may be wedding bells in
your future.

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MARSH:
I don’t like to jinx anything. The problem with giving an interview to you tabloids is that you blow stuff way out of proportion and then gloat like crazy when you do a follow-up report on the celebrity dust-up. Dennis and I are both very happy right now and we hope that continues to be the case. I refuse to give you any reasons to indulge in preliminary schadenfreüde.

ZOË:
What’s—?

MARSH:
Gleefully enjoying other people’s misery.

ZOË:
It sounds like a kind of ice cream. Like Häagen-Dazs.

MARSH:
It’s colder. You know, Leslie, there’s a funny thing about a personal life. See, it’s personal.

CELEBRITY:
Then I’m running out of questions, here.

MARSH:
I can tell.

CELEBRITY:
Now that Claire Marsh Originals has become an
enormous undertaking, how do you juggle the demands of
career and motherhood? Do you still have the kind of flexibility you had when you started up as a cottage industry?