If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails (21 page)

"M'daahm?" James offered, waiting in his bent position.

I decided to go for it because I thought it would be rude not to, and I was also really hungry. "Oh, thank you," I said.

Using my hand like the metal claw at the Palisades Amusement Park crane game, I reached down for the "burrito." I tried to get a good hold on it, but it was wetter than I thought and both the pink stuff and the caviar sprinkles kept sliding around. Finally, I grabbed it and popped the sucker into my mouth. The burrito filled every bit of my mouth, and I could hardly chew.

Will that be . . . all, m'daahm?" James asked without moving, his eyes wide, as if he were giving me a signal to take more.

I shook my head no and answered, "Hwumm hwmum," which was my stuffed-mouth version of "Thank you, James, that will be all."

James moved over to Mr. Milstein and offered him the tray. Mr. Milstein took a small silver fork and knife and a little plate from the table between us. He lifted a burrito and gracefully placed it on his plate. As I continued trying to chew, Mr. Milstein cut off a small piece, nudged it onto his fork, and tipped it into his mouth. He nodded at James and said, "Mrarara, perfect!"

Oh, God, I thought, gumming at my mouthful of mush, so that's what the little knife and fork were for!

Girl Scouts. The Fort Lee Pizzeria.

The first time I ever had pizza was with Miss Griffin and seven Girl Scouts. Miss Griffin, our eighth-grade teacher, was the only Holy Rosary School teacher who wasn't a nun. She had taken us to see To Kill a Mockingbird at the Fort Lee Movie Theater, and afterward, we went to the Fort Lee Pizzeria to have pizza.

When our pizza came, we all lifted a slice onto our paper plates and waited for it to cool. I followed Grace Dayock's lead on how to eat it. Grace raised the pizza to her mouth and chomped down. I raised my pizza to my mouth and chomped down too. But my teeth couldn't cut the cheese. My overbite wouldn't allow it.

I kept the pizza against my lips and looked around the table. The other Girl Scouts were well into their slices and hadn't noticed the pizza still stuck in my mouth. I grated my teeth back and forth. but the cheese just shifted along with my teeth. I opened my mouth to let go of the pizza, folded the dented tip back onto the slice, and quietly put the pizza back on my plate.

When I got home, Mom had just finished her bath. "What's for dinner, Mom?" I said through the bathroom door.

"Nothing," she answered, "dinner was at six. Didn't you eat dinner with the Girl Scouts and Miss Griffin?"

"Nope."

"Well, why not?" Mom asked, as she came out of the bathroom.

"My overbite wouldn't let me eat the pizza."

"That's pretty funny," she laughed. "So, why didn't you ask for a plate of spaghetti or something? Or just a knife and fork?"

"I couldn't," I said. "I was too embarrassed."

"Embarrassed? Why would you be embarrassed?"

"I didn't want anyone to see my buckteeth."

"Ha! That's ridiculous!" Mom huffed. "I'm sure the Girl Scouts have seen your buckteeth before. Besides, Barbara Ann, you have a beautiful smile, and you should never be ashamed of who you are. Now, why don't you go over to the refrigerator and find yourself something to eat."

Mr. Milstein spoke slowly. "Let me explain to you some of the synergisms we might enjoy together," he said. "Take advertising, for example. We would have a lot more buying clout and be able to negotiate substantial discounts if we were together."

"Hmmmm, " I answered, my eyes watering as I swallowed the tail end of the fishy mush.

"And we could cut the expenses of our back-office operations in half," he suggested, "possibly in thirds. We could also combine our individual offices and keep only the best salespeople. I'm sure you're carrying a lot of deadwood, like we are, and together we could eliminate it.

"And you could run both businesses!" he enthused. "And you'd be in charge of many more people than you are now."

James came back in and lowered his tray to offer me another bur-rito. "M'daahm?" he asked again. I stared down at the tray of food I didn't want, but, not wanting to offend my host, and not wanting to offend James for offering it, I decided I'd better take another.

I looked at the little knife and fork on the table next to my chair. With them I could eat as delicately as Mr. Milstein. But thinking about my mother, I decided I didn't want to.

"Oh, thank you," I said.

I lifted my hand and craned it over a burrito. Grabbing it dead center, I popped it into my mouth. "Mmmm. " I smiled.

Mr. Milstein talked on and on about synergies, market shares, diminishing returns, and a lot of other things that I wasn't educated enough to know about, had always heard about, and didn't really care about. Then he began his grand finale.

"Barbara, together our companies would have the majority control of the Manhattan real estate market, 7 ' he said. "And our combined companies could be sold for a lot more money than if we sold them separately."

I looked at Mr. Milstein and tried to picture him as my partner. Or would he be my employer? I wasn't sure. Maybe he just wanted to buy me wholesale and sell me retail. I didn't know.

"Well then, what do you think?" he asked confidently as he inched toward me in his leather chair.

"Would you like a political answer or an honest one?" I asked.

"An honest answer, of course," he said.

"No," I said. And with that, I thanked Mr. Milstein for the delicious food and the wonderful education and bade him good-bye.

MOM'S LESSON #83: Never be ashamed of who you are.

THE LESSON LEARNED ABOUT BEING YOURSELF

Sometimes people fail to realize that their personal points of difference are, in fact, often their best advantages, and that everyone likes and responds best to people who are comfortable with themselves.

Everyone recognizes someone who's genuine, especially in business, where group pressure often imposes the status quo of expected business behavior. I was never afraid to be different and got to where I was by being myself. Although I wasn't fancy and didn't have a business degree, I did have common sense and the ability to laugh at myself.

Mr. Milstein's offer turned out to be the first in a long line of similar propositions. But none of my suitors ever asked what my dreams and aspirations were before they started their sales pitch. If they had, they would have discovered that my personal goals had nothing to do with money, status, or power.

But my visit with Mr. Milstein got me thinking, and for the first time, I realized I had a business actually worth something! I decided to size up where I had been, where I was now, and, most important, where I wanted to go.

I realized that my dream of being the "Queen of New York Real Estate" had come true. I had taken the company from Ray Simone's $1,000 investment and the 1 BR + DEN ad to what was about to become the number one firm in the New York market. I had climbed my mountain and achieved everything I had set out to do, and had proven to myself that I could "succeed without him."

Thanks to the fabulous market of the nineties, The Corcoran Group was hugely profitable and had ended the year with more than $2 billion in sales. Our salespeople and employees were known as the best in the business. We had twelve beautifully designed offices equipped with the most advanced technology, and it was all paid for. In short, The Corcoran Group was in mint condition.

But I had seen bad times, too, and considered myself lucky to have made it through. With our overhead now more than a million dollars a month, liquidating my personal assets wouldn't be enough to carry the business through another downturn. I knew we needed deeper pockets.

I thought about taking on a financial partner as a minority shareholder, but knew that in bad times the partner with the most money often wrestles away majority control. I realized I was much too independent for that.

What I treasured most about building the business was working with all our great people and running the companv hand-in-hand like a family. But now there were so many people at the company, I no longer knew each person's name, and that bothered me.

Most importantly. I was now the mother of a little boy.' and my heart was torn between my family at home and my family at work. I felt guilty when I wasn't with my son and guilty when I wasn't with my business. My pursuit of the elusive balance that every working mom chases was proving impossible.

I came to the realization that my business was all grown up, and ready to leave mom and go out on its own. I soon found someone who not only offered me the right price, but also offered me enough freedom and enough latitude to continue making The Corcoran Group the best in the business.

Besides, I had been "Barbara Corcoran, the real estate lady" for so long. I started thinking it might be nice to see what it was like to be just Barbara Corcoran.

I N 01 DON I HAVE BI (, BRE VSTS

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All the machines were taken, and I stood in line behind a woman whose gray-and-white hair was styled just like her Yorkie's. When it was m\ turn, I stepped up to the machine on the far left side, put in my bankcard. entered my security code tapped "Fast Cash," then "S200." I heard the familiar tat-a-tat-a-tat. tat-a-tat-a-tat, as the machine counted out the money, and was relieved to hear the errmrk as the stack of twenties slid out the front. I put the cash in mv Filofax and took the receipt.

On my way to the garbage can by the front window, I took a quick look at the receipt before tossing it in. My arm screeched to a halt. I stared at the receipt in utter disbelief and moved it closer, squinting my eyes to make sure I wasn't imagining things. I turned my head left and then right like an owl, looking to see if anyone was watching. No one was. The Yorkie lady passed me and smiled. Moving closer to the window. I tilted the receipt toward the light to take another look.

Yes, the balance really did read $46,732,917.32! 1 was sure of it. My God, I thought. I've got to show this to someone! The six people standing at the teller machines had their backs to me. and suddenly the thought of showing am of them mv receipt seemed ridiculous. But I just couldn't go home. I needed to do something to celebrate.

I carefully folded the blue-and-white receipt in half, tucked it into my bra, and walked over to the diner next door. I picked a scat at the empty table by the window and quickly straightened out the

sugar container, ketchup bottle, and salt and pepper shakers, before the waitress came over.

"What can I get you, honey?" she asked.

What the heck, I thought, III go whole hog today. After all, this isn't just any old day! "I'll have eggs Benedict, a large glass of orange juice, and coffee, please," I said. The waitress was wearing a rhinestone heart pinned to her white collar, and I added, "That's really a lovely pin you have there."

"Oh, thank you," she said, seeming grateful that I had noticed. "It was my mother's."

When my eggs arrived, I took out the Citibank receipt from my bra, smoothed out the crease, and leaned it against the sugar dispenser. I took a sip of hot coffee and wondered if Esther had visited her bank yet. I laughed at the thought of Esther quickly tucking her bank receipt into her pocketbook and snapping it shut. I remembered the chart I'd drawn the day I talked Esther into becoming my partner, and the wild projections of how far we would go. Things had turned out even bigger than we had dared to imagine.

I thought about all the incredible adventures we had had building the business, and how lucky I was to have been given the freedom to create a world just as I dreamed it could be. I thought about the people who had stood by me through thick and thin, and how everyone at The Corcoran Group had built great lives for themselves. And I felt the immense satisfaction of a job well done.

The boring man at the next table was telling his sister all the news she had missed while she was away on a trip of some kind. He yakked on and on about the bad economy, Republican politics, and the city's terrible school system. When they were finished, the man paid the bill, turned to his sister, and said, "Oh, and did you hear Barbara Corcoran sold her business for mega-millions?" He didn't wait for a response before adding, "Must be nice to have all that money in the bank."

Yes, I guess it is, I reflected, but the real joy has been in getting here.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE BIG BREASTS

211

I opened the packet of newspaper articles and read through the pile of clippings.

The New York Times

TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 25,2001

Corcoran Sells Realty Firm She Founded

Cashing Out After Years Of Rising Housing Prices

By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

Barbara Corcoran, the powerhouse Manhattan real estate broker, agreed yesterday to sell the firm she founded, the Corcoran Group.

NEW YORK POST

LATE CITY FINAL

September 25, 2001

It's official:

Corcoran

to Cendant

By BRADEN KEIL Following an emotionally charged company meeting last Friday, Barbara Corcoran sent a memo to company employees announcing the sale of the Corcoran Group.

Barbara Corcoran

CHAIN'S

NEW YORK BUSINESS®

October 1-7, 2001

Corcoran's home run

. . . Although terms of the transaction weren't disclosed, people close to the deal say it was priced at $70 million.

OUR TOWN

Queen of NY Real Estate

If you're looking for new digs in New York, and dwell in one of the loftier tax brackets, chances are you've heard of Barbara Corcoran. Even if you're having trouble making the rent on that studio in Astoria, you know her face. She's the shorthaired blonde sporting an incandescent smile in that commercial with the catchy song and fabulous apartments. In her 28 years as head of the Corcoran Group, she has reached the pinnacle of the toughest real estate market this side of Tokyo.

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213

WOMEN'S BUSINESS

October 2001

After Merger, Corcoran Group Remains Fully Intact