We laughed; Lane laughing hardest and shaking a bit of white wine from his glass to his jacket, and mine.
From there, we went off, still laughing, to see some of his work.
Lane, 77, is world famous for his “Fabulous Fakes,” bold, imaginative pieces of jewelry celebrities have carted about on their ears, necks, hips, wrists, fingers, jackets and dresses for five decades.
Showcase after showcase of his work - 350 pieces - is on display at the manor house at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay through Aug. 31.
Recently, King-Cohen - who usually gets to write about pretty things, like fashion and home makeovers - invited me - who usually gets to write about ugly things, like politics and taxes - to accompany her for a preview of the show and a private dinner at Coe Hall.
At first, I didn’t want to go. It usually takes dynamite - or the usual late-breaking disaster - to separate me from family and, on Thursdays, a new episode of “Bones.”
Besides, I don’t do wine. Or much jewelry. And hanging out with well-attired people in manor houses usually makes me nervous.
Last Thursday, the company was extraordinarily gracious. And the manor house, which until recently was not open for exhibits, was extraordinary.
I would learn later - from Henry B. Joyce, exhibit curator and also executive director of the Planting Fields Foundation - that the man who designed the manor house also designed the Oval Office.
But that would come during dinner, long after Joyce had introduced me to Lane, who I would be stunned to find out later in the evening is considered to be aloof.
As a boy, he said, he liked to draw and never planned to be a jewelry designer. And when he saw Mae West, wearing “lots and lots” of jewelry in a movie, he began to draw sketches of her. “I once drew a picture of my mother,” he said, dryly. “She came out looking like Mae West.”
And he told a story of his first visit to New York City, with his mother. (”We came in from Deh-trois,” he said, “which most people pronounced as [his hometown] Detroit. And I almost immediately bought a pair of canary-colored gloves.”)
Lane started out as a shoe designer, which came in handy when he decided to wrap pieces of snakeskin around pieces of plastic to make some of his first pieces of jewelry.
“I went to a man who made plastic high heels to help me,” he said.
At one point during the evening, we ended up around a display case with some of his many animal pieces.
I know nothing about jewelry; but these looked like tiny, wildly imagined, flowing sculptures of unicorns, a big, flat gold frog, bejeweled octopi and a languid-looking snail that left me studying the display for evidence of its trail.
How do you do it? I asked. Do you make a small model? Close your eyes and design it in your head?
“It’s a secret,” he said, laughing once more.
And then he pointed to a dark, shiny octopus, which seemed to be pulsating its way toward the safety of a crevice of driftwood in the display case.
And he said, in a low voice: “That came from a glass octopus I found in a nowhere shop in Italy.”
He would know, since almost every piece on display - which spans from the 1960s to the 1990s - is from his private collection.
Shortly thereafter, Lane walked outside, for the umpteenth time that evening, to smoke.
Someone asked why he didn’t quit.
“You quit,” Lane was said to have said, drolly, “on the day you die.”
Somebody told me that story at dinner, where we were served chicken pot pie, asparagus, mashed potatoes, wine and a variety of desserts, in historic Coe Hall, where a portrait of Elizabeth the queen hangs in the foyer.