Sensing her hesitation, Gafrucci rubbed his chin. “Well, hold on.” Gafrucci surveyed the jobsite from eight stories up, mulling it over. “Dusk, right?” Anna nodded. “On a Wednesday?” Anna nodded again. He massaged his jaw some more. “I think we can do it on the sly—you know, no paperwork.” He turned his ice-blue eyes on her. “But it won’t be—in the strictest sense—legal.”
“Meaning we all go to jail?”
Gafrucci guffawed a little too heartily. “No, of course not. We get fined.”
“How much.”
“Depends.”
“Range?”
“Fifty to two hundred and fifty thousand.”
“Fifty dollars?”
“Yup.”
“What are the chances we get caught?”
“Low! My guys are the best.”
“How low?”
“Twenty percent.”
Anna tallied up the assets in her anniversary party basket: Chef cooking privately imported (technically smuggled) fresh produce and seafood from Italy, New York Philharmonic pianist (in earplugs), rafts of cherry blossoms (from Seoul!); but still . . . the real wow factor was the heart firework. Even Phil couldn’t get over how much it had impressed Mrs. Von Bizmark. But the risk of having to explain a quarter-million-dollar fine to an already hostile Mr. Von Bizmark weighed heavily on Anna’s shoulders.
“And you can do the pink heart thing? With the sparkles?”
“Anna, bella, don’t worry! You’re a friend of Max’s.”
Still, she worried! Anna had to at least try to get the permits Gafrucci had mentioned. But when Anna asked Avi who at VBO might have some pull with the mayor or someone in his office, he almost laughed her off the phone. She kept at him, insisting this was an extraordinary situation and that it would be a win-win for everyone. He finally relented. Anna studied her notes from Gafrucci as she waited on hold for the mayor’s chief of staff. Asking for favors was part of her job, but this one felt odious. She had pushed Avi, her eyes never wavering from the prize, but suddenly she felt so wasteful. Reprehensible, even.
“Chief of staff speaking,” said a strong woman’s voice. “How can I help?” Anna introduced herself again. “Yes,” the woman said, Get on with it.
Anna stalled, cleared her throat, looked down at her notebook. They needed a 21C lenience for a private fireworks display. That was what she had to ask for. If she wanted to stage the fireworks perfectly legally.
“Perhaps you read about how the Von Bizmarks raised about a million dollars to save a gifted and talented school in the Bronx?” she said, the words surprising in her own ears. Anna realized that if she was going to go out on a limb, she might as well go all the way out there. This whole business of saving Ilana’s school had been her idea, and even though they had raised a substantial amount of money, the distance left to go was more than her art would likely cover. Anna had to find another source of revenue.
“I did,” the mayor’s chief of staff said, growing a touch impatient.
“And we’re going to raise more! But we were hoping that the city would consider closing the gap?”
“Gap to what?”
“One point three million. It’s only about a hundred and fifty thousand. And there will be an auction at the event that will also go toward this deficit.”
“Hmmm,” the chief of staff said. Anna could hear her flip open a pad and write something down.
“There will also be many publicity ops. Perhaps a ribbon cutting? Does the mayor like opera?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the stern voice said, promising a callback within twenty-four hours. Anna would simply have to keep her fingers crossed about the fireworks display, she thought to herself as she answered the ringing phone.
“Is this Anna?” an angry male voice demanded.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“The concierge at the Charles Hotel. We spoke yesterday?” Anna said nothing, surprised into silence. “About Chester Von Bizmark’s postoperative recovery in the presidential suite.” Anna’s mind reeled, trying to keep up.
“Oooookaaaay,” she said.
“And I know you said not to disturb him for at least four days, but other guests are complaining about loud music, and also there’s a distinct smell . . .”
“I’ll take care of it right away.”
As she speed-dialed the least intelligent Von Bizmark child, Anna chided herself for trusting Chester or any of her employer’s children with the power of her office. She had been the one to suggest impersonating herself! Chester could have easily gotten her in trouble. Real trouble. Legal trouble. And himself.
“Mummy?” Chester said. Of course he answered a call from the Von Bizmark residence midday, an extraordinary occurrence. Anna heard about a half dozen college kids hanging out listening to music and the television at the same time. The sound of clinking glasses distinguished itself.
“Guess again,” Anna said.
“What’s up, Anna?” Chester said, laughing at something.
“The concierge just called me, Chester,” she said, clipped. She wanted him to hear her displeasure. “About your surgery.”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhh.”
“Do your parents know about your recuperation? And subsequent expenses?” Of course, the worst thing that could befall a kid like Chester was the revocation of credit cards. It had happened once to Vera after a particularly energetic afternoon at Bergdorf’s, and she had not stepped (that far) out of line since.
“Well, you said to call here and pretend to be you.”
“To get a dinner table, Chester. Look, let’s forget that. Listen to me, Chester. You have five minutes to get yourself, your friends, and everything you all brought with you out of that room. You never do this again, and I will forget it happened. Deal?”
“OK . . .”
“And apologize to the concierge! I’m going to call and make sure you do that.”
“Geez, Anna, OK.”
Anna grappled with approaching Josefina about Vogue. It seemed so . . . frivolous. Would she care about a fashion magazine when her kid’s excellent local school was about to be shuttered for unsafe conditions? And funding for the school still hadn’t been guaranteed. But Anna had made a deal with Max, and she would live up to it.
Anna found Josefina and Alicia ironing sheets in the laundry room, speaking urgently and quietly in Spanish. When Anna appeared at the door, their conversation stopped immediately. Josefina reached into her uniform pocket. “Here,” she said, handing over a letter from the Department of Education informing her that Ilana’s school was still scheduled to close. The date, four weeks away, in bold letters.
Josefina pointed at the words. “What does it mean?”
“We have to raise more money. I told you.” Josefina’s eyes welled up with tears. “OK, here’s the thing. Mrs. Von Bizmark is going to be in Vogue, talking about the school.” Josefina waited to hear how this news would impact her. “And they want you to be in the magazine too.”
Anna had expected resistance or at the very least shyness, but upon hearing the word Vogue, Josefina threw back her shoulders and straightened up, lifting her chin and sucking in her cheeks just a little as if the camera were already there and ready to capture her image.