Finally, the band broke out into a slow song: “Let’s Get It On.” The prince took Anna in his arms. She could not get over how unfamiliar and enticing he smelled, even as her mind drifted to Adrian. Perhaps he had a point about how easily she expected the accolades to come. She could see this now. Even though the auction had been a success, it wasn’t like Anna had arrived somewhere or won something. It was just one night. There was no way for her to prove she was an artist; Anna would have to believe it for herself.
“Sorry! Sorry, sorry!” Julie interrupted, wincing. “But Mrs. Von Bizmark has been looking for you.” Anna snapped to attention and apologized to the prince.
“Don’t forget about me,” he said.
Anna followed Julie across the dance floor to where Mrs. Von Bizmark talked with none other than Miranda Chung herself. Anna paused, not sure if she was meant to interrupt this tête-à-tête. But when Mrs. Von Bizmark spotted her waiting five feet away, she impatiently and vigorously waved her over.
“This is the artist!” Mrs. Von Bizmark said, as if she had been waiting for years to introduce them. “Anna, Miranda Chung.”
“Hello,” Anna said. Be cool! she told herself. “Hi.”
“Was this your first real show?” Miranda said, all business.
“It was my first profit, if that’s what you mean.”
“Yes, impressive. Kissy tells me you have another piece that didn’t make it onto the set. I’d love to see it.” Anna listened as if Chung spoke to an invisible person standing next to her. “Now.”
“We have to get our daughter home, but Anna, perhaps you could . . .” Mrs. Von Bizmark’s face said it all: Move, dummy!
Anna traversed the packed ballroom as quickly as possible to the exit, down the back stairs, and toward Opal’s office, where Giselle had said she would put the piece. It felt wrong for her to be in the opera’s darkened inner sanctum by herself, but as soon as she’d popped open the back stairs door, she spied a slice of light coming out of Richard’s office. The door stood a few inches open.
Focused on her goal and eager to avoid discovery, Anna rapidly tiptoed toward Opal’s office. As she passed Richard’s open door, she could not help but catch the slightest glimpse of the two of them, embracing, her leg up and wrapped around his waist like the dancer she used to be, his hairy hand gripping her toned, bare buttock. Richard and Opal. Opal and Richard.
“Surely you’ve punished me enough?” Opal said, her face coquettishly turned up at him. Anna ducked into the shadows again, momentarily stunned out of her mission.
“Yes, Opal. You’ll always be the honoree.” His hand slipped between her legs. Anna shuddered with revulsion. “As long as you behave.” Anna silently tiptoed into Opal’s office. Her piece sat like a person on the center of the couch opposite the desk. There was no one Anna wanted to love the piece more than Opal, other than Miranda. Anna crept out with it, her eyes locked on the floor in front of her.
Anna raced back to the ballroom, canvas in hand, hoping to catch the prince before he jetted off to his next destination in Tribeca or the Hamptons or Ibiza. She was not quite sure what she wanted to tell him, but she would like to at least say goodbye and thank him again. Back in the ballroom, the prince chatted with Lindsay by the door. Miranda waved Anna over and sat the piece on a chair. Anna suppressed the urge to make excuses for the work—it had been so hastily put together in a time that seemed so long ago now. A tricolor oil with plastic decals of geometric lacework in three tones of mauve, apricot, and turquoise.
“I like it,” Miranda said. “I’ll take it.”
“You’ll take it?”
“Yes, and sell it.” She extended her hand. And like that, Anna had a gallery.
Across the room she could see the prince watching her, waiting. Holding his eye, she started across the dance floor. To think she was in the prince’s league was already a little, well, silly, but there he was, smiling at her, and she was all made up and dressed and everything, and people did seem to think she was smart and funny even sometimes, so maybe he really . . .
“Anna!” Principal Sellers, warm, genuine, and impossible to blow off, popped up in her path. “I want to thank you.” She shook Anna’s hand. “You personally have made the difference for thousands of children.”
“Well, I think all of us—”
“Don’t do that!” Principal Sellers said sternly, every inch the professional educator. “Don’t deflect praise! Feel it.”
“Thank you.” Anna smiled.
“That’s it,” Principal Sellers encouraged her. “Go on! Feel yourself!”
“Thank you very much,” Anna said, surprised to find a little tear spring to her eye.
“Because of you, we’ll not only have a new safe building, but we raised enough tonight to give laptops to all our eighth graders. And we have a rainy-day fund for the next disaster!”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Please don’t forget us. We won’t forget you.” Sellers embraced Anna, a real warm hug, and released her to go talk to some women from the luncheon who were pulling on their jackets. When Anna looked up, the prince was gone.
In fact, the crowd had thinned considerably. Once an event started its descent, guests fled like rats from a sinking ship. Even Lindsay took off while Anna was running around. The Von Bizmark staff filed out, headed for separate cars home. Max went to meet his boyfriend at a club downtown to blow off steam. The band played its last song for a few diehard couples.
The ball behind them, Anna and Julie sat at an empty table sipping scotch in silent contemplation while waiters cleaned up around them. “Hard to see how it could have gone better,” Julie said.
“I’m sure if there is a way to have made it more perfect, we’ll hear about it from someone.”
“To us,” Julie said, lifting her glass for a toast.
“To us,” Anna said. Clink.
They left Lincoln Center together, arm in arm. As they approached the fountain at the plaza’s center, Julie shook Anna off. “Hey,” Julie said. Anna looked up to see Adrian—Adrian!—in an impeccably tailored tuxedo, hands clasped in front of him, so debonair. Anna was so thrilled to see him that she gawked a little.
“Hey,” Adrian said to Julie.
“See you later,” Julie said and hustled off with a little wave and a goofy smile.
“You look beautiful,” Adrian said to Anna.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“You said we could talk after the ball.” Anna’s heart leaped in her chest. “I came to take you home. Maybe a celebratory nightcap, if you’ll let me.” They turned toward the subway together. And even just this quotidian act, with Adrian, felt like home.
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask about your new job!” Anna ejected. “You were right: I got all caught up in my own stuff.”
“I understand,” Adrian said. “And I forgive you.” Their eyes locked. “I missed you. A lot.” Anna could not wait to go home. She squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back. “So . . . how’d it go in there?” he asked.
“Pretty well, actually.”