“What happened to you?” Mary Alice asked Nat. “Your hair looks like it belongs on one of those shelter dogs on a humane society commercial.”
“Taverner’s out, so I was making dinner and the steam got to me,” Nat said. “And save your insults, because I just had a brilliant idea that will get us Wolfgang tomorrow.”
She retrieved her phone from the pocket of her apron and scrolled for a few minutes, jotting notes onto the back of her hand with a felt-tip pen. Then she tapped out a number before handing the phone to me. “La Fenice’s personnel office. Get Wolfgang’s personal cell number.”
“What the hell, Natalie,” I started, but just then the phone was answered with an abrupt, “Pronto.”
I switched to Italian, smoothing it into the Venetian dialect. “Good evening, signora. I am calling from the office of—” I reached for a name, any name, and blurted out “Dottoressa Lidia Maradona. We must reach a patient of hers,Wolfgang Praetorius, but the telephone number we have for him is incorrect. Please give us the correct number so that we can give him his test results.”
I waited, expecting her to argue. Italians love nothing more than thwarting you with bureaucracy, but the woman I was speaking to was bored or hated her job or didn’t give a shit, because she simply rattled off a series of numbers.
“Grazie mille,” I said, ending the call and handing the phone back to Natalie.
Akiko stared, wide-eyed. “Do Italians not have the equivalent of HIPAA? I can’t believe that worked.”
I shrugged. “You’d be surprised how often people are willing to hand out personal information if you just act like you’re entitled to it.”
Helen came in while Nat keyed in the numbers I gave her and we brought her up to speed. Nat waited, her expression expectant, then mouthed a word at us. “Voicemail.” When the greeting ended, she left a message, lapsing into her natural New York accent with a little extra nasal something thrown in. “Good evening, I’m phoning on behalf of Christine Fellowes, honorary chair of the board of directors of the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Ms. Fellowes is in Venice for a short time and has an opening in her schedule to meet with you and discuss a possible opportunity for you to sing with us next season. Please confirm your availability to meet with her at your earliest convenience at this number.”
She pressed “end call” and sat back.
“There’s no way,” Mary Alice began. But before she could finish, the phone rang. Nat looked at the screen and grinned.
“It’s him. You were saying?”
The conversation was short. They set up a rendezvous for the following morning, and Nat stressed to him the importance of discretion. “Ms. Fellowes is not authorized to formally offer a contract,” we heard her tell him, “but if she likes you, well, she has great sway with the rest of the board. Naturally, we would not wish for La Fenice to get wind of this,” she added. “Secrecy is of the utmost importance.”
We could hear a torrent of vehement reassurances on Wolfgang’s end.
“I am glad to hear it,” she told him. “I will text you the address to meet Ms. Fellowes.”
She ended the call while he was still talking. “I am embarrassed for him,” she said. “He was so eager, he didn’t even take the time to google Christine Fellowes.”
“And if he had?” Helen asked.
Nat grinned. “He’d have found an honorary board member of the Metropolitan Opera. That’s what I was looking up before I called.”
Akiko shook her head. “No way. It cannot be that easy. Nobody is that stupid.”
“It’s not stupidity.” I explained the basic psychology. “It’s optimism. Like any other scam, we’re taking advantage of his longing for something. Wolfgang Praetorius wants to sing for the Met. We dangled the possibility in front of him, and he snapped at the bait. He’s willing to overlook anything suspicious because his ambition outweighs his sense of self-preservation.”
“It happens all the time,” Helen told Akiko. “People look beyond red flags waving right in front of their faces becausethey want something so desperately that they will explain away anything that might endanger that.”
“You just described two of my marriages,” Natalie said.
“Everybody sees what they want,” Mary Alice said quietly. She got up and went into the kitchen then. Akiko didn’t follow her, but stayed at the table with the rest of us.
I turned to Nat and Helen. “We need to set the meet-up with Wolfgang. Ideas?”
Nat looked up. “I’ve already sent him the address. Bar Foscarini.” It was a small open-air restaurant at the foot of the Accademia bridge, touristy and overpriced, but by way of compensation it had planter boxes full of mandevillas and bottles of decent rosé. And the location meant if anything went south, it would be easy to get away, blending into the crowds that thronged the bridge at any hour of the day.
“Who is going?” Helen asked.
Natalie didn’t even have the grace to look embarrassed. “Billie.”
“Why me?” I demanded. “Did we draw straws and I missed it?”
Nat tapped on her phone some more, then turned it around. “Christine Fellowes.”