Very Valentine

“Me? Why?” Gram is confused.

“We’re shooting the scene now. If there are any problems, you’ll need to be there to address them. I can’t take a chance with that”-she points to the Fougeray-“happening again.”

Gram looks at me. “May I bring…”

“Bring, bring,” Debra says impatiently. “Megan will show you the way.” Debra pulls on her coat as they move to the door. They go as quickly as they came, like the lightning from the storm that pierces the room in a flash and then is gone. I grab Megan’s sweatshirt out of the dryer. She pulls it on.

“I could find Our Lady of Pompeii with my eyes closed.” Gram throws her hands up. “Grab my kit, Valentine. Let’s go.”

There’s always some television show or movie filming on the streets of Greenwich Village. The forty-seven versions of Law and Order are shot in Manhattan, so it’s rare when there isn’t a crew somewhere, filming something. We’ve become accustomed to waiting on corners until the cameras stop rolling, then tiptoeing over snakes of cables and wires, past trailers as crew members talk into headsets and check their clipboards.

When Gram was young, there was a magical place called Hollywood where movies were made. Now, movie stars walk our neighborhood streets like ordinary people. It ceases to be magic when I see Kate Winslet three people in front of me in line at the Starbucks on Fourteenth Street, so close I can see she wears Essie’s Ballet Slippers nail polish. They’re not icons when you can bump into them while ru

“Follow me,” Megan says, motioning to us as Gram and I enter Our Lady of Pompeii Church. She turns and smiles shyly. “I forgot. You guys know this place better than me.”

The scent of spicy incense hangs in the air from last Sunday’s High Mass. The polished marble floor is covered by boxes of lighting instruments and wheels of cable. The table where the Sunday bulletins are fa

“I can’t believe Father Prior let them use the church,” Gram whispers.

“Even the Catholic Church likes good publicity,” I whisper back. “And a hefty rental fee.”

I pick out the star of the movie because she’s wearing a wedding gown.

“That’s A

A

“They’re too big.” Debra stands, looking like she’s about to blow. Standing next to me, I can practically feel Megan’s blood pressure skyrocket.

“Let me see.” Gram sails through the chaos toward the actress, but needs to grip Debra’s arm in order to kneel down. “Damn knees,” I hear her say as I thread through the crowd and kneel next to her. Gram presses the toe and the vamp of the satin mule then gingerly slides it off A

“The right one.”

“Give me the cotton batting,” Gram says to me. “We’re going to sew it in.”

Gram unspools the cotton and cuts a square gently with a small pair of gold work scissors. I thread the needle and make a quick knot. Gram places the batting in the toe of the shoe and slips it back on A

I push the delicate needle through the fabric and into the cotton from the vamp to the toe. I stitch a tiny seam anchoring the cotton. I do the same on the other side of the shoe, in essence, making a shoe within a shoe. Gram takes the slipper and places it back on the actress’s foot.

“Now it’s too snug!” Debra cries. “It will never fall off.”

“We aren’t done,” Gram says in a tone of voice I haven’t heard since she caught Tess and me drawing on her bedroom walls when I was five. The set falls into a hushed silence. I look up and see the director, a young man in a baseball cap and a down vest, pacing as though he’s awaiting the birth of quadruplets. Gram hands the shoe back to me. “Make a gusset on the left side.”

I sew a seam, tightening the fabric over the instep. I hand it back to Gram.

“Give me the wax pencil, Val.”

I give Gram the pencil from the kit. She slides the wax over the interior of the insole, softening the leather and making it pliable. Gram slips the mule back on A

A

Suddenly, the crew, who were standing around sending poison rays of worry our way, spring into action. They move to their positions, shouting orders, as the director settles into his seat and stares into the monitor.

Megan pulls Gram and me back into the shadows. We watch A

“It’s a tracking shot,” Megan explains. “One continuous movement.”

In what seems like the tenth time they film the sequence, the shoe falls off on cue, as it has every time. Gram and I breathe again. A man standing next to the director hollers, “Cut. Moving on.” The crew fans out, toting, lifting, pushing equipment all around us. Debra goes to the director, who has a few words with her. “You saved our asses,” Megan says, smiling. “He’s telling her he got the shot.”

Debra pats the director on the back and comes over to us. “Fougeray out, Angelini in.”

4. Gramercy Park

I SPRITZ SOME CLASSIC Burberry cologne (a gift from my mother during one of her Brit literary benders) on my neck then pump some into the air overhead where it settles on me in a fragrant peach-and-cedar mist. I lean into the mirror over the dresser and check my makeup. The gold-leafed mirror in my bedroom is so old the paint behind the glass has peeled into swirls of sepia, which gives my complexion an alabaster sheen. This magic mirror is my Restylane on the wall. Roman Falconi’s business card rests in the crook of the mirror, and for whatever reason, I tuck it in the pocket of my evening coat. Maybe I’ll get hungry enough to check out his restaurant sometime.

I grab my evening bag off the bed and open it, checking for my wallet, MetroCard and my emergency makeup trifecta: mauve lipstick, pale pink lip pencil, and concealer. I pass Gram, in her room, slipping out of her work clothes and into her housedress.

“Gabriel’s waiting for you,” she calls after me as I go down the stairs.

“Gram says you know Roman Falconi,” Gabriel says as I enter the living room. Gabriel is a compact version of Marcello Mastroia