I’D ALREADY TOSSED the driver a twenty and was bouncing up and down like a preschooler when my taxi finally stopped across from the Hudson hotel on West 58th. I didn’t wait for change, but I did nearly get clipped by an express bus as I got out on the street side and hightailed it across Eighth Avenue.

I didn’t even look at my iPhone as it tried to buzz out of my jacket pocket. By this point, with my full workday and tonight’s party of all parties to plan, I was more surprised when it wasn’t going off.

A sound, deafening even by midtown Manhattan standards, hammered into my ears as I made the corner.

Was it a jackhammer? A construction pile driver?

Of course not, I thought, as I spotted a black kid squatting on the sidewalk, playing drums on an empty Spackle bucket.

Luckily I also spotted my lunch appointment, Aidan Beck, at the edge of the crowded street performance.

Without preamble, I hooked elbows with the fair, scruffily handsome young man and pulled him into the chic Hudson. At the top of the neon-lit escalator, a concierge who looked like one of the happy, shiny cast members of High School Musical smiled from behind the Carrara marble check-in desk.

“Hi. I called twenty minutes ago,” I said. “I’m Mrs. Smith. This is Mr. Smith. We’d like a room with a large double bed. The floor or view doesn’t matter. I’m paying cash. I’m really in a rush.”