The Apartment

Chapter 3

Abby was painting scenery at the theater again, and Ivan was having lunch with a theatrical agent, when a pretty girl walked in, looking slightly lost and very young. She had enormous breasts that were nearly falling out of a man’s tank top and was wearing skin-tight jeans, and she had tousled, long blond hair that looked as though she had just climbed out of bed. Abby wondered if Ivan had scheduled auditions, but they had no part in their current play, or the next one, for a girl her age.

Abby stopped painting and looked at her. “Can I help you?”

“I…I have something I wanted to drop off for Ivan Jones. He told me I could leave it at the theater for him. Is he here?”

Abby shook her head, and noticed that the girl was holding a thick manila envelope against her chest.

“It’s…it’s a play I wrote, and he said he’d take a look at it. I’m at the Actors Studio. I’m an actress, but I’ve been working on the play for two years. I think I need some help with it, and he offered. My name is Daphne Blake.” Something about what she said struck a chord of memory. Abby had come to the theater with an envelope just like it three years ago, when Ivan first convinced her to try her hand at writing a play instead of her novel, and then promised to produce it. Abby heard an alarm bell go off in her head, and sensed danger. “Are you a set designer?” the girl asked with interest.

“No, I’m a playwright too. We all pitch in with odd jobs here, painting sets, working the box office before performances, cleaning up the theater. Do you want to leave the envelope with me? I’ll give it to him when he gets back,” Abby said quietly, trying not to seem nervous or suspicious. There was no reason for her to worry, and Ivan had every right to read other people’s plays. Although he only did his own very avant-garde plays, which never got good reviews, or even attracted the notice of the press. Ivan was particularly irate that every play he had produced and directed was ignored. Even the critics who covered Off Off Broadway said nothing about his work. It was the greatest insult of all. He had a small coterie of supporters who gave him just enough money to get by and believed in his work. But he had used none of the funds to produce one of Abby’s plays.

“Do you mind if I wait?” the girl asked Abby, continuing to clutch the envelope to her bosom, as though someone would try to steal it from her. Abby used to feel that way about her work too. More so about her unfinished novel than the very experimental work that Ivan wanted her to write. Some of it still felt forced and unnatural to her. But she trusted him.

“Not at all, but he might be a while, maybe a long while,” Abby said to the girl. “I think he was going to do some errands too.” It was a little bit annoying to have her standing there, waiting for the messiah to come, or the oracle to speak. Abby felt that way about him too. His particular style of writing was ethereal and strange. But he was so knowledgeable about everything involving experimental theater that Abby considered him one of the unsung heroes of his time. And apparently this girl thought so too. She sat down in the second row of the theater and prepared to wait while Abby continued painting scenery with a shaking hand. She was painting a large devil for them to use in the second act, and she had red paint splashed all over her, which looked like drops of blood in her hair.

The girl sat for two hours without making a sound, reading a book she’d brought with her, and Abby almost forgot she was there, but not quite. And then Ivan sauntered in, and smiled up at Abby onstage as he approached.

“How’s it coming?” he asked, referring to the devil she was painting. “Terrifying, I hope.” He beamed at her, as their eyes met, and she felt her knees turn to rubber as they always did when he looked at her. He mesmerized her, and she would have done anything for him. And they both jumped when the girl spoke in a soft voice from the second row in the dimly lit theater. Abby had turned the house lights down, and had kept only the spotlights bright on the stage so she could see her work, and had forgotten she was there. Ivan wheeled at the sound of the voice and was startled when he noticed her gazing adoringly at him, which Abby saw and didn’t like. The hint of something ominous was in the air.

“What are you doing here?” He was obviously surprised.

“You said I could drop my play off and you’d read it,” she reminded him.

“Yes, I did,” he said as though he’d forgotten and smiled at her. Morgan always compared him to Rasputin when he focused on women. Sasha thought he was just a creep. But Abby saw something in him that they didn’t, and the young girl talking to him did too. “I’ll read it on Sunday and Monday when the theater is dark, and let you know what I think.” And then he was struck by an idea. “Would you like to go for a cup of coffee and tell me about it for a few minutes?” he offered. “As long as you waited for me, you can explain what you tried to accomplish, so I don’t miss any of your intent.” Abby knew as well as he did that the play shouldn’t need an interpretation from the playwright, it should speak for itself. But she didn’t say anything as she continued painting the scenery, and pretended not to listen.

The girl instantly accepted his offer, and they left the theater a few minutes later, deep in conversation about her play, as she explained its message to him. And for a minute, Abby felt sick. She had heard it all before. He had said it all to her in the past three years. And she had seen him flirt with other young girls, actresses they auditioned, or young directors seeking work. She never took it seriously, or felt threatened by it, but this time, for some unknown reason, she did. The girl looked so innocent but determined, and he was so intense when he talked to her.

He came back an hour later, without the girl, and explained the meeting to Abby, so she wouldn’t worry. He didn’t want her to be upset.

“Her father has a shitload of money, and is willing to back any play someone will put on for her. I’m sure she can’t write to save her life, but we can use the money, and if her rich daddy is willing to help us out, I’ll read damn near anything, to keep our theater on its feet. It can’t hurt.” At least it explained why he was willing to talk to her, and appeared so interested in her play. “Sometimes you have to prostitute yourself a little, for the common good. Not like your parents, for the masses, which is selling out in its lowest form, but angels come into our lives sometimes, and her father may give us just the kind of backing we need.”

Abby sighed as she listened to him, wanting to believe that what he said about the reason for reading the play was true. She wasn’t entirely certain of it, but she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And he loved the devil she had painted that afternoon, although most of the red paint was on her shirt and in her hair. He asked her then if she would come to his place that night, after he had dinner with a friend who was having woman troubles he wanted to talk about. “Would midnight be too late?” he asked, caressing her neck, and letting his hand drift to her breast, as she melted at his touch.

“No, it’s fine.” She would be half asleep by then, but the prospect of curling up in his arms, sated by their lovemaking, was too tempting to resist. He was an artful lover who understood women’s bodies well, and the sex they shared was like a drug, and would make her forget everything else, the long delay waiting for him to produce her play, and even the little rich girl who had waited in the theater for him all afternoon. “I’ll come over at midnight,” she said in a soft voice as he kissed her.

And then she remembered that some of her roommates were thinking of dropping by Max’s restaurant on Saturday night and wondered if he wanted to join them after the performance. He never said that he didn’t like her roommates, but she sensed it easily. And it was mutual. He avoided them whenever possible, and when she extended the invitation to him for Saturday, he looked vague.

“The performance will take too much out of me. I won’t be up to a lot of people and a noisy restaurant. But thanks anyway. Another time?” She nodded, and didn’t insist. She knew he gave a lot to the plays they put on. “You go with them, though, if you want to. I’ll just go home and go to bed.” The invitation had been casual for anyone with no plans. But their Sunday-night dinners at the loft were a weekly tradition, and everyone came.

“Do you want to have dinner at the apartment on Sunday night?” she asked him timidly. He was awkward with her friends and almost never participated in their regular Sunday-night family-style meals. He always had an excuse to miss them.

“I have to meet with the accountant,” he said quickly. “And now I have to read the girl’s play, so we can snag her father’s money as a backer. We’ll have a quiet dinner together next week,” he promised. But he was always soft about plans, and never remembered the nights he had suggested to her. The only way to spend time with him was impromptu, when he was in the mood, and not too drained by his writing, or a performance. She wasn’t surprised that he’d declined—she was used to it. He was a creative being to his core, and not easy to pin down, so she no longer tried.

She left him at the theater and went home to clean up, and try to get the paint off before meeting him at midnight at his studio. He didn’t like the lack of privacy at her place, and preferred spending nights with her, when they did, at his own. It was small and disorderly, but they could be alone for the tantalizing things they did in bed.

He kissed her again before she left, and the girl seemed insignificant to Abby now. She was a means to an end, money for his theater, which Abby knew he needed desperately. Even his regular supporters had limited funds. And theater as avant-garde as his was not a big moneymaker. They often played to a half-empty house, since so few people understood his work. It was very oblique.

Ivan had asked her to lend him money a few times to help pay the rent at the theater, when he was particularly strapped, and she had, which had left her short of money for the next several weeks. And she never wanted to ask her parents for money for him, since he didn’t approve of their work and was so outspoken about it. Whatever she gave him was money she had saved. And he was always annoyed that her parents weren’t willing to back his theater, given how rich he thought they were. Abby never told him her father was convinced he was a fraud, writing nonsense that went nowhere and never would. He wished that Abby would start writing “normal” material again, not what he considered experimental “garbage.” And Ivan liked them no better than they liked him.

Abby arrived at Ivan’s studio at midnight, and he was sound asleep. His graying sandy hair was tousled when he opened the door and he seemed surprised to see her, and then pulled her into his arms. He had been naked when he opened the door and didn’t seem to mind, since it was a warm night, and he had no air conditioning in the tiny studio. She was breathless after climbing seven flights of stairs, and even more so when he peeled her clothes away and began making love to her even before they got to his bed. They made love all night long, and fell asleep in each other’s arms at dawn. It was nights like this that kept her tied to him and washed all her doubts and disappointments away. He was so good at sweeping her off her feet again, turning her head, and playing her body like a harp.

—

Sasha was on call on Saturday night but dropped by Max’s restaurant for dinner. Morgan was already there, Claire had no plans so she walked over with Sasha, and Abby had said she might stop in on her way home from the theater. Their Saturday-night plans were always loose and impromptu, and Max kept a table for them just in case.

“Is Ivan coming?” Sasha asked the others, hoping he wasn’t.

“No, Abby said he’d be ‘too tired’ after the performance, thank God,” Claire answered her.

And Sasha was praying they wouldn’t call her in, but just in case, she wouldn’t drink. Oliver and Greg said they might drop by, and Sasha had invited Valentina, but she was in St. Bart’s for the weekend with a new man. She said he was French and a terrific guy, sixty years old, a multimillionaire, and had just moved to New York. All of the men Valentina dated were old enough to be her father, so Sasha wasn’t surprised. Having distanced herself from her father, Valentina seemed desperate to replace him in other ways.

While the three women chatted comfortably, Oliver and Greg showed up, looking tan and relaxed after spending the month of August in the Hamptons, sharing a house with friends. They were all happy to see each other.

They ordered wine, except for Sasha. Max sent over some starters, and the restaurant was busy that night while they caught up and talked about the recent fire on their block, which had scared them all. Claire complained about her French intern again, Morgan said she had a slew of new clients, Sasha was hoping to work at the infertility clinic in the coming months and was excited about it, and they had agreed to buy a new black leather couch for the apartment from one of Claire’s mother’s decorating resources. And Oliver announced that he and Greg wanted to do Thanksgiving dinner at their place this year for anyone not going home. They caught up on news and made plans for the fall season together, and Morgan suggested they rent a ski house for a weekend in Vermont, which everyone thought was a good idea. Max and Morgan were avid skiers, as were Oliver and Greg, and Sasha said she’d love it too, if she wasn’t on call that weekend. Claire had never skied but said she might come up anyway, just to be with them, it sounded like so much fun, although they always talked about it but could never find a date that worked for everyone.

They ordered their favorite dishes for dinner, and tried a few new things Max had added to the menu and recommended, and no one was disappointed by the meal. And Sasha made them all laugh when she described her date with the underwear model. She didn’t expect to hear from him again, and didn’t care. And just as she finished the story, Abby came in looking slightly flustered, sorry to be late, and apologized also for Ivan, who she said was exhausted and had gone home to bed. He wasn’t missed, but everyone was happy to see Abby. She said the performance had gone well, although no one cared. The waiter cleared their plates from the table while they ordered dessert and cappuccinos. Sasha got a text and frowned, and looked at her friends a moment later.

“I just turned into a pumpkin.” She had worn jeans and a pink sweater, and could change into scrubs when she got to the hospital—she didn’t need to go home. They were pulling her in for a set of twins. They had admitted the mother to the hospital a week before, to stop premature labor, but they couldn’t hold it off anymore. The babies were a month early, and had had complications. The text said she was dilating rapidly, and they wanted Sasha in right away.

“Duty calls,” she said as she stood up, and kissed each of them before she left. “See you tomorrow. I’m in for Thanksgiving, by the way, if I’m not working,” she said to Oliver when she hugged him. “I can’t deal with being pulled between my parents anymore. Someone always gets pissed off. I’m staying here for Thanksgiving, and I’ll probably be on call or on duty that day anyway. If I’m not at the hospital, count me in. I’ll tell Valentina, but she’ll probably be in Gstaad or Dubai with a new guy by then.” Valentina hadn’t gone home for holidays for years, for all the reasons Sasha had just stated. It was too stressful for them, and without meaning to, their parents made it miserable for them. It was like playing tug-of-war, and Sasha felt like the rope, being pulled in opposite directions by parents who were still at war seven years after their divorce.

“We’ll be happy to have you,” Oliver assured her, and she knew that Thanksgiving would be warm and wonderful at their home. They had a beautiful apartment, and loved entertaining friends, which they did well, unlike Morgan, who had never been the homemaker her brother was, and she couldn’t cook as well as Max, who had made Thanksgiving for them the year before.

Sasha left quickly after that, while the others made plans for the fall. She was still smiling about the evening she had spent with them during the cab ride to the hospital, and then flew through ER and down the back halls, into an elevator and up to labor and delivery, where she knew they were waiting for her to deliver the twins.

On the way up in the elevator, she found herself thinking of Valentina and wondering how she was with the man in St. Bart’s. Her romances usually only lasted a few months. Neither she nor Sasha seemed to have the ability to attach to anyone for long. The obvious reason was their parents’ bad marriage, which had been poisonous even long before the divorce. And Valentina was a little too fun-loving and indiscriminate about the men she went out with—all they had to be was rich and old. And Sasha was “too busy” to get seriously involved with anyone, and yet other doctors and even residents seemed to manage to have relationships and get married, but Sasha couldn’t see herself doing that yet, or maybe ever. She was too scared that everything would go wrong.

She sailed out of the elevator as she thought about it, and crashed into a doctor wearing a white coat. He was headed in the direction of labor and delivery as she was, and she almost knocked him down, and herself, when she bumped into him going full speed.

“Sorry!” she gasped, as he steadied her, and she looked up into the face of someone she had seen before, but didn’t know. She hurried around him then, went to scrub up and change her clothes, and she was in the labor room with the twins’ mother a few minutes later. She was another older mother, although the man next to her looked a lot younger than she did. They saw all kinds of combinations these days, male and female, same sex, older, younger, and infertility patients who were having multiple births with donor eggs or their own. There were a multitude of options and possibilities, and they hardly ever saw identical twins like her and Valentina, since they could only be natural, and the hormones used for infertility caused fraternal twins, not identical, which were a gift of nature.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Hartman.” She smiled calmly at the patient, who was having severe labor pains and hadn’t had an epidural. They were talking about a C-section, but hadn’t made the decision yet. The twins’ mother had wanted a natural birth, but was changing her mind about it rapidly, faced with the pain of contractions. She was crying while the younger man with her stroked her head and held her hand and spoke to her soothingly.

“It’s a lot worse than I thought it would be,” she managed to choke out, as Sasha suggested an epidural. The woman agreed, and Sasha went to the nurses’ station to get the anesthesiologist to her room. She was back in the room two minutes later, while the woman in labor experienced another severe contraction that made her scream.

“You’re going to feel a lot better in a few minutes when we get a line in,” Sasha reassured her, as the anesthesiologist on duty walked into the room. By sheer luck, he had been just down the hall in another labor room. He prepped her for the epidural, as she continued to cry with the pains, and fifteen minutes later, which seemed like an eternity to her, she was smiling in relief. They could see the contractions on the monitor, but she felt none of them, and her younger husband looked relieved. He had seemed panicked when Sasha walked into the room. She had a wonderful way of calming her patients, and making them feel like everything was under control. She made solid, rapid, good decisions, and her bedside manner was excellent. All of the doctors she had trained with were impressed with her. Now she had to decide whether to do a cesarean section or let her deliver vaginally. The babies’ heartbeats were strong although they were four weeks early, and there was a good argument for letting them come through the birth canal naturally in order to induce them to breathe.

She consulted the couple about their options, and they wanted to avoid a C-section if possible. The chief resident came in and endorsed the decision, and they rolled the gurney she was on down the hall to the delivery room, with the anesthesiologist following them, a labor nurse, the babies’ father, and two other doctors who had appeared since they were twins. And once in the delivery room, there were two pediatricians waiting for them too, and Sasha noticed that one of them was the doctor she had nearly knocked down as she ran out of the elevator. She realized that he was a resident too, from neonatal ICU, since the twins were technically premature. But twins at thirty-six weeks were a fairly normal occurrence, and the fetal monitors attached to the mother’s belly and internally told them that the babies were doing well.

They lightened up on the epidural so she could push effectively, and she started to scream again and said it was too much pain.

“Let’s get those babies out then, and this will be all over,” Sasha said easily as she kept a firm eye on what was going on. There was a sense of heightened tension and anticipation in the room, as she told the mother when to push, and all she should do was cry and scream. Sasha knew they were looking at a C-section if the delivery took too long, to avoid undue stress to the babies, and she got firm and strong in her commands to push, while offering sympathy for the pain, and then a head appeared between the woman’s legs, and with a quick sure movement, Sasha delivered the shoulders and the body, and a little girl emerged crying loudly, as the mother laughed through her tears, and then started to scream again as the nurses took the first twin away and handed her to the pediatric resident, who checked her carefully, while Sasha delivered the second twin, who was bigger and harder to maneuver than the first. But a moment later, the boy was out too, both umbilical cords had been cut, and the babies appeared to be healthy and undamaged and were breathing well, although they would be closely watched and kept in an incubator for a few days. They were a good size at five pounds each, which was a healthy weight for twins born at thirty-six weeks.

Everything had gone well, and Sasha could feel the tension ease from the room as husband and wife kissed each other, looking thrilled and relieved. The mother was allowed to hold her babies and put them to her breast for a moment, before they were taken to the neonatal ICU, tested further, and put in an incubator together. Sasha congratulated the couple, and did some minor repair work to the mom after the babies left the room. They had given the mother something to sedate her, and she was shaking violently from what she’d just been through, which was normal too.

Sasha made easy conversation with her, as she did some stitches. “Did I tell you I’m a twin? I have an identical twin named Valentina. You’re going to have a lot of fun with your babies.” She went on chatting with her to distract her from what she was doing, and after they took her vital signs, they wheeled her to a recovery room to observe her, and then she would go back to her own room. Sasha left her with the nurses in the recovery room and said she would come to see her tomorrow, and congratulated her again.

Her husband was in the NICU with their babies, and the mother drifted off to sleep with the sedation. Sasha went to get a cup of coffee in the doctors’ lounge, and was just taking a sip when the resident from the NICU walked in, also looking for coffee. They were both exhilarated by the successful birth. It was three o’clock in the morning, and the time had flown.

“How are they?” Sasha asked to follow up, since he had examined the babies more thoroughly than she had.

“Perfect.” He smiled at her. “You did a good job. I thought for sure we were going to wind up with a C-section when she wouldn’t push, but you finessed it nicely.”

“Thank you. Sorry I almost knocked you down when I got here. I wasn’t paying attention, and I wanted to get there before she delivered. It took a little longer than I thought it would. I didn’t mean to send you flying.”

“I don’t think you could have.” He laughed. He was solidly built with powerful shoulders and a lot taller than she was. “But you gave it a hell of a try,” he teased her. “I played football in college.”

“I’m glad it all went so nicely,” she said, relaxed. They both knew that wasn’t always the case, and it was heartbreaking when that happened. She had been at deliveries before where the baby died during the delivery, or was stillborn. It was the part of her work she hated. But tonight had been exciting and fun, with a good result. “We did triplets earlier this week. That was pretty scary. You missed that one,” Sasha said easily.

“I heard about it. I was off. Once in a while that happens, but not often.” She laughed, knowing exactly what he meant.

“I was on call tonight, having dinner with friends, when they told me to come in,” she said, while he assumed she’d been on a date. A woman with her looks could have been out every night, he thought to himself.

“Lucky for me they did,” he said honestly, smiling at her, as she headed for the lockers to change back into the clothes she’d worn to dinner. “I hope we get to work together again.” She disappeared through the swinging doors to the lockers and he didn’t see her before she left. He said something to one of the nurses on duty when he went to check on the twins. “That was some hot resident on the delivery tonight,” he said with a grin, and the nurse laughed at him. She knew Sasha well.

“Don’t get too excited,” the nurse warned him.

“Married?” He was instantly disappointed, but it wouldn’t have surprised him. Most of the doctors he worked with were married. Some lucky guy might have snatched her up.

“She doesn’t date anyone here. She does her work, and she doesn’t fool around. She’s a serious woman. I’ve never even seen her chatting with the guys.”

“Maybe she has a boyfriend,” he said, looking dejected.

“I don’t know what her story is, but whatever it is, she’s not telling. She’s great to work with, but she never gets personal with anyone.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for her,” he said, suddenly feeling tired as the tensions of the evening melted away, and he realized he didn’t know her name and asked the nurse.

“Sasha Hartman. Good luck,” she said with a twinkle in her eye, and a moment later the resident from the NICU left the building too. His name was Alex Scott, and Sasha hadn’t given him another thought as she got back to the loft and climbed into bed. Her only thought was that it had been a good night’s work, and before that she had had fun at Max’s restaurant with her friends. She didn’t need or want more than that.