Danielle Steel - The Apartment

“Busy morning?” he asked pleasantly. He was happy to see her, and his own caseload was light that day. They’d had no big emergencies so far, and several of their patients from the day before had been moved to the healthy baby nursery.

“It’s been pretty civilized,” Sasha said easily. She had no one in labor at that precise moment, only patients she had already delivered, and the ones from the day before. It was a momentary lull. She had two patients on bed rest for early labor, and they had sent several moms and babies home.

“Let’s make a run for it then, before it gets crazy,” Alex suggested, about their lunch date. “You still want to eat in the cafeteria? We could try one of the nearby delis if you want something edible.”

“It would probably shock my system. I live on cafeteria food. And the minute we go anywhere decent, we’ll both have an emergency as soon as we sit down. It always happens to me if I try to eat anywhere when I’m on duty.” Usually she had no time to eat at all, except a PowerBar she kept in her pocket, and she looked it. She had a slim figure, and was no bigger than her model sister, who worked out every day and dieted ferociously.

They took the elevator to the cafeteria a minute later, making small talk about the food. She helped herself to yogurt, a salad, and a fruit plate, and then added a large chocolate chip cookie, while Alex got a hot meal. They found a quiet table near the window, so they could see the outside world. She noticed him looking at her intently as she set her plates on the table with the Diet Coke she’d picked up on the way.

“Are you on a diet?” he asked with curiosity.

“No, my sister always was, growing up. She trained me not to eat anything she liked so she wouldn’t want it. It’s pathetic, but I still eat that way. She hates fruit and vegetables and would live on doughnuts and cookies if she could,” Sasha grinned at him, and he laughed. She had an easy way about her, and seemed comfortable in her own skin, at the hospital at least. “She’s a model,” Sasha added for good measure.

“You could be too,” he said admiringly. She seemed to have no sense of her looks and wasn’t stuck up the way most pretty women were. He’d been burned by his fondness for beauties over the years. Sasha was a whole different breed, a woman with a brain, who was brilliant at what she did.

“Not if I want to stay sane,” Sasha said about being a model. “Although I guess what we do isn’t so sane either, but at least we don’t have to do it in a bikini standing in the snow, or a fur coat in summer, in seven-inch heels. Modeling isn’t as easy as it looks and I get to wear flat shoes.” She smiled at him across the table.

“Where are you from?” He could hear the faintest hint of an accent, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“Atlanta. I moved here to go to NYU, and stayed for medical school. I was lucky I got in. I like it here.”

“Me too. I’m from Chicago. It’s a nice city. I miss it.” He didn’t tell her he’d gone to Yale undergrad, and Harvard medical school. It always sounded like bragging to him. His father and brother had gone to Harvard too. “Chicago is a little gentler than New York.”

“My mother is originally from here. She’s a lawyer,” Sasha said simply, and he nodded.

“So is mine—antitrust law. She loves it, but it never sounded like much fun to me. She wants to be a judge one day. She’d be good at it.”

“Mine is a divorce lawyer,” Sasha said quietly, not wanting to admit how difficult she was. “What made you go to medical school?” she asked him. She was enjoying talking to him. She almost never stopped for lunch, or had time for a social moment with her colleagues.

“My father is a cardiologist, and my brother is an orthopedic surgeon. It just seemed obvious to me. What about you?”

“I always wanted to be a doctor, even when I was a kid. I just didn’t know what specialty. I think infertility and high-risk OB is it for me. Especially now, there’s so much high risk with older mothers, and infertility seems like a very rewarding field, when it works. I love what I do.”

“Me too. I think I’ll go into straight pediatrics, though. Neonatal ICU is fascinating, but I’d rather deal with less high-risk kids.” He asked her where she lived, and she told him about the loft in Hell’s Kitchen.

“I’ve lived there for five years. I have three roommates. They’ve kind of become my family, since I hardly ever get home, and my own family has been pretty disjointed since my parents’ divorce when I was twenty-five. You think you’re all grown up then, but it hit us pretty hard. My father is remarried and has two little girls, and my mom isn’t. She lives for her work.” He said he had a furnished studio apartment a block from the hospital that he used to sleep and nothing else. The apartment she had described in Hell’s Kitchen sounded great to him, especially if it provided a community of people she cared about, which appeared to be the case. Her eyes lit up warmly when she talked about her roommates and their siblings and significant others. It sounded like just what she said, a family of choice.

His own biological family sounded more run-of-the-mill than hers. His parents were still married. He had a brother who was four years older than he, and was thirty-six and still single. They still all got together for vacations and holidays since neither son was married, and they enjoyed spending time together. He didn’t get that sense from her, although she offered no details. But she looked tense when she spoke of her parents, particularly her mother, and she said she had no desire to go back to Atlanta for work, and wanted to stay in New York. She was happy here. Alex said he hadn’t made his mind up, if he wanted to go back to Chicago to join a practice there, or stay in New York. Chicago was an easier city to live in, except for the weather, and he liked the idea of being close to his family, but Chicago was a short hop by plane if he stayed in New York. He went home for weekends whenever he could.

“Families like yours are pretty rare these days,” she said after he told her about them. She was almost envious of him, listening to it, and watching the loving look on his face. “People live all over the country, far from their siblings and parents. My sister lives here now too, and we’re close, but very different. I’m happy that she’s here, though. She hangs around at the apartment too, when she’s not in Tokyo, Paris, or Milan. She leads a pretty glamorous life compared to mine,” Sasha said apologetically, but she wouldn’t have wanted Valentina’s life for anything in the world, or the choices she made in men. “Most people think that kind of life is exciting. I think it’s kind of sad. The people are very superficial, everyone is trying to use you, and when your big moment is over, what do you do? It seems scary to me, it’s all about flash and nothing real. I worry about her sometimes.” In fact, all the time. The men she was attracted to always appeared unsavory to Sasha. They were the exact opposite of someone like Alex, whom Valentina wouldn’t have given the time of day. Sasha loved how normal he sounded, as far as she could tell. He had a stable background, and a family he still liked to hang out with. And his stories about his older brother Ben reminded her a little of her early years with Valentina, before the divorce and it all fell apart. Valentina had already been a supermodel by then, but there had been a kind of desperation to her life choices ever since.

Valentina had played with drugs for a while, which were common in that world. At thirty-two, she was saner now, and still a top model, but one day her career would be over, and Sasha couldn’t imagine her sister leading a quiet life with a husband and kids. She needed the frenzy and glamour now, and the high life. She had become addicted to it, and unlike Sasha, she loved being in the limelight. Coming back down to earth one day would be rough. And getting older was a nightmare to Valentina, or losing her looks. Whenever they talked about it, there was panic in her eyes. She ran harder every year, trying to escape the future and the truth.