Danielle Steel: The Apartment

“I guess that’s cool.” He had no idea what she did for a living when he asked her on a date. He just liked the way she looked, and had lusted after Valentina for months. Sasha didn’t say it, but Ryan was too young and too poor for her sister, who only dated very rich, much older men. Ryan was no match for her. “Do you like being a doctor?” He didn’t know what to say to her.

“Very much. Do you like being an actor?”

“Yeah, I’m up for a part in a movie in L.A. I’m waiting to hear. I auditioned for it last week. I’ve had a few parts on daytime soaps, and the Calvin Klein ads have been great.” She nodded, and as their dinner arrived and the noise level rose around them, they were spared further conversation until they were back on the street. He put an arm around her when they left the restaurant, with an expectant look. “Do you want to come to my place? It’s a few blocks from here.” The geography wasn’t an issue, but she didn’t know him, and it was obvious that he expected to sleep with her in exchange for dinner. And handsome as he was, having sex with a stranger didn’t appeal to her.

“I have to be at work at six tomorrow morning. I should get home,” she said, not knowing what else to say. Are you kidding? would have seemed rude, and she didn’t want to sound like a prude.

“Yeah, right. We’ll have to do this again sometime,” he said, sounding unconvincing. She could tell that he thought that if she wasn’t going to sleep with him, there wasn’t much point in seeing her again. He put her in a cab five minutes later and waved as it drove her away. She was feeling dazed, the evening had been noisy, boring, and unfulfilling, and she knew nothing more about him than she had when they met, except that he was being considered for a part in a movie in L.A. And she got the feeling that the object of dates like it, with men like him, was not to get to know each other, but just to get out, dress up, share a meal, network at the gallery party, and if possible get laid. Almost none of it appealed to her, and was so superficial that it made watching game shows on TV seem more intimate. She felt like she had wasted the entire evening, and her feet hurt from the ridiculously high heels she’d borrowed from Claire. None of it seemed worth it. And it felt humiliating and stupid to have participated at all.

She heard sirens in the distance as the cab approached her street, and she saw half a dozen fire trucks and a chief’s car, parked helter-skelter, and several policemen blocking traffic from entering the street. The cabdriver stopped, looked at what was happening, and turned to tell her that he couldn’t drive into her street.

“It’s okay,” she told him as she paid him and gave him a decent tip. “I can walk in from here.” Although as she got out of the cab, she felt a tingle of fear race up her spine. There were fire engines and police cars, an ambulance, and two paramedic trucks jamming the entrance to the street, and a policeman stopped her as soon as she tried to walk in.

“You can’t go in there, miss. Several of the buildings are on fire. It’s too dangerous. You’ll have to wait here.” He indicated a police line she couldn’t cross, and she craned her neck to see which buildings were on fire. The hub of activity appeared to be in the middle of the block, where men were running. Firefighters wearing heavy packs, helmets, and face masks were lumbering down the block at full speed. She could see ladders going up the front of two buildings, and then realized how close their building was to the fire. Her heart started to pound as she watched, wondering where her roommates were. They were all supposed to be home that night, and she wondered if they were on the other side of Thirty-ninth Street, waiting on Tenth Avenue, and took out her cell phone to call them and check. As she did, she could see that Engine 34, housed only a block away from them, had sent two trucks to the scene.

Sasha watched the frenetic activity up and down the street, and now she could see flames coming from both buildings. And there were firemen on the roof to make holes in it with axes to let out some of the heat, while others shot water into the blaze. The smoke emerging from the buildings was inky black, which she knew meant the fire was still raging. Once under control, the smoke would be white, but it wasn’t yet.

“Holy shit!” Sasha said, sounding shocked and nervous when Claire answered her phone. “What happened? Why didn’t one of you call me?”

“There was nothing you could do. We didn’t want to spoil your date. We’ve been out here since half an hour after you left. It started in one building, and set fire to the one next to it about an hour ago. They can’t seem to get it under control.”

“Shit, and we’re only two buildings away. Where are you guys?”

“On Tenth. Morgan went to Max’s to get us some bottles of water. You can feel the heat all the way down here.” And the smoke was heavy in the air. As Sasha watched, she could see two firemen with face masks come down the ladders carrying people wrapped in blankets. One of them wasn’t moving, and the other was an old woman, who looked terrified as the firefighter made his way down the ladder with her. It was obvious, watching the smoke billowing from the building, that by now there must have been very little left intact inside. And what wasn’t being devoured by the fire was being drowned with the high-powered blasts of water being hosed into the building. It looked like they could lose the apartment, but for some reason the fire headed west instead of toward her, and another building on the far side of them caught fire as everyone stood watching. She felt guilty that she was relieved when she saw it head away from their building, though sorry for the people who lived on their other side, in the building that exploded into flames.

“This is getting really ugly,” Sasha said sadly. “They just brought an old lady out, put a mask on her, and put her in an ambulance, and now they’re bringing out two more.”

“Are you going to help?” Claire asked her, as Sasha watched them with wide eyes.

“They don’t need me, unless one of those old ladies is having a baby. They’ve got three trucks of paramedics who know what to do better than I do.” Two of the ambulances had just gone screaming past her with their sirens on.

She and Claire continued talking for the next hour, neither of them wanting to leave where they were standing and miss something important that might happen. And then finally, an hour later, the first sign of white smoke came through the holes in the three roofs and out the windows of the buildings. The fire was getting under control. And the ambulances had raced past her several times. Sasha had lost count how many, and she had noticed somberly two gurneys with lifeless forms on them, and blankets covering the bodies, and she had seen a firefighter carried to an ambulance when another firefighter had dragged him out of the building, injured. Trucks and engines had come from all over the city.

It was two in the morning by the time the frenzy started to die down, but firemen were coming out of all three buildings carrying bodies. Sasha overheard among the police talking around her that seven people had succumbed so far, five were injured, and the fireman she’d seen carried out. She talked to Claire again then, and Morgan and Abby were with her. Morgan suggested they meet at Max’s restaurant, half a block from where they were standing, at the other end of the street. Their building was no longer at risk, but they’d been told it would be another hour or two before they would be allowed back into their home. Sasha was sure it would reek of smoke when they did. But they could easily have lost it that night if the wind had changed direction, and she thought about the people who had died, as she walked around the block to meet the others on Tenth Avenue. They were quiet on their way to Max’s. He had closed half an hour before, and was counting the money while the kitchen staff and bus boys were cleaning up. Max had come out to see what was happening a couple of times, and brought them more water, and then had gone back to work. It was a busy night.