Danielle Steel - The Apartment

“We went to Connecticut,” Alex said cryptically as he smiled at Sasha, and everyone understood and looked pleased for them. There were no secrets in the group.

As they always did, they sat talking for a long time. The candles burned low on the table, and everyone was full and relaxed when the others went home. And after Sasha helped with the dishes, she and Alex went to her room and got into bed, as though they’d been doing it for years. They cuddled under her comforter, and they made love again, and just before they fell asleep, he told her he loved her, and she snuggled up to him and kissed his cheek.

“I love you too, Alex,” she said softly, and a moment later she was purring in his arms like a kitten. The next thing he knew, it was six o’clock, the alarm had gone off, and it was time to go to work. They were on the same schedule that day. She showered first, and then made him breakfast while he showered and dressed. She had it on the table for him when he walked out of her bedroom. The others were all still asleep. She and Alex had to be at work by seven, and they were on duty until ten that night.

“Thank you,” he said, smiling at her. Staying with her had worked out better than he had expected. No one made an issue of it, and he felt as though he fit right in. Max had spent the night too, and the loft was big enough for all of them, especially with different schedules. Sasha shared a bathroom with Abby, who wouldn’t be up before noon. “I feel like I’m in college again,” he said grinning, except that he was there with the woman he loved, not a bunch of guys he barely knew.

“Sometimes I feel like that too. But I think I’d be lonely having my own place.” She had been there with all of them for five years, and she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

They left the apartment quietly at a quarter to seven, and he drove to the hospital and put the car in the garage. And then they walked into the hospital together, kissed, and wished each other a good day. Sasha was smiling when she got to the nurses’ station, and looked at the chalkboard on the wall to see who was in active labor, who had delivered, when, and how many patients they had.

“Full house,” she commented to the nurses.

“You can say that again. We delivered six babies on Halloween. Two C’s and four vag. The place was hopping all night. Lucky for you you were off.” She smiled and nodded. It had been more than lucky. It had been their honeymoon. She grabbed one of the charts and went in to check on one of the women who had delivered the night before.

She checked on four of them, and then Alex showed up with a cappuccino for her, and hurried back to work.

“What did you do to deserve that?” one of the nurses teased her. She had seen them together before, and Alex looked smitten with her.

“You don’t want to know,” Sasha said with a guilty grin, and they all laughed.

Alex called his parents about their Thanksgiving plans. His parents always hosted dinner, he and his brother were there, and a few friends of his parents who had nowhere else to go.

“I’d like to bring a friend with me, if that’s okay with you,” he told his mother on the phone, and she immediately made it clear that any friend of his or Ben’s was welcome. He had brought friends home from college several times, but no one since and never a woman. This was a first for him. Ben had had a girlfriend for two years, and she had joined them, but she and Ben had broken up that summer. So now it was his turn, and he had suspected his parents would be welcoming about it, but he still wanted to give them the courtesy of asking before he said anything to Sasha.

“Who is it? Is it someone we know?” his mother asked him.

“No, it’s someone I’m going out with. Her name is Sasha Hartman, she’s a resident at NYU too, and she’s from Atlanta.” It was as much information as he would give her.

“She sounds interesting,” his mother said pleasantly. Helen Scott loved her boys, and always welcomed their friends warmly.

“Can she stay with us, Mom?” He felt like a kid again as he asked.

“Of course. You don’t think I’d make her stay at a hotel, do you? And everyone’s grown up now. She can stay in your room, if you want her to, the way Angela stayed with Ben. I’m going to miss her.” It was an all-male household, except for her, and she had always missed having a daughter. And neither of her sons was married, so she had no daughters-in-law either. She had thought that Ben would marry his girlfriend, but she had had serious issues with his demanding schedule as an orthopedic surgeon, and had ended the relationship because of it. And even his mother realized that Ben was a little obsessive about his work, and he took too many patients, but he loved what he did, and Helen had told him that the right woman would understand it, and apparently Angela wasn’t it for him. But he had been very upset about the breakup, and had only just started dating again recently, but there was no one important in his life yet.

Alex talked to her for a few minutes, and was excited to speak to Sasha that afternoon when they left work together. He had been staying at the apartment with her.

“I called my mother today,” he told her as he drove home with her. “I wanted to clear it with her, before I asked you, and she’s delighted. I’d like you to come home with me for Thanksgiving,” he said, smiling at her. And then he added gently, “You’re the first woman I’ve ever taken home.” She leaned over and kissed him, and she was thrilled.

“I’m very touched and flattered.” He told her he was proud of her, and couldn’t wait for her to meet them. And she was excited about it. She knew it was a big deal to him, and it was to her too.

“Should I bring Valentina?” she teased him, and he groaned at the image.

“I’m not sure they’re quite ready for her yet,” he said as Sasha laughed at him.

“Neither is our family, and we’re related to her,” Sasha said simply. She hadn’t been planning to go home anyway, so she didn’t need to explain it to her mother. Going home for holidays now was just too unpleasant, being pulled between her parents while they competed with each other. She didn’t enjoy her stepmother, although she was a sweet woman, and her mother was just too difficult and hadn’t done Thanksgiving dinner in years. She went to a friend’s house every year, and was happy not to be bothered, so this was going to be the first family Thanksgiving Sasha had had in a long time. She was going to Chicago with Alex, and it sounded wonderful to her.

“I may have to buy a dress,” Sasha said, thinking about it as they walked into the apartment. “I don’t think I have the right thing to wear.” Or she could borrow something from one of her roommates, which she did often. Abby was too small, and shorter than all of them, but Morgan and Claire were about the same size, and Valentina, which would have been exotic, but definitely not the right look.

“My father and brother are doctors. You can wear your scrubs and Crocs if you want to.” He grinned at her. He was ecstatic that she was coming home with him. And he wanted to show her all his favorite haunts in Chicago. It was going to be a fantastic weekend. Sasha called Oliver that night to tell him about her change of plans and that she wouldn’t be at their Thanksgiving dinner, and he was happy for her.

—

George and Claire had their first fight two weeks before Thanksgiving, over a trade show she had to go to with Walter in Orlando. George wanted her to go to a black-tie dinner at the mayor’s mansion, and she said she couldn’t go.

“That’s ridiculous,” George said to her over dinner at Le Bernadin, the finest fish restaurant in New York, and another of his favorite haunts. “Tell him you can’t. I can’t tell the mayor you won’t come to dinner because you’re selling shoes in Florida.” He made it sound like a Moroccan bazaar.

“And I can’t tell Walter to sell his own ugly shoes because I’m having dinner with the mayor.”

“You don’t even like the shoes he sells.”

“No, I don’t, but it’s my job.” It was the first time George had put pressure on her, but the dinner was important to him. The mayor and his wife were clients, and he didn’t want to offend them. But she didn’t want to offend her boss. Walter was difficult enough as it was, and he would read about the evening in the papers. He was scanning them daily now for mention of her, so he could complain that she was out partying too much to do her job. She wasn’t going to add fuel to the fire by refusing to go to an important trade show with him, even if it sounded insignificant to George.

“You don’t even like your job,” he reminded her. “You want to quit.”

“That’s true. But I don’t want to get fired. It may sound tacky to you, but I need the money, and this is what I do.”

“I didn’t say it was tacky, I said it was ridiculous to cater to that ogre you work for. Let him sell his own damn shoes in Orlando.”

“This is what he pays me for.” There was no way to resolve the argument unless she agreed to go with George, and she couldn’t do that, whether George understood it or not. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of since the beginning, that he would try to force her to quit her job at some point, and then she’d be dependent on him. That was precisely what she didn’t want, and surely not this early in the relationship, or even later on. She had to have the ability to work and earn her salary, whether he liked it or not. She was sorry to miss the party with him, but if she didn’t want to get fired, she had no choice. And she didn’t want to give up her job with Arthur Adams until she had another one, hopefully a better one, which she wouldn’t get if she got fired from the one she had. She knew that George understood the concept, he just didn’t like her saying no. The word was unfamiliar to him.