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.