The Apartment by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

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