The Apartment by Danielle Steel

Author:Danielle Steel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-05-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

When Abby got to L.A. on Wednesday afternoon, her parents were still at work, and she let herself into their home in Hancock Park with the key they had put under the mat for her. Maria, their longtime maid, had already left for the day. She only came in mornings now, and the house was quiet, but familiar and comfortable. Her mother had had it redone the year before with strikingly modern furniture and contemporary art. It wasn’t cozy, but it was beautiful. Abby wandered around the house, after she put her small tote bag in her room, and went to sit in the garden, thinking about what she would do now, and what she wanted to say to them. She knew they hoped she’d move home, now more than ever, but she wasn’t ready to do that. There were writing opportunities in New York too, and she was doing her best work, writing normal fiction, since the breakup with Ivan. She’d done a few short stories and was working on her novel. She hadn’t realized it for the past three years, but he had been holding her back, as she tried to meet his esoteric new-wave standards, which no longer felt right for her, and never really had. She was developing her own voice again, and she felt that her writing was getting stronger than ever before. Her parents had been very patient with her for a long time, and she hoped that they would be for a while longer. She still wanted their financial and emotional support to give her the time she needed for her writing.

There was a spare car in the garage that she used when she was home, an old Volvo from her high school days. It was ancient but it still worked. She drove around L.A. that afternoon, looking at familiar places, thinking about her life now without Ivan. It felt good to be home. And when she got back to the house, her parents were both there and excited to see her. She hadn’t been home in almost a year, since Christmas, and she was startled to see that her parents had aged a little. She always thought of them as young and vital forever. Her father was complaining about a bad knee he had injured playing tennis, and her mother was healthy, but seemed subtly older. They had been older parents when she was born, as a surprise, and now they were in their late sixties, but still going strong with no thought of slowing down, and Abby was glad to be spending the holiday with them.

They talked about her writing that night at dinner, and were relieved to hear that she had given up writing experimental plays to please Ivan, and was writing more traditional material again. They had ordered in fancy takeout food since her mother never cooked. They had an offsite chef who dropped off meals for them several times a week, based on healthy nonfat meal plans.

“So what do you think, Abby?” her father asked her gently.

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