WEEKEND GAMES III

Post Game Show

What's keeping them so long? Their plane landed more than an hour ago. It's not like they've been traveling with a dozen suitcases. They've only been away for a weekend trip.

Angela and Tony went to St. Louis for an Old Timers ballgame with his former team, and the kids and I are now at JFK waiting for them to come home. If someone invited me to an Old Timers anything I would give them a piece of my mind, but Tony was thrilled. I understand to some extent, though. He was torn out of his baseball career in an instant after his shoulder injury. His world collapsed and transformed a promising second baseman into a fish truck driver and eventually a housekeeper. No easy change for a proud man like Tony.

It was very important to him to show Angela what his life was like before they met. Ever since he moved into our house - okay, her house - he's tried to impress Angela, the woman who impresses him so much. When I first heard of Tony's plans, I pictured that a short getaway without the rest of the family might bring those two closer together.

I want them to be together. I want it so much. I want my baby to be happy, and I know Tony would make her happy. Angela is a woman with so much love to give, and in her quest for the right guy to pour her love out to, she's mostly ended up with jerks who took advantage of her.

It all started with Kenny Bigelow who said he would take her to the prom; that is until he found someone else. I remember a moron at high school who took her out on a date only to win a bet. The guys at college complimented her to make her help them with their term papers. None of those insensitive airheads made an effort to look behind the façade of the overweight, clumsy girl with her huge glasses. If they had, they would've realized how much they were hurting her although she never showed it.

When twenty-year-old Angela first introduced me to an unknown documentary film maker named Michael Bower, I hoped he was her Mr. Right. My ugly duckling had turned into a beautiful swan by then. She had lost all her excess pounds, her acne was gone, she dyed her hair and had gained confidence after having graduated as valedictorian from Harvard Business School. She had started to work as a copy writer for a middle-sized advertising agency and achieved her first professional successes. Unfortunately, the better I got to know him, the more obvious it became that through her rose-colored glasses Angela didn't see what I saw: a man so damn cocksure about himself that he wasn't considering anybody else's needs but his own. I knew on their wedding day that their marriage wouldn't last, and I ended up being right; not that I was proud of it. I don't say he wasn't really fond of her, and I give him credit for having made her happy for a couple of years, but eventually he disappointed her like all the others before.

Tony is the man I've always wanted to see at my daughter's side. He lets Angela be who she is, even more so, he assures her that she's okay being who she is. For all her life, Angela tried so hard to meet the expectations men put on her, suddenly there's someone who makes her feel she doesn't have to change to make him like her. Tony teaches her how to lighten up, how to embrace life and enjoy it. Plus, he's like a father to her son who so badly needed a male role model after Michael hit the road. What more can I ask for for my daughter?

Well, I could ask for that very last step they've refused to take so far, the step which would make the whole thing complete. They have a wonderful, resilient relationship full of trust and compassion, and there are times I envy them for it. I had a relationship like that with my husband and never again with anyone since he passed away. As good as it is, their relationship could even be better if they allowed themselves to be intimate not only on an emotional level but also physically. As banal as it sounds, sex is missing in their relationship.

I know people think that I take sex too lightly, that I'm having it just for fun and with too many men. Those people could be right. It hasn't always been like this, though. If my Robert were still here with me, I wouldn't even care to look at anyone else. I was married to the most loveable man, and although I had married so young, I believed he would be the only one I'd ever be with. Unfortunately, matters turned out differently. Since I lost my husband, I've been living my life as I like, caring only about what's doing me good, and spending the night with a gorgeous man is doing me good. As happened last night when I couldn't resist charming Bill Loughlin when he asked me for a nightcap after a night out.

Angela is different. She's still hopelessly romantic, hanging on to the young girl's dream of the shining knight who takes her to his castle on a white horse. She can't separate sex from love, that's why she's been with so few men. I wish for her to get to that point with Tony. I know men, and I know Tony. I'm absolutely sure he would take good care of her. He's sensitive, he's kind, he's decent, and I imagine him as a perfect lover. Although a vital, fun-loving hunk, who's had quite a few amorous escapades on his Brooklyn weekends, he's conservative and traditional when it comes to a woman he's serious about. I know he's serious about Angela, which is good, but it's not exactly an Italian tradition to get involved with your female boss.

At least, my hopes have partly come true and they ended up in a hotel room together in St Louis. As if this weren't enough, it even turned out to be the honeymoon suite! Okay, Angela later explained that the circumstances rather than their feelings for each other had made them alter their booking arrangements, but still, a man and a woman together in a hotel room, far away from home and its obligations, with a bottle of champagne, in their nightwear at some point. All of this combined should have brought even those two chickenhearted prudes to surrender to their buried desires.

So, of course, they screwed it up! Tony did, actually. Although I can't blame him for falling for a curvy redhead. I'm only glad that I could make Angela stay for the game after their silly, unnecessary fight. Not only did she stay for the game, but also for another night. Plus, I didn't get another phone call from her complaining about the situation. Promising! Maybe something happened between them after all.

What if nothing has happened? What if there's never going to be anything happening? What if they've already had their chance and missed it?

Tony told Angela he loved her on their second anniversary, but Angela skirted the chance to talk plainly. Years later, when Angela blurted out in her sleep that she loved Tony, he had no better answer other than to compare their relationship to sharing household appliances. Feature that! Joe, the bartender, told me that he had never seen two people so very fond of each other, yet so incapable of speaking it out.

Another chance gone by. How many chances do you get?

"Where are they, Grandma?" Jonathan asks me, clutching the little bouquet we got for Angela at the airport's flower shop. The tulips have already gone a bit limp because he's been putting it from one hand to the other for over an hour now.

"Maybe they missed the plane," Sam says.

"I don't think so, Sweetheart. They would've called us. Maybe a piece of luggage got lost."

It's really strange that they haven't shown up yet. I already saw a lot of passengers from St. Louis coming through that automatic door. I could take it from their baggage tags that they had flown in from St. Louis: STL-JFK they were saying. Now where are our two vacationers? I'm still trying to think about what could possibly keep them inside for so long when Sam suddenly pulls my sleeve.

"There they are! Dad! Angela!" She waves with both arms, "Over here!"

They're approaching us, Tony pushing the trolley and Angela walking beside him. They really do look like a couple. The kids are running toward them and in a blink of an eye they are already clinging to their respective parent. What a cute family!

"Hi, Mona," Tony says to me. What's with his voice? It sounds strange.

"Mother!" Angela gives me a hug. Her voice sounds strange, too. And her cheeks are burning.

I look at her and realize there's a certain sparkle in her eyes. I look at Tony and notice he's somewhat tensed. He's blabbering about his Old Timers game without interruption as if to keep us from addressing any other topic. He has the same sparkle in his eyes like Angela and his hair is tousled.

Wait a minute! Something is going on here.

"Did someone dishevel your hair, Tony," I ask, trying to sound innocent, "or was it just a rough flight?"

"Huh?"

His puzzled face is all I needed. I know what a man looks like when he gets caught.

"Your hair. It looks kinda...ruffled."

"It does?"

He starts combing it with his fingers.

"It was a bumpy flight, Mother," Angela seconds Tony, and now I'm absolutely convinced that something has happened between those two. Something they're trying to hide. Unfortunately, I can't grill them now with Sam and Jonathan around. Later, when we're home and the kids are tucked in, I'll make another approach. I will find out about the events in the honeymoon suite. Maybe it would be wiser to question them one-on-one anyway.

Ha, I'm already looking forward to squeezing the truth out of each of them!

I continue my observations on our way home. Tony's driving and Angela is in the passenger seat. I'm sitting in the back, far from missing any of the glances they're exchanging. They probably think I'm too distracted to notice the chemistry flickering in the front because the kids are firing away one question after the other, but I can listen and observe at the same time.

Sam wants to know everything about the game, understandably. Tony tells her with a grain of pride in his voice how he scored a run sliding to home plate on his tummy like a youngster and Angela raves enthusiastically about how he was the fittest and fastest of all the Old Timers. As if her admiration wasn't already a valuable proof, she has to beam at Tony repeatedly. The only thing missing is her squeezing his hand or stroking his thigh.

Angela, Angela. Do you really think you can hide anything from your mother?

"Did you win, Dad?"

"It was a charity game, Sweetheart. Winning wasn't really the goal."

"Alright, Dad, but did you win?"

"Yeah, we won 6-2."

"Yay!"

It's cute to see Sam so excited and it's interesting to hear everything about Tony and Mike's double plays or Dave's pitches, but what's a lot more fascinating is the non-verbal communication going on directly in front of my eyes. Every time Angela turns her head and smiles at Tony, he looks back at her and winks.

"I hear the hotel messed up your reservation," I ask, hoping this would fuel the flames a little.

"Well, sort of..." Tony answers.

I smile inwardly because I not only know what a man looks like when he gets caught, I also know what he sounds like.

"Really? How?" Jonathan now asks. Good boy!

Tony only coughs, clutches the steering wheel and remains silent, Angela fills in the blanks. "We booked two rooms, of course," she begins.

"Of course!" slips out of my mouth.

Angela continues, unblinking, without reacting to my remark in any way. "They lost the reservation for one of the rooms."

She's good at inventing stories, I have to say. I guess that's why she's so successful in advertising.

"And what did they do? Make you share a room?" Sam asks somewhat excited. She's still a teenager but already observant enough to understand parts of Tony and Angela's complicated relationship.

"Actually, that's what they did, but they gave us a suite."

"A big suite! Huge!" Tony now throws in, "Angela and I got almost lost in it. We hardly saw each other."

"Sure, Tony, I bet they gave you the Presidential Suite with so many bedrooms you didn't even know where Angela was sleeping." Even if I had tried, I would've failed to keep the irony out of my voice. That why I didn't even try.

Tony's and my eyes meet in the rear view mirror. I know his look is meant as a warning to not push it any further, but the further I go, the more fun it is.

"Lucky you, Angela. In a smaller suite, you couldn't have kept your silly nightshirt from Tony's view."

Now my eyes meet with Angela's in the vanity mirror of her sun visor.

Oh, this is hilarious! However, the best is yet to come at home, when the kids and their ears are not around and I can be frank and direct.

"Enough of us in St. Louis, how have things been in Fairfield?"

I let Tony change the subject. I've found out enough anyway. Something happened in St. Louis besides winning some silly Old Timers ballgame. Something between our two protagonists. Something which will be affecting the whole family, so I have every right to further investigate, don't I? When we're home I'll seize the first opportunity to talk to either of them. It won't be easy to get them to open up. Tony will be the tougher nut to crack, I'm afraid. I know exactly which buttons to push with Angela to make her confide in me, but men are rather tight-lipped when it comes to their feelings. No matter, it wouldn't be me if I didn't know how to get what I want. Tony and I have a good relationship. He knows I only wish the best for him. He'll talk to me.

"Here we are," Tony announces while pulling up the driveway in front of our house. "Home, sweet home!"