Chapter One - The Envelope
When he came home he spotted the envelope still in the same place where he had last seen it this morning; the envelope with an invitation to his graduation ceremony coming up in three days.
He had made it. Sometimes he couldn't believe it himself, but he had really and truly passed all his final exams, and in a couple of days he would be holding a teaching degree in his hands. If that wasn't a reason to have a big celebration! He would be the first Micelli to go to work in a suit. His parents would have been proud of their little 'Antonio'. His father had been a garbage man, his mother a traditional housewife. They had always hoped that their son would graduate from high school, go to university, and become a banker, or lawyer, or engineer. But he had been a promising baseball talent, and running and jumping around on a baseball field had been so much more fun for the young Tony than sitting at home over books, studying for school. So he had left school early to fully concentrate on his baseball career. And he had been successful from the start, had made it into the Major League at a young age. Had fate not struck him this badly with a serious shoulder injury, he might have made it to the All-Star team someday. But it hadn't meant to be. Instead, he had ended up on the street, admittedly with a considerable compensation, but without any higher education. He had a wife and a daughter to provide for, so he had started to apply for all kinds of odd jobs, such as working at a wrecking yard, as a gas station attendant or construction worker. He had been very thankful when Mrs Rossini had offered him to work as a truck driver for her fish shop on a permanent basis. Having a reliable source of income had taken a lot off his mind and had let him finally sleep peacefully at night. That had been the time when he had sworn to himself to make Samantha get a college degree, so that she wouldn't be forced to worry about financial matters the way he had done. That had been the reason for why he had come to Connecticut to work as a housekeeper in the first place, and meeting his employer had only strengthened his wish to push his daughter through college at any cost. This well-educated, hard working woman kept impressing him. She was financially independent from her ex-husband, and able to provide a decent prosperity to her family. She could send her son to the best schools, thus putting him in a position to be successful himself one day. Her work fulfilled her with pride and satisfaction, and wasn't comparable at all to the treadmill all of his ancestors had gone through to earn their humble income.
That Samantha and he would not only find a source of income within their new community, but also friends and family - and maybe even more than that - hadn't been foreseeable at the time. And that his boss would promote him and make him go to college had been way out if his imagination. But she had! She had motivated him, supported him, pushed him, tutored him, challenged him, mentored him, psyched him up if necessary; without her, he would've never made it, that was as clear as the morning dew. And now she left the envelope with the invitation to his graduation ceremony untouched on the little secretaire ever since he had handed it to her a few days ago with the cheerful words, "The day has come, Angela. Here's an invitation to my commencement." She had taken it from his hands, barely looking into his eyes, had mumbled something like, "I'll have to check my agenda", and had put it in the place where it rested since then. Of course he knew why, and it had nothing to do with that she wasn't happy for him, ... it had everything to do with Kathleen.
Kathleen. The woman he was dating although he had feelings for Angela, and although he knew she was having feelings for him. He hadn't looked for another woman, or planned to dive into a relationship, it had just happened. He had met her during one of his classes at college. They had first kissed in an impulse after a studying session with a whole bunch of people. The atmosphere had been heated by the slides of the Rubenesque nudes they had been watching. So one kiss had led to another and somehow they had ended up in bed. When he had sneaked into the house the following morning, he had felt guilty like an adulterer. His heart had been so heavy that he had to confide in Angela right away and had told her about his affair. Angela's face had been like an open book; he had seen all the hurt and sadness his confession had evoked in her. It made him feel guilty and sorry up until this very day. But he just couldn't help it, and Angela, intelligent and wise as she was, understood that they had to go through this to see whether their relationship was resilient enough for romance. At least she had told him so. Of course he didn't know what was going on behind her forehead, what she really thought about all that. He only noticed her sometimes puffy eyes in the morning, or the many weekends she spent at her agency to prevent being alone in the house when he was at Kathleen's.
What was wrong with him? He couldn't tell. He kept on hurting his best friend, the woman he owed a lot to, the one person he was closer to than to any other person in his life, including his current girlfriend. The tears she had shed during their talk in her den had never left his mind. He asked himself whether it really was a coincidence that he had jumped into this relationship just now, a few months before his graduation. Women had lead him into temptation before, but he had always resisted. Mrs Rossini had tried to hook him up with Gina, the Italian girl next door, at one of her Thanksgiving parties. He had kissed her, but that was all. He had embarrassed his daughter to the bone with kissing her teacher Lois - Old Lady Scranton as she was called by her class - behind a curtain at a school dance. He had stopped seeing her, and not only because of Samantha, but also because of the expression in Angela's eyes when Sam had whined about it in front of her. He had shown Trish around, Angela's friend from university. She had seduced him, but had gone to the reunion without him. Angela had offered to share his company that evening, because she had been angry about the way he had been treated by her friend. There had been Geneviève from France, one of Angela's clients, who had been an embodied temptation, dressed in nothing more than a silky French negligée. If Angela hadn't shown up in the hotel room and if he hadn't left with her something might have happened that night, but he had never regretted having missed that chance. Angela had risked a multi-million dollar account just to preserve his dignity. Tanya had been from his old neighbourhood, someone he had fooled around with when he was a teenager. He had spent one single night with her, but only because Angela had been dating that dork Geoffrey at the time. Betty had tried to turn him on with her open flirtations, but he had resisted her erotic dancing. And last but not least, there had been Frankie, who had proposed to him and had asked him straight in the face whether it was because of Angela that he refused to marry her. That was a long list of temptations he had withstood, and Angela had always played a part in it. So why hadn't he been able to leave that motel room with the other students of the study group? Why had he stayed behind, alone with Kathleen?
Was it because she was the one? The first woman he could truly love after his first wife had died so many years ago? Hardly. Deep down in his heart he knew that Angela was that woman. So why couldn't he just let go of Kathleen? Was it because their relationship was running so smoothly? His Brooklyn buddies were patting him on the shoulder, congratulating him on getting himself such a georgeous, young girlfriend, who worshipped the ground he walked on. Mrs Rossini had already taken her into her heart, teaching her how to prepare Tony's favorite meals. They both joined the same study groups and circle of college students, so socializing was easy. Easy, ... that seemed to be the key word. His relationship with Kathleen was easy, whereas his relationship with Angela was complicated. But the easy solution wasn't always the best in life. This knowledge manifested itself slowly in his mind. And why now? He had met other campus girls during his college years who had given him the eye, but had never pursued things. Was it because he had told Angela once that he needed to graduate first until he'd be able to decide on their relationship? Being involved with someone else was a good enough excuse to procrastinate a decision. Was that the reason? Was he simply afraid to be hold on to the promise he had made in Jamaica? Did he need an excuse for her, or rather for himself? He didn't know. He was confused and indecisive, feeling like a ghost-driver who speeded on the wrong side of the road, waiting for the big bang. This image in his head complimented perfectly the one Mona had once used to describe his relationship with Angela: driving a slow car with a flat tire along the scenic route. At least the latter went into the right direction.
He sighed. He wasn't sure whether he should talk to her about it. Ever since he started to see Kathleen on a regular basis, the atmosphere between them had become tense and awkward. So awkward that she now refused to bestow any consideration upon the envelope which was so important to him. They had been able to talk about everything in the past years; from teenage problems to shopping lists, from mother-daughter conflicts to vacation destinations, from business matters to household chores. They had shared their deepest secrets and fears with each other, and now they weren't able to exchange little more than a morning greeting and casual small-talk at the dinner table. Why had he let it come that far, he often asked himself. And he asked himself even more often, if there was any chance to return to their wonderful, carefree relationship.