I'll admit now I have no idea where this is going, I just seem to have time on my hands at the moment!
I don't own My So-Called Life.
The library was a strange place at night. All those words like trapped there, stuck together in silent argument: religion and science; history and modernity; love and tragedy. It was almost entirely silent but if you really thought about it, the Carnegie Library was probably the noisiest building in Pittsburgh.
Angela walked slowly down the long corridor from her office, her bag heavy as always on Friday. But she didn't mind her slow pace; she was in no hurry to get home tonight.
"Goodnight Mikael,"
The middle-aged security guard, sitting behind his desk with his feet up, looked up from the television, "see ya Miss Chase,"
Angela smiled to herself. Ever since she moved to the main library from the Mt. Washington site six months ago Mikael had most often been the man left to care for the building overnight. He was the sort of guy who watched so many documentaries on National Geographic that he knew almost everything there was to know about almost everything. He never took out a book though, despite working in the greatest centre of knowledge in Pittsburgh. Angela often wondered whether he could read at all, or maybe he was just dyslexic or something.
As she exited the building it began to rain, she hurried over to her car and was grateful to get the door unlocked and climb inside before she got too wet. She glanced down at the clock on the dashboard, six-thirty, just enough time to get home, take a shower and get ready.
The smell of roast beef wafted out into the porch as Angela unlocked the front door of the modest house in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. It was a deliciously disconcerting scent. She loved his cooking but she had the feeling the food would be the only truly pleasant aspect of this evening. It wasn't as if she hadn't met his parents before, and they were actually okay as people to like talk to or whatever. It was just something about the way this whole evening had been planned, like just between him and them, like some kind of plot. Something was going on, and Angela didn't like it.
"Hey," Ben appeared as if from nowhere, wearing an apron over his suit, he checked his watch, "you're cutting it fine,"
"Sorry. I'm gonna grab a shower,"
He nodded and smiled. He smiled the same way on their first date at college; he took her to the movies.
Angela looked at the array of clothes hanging in her wardrobe. Gone were the plaid shirts and leggings of her youth, in their place were smart dark suits, conservative jumpers and … is that a twin-set? She can't quite put her finger on when exactly this swap occurred. They had only been out of college for two years and suddenly she had transformed into a suburban housewife - without the wife part.
--
"Ben this looks absolutely delightful. Trust me to raise a son who's a better cook than I am," Evie Simmons laughed at her own joke.
Bowls of vegetables were passed around the table politely and conversation focussed on careers – mainly Ben's career as Angela was assumed to be content "in her little office at the library."
"Of course Angela we have to consider," Evie Simmons twirled her fork in a way that drove Angela mad and looked up at her from lashes thick with mascara, "you may not be at the library all that much longer, hmm?" She used that tone of voice that older women use when what they're really talking about is children.
Angela indulged her with a diplomatic smile, "what do you mean Evie?"
"Well-," her eyes drifted toward her son.
"Mom," Ben chided, "don't make Angela uncomfortable,"
"Yes Evie," Bob Simmons continued, "leave little Angie alone, and let's just enjoy our dinner,"
But a subject like that, once raised, doesn't just go away. The dinner continued in almost complete silence with the shadow of Evie's allusions hanging over the sombre quartet.
As Angela collected together the dishes at the end of the evening she could hear whisperings coming from the hallway. She tried to ignore them, instead focussing on spooning left over potatoes into one bowl. It wasn't as if she hadn't been anticipating it for some time now, they had been together for three years after all – it's only to be expected surely. Yet for some reason the idea filled Angela with terror. Not the idea of being married per se but the idea of being married to Ben. But that sounds cruel. It's not as if he wasn't a good man, an honest man, a man she had truly fallen in love with at college. Just that he wasn't the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. He had been a mature choice, but perhaps she had finally outgrown her maturity and blossomed into a coarse twenty-something to whom twice a week after the world news – Ben's paperwork permitting – was no longer sufficient to quench a newly discovered zeal and a life lived on the quiet side no longer a life lived to the full. She stabbed the final potato with a butter knife in frustration at her inability to face up to her own feelings.
"Woah, did it say something you disagreed with,"
Angela looked down at the potato impaled on the knife and flushed, "I wanted to make sure I wouldn't drop the knife on the way to the kitchen,"
"Rather a knife and a potato?" he smirked, "messy,"
Angela lifted the collection of dishes, plates and cutlery she had assembled into two modest towers and headed toward the kitchen, "do you think your parents had a good time?"
Ben followed her carrying wine glasses, "mostly at your expense I fear,"
"They don't mean anything by it," she replied vaguely, "my mom is the same – sometimes,"
She set down the plates on the worktop and moved to open the back door to let the cat in, his scratching was becoming deafening, like an overly pretentious metaphor for her own life.
"I thought my father's ideas for the practice were interesting," he poured another glass of wine, only his second of the evening. Angela was on her fourth. "He seems to be hinting he might want to take a back seat from now on,"
"So he should, he should be enjoying his retirement by now, not still rushing around those offices,"
Ben nodded thoughtfully, "he's talked about maybe making me a junior partner, more responsibility," he moved toward her, his wine glass made a clinking noise as he lowered it to the granite worktop, "financial security, more disposable income, maybe a bigger house,"
Angela felt compelled to pass comment, "great." She felt him settle behind her, his hand sweeping the hair from her neck, a gesture she used to find intoxicating.
"It also means I wont have to worry about spending so much money on this," he produced a small box, holding it before her, opened to reveal a diamond ring.
It had always seemed stupid to Angela how women inevitably gasped at the sight of an engagement ring and yet … she gasped. Ben came around to face her, looking up into her eyes with his wide genuine blue ones.
"Well?"
Angela scoffed, trying desperately to maintain the appropriate appreciative smile, "Ben!" she exclaimed.
He looked suitably proud of himself to have elicited such a reaction, "do you like it?"
"Of course," she laughed, "wow,"
Ben took the ring from the box and Angela felt her stomach turn over. Why didn't she do something about this situation earlier? Marriage? No way back. A life lived in the suburbs with a good man and probably a family eventually. God she must be so selfish, how many people find themselves in a situation like this? She's lucky isn't she? He held up the ring to her.
"Angela Chase, will you do me honour of becoming my wife?"
She smiled, the most genuine smile she could have mustered. She remembered the first time they met in the library at college; he was a business major and she was struggling through an English literature degree. She sat next to him at a reading desk and he offered her a piece of chocolate if she would test him on a case study he had to memorise for class. She was struck by the blue of his eyes and his openness, his parents were big news in Pittsburgh society but he was down to earth then and refreshingly normal compared to the other weirdoes she had encountered. After just a few dates she was certain that she was smitten and settled into Ben's routine of upmarket restaurants and revision sessions. He was hesitant when it came to intimacy, knowing Angela was still a virgin and being a virgin himself. Their first time was tentative and tender but as Angela stared into those blue eyes she found her thoughts were not exclusively of him.
But she had pushed any doubts to the back of her mind, certain that they were fruitless and that she should be happy with Ben because he was all that any woman could hope for. He always dressed smartly; he was handsome in that well-bred kind of way, and intelligent. He could offer her everything; security, loyalty, love. There were days when he would do things that she found so wonderful her heart would ache for him, like the day she started her job at the library and he wrote I love you on the first page of her notebook and left a pressed flower in her purse. But other days, like today, she felt suffocated by him, by his need to control everything.
But then, how did she know this wasn't as good as it got? Her parents compromised their entire marriage; they had even survived an affair for God's sake. They quite clearly despised one another at least ten percent of the time but made up for it by loving each other devotedly for eighty-eight percent – and the remaining two percent of the time Graham had spent fucking Hallie Lowenthal. But maybe that was reality; stories of perfect marriages were most often footnoted by infidelity followed by divorce or violent homicide right? So maybe Ben was the one for her, the one she should settle down with, start a family with, be with for like, forever. She did love him after all.
She pressed a palm to her heart as she stared into Ben's eyes, "yes," she said simply.
Ben's face lit up, "yes?"
She couldn't bring herself to say it again so she nodded instead. She felt herself enveloped by Ben's arms and lifted off her feet, his joyous laughter ringing in her ears. Wrapping her arms around his neck she buried her face in his neck and inhaled his safe scent. Swept up in the infectious ecstasy of the moment she made no hesitation in allowing herself to be carried upstairs … before the world news.
--
Angela liked Wednesday mornings; she didn't have to be in work until the afternoon so she had the house to herself all morning. On the breakfast table was a note from Ben, don't loose it! She smiled; it seemed to her to be both thoughtful and crude at the same time, so she screwed up the note and threw it in the bin. Unfortunately there was some work to be done, a small stack of children's books sat in the corner of the sitting room ready to be transported to a kindergarten downtown by 1pm. After indulging in a long bath and a cooked breakfast Angela relaxed in front of the television for a black and white film. As the credits rolled she packed the books into a box and set off in the car for Sunny Days Kindergarten.
The kindergarten was noisy and painted in bold colours, small children gathered around Angela as she entered.
"Everybody sit down on the round mat please!" the assistant shouted, she smiled at Angela apologetically "sorry about the craziness, it's the end of the morning session so we've got parents coming in to collect kids. I'll be with you in a minute, take a seat,"
Angela sat in the corner next to a painting of an elephant. She pulled open the lid of the box and inspected the books the library had leant them, part of a scheme Angela herself had helped organise.
"Holly Campbell," the assistant reached out a hand to a little girl sitting on the round rug as her parents appeared through the main door.
The assistant pointed at the remaining children and they all spoke in unison, "goodbye Holly Campbell!" The little girl waved as she left.
Angela flicked through one of the books in the box on her lap. She looked down at her hand as it held one side of the book, and at the beautifully set diamond that now adorned her ring finger. Wasn't she supposed to like shiver in excitement every time she looked at it?
"Jordan Catalano," the assistant's voice rang in Angela's ears and for a moment she thought she must have misheard. "Goodbye Jordan Catalano!" the children's voices were unmistakable.
Angela looked up to see a boy of about four stepping off the round rug and heading for the door. Her view of the door was obscured by a cupboard and try as she might to lean as far forward as she could without falling off her plastic chair, she could not see around it. A hand extended out to the small boy and Angela held her breath, it had to be a coincidence.
She stood up, almost dropping the box from her lap in the process. The children and the assistants looked over at the flustered young woman struggling to control a box of reading material standing in the corner of their kindergarten, "I have to go, I'll leave these here, just make sure they're back in two weeks," she quickly made for the exit, feeling more than a little embarrassed. Angela's heeled shoes made a swift tune on the polished floor of the corridor but as she turned the corner to the exit of the building she was brought to a sudden halt by warm body. She dared herself to look up.
"Woah," his first word to her in five years, "don't shoot I was just on my way back to pay it," he held out a fistful of dollars toward her.
Angela was struck speechless.
"He'll be in for the morning again tomorrow and then full day on Friday,"
Angela took the money from his hand, noting the silver band that encircled one finger like always. Had she really changed that much? She would always know him - sadly. Slowly she looked up into his face, there was no mistaking it, not that Angela wouldn't have trusted the tingling in her fingertips to tell her as much.
"Okay," the second part of the word was extended; he seemed to frown a little, "bye,"
She watched him turn away, collecting the boy, and disappearing out of the exit.
Angela walked out slowly to her car and sat in silence for a few moments. It was him, she wasn't mistaken, he even smelled the same. How could he not have recognised her? She hadn't changed all that much; her hair was no longer red, instead restored to her original dark blonde, but apart from that she looked almost the same as in high school.
She settled down at her desk in work and started on the paperwork that had been piling up for days. There was a message for her from the main desk to say that Ben had been trying to contact her. She dialled his number and waited for an answer. There was a knock on her door.
"Yes?"
Debbie from the main desk appeared in the doorway, "someone here from Sunny Days,"
"Oh," she frowned, remembering how she had behaved, "send them in,"
Debbie stood aside to allow the person into the office.
"I'll be with you in a moment," she assured, still looking down at the array of paperwork spread over her desk and at the telephone, still rining with no reply.
"Okay," came the reply.
Angela, recognising the voice instantly, slammed the phone down in shock and looked up.
Jordan smiled, "hey,"
Confusion would be an understatement at this point. Only a few hours ago he hadn't known who she was.
"Can I help you?"
"Angela,"
His voice speaking her name sent a familiar shiver up Angela's spine, "Jordan," she whispered. Clearing her throat she continued, "I thought you didn't recognise me,"
He smiled a little, "I didn't want to say anything in front of Jay,"
"Your son?"
He nodded, monitoring her reaction. She was relieved to find she could actually keep her emotions under wraps and not just dive under her desk and hide until he left, which was seeming like such a good option at this point.
"So I just came to say hi, I felt bad after for not saying anything so-,"
"Okay. Hi,"
"Hi,"
"So what are you-,"
"I asked at the-,"
They both stopped and smiled.
"You go," Jordan prompted.
"So what are you doing now, like job-wise?"
"I'm doing a course at the Arts Institute,"
"Like painting?" Angela asked, impressed.
He shrugged, "some. Mainly product design, chairs mostly … I like chairs,"
She smiled, "chairs?"
"I just finished one, for Jay, shaped like an egg. It hangs from the ceiling in his room,"
"Wow. What is he-, is he like four?"
"That's right,"
There was an awkward silence, that terrible silence when there are so many questions just hanging in the air to be asked at some point but which neither party has the courage to address.
"He looks like you. He has your nose, does he get his lighter colouring from his mother?"
"I guess,"
"Do you still-,"
"She moved away, she's living in New York now,"
Angela raised her eyebrows, "popular choice, according to Rickie that's where Rayanne ended up too,"
"I know." He spoke the words deep as if to ensure they reverberated around her mind, and just to be certain his eyes branded her with them, "she left just after Jay's first birthday,"
Angela desperately fought tears, anger and despair. She clung to the edge of her desk, displaying to Jordan, for the first time, her engagement ring. Rayanne had pretty much lost her battle with alcohol by the time they finished high school, she fell behind and although the Principal gave her the chance to take the last year again in the hope of getting a college place somewhere she refused. Angela lost contact with her after that, mainly because she was so busy with college herself but also because she found it too painful to watch her friend's decline. Rickie updated her occasionally but even he didn't see her all that often once he started at drama school. But Rickie had told her nothing about a child, let alone a child with Jordan of all people. Perhaps he was trying to protect her, knowing she and Ben were together now and to all intents and purposes happy.
"It was-, I mean we were never really together. We were just-,"
"Yeah," she interrupted him, "I remember what you and Rayanne were "just," I remember very well,"
Angela could feel the heat rising in her face and a knot forming in her stomach, the room was suddenly torrid and her chair uncomfortable.
"Is that," he indicated to her ring, "an engagement ring?"
"I don't believe this, what is your point?" Angela automatically went on the defensive.
"Nothing," Jordan replied, a little surprised by her tone.
"I think you should leave now. Why did you even come here?"
He gritted his teeth, "I forget,"
His shoulders were broad, she had always liked that, when he used to wrap his arms around her she felt safe and warm against him. His hair was shorter than it used to be but it framed his face well, a face that was now more defined than in the past. He was altogether more maturely dressed and his air was one of a more refined man as opposed to the stumbling teenager she had known.
The door opened and Debbie reappeared, "Angela, the people from the audio department are here," she smiled and closed the door.
"Saved by the bell," Angela commented before shuffling the papers on her desk and standing, "I have a meeting,"
She attempted to pass him but he reached for her wrist as it brushed his side, "tell me where you live," he whispered harshly.
With Angela unable to summon the strength to stop him, Jordan pushed her back toward her desk. Within moments her paperwork was scattered across the acrylic carpet and she felt the hard edge of the desk against her lower back. His mouth was all over her neck and his hands all over her body as he clumsily lowered her down on to the desktop. She wrapped her legs around him as he lifted her skirt and took a fistfull of the cotton that made up her underwear. She reached down to unfasten his belt, hands shaking …
"No,"
Jordan released her wrist but remained where he stood with his back to Angela as she opened the office door.
"Thank you Mr Catalano," she began, in her most professional voice, "I'll bear your thoughts in mind," then waited sternly for him to vacate her office.
As he passed her he gave her one of those heated glances, the sort that medieval heroes gave to maidens after they had saved them from some peril or another, but who wanted to maintain an air of mystery … for some unfathomable reason. Angela forced herself not to watch him walk away down the long corridor, she knew her resolve was not that strong. Had it ever been all that solid when it came to him? She could almost have laughed at the irony of it all, a matter of days after her partner proposes, the love of her life reappears without warning. What's more he reappears with a son in tow, a son he had with her best friend, and as if that wasn't enough crazy for one person to handle, he actually seemed to still want her. It was too much and Angela felt a headache coming on.