A/N: I did as much research as I could on baseball, St. Louis, doughnut chains, the WTB timeline, and the occult. Any remaining mistakes or misrepresentations, anachronisms or chronological discrepancies are either due to me not knowing any better – or very much intentional. ;) But seriously: If you notice anything glaring, do let me know!
Ch 2 – Cardinal Sin (1)
The plane banked in preparation for approach and landing, and downtown St. Louis came into view outside the window to Angela's left. Her stomach tingled in anticipation as she took in the cityscape below, the gentle curve of the Missouri River, the Gateway Arch, and offset to the left behind it, the stadium.
What was it called again? Busch Memorial Stadium, yes, opened in 1966, with a seating capacity of more than 57,000 people. She had done her homework and read up on the Cardinals beforehand. It wasn't hard to imagine Tony running out onto the field in front of so many spectators, waving at the crowd. With his magnetic personality, she was sure that the fans had loved him and had given him thunderous applause.
Angela didn't care much for baseball, she still barely knew all the rules, not to mention the sign language and the various moves, or plays, or whatever they were called. But what she wouldn't give to have seen Tony play back in the day. Although, who knew – maybe she had seen him, unknowingly, in some bar, where a game was on in the background. It was also possible that she had heard a reporter on the radio say his name during a cab ride through Manhattan.
Sometimes, she felt silly imagining scenarios like these, but it also filled her with a pleasant sense of warmth to think about all the ways in which their lives might have intersected between Kissing Rock and the fall of 1984.
Tony had probably noticed most of the larger campaigns that she had had a hand in over the years. At the very least the Dunkin' Donuts one. No matter how ridiculous Michael thought they were, the yodeling doughnuts had been a huge success and a career-defining moment for her. She vividly remembered standing in the baked goods aisle at the convenience down the block from the old Wallace & McQuade offices, four months pregnant (and still hiding it at work), starving for carbs, when the idea suddenly took shape in front of her mind's eye. Just like that. Boom.
Angela thought of herself as a creative, yet rational person. She didn't believe in fate or providence. But maybe everything in their shared history up to this point had to happen exactly the way it did, paving the way for Tony to invite her to join him on this trip. It was the first time they were traveling together not as family members, or strictly as friends, but as something else – something more. And even though this 'something more' was a little ill-defined right now, it was already much, well – more than she had let herself dream was possible.
Granted, the Cardinals' Old Timers Weekend was not an intuitive setting for intimacy. Aside from spending time with her, Tony would want to reconnect with his old teammates, and to relive his glory days on the baseball field. Angela wanted him to do and to enjoy all these things because she knew how much his time with the Cardinals meant to him. She was also excited to learn more about Tony from seeing him with people who had known him when. But in her heart of hearts, she placed high hopes on the moments in between.
Everything had started off promising enough. Sitting next to each other on the plane, they had been sharing the same narrow armrest for the past two and a half hours, and what had begun as their forearms pressing against each other had slowly morphed into their hands and fingers touching, and then entwining.
Angela couldn't say who had made the first move. It was almost like back in middle school when she and her girlfriends had held seances with Valerie Miller's Ouija board. Nobody was conscious of doing anything to push the planchette across the board, but by force of their collective desire for something to happen, they had made it so – as if by magic.
"Tony." She gave his fingers a gentle squeeze. "Tony."
"Mhm?" he mumbled and turned his head in her direction. He had nodded off somewhere over Ohio. As much as she would have liked to talk to him, to make the most of their one-on-one time on the plane, she had let him sleep.
Tony had been burning the midnight oil at the library this entire week in order to finish a paper that was due next Tuesday, and their flight had left LaGuardia at the ungodly hour of 6:15 this morning. At least the early departure gave them two full days and nights together – their return flight wasn't until Monday at noon.
"We're almost there," she shout-whispered above the noise of the plane.
"Oh!" He opened his eyes and sat up straighter in his seat. "Sorry I fell asleep."
"I think I dozed a little myself."
He smiled at her warmly. "Next time we'll go the night before," he said, stifling a yawn.
Next time.
"Maybe we're getting old," she joked, even though she knew that that was not why he was so tired.
Tony didn't mind getting up early – on most days, he had already put in a 5k run by the time the rest of the family stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast. But the past couple of weeks had been exhausting for both of them. His first semester of college was nearing its end, and there were papers to be written and exams he had to study for. On Angela's end, the Bower Agency was busier than ever before, requiring a lot of her attention, even with Jack and a bunch of other new hires in the picture.
"Hey!" Tony whined, semi-serious. "I feel bad enough, going to an Old Timers reunion. Back when I was on the team, we used to make fun of those guys in their slacks and sweaters. And now look at me. I'm one of them!"
"Alright, I take it back," Angela said, opting to humor him. "But I happen to think you look very handsome today. Not at all like a man your age."
"Thank you. I feel so much better already."
She bit back a laugh. "What do you want me to say? I'm two years older than you."
Of course, Tony knew exactly which event in their past a remark like this alluded to, and he switched gears effortlessly.
"Wouldn't know it from looking at you, either," he said smoothly and raised an eyebrow. "Ah, what the heck. I think we're both in pretty good shape. We just need to get more sleep."
"Agreed. The reception isn't until noon, right? We'll have enough time for a nap in the room."
The room. Their room.
After Tony had invited her to accompany him to St. Louis, Angela had let him take the lead in planning their sleeping arrangements. First and foremost, she wanted him to make a decision that he was comfortable with. She would be fine with whatever he chose, because even if they were to share a room, or a bed, she knew that Tony would never pressure her into anything she wasn't ready for. She felt utterly respected and safe with him.
Angela had been delighted when he had reported the outcome of a phone call to the hotel. The place was almost booked to capacity, and Tony felt that the best option they had was to go for a suite, unless they wanted rooms on two different floors. "That would be a little extreme, right?" he had said, and she had agreed.
To Angela, the suite solution represented an appealing middle ground: There were a sitting room and two bedrooms, one with a king-size bed, the other one with a queen. They would be close enough for something (anything) to happen if they wanted it to, but not so close that it was a foregone conclusion.
"Yeah, noon. And a nap sounds good," Tony said, yawned one more time, and then he leaned past Angela for a look out the window. "Seems like the weather's going to be alright."
The familiar scent of his cologne wafted into her nose, and Angela smiled to herself. She couldn't have cared less about the weather.
ooooooooo
A little more than half an hour later, they stepped out of the arrivals hall and were greeted by a crisp but sunny November morning.
"Welcome to St. Louis, Angela!" Tony sounded like a crossover between a tour guide and a proud father.
She loved seeing him so happy and enthusiastic, and no matter what he had said before about guys in slacks and sweaters and about feeling old – she thought he looked incredibly handsome today, with his black leather jacket and a fresh haircut that he had made the time to get during the week.
They got into one of the cabs that were waiting in line outside the terminal building, and Tony gave the driver the address of their hotel near the stadium. The 'ballpark', as he said.
"You here for the Old Timers Weekend?" the cabdriver, an African-American man in his 40s, asked.
"You bet we are," Tony confirmed.
Angela saw the driver take a closer look at Tony in the rearview mirror.
"You're Tony Micelli!" he said. "Second base."
"Hey, yeah," Tony said, noticeably surprised, but undeniably pleased to be recognized. Angela's heart soared for him.
"Good to meet you. One more off my list." The cabdriver winked at them in the mirror.
"Been following the Cards ever since I was a kid. Had dreams of making it big myself, but got sent to Vietnam instead and caught shrapnel in my leg," he explained while he deftly maneuvered the cab through the maze of ramps and underpasses that led away from the airport. "So pro ball was off the table."
"I'm very sorry to hear that," Angela said. "That must have been difficult. Thank you for your service."
"Thank you." The cabdriver nodded at Angela in the mirror. "Other guys got dealt a worse hand, of course. Anyway, Micelli, Micelli, … number 4, right? '77 was a good season for you, if I recall correctly. What happened to you after that?"
"I, uh, got hurt," Tony said. "May 21st '78, against the Cubs. Slid head first into third, broke my arm and tore everything you can in my shoulder. And that was it."
"So you know how it is," the cabdriver said.
"More or less." Tony hesitated briefly before continuing. It seemed to Angela that he wasn't entirely comfortable comparing his sports injury to the man's having been to war. "It was tough at first. But, you know. Life goes on."
"That it does," the cabdriver said solemnly. "Looks to me like you're doing alright." Once again, he looked at them in the mirror.
Under different circumstances, Angela would have detested to be spoken of as if she were not in the same car as the two men. But the cabdriver obviously meant it as a compliment, and she was tickled to be mistaken for Tony's wife.
"Yeah, I am. I guess things have a way of working out."
Out of the corner of her eye, Angela saw him reach across the backseat, and seconds later his warm hand closed around hers. It was a good thing she was sitting down, otherwise her knees might have gone weak from the implication.
The cab ride took them through various neighborhoods between the airport and downtown, and while Tony and the driver talked about the Cardinals and their performance this year, she watched the scenery go by. So this was St. Louis. The city that she had heard countless stories about, but which she had never visited before.
Angela was a child of the East Coast. Born and raised outside of New York City, she had spent her summers upstate or in one of the beach communities. Then she had gone to college and graduate school in and around Boston, before moving back to New York with dreams of making it big on Madison Avenue, where she had had summer jobs and internships all through undergrad and business school.
Of course, she had done her fair share of traveling, but mostly for business. While at Wallace & McQuade, Los Angeles had been a frequent destination, and she had flown out to Chicago once per quarter to show her face at the Midwest office. Not to mention her dream-come-true trip to Paris for the Pescher Fragrances account, just months before the end of her working relationship with Wallace & McQuade.
As owner of the Bower Agency, Angela still went to California multiple times per year. But most of their clients wanted to come to New York instead of having her or members of her staff fly out to them. The higher-ups from companies headquartered in Denver or Nashville, Omaha or Atlanta relished the opportunity to spend a day or two in the 'Big Apple'. They liked to be wined and dined and usually took in a Broadway show while they were in town.
As a result, Angela hadn't seen very much of her own country. She knew it, and its people, best through the lens of those statistics that were relevant for the sales of, say, toilet paper, chips, yogurt, jeans, scouring pads, or – of course – doughnuts.
Tony had a definite advantage over her here, having traveled all over the US and Canada with the Cardinals, and before that up and down the Atlantic Seaboard with his minor league team, the name of which she could never remember. It was a place and a weather phenomenon, the Brooklyn Tornados or Long Island Cyclones or some such combination.
In short, the flyover states were terra incognita to Angela, and she was looking forward to coloring in this particular blank spot on her personal map of the United States over the course of the weekend.
ooooooooo
"Thank you." Tony handed the cabdriver the fare, along with a generous tip.
"And thank you," the driver said. "Enjoy your weekend." He finished unloading their luggage from the trunk and waved at them on his way back to the driver's door.
"We will." Tony waved back. "You too."
Then he turned to face Angela. "Ready?"
She smiled at him and nodded. A bellhop was already rushing towards them to load their bags onto a cart.
"Welcome to the Hilton at the Ballpark," the young man said and followed behind them as they made their way inside.
Check-in was quick, and soon they were standing in front of the door to their suite.
The tingling in Angela's stomach was back as the bellhop let them inside. Until now, she and Tony had never shared a room (or a suite) intentionally. What was the protocol for best friends, hoping to become something more, who were attending a baseball reunion together?
The bellhop unloaded their luggage from his cart and received a tip from Tony before leaving them alone in the sitting room.
Tony closed the door and took a couple of steps in her direction. He stopped a small distance from Angela, rubbing his hands together.
"So, here we are."
"Here we are," she echoed.
They looked at each other, and then they both burst out laughing.
"I have to admit, I'm a little nervous," Angela said.
"Tell me about it."
"But we don't need to be, right? This is … We're the same people as back home."
"Except nobody is going to come and want something from us. Not one of the kids. Not Mona."
"I don't have to work," Angela added.
Indeed, for the first time in more than a decade she had gone on vacation, short as it was, without her briefcase. She hadn't even given Jack the number of the hotel, fully trusting his ability to handle whatever came up over the weekend. If she had learned one thing from her time at Wallace & McQuade, then it was that if one person was so indispensable within an organization that they couldn't be out of reach even for just a few days, it spelled trouble.
"And I don't have to cook," Tony continued, "or write papers for speech class."
"It's just us," she said, cocking her head. "Well, and the St. Louis Cardinals."
"I'm really glad you came along, Angela." Tony caught her eyes with his, and it felt as if a myriad of little bubbles were popping directly behind her sternum.
"Well, I'm glad you invited me. I look forward to meeting all of your old friends," she said, "and to so see you play tomorrow."
"And I look forward to showing you off."
A large smile was tugging at the corners of her mouth, and Angela was sure that she was blushing now. But she couldn't fully enjoy the compliment because it felt like this was her cue to ask him something rather important. Something that – true to form – they had successfully avoided discussing until now.
"Speaking of which – Tony, what are we going to tell people about us?"
Tony glanced at his shoes and began to wring his hands, but then he lifted his gaze again and looked at her earnestly from beneath furrowed brows. Something squeezed in her chest.
"Yeah, about that. I was thinking … I could introduce you as my date? I mean, Angela, what else are we going to say and not lie? I don't want to lie. We're not married, we're not engaged. We live together, but we don't live together. Don't get me wrong. I'm not ashamed. If anybody asks, I'll be glad to tell them everything. Or you can tell them. That I've been your housekeeper for the past four years, and that we're best friends, but now that the kids are older, and I'm in college, we're … re-evaluating our relationship? If that's okay. But if they don't ask – not everybody needs to know all the details. I think."
Listening to him speak, Angela could tell that this wasn't easy for Tony.
She knew that he was not embarrassed by his job and that he took a great deal of pride in doing it well. But she also knew that when it came to dating and relationships, Tony was old-fashioned. That was the way he had been raised; she had seen it first-hand on Thanksgiving at the Rossini's three years ago, and on many other occasions in Brooklyn or when family and friends of Tony's had visited them in Fairfield.
In his marriage to Marie, Tony had been the provider. And that role was the one thing that she, Angela, could not offer him. At least not in the traditional sense. Personally, she felt that Tony provided plenty of things for the whole family, and for herself, that were much more important than money: He was the best friend she had ever had, and she had grown to depend on his strength, on his unwavering support, but most of all on his … love. Mostly unspoken as many things were between them, deep down they both knew. She could simply not imagine her life without him in it.
But she had learned at Isabel's and Paul's wedding that Tony was not made of stone. What people thought of him – of them – did matter to him. If they ever took that leap – the one they seemed to be preparing for now – they would have to deal with the questions and opinions of people like Fred and Ginger from Buffalo, and they would have to learn to ignore the gossip that the Joanne Parkers and Diane Wilmingtons of the world would inevitably spread about them, and presumably about their whole family.
For the first time, Angela wondered if Tony was worried about how his old baseball buddies would react when they found out about their situation, and it touched her all the more deeply that he was willing to be open about it nonetheless. She realized now that part of her had been afraid that he would try to rope her into some exhausting pretense, like acting as if they were married. He had done it before, albeit a long time ago, and only so Samantha wouldn't be embarrassed in front of her friends on her 13th birthday.
"I think so, too." She met his eyes, trying to telegraph that she got it. "Not everybody needs to know everything. Only if they ask. And no matter who asks, or doesn't, I'd love to be your date."
"Oh, good," he said and let out a breath. "I'll admit, I was a little worried there. And believe me, I know that you're not just a date, date, Angela. But-"
"Tony, I understand," she interrupted. "I really do. Don't worry about it. This is new for me, too. And so far, we're doing okay, I think."
She took a step towards him. Tony did the same, and suddenly they were standing very close to each other. Angela leaned in and pressed a kiss to his cheek, lingering for a second to revel in the sensation of his clean-shaven skin under her lips. Meanwhile, Tony's arms slowly encircled her waist, drawing her in closer. She took the hint and wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders so the kiss could give way to an embrace.
They stood in the middle of the room for a moment, simply holding each other, as if making a silent pact. Before they let go, Tony mirrored Angela's earlier move and kissed her cheek, sending a shiver down her spine. She reached up and wiped some of her lipstick off his cheek.
"Okay," he said in a throaty voice when she was done. "Then let's do this."
"Yeah, let's."
Tony cleared his throat and walked over to where the bellhop had set down their luggage.
"What do you say – I'm really not that tired anymore, and we have two hours until the reception – do you want to freshen up and head downstairs, see if we run into anybody? Might be nice to talk to some people and have a drink before the official stuff starts."
"Sure. Just give me a minute."
ooooooooo
After they had changed out of their travel clothes, splashed some water on their faces, and Angela had retouched her hair and make-up, they left the suite and headed towards the elevators.
The door opened with an electronic peal, revealing an empty car. Once inside, Tony pushed the button for the first floor, where the hotel bar and conference rooms were located. The door closed, surrounding them with stainless steel surfaces, mirrors, bright lights, and muzak.
Riding in windowless elevator cars, Angela always felt as if she were suspended in time and space. The world outside could end, and she would have no idea. Or the elevator could get stuck, and nobody would find her for the rest of eternity.
But today, the sensation was exciting rather than claustrophobic, which maybe had something to do with the fact that as soon as the elevator began its descent, there was Tony's hand. First brushing against her knuckles, then coming from the other side, closing around her palm, and finally interlacing their fingers.
On the way down, they stopped on multiple floors. Other hotel guests got on and off, and it struck Angela that this was their first time holding hands in public. Not in their living room in Fairfield, or in a two-seat row on the plane, or in the relative privacy of the backseat of a taxicab. This was out in the open, where everybody could see them, and it felt good and very, very right.
Eventually, the elevator arrived on the first floor and they stepped into a large, open space that was bustling with people. Tony led the way through the crowd, on the lookout for anybody he might know, never letting go of her hand.
Suddenly, a voice from over by the bar shouted his name. "Hey, Tony! Guys, it's the batman!"
Tony stopped and turned in the direction of the voice. "No way! Mike, Davey!" He waved at someone. "Come on," he said to Angela. "Let's say hi. I haven't seen these guys in ages. I hope they've grown up since then. If not: Please forgive me."
She wasn't sure whether he was kidding or not, but laughed anyway and followed behind him. How bad could they be?