Ch 21 – Working Girls (4)
The rest of the morning was a blur.
After another kiss and a hug that Angela wished would never have to end, Tony snuck back to his room.
With shaking hands, she gathered the plastic wrappers and cardboard packaging of the pregnancy tests and buried everything in the bathroom trash. The sticks themselves she kept, wrapping them in toilet paper before stashing them in a drawer.
Then she showered and got dressed, did her hair and makeup, said good morning to her mother and the kids and to Tony (again), had some very thin coffee and two glasses of juice under his watchful eye, declined his covert offers of toast or a banana, smiled, talked, and gathered her things when it was time to leave for the train.
Angela was present, but not.
In the kitchen, in the car on the way to the station, on the train, while they were waiting for the subway, and weaving their way through the crowds on the sidewalk – her thoughts were with the new life inside of her, the little person-to-be she felt a fierce need to protect at all costs.
Everything else that was going on that morning, Mona and Samantha's incessant chatter, the hustle and bustle of the city less than two weeks before Christmas, the rain and humidity that were threatening to ruin her hair … all of that was just ambient noise.
If Mona and Sam noticed her far-away state, they didn't let on. And even if they had, Angela couldn't have cared less. By the time they made it to the office, she was on pins and needles.
The tension only eased a little when Dr. Solomon's receptionist took pity on her and offered her an opening at 12:45. "But you need to be prepared to wait."
Angela was prepared to do anything.
"Mother," she said, her finger on the intercom button, "could you please clear my schedule between twelve and three? Something came up."
"Angela," Mona started, but stopped again. The line crackled and went dead. Then she appeared in the doorway, a quizzical expression on her face.
"What is with you and your midday outings this week?"
Angela blinked. "Uh, I'm going- I have a lunch meeting about a possible new account. Sportswear and equipment. Very exciting. And very hush-hush." She held a finger up to her lips and hoped that Mona would believe her. To her own ears, it sounded as if she hadn't quite yet recovered her professional voice.
Mona continued to fix her with a stare that was equal parts amused and annoyed.
"Sportswear, my foot! If I didn't know Tony's over at Ridgemont today, I'd bet the Jag that the two of you have discovered what wonders a little nooner can do for you. It would certainly explain the raised temperature in the car."
Indeed. Despite her own preoccupation, Angela had noticed it too. At every traffic light, Tony's eyes were on her. She returned his looks a couple of times, trying to be unobtrusive about it. But Mona's perception was just as sharp as her tongue, of course she had picked up on it.
Angela swallowed and smiled sweetly. "Well, then it's a good thing the Jaguar isn't yours to bet, now is it? Because you're wrong, I'm going to see a man about a running shoe, that's all. Now could you please check my calendar and move everything around? And be discreet about it. The situation- I mean, the client isn't officially shopping around for a new agency."
"Jawohl, mein Kommandant!" Mona gave a mock salute and left the room.
When the door fell shut behind her, Angela slumped back in her chair. She put a hand on her stomach and counted to ten with her eyes closed. Deep breaths. Only a few more hours.
ooooooooo
An exam and another urine test confirmed the pregnancy, early as it was, at just shy of five weeks.
"Congratulations," Dr. Solomon offered with a warm smile, and Angela wanted to cry, so immense was her relief.
Because it was rubella. And measles. And chickenpox. Those would have been a problem. But not mumps. Not. Mumps. Nothing in the literature indicated that the baby would be at risk if she caught it. Angela asked three times to make absolutely sure.
The nurse drew some blood – routine –, and she could call on Thursday morning to find out about the results. Dr. Solomon reassured her one more time that most adults had antibodies against common childhood diseases.
If there was anything that was cause for concern, it wasn't mumps, even though it would still be preferable for her not to get it, of course – it was Angela's age. By the time the baby came, she would be 39, making this a 'geriatric' pregnancy, as Dr. Solomon noted on her chart with an apologetic shake of his head.
The term didn't sit well with Angela, but he explained that in practice, all this meant was that he would want to see her a little more frequently over the course of her pregnancy, starting with an ultrasound scan between eight and ten weeks, and that there were a couple of tests she and the baby's father might want to consider.
She and the baby's father. She and Tony. The thought still felt surreal.
After ninety minutes (including some nerve-wracking waiting time), Angela was back out on the sidewalk on wobbly legs, with a prescription for prenatal vitamins in her purse, a new appointment for January, and a handful of brochures on nutrition and exercise and maternal and fetal health. Some recommendations had apparently changed since Jonathan.
The streets of Manhattan were adorned with Christmas lights and decorations, and she stood in the middle of the early afternoon commotion, momentarily unsure what to do with herself.
Now that her biggest fear had been assuaged, the reality of the situation began to sink in. They were going to have a baby, much sooner than either of them had planned. The improbability of this pregnancy was astonishing, really. She and Michael had tried and tried for almost a year. And all it took for her and Tony to conceive was one broken condom?
Maybe some things really were meant to be.
She ran a hand down the front of her winter coat, adjusted her purse strap, and started to put one foot in front of the other. She needed to call home. And she was hungry.
ooooooooo
Angela returned to the Agency carrying a half-empty box of donuts that she deposited in the small common area next to the kitchenette. After she had wolfed down two chocolate-glazed and one cruller on the way over here, her blood sugar was up, and she felt steady again.
But her equilibrium didn't last long, because when she reached her office, she saw Sam sitting at the desk outside her door, and it hit her like lightning.
Sam. The Russian Tea Room. She had completely forgotten about their lunch date.
"Sam!" she exclaimed, "Oh my God. I'm so sorry."
"Mona told me you had to run out," Sam said. "It wasn't in your calendar, but I called the Russian Tea Room and canceled."
Angela sat down at Mona's empty desk where the bouquet of flowers was still spreading a sickly-sweet odor that immediately assaulted her senses.
Rubbing her forehead, she tried to explain, "Yeah, I'm- Sam, I don't know what to say. I sincerely apologize. Sometimes opportunities like this present themselves, and then I have to react."
Sam nodded solemnly. "I understand. Do you think you're going to get the account?"
"What account?" Angela asked distractedly. The smell of the flowers was overpowering.
"The guy you met with?" Sam raised her eyebrows.
"Oh, right. Um, I don't know, honey. We'll see."
Angela wanted to push the vase a little further away from herself, like yesterday, but she misjudged the distance, and the whole arrangement tipped over the edge of the desk and crashed to the floor. Shards of glass, flowers, and water went everywhere.
"Oh, no!"
Sam jumped up from her chair and immediately started to pick up broken glass and flowers and throwing them into one of the wastebaskets.
"Be careful, honey, don't cut yourself." Angela said before she got up, too, and crouched next to Sam.
Within seconds of her warning to Sam, she herself managed to reach for a piece of glass with an especially sharp edge that went right through her skin.
"Shit!" she yelped and began sucking on her index finger. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.
"Angela? Are you alright?" Sam cast a sideways look at her.
"I'm fine," Angela mumbled.
"You cut yourself! Let me see."
Angela showed Sam her finger. As soon as she took it out of her mouth, blood started to flow from the wound, running down her hand and dripping onto the floor.
"That looks pretty deep," Sam said, alarm evident in her voice. "Where do you guys keep the first aid kit?"
"Uh … I have no idea. Please ask Carrie or Sheila." Angela stuck the finger back in her mouth and pushed down on it with her lips and tongue. She was beginning to feel queasy at the sight and taste of her own blood.
Sam sprinted off down the hallway, and Angela clambered up from the floor and onto Mona's desk chair. She really didn't feel too good and decided to rest her forehead in her other hand. Hopefully that would keep the lightheadedness from taking over.
"What's going on here?" Mona's voice asked from the hallway.
Angela looked up at her with some effort. "I cut myfelf," she explained.
"And what's all this?" Mona asked, surveying the debris on the floor. The glass, the flowers, the water, the traces of blood.
"Clumvy," Angela said, her finger still in her mouth and the world still fuzzy around the edges.
"I'll say. The Connecticut klutz strikes again, huh?" Mona came closer and pulled over Sam's chair. "Let me take a look."
Angela shook her head. "Blood."
Mona nodded. "You're as white as a sheet, Angela. You need a glass of water."
She left for the kitchenette, and after a moment, Sam and Mona returned together.
"Here, put this around your finger," Sam ordered and held out a dishtowel.
Angela did as she was told and gratefully accepted the water. After a few sips, she began to feel better.
"Can you get up or are you going to faint on us?" Mona asked.
"I'm okay," Angela said, hoping she was right.
"Alright. Then let's go in there." She motioned for Angela to get up and for Sam to follow them.
Mona stayed close to Angela as they made their way into her office and sat down at the conference table by the windows. Having taken a seat kitty-corner from Angela, Mona started to sort through the contents of the first aid kit.
"I'll finish cleaning up out there," Sam offered.
"Thank you, honey," Angela mumbled. She tried to give Sam a smile that communicated how horrible she felt for having disappointed her the second day in a row.
"Now let's see." Mona reached for the dishtowel and unwrapped Angela's finger.
Once the pressure of the towel let up, blood started to flow again.
"Yup, you cut yourself alright. But you'll live. I think it looks worse than it is."
Before the queasiness could return, Angela turned away from her finger. Mona went to work, deftly cleaning, then wrapping the digit tightly with what felt like band aids, gauze, and tape.
"All done," she said finally. "You can look now."
Angela looked first at her freshly bandaged finger, then at Mona. "Thank you, Mother. Do you think I need stitches?"
Mona shrugged. "We'll keep an eye on it. If you don't bleed through the dressing, I'd say you're fine."
Angela sighed, feeling more of her strength return. "I'm sorry about your flowers."
"Oh, who cares. The guy was a bore anyway. What's much more important: How'd your meeting go?"
Once again, Angela wasn't on top of her own fabricated story. "What?"
"A-ha!" Mona said triumphantly. "I knew it. There is no sportswear guy, is there?"
"Of course there is." It was a lame attempt.
"Uh-huh." Mona gave her a gentle smile, and Angela tensed in anticipation of what her next question would be.
But much to her surprise, Mona changed course and went on to say, somewhat mysteriously, "I guess it's normal."
"What is?"
"How distracted you are."
"I don't know what you mean." And Angela's heart was in her throat again.
"An-ge-la. Sure you do. It seems to me that you've got a lot going on," Mona said kindly. "I don't know what exactly it is, and for a change I'm not going to pry. But I can tell it's … something. And the kids can, too. You and Tony, you're not very mysterious, dear. You've been in your own little world for weeks. Especially since Thanksgiving." There was sympathy in her voice, and not a hint of provocation.
"I-" Angela didn't know how to respond. She turned her head and gazed out of the window for a moment.
Mona continued, "I'm assuming that you two need time and space to figure some things out. Whatever they are, I hope you do. All I want to say is, don't underestimate your kids. And don't make everything too complicated if it doesn't have to be."
In a rare gesture of motherly affection, Mona reached out and squeezed Angela's good hand. Angela could only nod. She felt that if she tried to speak now, she would start to cry and tell her mother everything.
"Sam was crushed when she realized you forgot about her," Mona went on.
Angela sat up straighter and cleared her throat. "I know. I'll have to apologize again. And I'll find a way to make it up to her."
"She told me about that boy, Eric? He's been calling. Here and at home. Sam says you wanted to talk to Tony about letting her go out with him. I get why he's not wild about it, he's a little older, but it's less than two years, and Eric sounds like a nice boy."
Angela nodded again. "I haven't gotten around to it yet."
"Understandably," Mona said and patted her hand. Once again Angela wondered how much she really knew. Maybe it was an unconscious sort of awareness, some kind of mother-daughter intuition.
Then Mona rose from her seat and packed up the first aid kit. "I'm going to hold your calls for half an hour. So you can catch your breath."
"Thank you," Angela said weakly.
The door closed, and she went over to her desk where she poured herself another glass of water and dialed their home phone number. She let it ring for a long time, but nobody ever picked up.
Maybe she was misremembering when Tony had his exam.
ooooooooo ... ooooooooo
Tony's week continued with a Roman theme.
When he turned over the piece of paper at the start of his Speech exam, Cicero's famous First Oration Against Lucius Sergius Catilina stared back at him.
'When, O Catiline, do you mean to cease abusing our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours, swaggering about as it does now?'
And here he had been hoping for something a little closer to home, like the Gettysburg Address. But Professor Darnell liked to surprise his students, Tony had gathered as much, and he wanted them to 'Identify and analyze the rhetorical strategies employed by Cicero to develop his argument against Catiline.'
In a series of speeches in front of the Roman Senate, Cicero had accused one of the senators, Catiline, of leading a plot to overthrow the Republic. That much Tony remembered from when they had talked about the Catiline Orations in class. He also managed to access the various figures of speech and other rhetorical tactics and devices that were stored in his memory. So far, so good.
Now all that remained for him to do was to write an essay that combined what he knew with the evidence in the text. And here his troubles began. He had to read the speech over and over again, because he kept distracting himself.
With thoughts of Angela, in her nightgown, in his arms, last night and this morning. Her unique combination of strength and fragility. From day one, he had felt drawn to her because of it.
The look in her eyes when they found out. Clearly happy and just as afraid.
His own contradictory emotions. Pure, unqualified elation that she was pregnant with their child. Naked fear when he thought of his own unclear future and what he could possibly offer her and their baby. Nagging worry that the doctor would give her bad news today, when he wasn't there to comfort her.
Still, Speech went a little bit better than History. At least he didn't have a complete blackout.
After the carousel of thoughts and memories had gone a few rounds, things quieted down, and Tony managed to cobble together a piece of writing that felt long enough to satisfy Professor Darnell, and that touched upon the most important aspects he had identified.
Like a mantra, he kept telling himself: He was just trying to do his best under the circumstances. That was all anybody could expect.
Upon leaving the building after the exam, something kept him from heading straight for the parking lot. Tony felt that he deserved to buy himself a cup of coffee to mark the occasion. Two down, two to go. He would call Angela as soon as he got home.
The bookstore-cum-coffee-shop on campus was busy at this time of day, and the only free seat was at one of the counters that were mounted in front of the windows looking out onto the quad.
"Mind if I sit here?" he asked the woman who was occupying the stool next to it.
She turned around, and he recognized her. Oh, no. But it was too late, he had to take the seat.
"Of course not," the woman said and smiled at him.
She had a nice smile. Not that he had ever seen it before. Because whenever she opened her mouth in class, it was to voice some form on criticism. Or to let everybody know that she had 'a better idea'.
"Thanks," he said and sat down.
"You're Tony Micelli, right?"
"Uh, yeah. And you're Kathleen …"
"Sawyer."
"Right."
"It's nice to see you outside of class."
"Likewise," he said and took a sip of his coffee.
A/N: Don't hate me. ;)