Ch 33 – Ode to Angela (3)
"Yes! I'm coming!"
Whoever was outside was not just dropping by at an inopportune time, they were also impatient and rang the doorbell again before Angela had a chance to get to it.
For a second, she considered just not opening the door. But what if it was one of the kids? Maybe Sam had forgotten something. Or maybe Jonathan was sick.
Angela took a quick look past the curtain in the window to the left of the door, but all she could see outside was darkness. The bulb in the lamp next to the door seemed to have burned out again.
Making a mental note to tell Tony, she opened the door, half afraid of who or what would be on the other side, and half prepared to find nobody there. Some neighborhood kids might be pulling a prank. That Richard Welling had younger twin sisters who liked to-
"Tony!" she gasped, her prior train of thought immediately abandoned when she saw him standing there in his sports coat and shirt, with flushed cheeks and a large bouquet of pink roses in one arm. His other hand was busy screwing the light bulb back into its socket.
"Hi."
"What are you doing here?"
Tony raised his eyebrows. "Well, I, uh, heard you think it's kind of juvenile to be calling me your boyfriend." He smiled at her, and Angela's insides began to feel as if they were turning to Jell-o.
"Yeah. What- what are you doing?" she repeated, wanting to be sure that she wasn't drawing the wrong conclusion.
But when their eyes met above the sea of soft pink rosebuds, the intensity in Tony's gaze told her everything she needed to know.
He cleared his throat. "Angela, I spent a long time thinking about the perfect way to ask you this, and nothing felt right. So I decided the least I could do was to get you these." He handed her the flowers. "Because I know they're your favorite."
"They're beautiful." She accepted the bouquet into her arms carefully, almost like she would a newborn baby.
"Just like you."
"Thank you, Tony."
"Maybe put them in the vase over there? You're going to need to have your hands free."
Tony gestured at the table behind the couch, and there it was: the crystal vase from Tiffany's he had gotten her for Christmas two years ago. He even said the word 'vase' with the same uppity pronunciation as back then.
"Of course." On wobbly legs, Angela stalked over there and put the flowers into the vase. How come she hadn't noticed it all evening?
When she turned around, Tony was still standing in the open door, cold air streaming into the entryway. Goosebumps were rising on the skin of her bare forearms, maybe from the cold, maybe in anticipation of what was about to happen.
"Mind if I close this?" he asked, reaching for the door. "We don't wanna catch our deaths here."
"No, that would be unfortunate."
Tony adjusted his jacket and stepped further into the room, reaching out to take both of her hands. Even though he had to have been outside for quite some time, his hands felt warm around hers.
"Like I said, I racked my brains trying to figure out what I was gonna do. You know, should I take you to the top of the Empire State Building, or on a carriage ride through Central Park, or rent one of those blimps with the electronic displays they have over at Giants Stadium?"
Angela had to stifle a laugh. She hated those things, and the horrible public proposals and apologies that people used them for, making ridiculous spectacles of themselves.
"But I know you'd probably hate that," Tony echoed her unspoken sentiment, "and the other stuff didn't feel like you and me, either. So, in the end I just … kept coming back to this."
"This?"
Tony nodded and looked around the room, the expression on his face almost wondrous.
"This house, this door. This living room, Angela. Four years, three months, and ten days ago. I was so nervous. Sam went back to the car because she had that shiner, and she didn't want you to get the wrong idea. Oh, and she told me not to tell the pig joke."
"You still haven't told it to me," she blurted out, her nerves threatening to get the better of her.
"That's because it's a terrible joke, and I don't wanna ruin my chances here." He smiled his most disarming smile, the same one as back then, and Angela felt her knees grow weak.
"And then I rang the bell, and there was Jonathan looking at me through the window. And a minute later … you opened the door."
"In my bathrobe," she whispered.
"That moment changed everything, Angela." Tony said earnestly before his tongue darted out of his mouth, nervously wetting his lips. "I can't begin to tell you how glad I am that I took this job. These years with you, they've been the happiest of my life."
"Mine too."
"I didn't think I could ever fall in love again. Not like this. And I know it hasn't exactly been an easy road. But here we are, and I wouldn't change it for the world. So, my- my question is this …"
When Tony got down onto one knee and reached into his jacket pocket to retrieve a small velvet box, Angela thought that she might pass out. Her heart was beating so fast, and her vision began to blur with tears.
Tony opened the box, revealing a simple, elegant gold ring with a single stone that Angela had to blink furiously to see clearly.
He looked up at her, his brown eyes nervous and hopeful and full of love, a perfect mirror of all that she was feeling at this moment.
"Angela, I love you so much, I love our family, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?"
Tears spilled onto Angela's cheeks as she nodded her head violently, tightly gripping Tony's hand that was holding on to hers. "Yes, Tony. Yes. A thousand times yes!"
She wasn't sure whether Tony was laughing or crying, or if it was a little bit of both, as he put the ring on her finger, which wasn't an easy feat because their hands were shaking so badly.
Then, finally, the ring was on, and it fit just right, and Tony was up on his feet again, and they sealed their engagement with a kiss that made the world around them shrink to insignificance.
Only Frank Sinatra's crooning in the background kept them tethered to reality, to their living room in Fairfield, Connecticut, where this most improbable journey had begun on a Thursday morning in September.
Angela could still remember the look on Tony's face after she had opened the door. And she also recalled her first impulse to shut it on him right away.
'You're the wrong sex.'
Boy, had she been wrong about that one.
ooooooooo
A little later, they had settled in in front of the fireplace, Angela resting with her back against Tony's chest, two empty champagne flutes on the carpet next to them. The sight of the bottle of ginger ale sitting in the cooler over by the table continued to make her smile. Tony had thought of everything.
She held her left ring finger out in front of herself and admired the way the flickering light of the flames reflected off the small diamond.
"I know it's not much." Tony reached for her hand, and his words reverberated in Angela's chest.
"Are you kidding me?" she asked, using one of his go-to phrases to lighten the mood. "It's the perfect ring. Because you gave it to me."
Angela truly didn't care about the size of the diamond. She would have been happy to wear a ring from a gumball machine, as long as it was Tony's.
"Hey Angela?" he said after they had been silent for a while. "Do you remember what you said on the beach this week?"
"Hm?" She had talked a lot during their walk on the beach, Brian had required a little more explanation than she had anticipated.
"About how you sometimes wondered if there'd ever be another last-minute flight, a walk in the desert, poetry?"
"Oh, that." Maybe it had been a mistake to tell him so many details about her whirlwind elopement and her fantasies in the years that followed.
"We don't have any deserts around here, although if you want to walk in the sand, I guess we could go to the beach again. And I don't know where we would fly at this hour and be back in time for the kids tomorrow afternoon. But there's one thing I can give you right now."
"Tony, what-"
"Don't worry," he interrupted her. "It's not a thing, as such. It's something I- uh, it's something I wrote."
"What?" she breathed and twisted in his arms so she could look at him.
"It's poetry."
"Tony, you didn't have to-"
"I wanted to, Angela. And I know I'm no poet knight or anything, but …" he trailed off.
"Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll love it."
"Alright then, here goes."
She felt him shift in place behind her as he got something out of his jacket pocket. It was a piece of paper that he unfolded with one hand before he started to read from it. Angela leaned back against him and let his words wash over her.
"Ode to Angela," he began, quite theatrically.
In common things, I'm reminded of her,
the sun, the moon, the stars, yes sir.
And in the garden, all of nature sings to her,
the birds, the bees, the sycamore trees.
And the snails. Oh, those snails.
They leave their glistening trails.
Beetles, bedbugs, spider mites,
might I love thee day and night.
When he had finished, Angela didn't know what to say. It wasn't a good poem, not by any standard. But it was undeniably sweet, and very much Tony, and probably not entirely serious, either.
Indeed, she felt him chuckle. "How did you like it?"
"I loved it," she heard herself say with conviction. And she did love it, for its utter lack of pretentiousness. "And I love you."
"Even if I'll never write postmodern poetry for you?"
"Because you will never write postmodern poetry for me."
"Oh, that's good. Because I gotta tell you. This took me days to come up with. The Poet Laureate of Pitkin High is officially retired."
"You're on your way to bigger and better things anyway," she said, "I know it."
"Like marrying you."
That wasn't what she had meant, of course. But she went with it, sensing that he didn't want to talk about himself tonight.
"I look forward to it."
"Are we still aiming for Easter? March or April? By then our baby bird here shouldn't be giving you such a hard time anymore, right?" Tony ran his fingers over her abdomen, and Angela felt fresh tears beginning to prick at her eyes.
'Baby bird' – since Tony had given her the onesie a week ago, the name had stuck, and every time she heard him say it, she became emotional all over again.
"Yeah, Easter sounds good," she croaked, trying not to ruin the moment. But of course Tony noticed.
"Hey, are you crying?"
Angela blew out a shuddering breath. "No. Yes. I'm fine. I'm just happy, and grateful. That we get to have this, you know? For such a long time I thought-" And then her voice failed her.
"I know," Tony said, his voice gravelly now, too. "You and I, we're pretty lucky."
Then they let their conversation lapse, simply existing, breathing together, warm and safe in front of the fireplace until Angela began to think that she might want to stay here forever, exactly like this.
But Tony remembered what night it was and gently roused her from what she then realized had been a light slumber.
"Angela? It's almost midnight. Do you want to switch on the TV? Maybe we'll see Jonathan."
Right. Jonathan was in Times Square.
"Uh, yeah, of course," she mumbled, still a little drowsy.
They clambered to their feet and Angela got comfortable on the couch while Tony went to refill their glasses. When he came back, she took hers from him before snuggling into his embrace.
The crowd in Times Square was as large and noisy as every year, and of course they never caught so much as a glance of Jonathan or any member of Todd's family. They had left much too late in the day to be anywhere near the stage and the cameras, and Angela was glad for it.
"Gather your loved ones about you," the announcer's voice droned as the ball slowly made its descent and the little clock in the corner of the screen counted down the last minute before midnight.
"In thirty seconds, it will be 1989!"
The crowd cheered as the ball sank lower.
"Twenty seconds away! New Year's Eve in New York and across the world! In … ten seconds!"
Then the crowd began to count down.
"Five, four, three, two, one!"
"HAPPY NEW YEAR!" the announcer shouted, the ball went dark, and four numbers lit up in its place.
1989
"Happy new year, sweetheart," Tony whispered into her ear. "1989 is gonna be a good one."
She nodded, again with tears in her eyes. "Happy new year, Tony."
During the tender kiss that followed, Angela thought of Tony's ring on her finger and their baby in her belly, and it almost felt like more luck than two people could possibly deserve.
ooooooooo … ooooooooo
There was one big advantage to a quiet, sober New Year's Eve at home: no hangover the next morning. Tony was awake bright and early and decided to let Angela sleep while he went for a run.
The streets of Fairfield were deserted, the air was freezing, and he felt on top of the world. He refused to allow any thoughts of school, or his job, or how they (he) would pay for the kind of wedding Angela should have to ruin this first day of the new year for him.
The most important thing was: She had said yes.
Not that there had been any real doubt that she would, his proposal had been expected. But he was proud of himself for still having managed to surprise her.
Soon after midnight, they had gone up to bed, and even though they were both tired, celebrations had ensued. It brought a grin to Tony's face to even think about it. Taking that little black dress off her, unclasping her bra, rolling down her stockings.
Pantyhose felt uncomfortable right now, she had explained, somewhat shy about the subtle changes that pregnancy was starting to bring. Tony welcomed all of them, and he wanted to make sure that Angela felt as good about herself as possible.
He had reason to believe that he had succeeded last night, kissing and nibbling, teasing and caressing her in all the places he had learned she enjoyed, and leaving out those he knew to be too sensitive at the moment.
They ended up with Angela straddling his hips. He let her set the pace, taking pleasure in gently nudging her closer and closer to the edge by meeting each of her rolling movements with well-timed thrusts from below. She was in control, until suddenly she wasn't.
After his run, Tony jumped into the shower and then woke up Angela with some tea and crackers, as had become their morning routine.
"I'm getting started on breakfast, but take your time."
He was met with a grateful smile and caught a satisfying glimpse of his ring on Angela's finger when she reached for the mug of tea on her nightstand.
Downstairs, Tony set out five champagne glasses and put a fresh bottle of ginger ale in the fridge.
They expected the kids back around noon, Sam having been tasked with picking up Jonathan on her way home from Julia's. And who knew when Mona would wash back ashore.
But as soon as all five of them were under the same roof again, there would be another little celebration.