Chapter 11

Angela and Tony were in an elevator up to the 43rd floor of the Waldorf Astoria, where the suite was located Angela had rented for the night of the ceremony. The elevator operator, a lean young boy in his early twenties, in a dark blue uniform with golden buttons and a round cap, kept a straight face although this couple had aroused his curiosity. They had entered his elevator with a lot of other people on the ground floor but now that they had almost reached the top, they were the only two left. She looked gorgeous in that flame-red, skin-tight, off-the-shoulder evening gown and he was handsome and virile in his tuxedo. She held a statue in her hand, so they obviously had been at the banquet of these advertising people in the Vanderbilt room; he had heard that they were giving away some awards there. The man was a bit weird, though. He held a crumpled paper bag in his hand with the logo of Newark Liberty International Airport on it and ... wait! ... were these baseball shoes? They were black, so they didn't strike so much attention right away but ... yes, this guy, who was escorting this beautiful, perfectly dressed lady in red high heels matching her gown, had sports shoes on his feet to go with his tuxedo!

The lift boy had to suppress a smile. Despite his young age he was already very experienced and had a good knowledge of the human nature. He had been a high school dropout when his uncle, who was a receptionist at one of the most famous hotels of the world, had put in a good word for him, so he had started to work as an elevator operator at the Waldorf Astoria at the age of just 16 and had done so ever since. He had seen a lot of elder, affluent, well-off business men hustling young, beautiful girls up to their exclusive rooms, but this couple was different, although it was quite obvious what these two were up to. The man had gently pushed the woman into the corner of the elevator right behind him and couldn't keep his hands off her. As if he wouldn't notice what was going on behind his back; didn't these people know that elevator operators indeed did have eyes at the back of their heads? The lift boy shook his head barely visible. He could hear them whispering and rustling behind him and his inner cinema had been switched on. The woman was all giggly and repeatedly admonished him "Tonyyy!" in a low-key manner; he obviously whispered suggestive remarks into her ear or caressed her intimately. So the whole situation actually was unambiguous but still, the boy had the vague feeling that they weren't anything like the usual couples he guided up to their rooms in his elevator. She was far too classy to be a stupid chick in search of a loaded geezer to keep her for a while, and he seemed to be really fond of her and not only eager to take her to bed for a one-night stand. This was what he loved his job for; witnessing life in every aspect, especially the the lives of a social class he usually didn't get into contact with, the society people who could afford to stay at the Waldorf Astoria. After all these years of working in an elevator to the upper floors where the exclusive suites were located no human character trait was alien to him any more.

Bing!

"43rd floor", the lift boy said in a businesslike manner. As nothing happened, he turned around and found the couple kissing passionately in the corner of the elevator, both totally absorbed in one another, not noticing anything of what was going on around them. He coughed slightly. An embarrassed "Oh!" slipped out of the woman's mouth, and the man just grinned and cleared his throat, then they left the elevator, he yielding to her. When they passed the lift boy the man said, "Thanks, Pal!" and the boy answered well-trained, "You're very welcome, Sir. Ma'am", and nodded. The couple left the elevator, the man laid his arm around the woman's waist and they had already walked a few steps when the lift boy suddenly spotted the paper bag on the elevator's floor.

"Excuse me, Sir. You forgot your ... uhm ... suitcase", he cat-called at them, struggling at bit to stay earnest.

The man came to a halt, stood still for a second, then turned around and walked back towards the elevator door which the lift boy propped open. He handed him the crumpled bag, resisting to glimpse inside - this was the Waldof Astoria after all, complete discretion was demanded for - so he looked into the man's eyes as if it was the most natural thing to carry your luggage in a paper bag instead of a Louis Vuitton leather suitcase which were much more common up here. The man held the boy's look and carried on their little charade.

"Thank you so much, I really appreciate it", he had a look at the boy's name tag, "Kyle. What would I do without my uhhh, ... luggage."

Kyle smiled slightly, tapped the brim of his cap and replied, "Always at your service, Sir." He was having so much fun with this guy and, moreover, he would have a great story to tell in the staff's lounge on his next coffee break.

The funny man turned on the spot, slowly strolled back to his waiting lady, joyfully swinging the paper bag around his index finger. The lift boy couldn't help but keeping the lift door open a bit more; his curiosity had exceeded the code of honor by now. So he saw how the couple fell into each other's arms as soon as he had reached her and burst into laughter.

"You know what this reminds me of, Irv?" the woman asked. Irv? Hadn't she called him Tony in the elevator?

"Sure, Mrs Gladstone", the man answered, roaring with laughter.

So they hadn't met tonight, the boy concluded from that little chat, but what were they? A long-term couple spicing up their relationship with some childish game? Or was one of them having an extra-marital affair with the other? Maybe his uncle would let him have a look at the registration data if he knew their room number, but he couldn't possibly wait any longer to get a clue, it would be far too inappropriate to go on looking after them. So he let go the button he had been pressing ever since the couple had left his elevator to keep the door open and sighed silently. But he was lucky; just before the door glided shut completely, the woman took the key card out of her purse and handed it to her escort who opened the door and let her go inside with the words, "After you, Sweetheart." Alright, room number 4305, and he got a name, Irving Gladstone, he would check that out as soon as his shift was over.

When Kyle had a look into the registration book some hours later he was very surprised to find no Mr Irving Gladstone but a Miss Angela Bower as the person who had made the reservation for suite 4305 and would be invoiced. This information left him dumbfounded and also annoyed because it meant no elucidation of this little mystery. Who was this Angela Bower? The man's secretary who covered her boss' extra-marital adventures? Or was she his wife, unaware of what he was doing on his business trips? But why did the woman in the red dress have the key card in her purse? Was she Angela Bower and paying for the suite? Was he the one being well-kept instead of her? This was so unsatisfying, but he had to accept that he would never find out the real story about these two.

Little did the lift boy know at that time that his curiosity would be satisfied eventually after all; that he would be told the story of the guy in a tuxedo with baseball shoes on his feet and a paper bag in his hand and the woman in the breathtaking red dress holding onto a golden statue only half a day later on his next coffee break by a young girl who had been waitressing in the Vanderbilt room during the banquet of the Advertising Association of America.

Tony shut the door of suite 4305 behind him. He was still laughing about his short interaction with the elevator operator. This whole day had been so weird that this seemed to be like a logical ending to it; he entering an exclusive suite of the Waldorf Astoria in a tuxedo and baseball shoes, reminded not to forget his 'luggage' by a boy who could almost be his son.

He chuckled, "Now this was funny, wasn't it? Just like the night after the Brooklyn Fair and the Love Tunnel, when we tried so desperately to find a quiet place to make out. Do you remember how awkward we felt in that motel? How nervous we were about our first time?"

"I wasn't nervous", Angela said calmly, and she wasn't laughing anymore, although she had also been entertained by Tony's little game with the lift boy. She knew that the time had come to tell Tony about Timothy.

"No?"

"No. ... I wanted to you to make love to me that night, Tony, but at some point I realized it was too early ... for you." She had been terribly disappointed that that particular night hadn't turned out the way she had wanted it to. The only good thing which had come out of it was the fact that they had confided in the rest of the family and didn't have to play hide-and-seek anymore. Their relationship had become much more relaxed after that but it had still taken them more than half a year until they had spent their first night together. Sometimes Angela thought that if she hadn't gone to Iowa they would have still been in a sexless relationship.

"Well, it's not too early for me tonight ...", he implied seductively, stepping up to her and pulling her close, but Angela put her hand on his chest and gently pushed him away; to Tony's complete surprise. They had kissed so passionately in that elevator that he thought she was up to the same thing as he was. He had missed her when she had been away from Branford, not only emotionally but also physically. And she just looked so goddamn sexy in that dress!

"What's the matter, Sweetheart?" he asked.

"Uhm, ... I have to tell you something, Tony", Angela said in an earnest tone.

Tony noticed that she was suddenly very tense, which gave him goosebumps for some reason he wasn't really sure about. Not yet. "Ooookaaay. What is it?" Angela turned away from him and took a deep breath. Tony, on his part, could hardly breathe anymore. "Angela, would you please tell me what's on your chest! I'm getting nervous here!" he demanded.

"Alright. Uhm, ... the day I left Branford to come to New York, ... well, ... something made me do that", she started. She didn't know how to tell him and was scared to death that he might misinterpret the whole incident.

"Yeeeees?" Only now, a light fear was beginning to crawl into Tony's conscience, like a little worm which slowly bites itself into an apple. He had observed Angela and Timothy getting closer and closer and had let things slide against his own better judgement because Angela had seemed so pleased with working on this marketing paper. And moreover, he had wanted Timothy back on his team as fast as possible. Had this been a terrible mistake? Had they become more than just tutor and student? He desperately wanted her to speak, but then again ... did he really want to know?

Angela bit her lower lip and breathed heavily. She intertwined her fingers and paced through the room.

"Now come on, spit it out, Angela! Does it have anything to do with Timothy showing up at our apartment that day?"

Angela turned around abruptly and stared at him. "You know that he was there?"

"I almost knocked him over on the stairs on my way to the gym after our stupid fight", Tony explained, "So it does have something to do with him! What did he do? Did he made a pass at you?"

Angela's jaw dropped and she looked at him with saucer eyes. "What gives you that idea?" Her pulse accelerated and her palms got sweaty.

"He's a young man, in the prime of his life, driven by testosterone. Hard to imagine he came to you only because of his sudden interest in Jane Austen and marketing", Tony stated.

Angela shook her head, "So you noticed it too. How come everybody noticed but me?"

"Everybody?" Tony didn't understand.

"Mother told me Timothy had a crush on me but I thought she was only teasing me, like she always does when it comes to men in my life. Why didn't you tell me anything if you saw it too?"

She had hit a wounded spot with this. Yeah, why hadn't he? Had he been glad to see her entertained? Had he been relieved to see someone else passing her spare time with her? Had he been glad to have a more pleased woman sitting at his kitchen table? Had he been grateful for her nagging less about him neglecting her? Had he been so arrogant as to think that no other man would ever challenge his place at Angela's side? He didn't know. He only knew that he had begun to dislike Timothy, and that his relationship to Angela had become evermore tense. He had felt reminded of all the nights Angela had dated other men while he had still been her housekeeper; like back then, there had been this growing feeling of jealousy without a comprehensible explanation and definitely without a good enough reason to confront her about it.

"I don't know."

"This is all so crazy", Angela paced through the hotel room so hysterically in her high heels that she repeatedly stepped on the train of her dress and almost stumbled. She angrily kicked the shoes off her feet; they flew through the room and landed somewhere out of sight.

"Would you now please tell me what happened that afternoon, Angela?! I'm having the weirdest ideas here!" Tony begged.

"Alright, ... Timothy, ... he, ... well, he ..." The words just wouldn't come out of her mouth.

"He what?" Tony screamed.

"Kissed me ..." Angela finally admitted ruefully, startled by his forceful outburst.

"Kissed you? On the mouth?"

"Yes", she whispered.

"And what did you do?" Tony wanted to know.

"I ... uhm, sorta let him."

"You sorta let him. I see. Something else?"

"Yes", she said in a tearful voice, hardly audible.

"Am I allowed to ask what?" Tony instantly regretted the sarcastic way he had posed his question but he was unable to cope with the fear of what might come next.

"He ... touched me."

"Touched you. Okay. Where?"

Angela looked at him but remained silent. How could she tell him without leading him to wrong conclusions? She hadn't wanted it to happen. She hadn't enjoyed it either. How for all in the world could she make him understand?

"Where, Angela?" Tony insisted in the meanwhile, "Did he touch you intimately?"

Angela closed her eyes and swallowed. What a nightmare! There was no way in holding back anything anymore. "Yes, intimately. He ... slipped his hand under my shirt and ... moved it up to my ...", her voice broke.

"To youuur ...?" He looked questioningly at her although he knew the answer himself, "To your breast? Are you trying to tell that me he touched your breast? And what did you do? I hope you slapped him right in his face!" The perception of Timothy's hand on Angela's breast brought Tony's blood to a boil. Now he really was fuming with jealousy.

"I ... kinda let him", Angela whispered.

"That's great, Angela, just great! First, you sorta let him kiss you, then you kinda let him touch you! What am I supposed to think about all this?"

"Tony, listen to me! I never consciously encouraged Timothy, I don't feel anything other for him than friendship. I helped him with his papers because I thought I was helping you with it. I thought the sooner he was done with his scholastic obligations, the sooner you would have him back on your team. Okay, I admit that I enjoyed working with him on this commercial and you know how much I love Jane Austen, but I never, ever, had romantic feelings for him. You have to believe me!"

"Then why did you let all this happen?"

"I don't know. I was too confused after our fight to think straight, I guess. I felt rejected and let down by you because you wouldn't want to come to New York with me, and so I didn't completely realize what was happening until he ..." Angela stopped abruptly but it had been too late.

"He what? That still isn't everything?" Tony wanted to know.

"He said that he loved me and wanted to sleep with me", Angela answered hoarsely.

Now it was Tony's jaw which dropped and his eyes which were saucer-wide, "Is that supposed to be some silly joke?"

"No."

"And you ... sorta or kinda ... let that happen too?" Tony's heartbeat came to a halt for as long as it took Angela to answer his question.

"Of course not!" she exclaimed forcefully. Tony let out an enormous sigh of relief, and his heart slowly began to beat normally again.

"Okay, okay", Tony tried to calm himself but now he started pacing through the room. The cleats of his baseball shoes left deep imprints on the thick carpet, "So, you didn't sleep with him. Good", he said more to himself than to her.

"No, I didn't, I would've never done that. But obviously my ears were more connected to my brain than my body, because his confession woke me up instantly. I couldn't believe what he'd said. The whole situation was so surreal."

"And what did he do? Did he harass you? Because if he did, I'm gonna ..."

"No, he didn't", Angela put a stop to Tony's anger. "Actually, he reacted perfectly. When I told him that there would never be anything between us, he accepted it."

"Hard to believe. I know him as a very strong-willed and stubborn young man. You're not only protecting him, are you? He really didn't pester you?" If Timothy was a stalker who wouldn't take no for an answer, then Angela could be in trouble. And despite Tony still wasn't sure what all this meant for their relationship, he couldn't shed the protective instinct he had always been having with respect to Angela.

"I told him that I'm in love with someone else, that seemed to have opened his eyes", Angela tried to get a hold of Tony's arm for he was still frantically pacing through the room. "Honey!?"

Tony suddenly stood still, his back to her. Then he turned around and looked into Angela's eyes. The fury and the jealousy were gone and replaced by helplessness and worry. "What have we done wrong to let it get that far, Angela?" he asked. He was well aware that this hadn't been all her fault alone, he couldn't even blame Timothy. The boy had only pursued his own happiness. As a matter of fact, he was even a bit impressed by his courage to openly express his feelings and to make such a bold move; especially compared to himself who had needed seven years until he confessed his feelings for the very same woman.

"I really don't know, Tony, but I think we have to find out. I'm relieved to have it off my chest though. The last few days have been awful. After I had asked Timothy to leave that afternoon, I was completely confused. I didn't know what to do. I desperately needed someone to talk to, and the only person I could think of was Mother. So I just grabbed a few things, went to the airport and took the first flight out."

"What did Mona have to say to it?"

"Well, first thing she did was calling me Miss Robinson."

Tony had to chuckle, "Good old Mona! Never lets an opportunity pass for a saucy joke!" The allusion to the movie in which the college graduate Benjamin was seduced by the mature Mrs Robinson was indeed striking, he had to admit, even funny in some way. Now Angela couldn't prevent smiling either. The time her mother had made that remark, she had been very angry with her, but right now she was happy that it helped to ease the tension between Tony and her.

For a moment they only looked at each other, neither of them saying a word. Tony loosened his bow tie and undid the uppermost button of his shirt, he felt the sudden need to inhale deeply. Angela stood in the middle of the room, in that wonderful dress, shaky and lost. Nothing was left of the security and confidence she had displayed just a few hours earlier on the stage in the Vanderbilt room.

"You don't like Branford, do you?" It was time to do some frank talking, Tony had decided.

"I do like it, it's just ..." she started. Although Angela knew that the matter had to be addressed, she was afraid to do so. Her mother had told her that Tony didn't want her to be a selfless housewife but she wasn't so sure about it. He was Italian after all, raised in a typical Italian family where the man earned the bread and the woman stayed home with the kids; and Marie had been a perfect housewife, beloved spouse and loving mother to his daughter. She was nothing like Marie. How could a man love two women so entirely different equally much? Would he still love her, if she told him she wanted to go back to work, and that life as the spouse at his side didn't satisfy her? Angela was too afraid that the answer might be no, so she decided to not address this particular matter. But there was something else she was going to share with him. Something that might explain why she had been so susceptible to the attention of another man. So she finished her sentence, "it's just that I feel very lonely at times."

"Lonely? You said you were looking forward to the quiet and solitude, to not being pushed around by a tight agenda or pressured by campaign deadlines. Was that not true?"

"It was true and I did enjoy all this, ... at the beginning, but then eventually I found myself sitting in our apartment all alone after you had left for work, not knowing what to do with the rest of my day. I guess that's why I practically jumped on the opportunity to spend my time with college papers. Suddenly there was something and ... someone ... I could share my afternoons with, someone I could talk to about other things than apple pie or the neighbor's new car, but I never saw the man in Timothy, only the student and friend."

"I thought I was your friend", Tony threw in.

"You are. You've been my best friend for ages, but you aren't there any more. Do you even realize how many times you stood me up for some unexpected practise or an unforeseen teacher's meeting? How many times you cancelled our plans for the weekend because of exams you had to mark or a hopeful young ballplayer you had to scout? And when I finally have you sitting at the dinner table, you hardly speak to me because you are so tired and before I'm out of the kitchen after doing the dishes you're already asleep on the sofa. That's not exactly what I pictured our togetherness to be like, Tony."

"But Angela, I'm not doing all this on purpose. I don't cancel or postpone our dates because I don't want to spend time with you but because my job demands it. I mean, you know yourself how much your job can keep you busy. I thought that especially you would understand that my job sometimes is number one priority and the family has to step back."

"Yes, you're right, I know, and Jonathan had to step back more than once because I was a working mother, and I know that I also cancelled numerous family dinners you had prepared when we were still in Fairfield, but maybe it's because I'm not used to having nothing much to do that I'm so dependent on you for keeping my company. Every time you cancelled on me, I felt rejected, Tony. I feel like a flower pot you put on the window sill to have something nice to look at whenever you think of it, and from time to you water it hence it doesn't die, but most of the time you just set it aside until you feel like looking at it again."

Angela's comparison with a flower pot made Tony's heart sink. Was she right? Had he really treated her like this? Like an inanimate item at his disposal? He had never felt this way as her housekeeper. He had always felt highly appreciated for what he did for her. How had she managed to make him feel like this despite all her business obligations? Especially taking into considertion that he had been the housekeeper after all, an employee, a dear employee, yes, but still an employee, whose prime task had been to ease his boss' life. If she had been able to show him how happy she was to have him near, why wasn't he able to show her in return how impressed he was that she had taken an hiatus from her agency just to be with him?

"You make me feel like a wife, Tony," Angela interrupted his musings, surprising him with this statement.

"Well, I hope so. You soon will be my wife."

"No, you don't understand. You make me feel like someone you take for granted, ... someone you need to have near, someone you enjoy coming home to, someone you know will be waiting for you; but I need to be more than that." Angela's voice broke with the last words. Tony could literally hear the amount of her pain and was struck by it. He had sensed some dissatisfaction coming from her and had been well aware that he had stood her up one time or another, but that she felt like taken for granted felt like a stab into his heart. Especially because in fact the exact reverse was true; she was such an extraordinary woman that he still sometimes asked himself why she had exactly chosen him and feared she might walk away without prior notice once she realized that he couldn't live up to the high standards she was used to.

"You are Angela, you are more than that. You're everything to me. I love you and I've never taken you for granted. After Marie had died, I thought I could never love another woman like I had loved her, I had considered romance over and done with in my life. Then fate had guided me to your door step, to the girl I had kissed when I was a boy at summer camp and had never forgotten since then. And when I realized that I was slowly falling in love with you, my amazing boss, I refused to believe in us because I thought I already had my share of true love, there couldn't possibly be more for me in store. I know that it had taken me a long time to open my heart to you and to acknowledge to myself that I had indeed fallen in love with you, but once I had, I was in there for keeps."

Tony wasn't used to talking about his emotions and fears, so he was a bit surprised that these words had come out of his mouth so easily. Maybe it was because they came directly from his heart. And there was one more thing the had to make clear. "Angela, Amore mio, if I made you feel like a flower pot, I'm awfully sorry. That never was my intention at all. Quite to the contrary, all I ever wanted to do was to make you happy." He pulled her into a close embrace and was relieved she let him. Little did he know that calling her 'Amore mio', the Italian words for 'my Love', had been responsible for the most part. Angela loved that expression and had missed being called his 'Amore' for a long time.

"We can work this out, can't we?" Tony reassured her, but even more himself. "We have to, Angela! I can't imagine my life without you. I would be lost without you. What can I do?"

"Well, I think talking will help, and being in the same room for a change is a good start." Her eyes started to fill with tears. She could feel that they were on the right track, that Tony had listened to what she had told him. Of course she hadn't told him yet that she felt lost without her work, that she was torn between the urge to go back to New York and the desire to be with him in Branford. 'One step at a time, Angela', she told herself. She couldn't remember when they had last been so closely connected and she didn't want to put the progress at stake they had just made with being all nagging and complaining. She would look for a way to be the coach's spouse and the agency's president at the same time, there had to be a solution to that problem and she would find it.

"So, ... he kissed you, huh?" Tony asked and approached her very closely, his nose almost touching hers, "Like this?" he asked challengingly and pressed his lips tenderly but with unambiguous determination on her mouth. He let his tongue move around demandingly, caressing hers, while gently cupping her face with his warm hands. He wanted this kiss to be the most sensitive, emotional and meaningful kiss she ever got. He wanted to show her how much she meant to him, and he wanted her to melt in his hands like butter.

"Uh-uh, ... no", Angela whispered, almost unable to speak at all. Even if she hadn't just decided to keep the rest of her distress to herself, she wouldn't have been able to address it now anyway for she was drowning in the sensation of this extraordinary kiss. She had never been kissed like this; with so much affection, with so much devotion, and with so much determination.

"Nooo?" Tony raised an eyebrow and feigned to be surprised.

Angela very slowly shook her head, fixating his eyes, unable to utter one more word.

"Alright." He was getting her where he wanted her to be but he wasn't through yet with his demonstration. There was one more thing he had to set straight. "Aaand ... he touched your breast?" He murmured in a seductive, deep voice while slowly trailing the neckline of her dress with his right index finger, caressing her soft cleavage, making her sensitive skin crawl in response, finally brushing the dress further down her left upper arm.

"Uh-huh." Angela's breathing came in shallow gasps now, she wasn't able to talk in coherent phrases anymore.

"Like this?" He slipped his hand under the silky fabric and cupped her left breast with his right hand. He touched it ever so gently, squeezing it so softly she could hardly feel it but the mere warmth of his hands made her squirm. Angela closed her eyes and moaned. She felt her brain slowly disconnect from her body; there was only physical sensation, no thinking any more. She surrendered to the pleasure of his skillful touch, an enjoyment she had missed for quite some time. "Oh!" Her knees weakened, her entire body felt feathery and time seemed to stand still. "Well, ... no. Not like this", she managed to say in a whisper.

"Good, ... because I want to be the only man who makes you feel like this. Get it?" Tony assured her firmly. He pressed his groin area to her lower body, making her feel his arousal. Cold shivers flashed through Angela's body and made her tummy doing flip-flops in pleasant anticipation. She was struggling to stay still.

"Nobody ever made me feel that way, Tony."

"And nobody ever will, Angela! I won't allow anybody to make you feel the way I do. And now, ..." he pulled away from her and took her hand, "I'm going to show you how else I want you to feel when you're with me." With this he guided her to the bedroom and slowly closed the door behind them.