Chapter Five - A Pensive Traveler

Tony cautiously closed the door and locked it. The sight which was greeting him when he turned around was very familiar. Angela sitting on the couch, her feet tucked under her legs, lots of papers on her lap, huge glasses on the tip of her nose. Only that this time her head was slightly tilted against the back rest and her eyes were closed. She had fallen asleep over her work.

He tiptoed around the coffee table and sat down on one of the arm chairs and looked at her. He had taken off his gown and cap some time ago and carried them in a paper bag he now put on the floor. He glanced at the papers on the table and read 'proposal for a future cooperation' and smiled slightly. Just what he had thought and even hoped for; the client hadn't cancelled on her, it had been the other way around; Angela had cancelled the appointment to be able to come to his commencement and now she was trying to make up with the client with an improved proposal. His heart leaped for joy, although he felt sorry that for her it meant additional work. He inhaled heavily and leaned back in the arm chair. He began to relax for the first time on this day. Since this morning he was on a rollercoaster ride with feelings of excitement, regret, joy, sadness, pride, and angst alternating constantly. Now he was relaxed.

He was home.

Where he belonged.

Finally.

He hadn't wanted to leave Angela behind after the commencement, but somehow he hadn't been able to withstand Kathleen's demand to escort him to their classmate's party. Celebrating with his classmates had been a natural thing to do, whereas celebrating with his boss instead of his friends would've been out of the ordinary. That was exactly what had kept him in this half-hearted relationship for so long. Nobody screwed up his nose about Kathleen and him, nobody questioned his motives or gossiped about it behind his back. But love was not about taking the less complicated way and content yourself with the second best just to avoid difficulties. Love was about taking chances and risking everything to be rewarded with being loved back. It was time he manned up and stood by the woman he really loved. And that was not the woman he had left behind at Matthew's place.

His classmate's penthouse had been awesome, food and drinks had been offered abundantly, and the mood had been cheerful and boisterous, but Tony hadn't been at ease. He hadn't been able to get Angela out of his mind, and after some time he had caught himself at not even wanting to get her out of his mind. Thinking about her had filled his heart with glee. So he had ignored Kathleen's warning that she would be mad if he left, had excused himself and had taken a taxi. The closer he had approached 3344 Oak Hills Drive, the more he had relaxed and the wider his smile had become. He was doing the right thing, he knew like never before. But when he had stood in front of the door, putting the key into the lock, he had gotten cold feet. What if she thought he simply traded one woman for the other? What if she laughed at him, asking him whether he had honestly expected she'd wait for him forever? What if it had slipped his attention that she had found someone else? But then he had shaken his head as if he could get rid off his misgivings this way. He had silently opened the door, had sneaked inside and had spotted her on the couch.

Watching Angela in her sleep warmed Tony's heart. It made him happy and sad at the same time. She had changed into comfortable clothes and her hair was a bit unkempt. She had a pencil in her hand and a folder on her lap. Her ribcage rose and sank rhythmically. Suddenly she moved a little and the folder fell to the floor. The thud woke her up. It took her a moment to realize where she was and, more importantly, whose company she was sharing, then she ripped the glasses off her nose.

"You? What are you doing here? I thought you were at that graduation party in your classmate's house," Angela asked bewildered.

"I was, but then I wanted to be somewhere else," Tony answered.

"And where would that be?"

"Here."

"Oh."

Angela didn't know what else to say. They looked deeply into each other's eyes and what they saw in there made them both flinch, like they had so many times in the last seven years.

Tony cleared his throat. "You said that the two of us would also celebrate."

"Well, yes, but I didn't exactly mean tonight."

"Why not tonight? There is a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Moët & Chandon, your favorite, ..."

Angela bit her lower lip. She was torn by the wish to enjoy some time of their own on the one side, and the fear of getting hurt on the other. But quality time with Tony had become so rare lately that she brushed all precautions aside.

"Who can resist a glass of chilled Moët & Chandon?" she finally agreed.

Tony was pleased and smiled. He knew her so well, all her strengths and weaknesses, and ice-cold champagne was one of the latter. He could always lure her easily with it, only being topped by his double chocolate chip brownies. He could make her do anything for those if he wanted to. He loved the way she surrendered to his culinary skills.

He held the swinging door to the kitchen open and let her pass in front of him. He could see her insecurity. Her entire body language told him that she was tense and it made him sick. Since when did she feel so uncomfortable in his presence? Had she been like this for the whole time he had been dating Kathleen? Hadn't he looked closely enough to notice?

Tony opened the fridge and took out the bottle of Moët & Chandon he had hidden under a head of lettuce and some carrots this morning . Angela watched him from the where she stood close to the sink. She had her hands crossed in front of her chest and leaned against the counter. As far away from him as possible, Tony realized. He took two glasses out of the cabinet and put them on the round kitchen table. He poured the champagne and handed Angela a glass.

"Here you go. To what shall we drink?"

"Hmm," Angela contemplated and came up with something innocuous. "To the way a college education influences your life."

"To college education."

They clinked and both took a sip.

A short, awkward silence occurred. Angela didn't really understand what was happening. This morning she had been absolutely sure that she would miss Tony's big day, and now she was having a glass of champagne with him in the kitchen.

"Angela?"

"Yes?"

"There's something I'd like to explain," Tony started.

"Okay."

She scrutinized him full of expectation from her spot in the rearmost corner of the kitchen. Tony became nervous, and his courage abandoned him. It wasn't easy to acknowledge that he had been a jerk. Moreover, he couldn't assess her reaction to what he was going to say, and it scared him. But he was willing to risk being rejected. Things couldn't go on as they stood right now. And he was the one to make the first step, to initiate the change.

"Angela, I'm sorry for having left you at the commencement earlier. You had come all the way from Niagara Falls to be there and I went away from you."

"I said I wouldn't come, so of course you had plans," Angela stated.

"I didn't have any plans to be honest. I couldn't think of anything else but that you wouldn't be there. And it made me feel very lonely."

"Mother, Samantha and Jonathan were there. Mrs Rossini brought Billy along. ... You had Kathleen at your side." The last name made both cringe.

"That's not the same. I needed you to be there." He turned around and made full eye contact. "I am lost without you."

"Well, ... you seemed to get along pretty well without me in the past year." Angela couldn't spare him this, and her accusing tone hit Tony right to the core. If he had thought that she would happily fall into his arms as soon as he offered his embrace, he was barking up the wrong tree. He couldn't stand her glance anymore and looked away. He paced back and forth nervously, like a panther in a cage. The atmosphere in the kitchen was stretched to breaking point now. But then Angela eased the tension with changing to a different topic.

"That was a beautiful commencement, Tony. And your speech was fabulous. Professor Darnell's course really paid off," she said with a grin.

"Thank you, Angela. Your opinion is the one that matters to me. You were the one I wrote it for."

They made eye contact again, even more intensively than before. Neither of them knew what to say. It was Angela again who broke the silence. "You're a remarkable man, Tony!"

"Me? Oh yeah, really remarkable," he repeated with a mocking undertone. To his mind, his behaviour during the last year could hardly be called remarkable.

"Oh yes, you are! They way you managed your life after Marie's passing. The way you took this crazy job to give Sam a better life. The way you have grown from an ex-athlete without any higher education to a college graduate with a teaching degree. That is remarkable!"

"Well, Angela, you definitely contributed your mite to it. If it wasn't for you, I'd never be the man I am today. Not many bosses would do for their housekeepers what you did for me. So you're actually the one who's remarkable."

"I always wanted to be more than just your boss."

"And you are! You are way more than just my boss! We're friends right? You're the best friend I ever had."

"Friends, ..."

Tony could feel that she had hoped for one more word but he had stopped at that point. Of course he had! He had a girlfriend, and although adding 'lover' to the list had been somewhere in the back of his mind, he bit his tongue. They locked eyes again. They were both thankful for their friendship, peculiar as it was. It had always been more difficult for the outside world to understand their unorthodox relationship than for themselves. But right now it seemed so childish to cling so vehemently at the fact that they were only friends. He wanted more. He had always wanted more, but their unwritten agreement to keep their relationship on a platonic level went on standing in the way. He waited for a signal from Angela to enter the unknown territory between them.

But instead of giving him the cue for continuing, Angela left her spot at the sink. She opened one of the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen and took out a small box with a ribbon.

"Since we're drinking to your graduation, I could as well give you this now." She handed him the box.

"A present?" Tony was dumbfounded.

"Yes. People do get presents when they graduate."

"Yeah, from their parents," Tony argued.

"You told everybody in the auditorium today that I was your parents' proxy, so I'm the one who's giving you a present for your graduation," Angela quashed his objection like a top lawyer.

"And you've hidden it in the cabinet I open like ten times a day?" he asked her a little amused. But his joke backfired the very next second.

"Well, you left the ceremony with Kathleen. I didn't expect you home tonight."

Ouch! Her remark felt like a deep hit in a boxing ring. But Angela wouldn't be Angela, if she didn't rescue him right away. "Open it!"

Tony loosened the ribbon and opened the box. It contained an exclusive Montblanc fountain pen.

"For marking your students' exams and signing their report cards," she told him.

He stared at the pen. It was hand-crafted, had a golden nib, and looked very luxurious and expensive. Tony was in awe. "Oh wow, I think I never got something this exclusive. I'm used to writing with disposable pens. I'm not even sure I know how to use a writing instrument like this."

"You can go on writing our shopping list with a disposable pen. Well, ..." Angela suddenly realized that this sounded like she presumed he would continue caring for her grocery shopping even with his teaching job. "Uhm, I mean, your shopping list. Not mine," she added.

"What makes you think that your shopping list isn't mine too?"

"Well, ... I don't know. With your teaching job starting in two weeks, you won't be my housekeeper any longer."

"Are you firing me?"

"Now don't be silly, Tony! I would never fire you! But let's be realistic here, okay! You can't be a full-time teacher and a full-time housekeeper at the same time, so I assume you'll give up your housekeeping job. Which is why you moved in here in the first place as far as I remember." Angela began losing her composure. She had procrastinated this subject for so long, actually since he was with Kathleen. Since he had started dating her, she contemplated about what would going to happen when he graduated. And now this moment was here.

"You're firing me and kicking me out of the house?"

"What?" Hysteria slowly began to take possession of Angela's mind. She had maneuvered herself into a corner with no way out. She felt like a mouse in a trap. Of course she didn't want him to leave, she'd more than anything like to keep him, only that she didn't know how.

"You want me to move out?"

"No!" Angela screamed. "Of course not!" Her eyes beseeched him now. "Why are you doing this to me, Tony?"

"Doing what?"

"Leaving me in the dark about your future plans."

"I don't have any, so there is nothing to leave you in the dark about," Tony justified himself.

"How can't you have any plans? You start a new career soon. You have a girlfriend who's having plans for your relationship, I'm sure. You're about to start out on a brand new life!" Angela managed to fight back the tears which were threatening to form. Under no circumstances would she make a jealous scene in front of him now.

"But I don't want my life to change." Tony shrugged. "Especially when it comes to the part you're playing in it."

Angela gasped. She wasn't a hundred percent sure of what he meant with his last words. Whether he wanted to stay as a tenant in her house or still be paid for household chores. Or whether he meant something completely different. Something she had been daydreaming about for so long.

Tony, too, understood that what he had just said needed further explanation. But he lacked the right words. He felt so dumb and unworthy of her affection for the way he had pushed her away from him for an entire year. Their eyes met and there was so much chemistry in the room that a single spark would've been enough to make the whole kitchen explode. Tony's mouth got dry and the lump in his throat was too big to swallow it down. At some point, he couldn't stand the tension anymore. As if moved by an invisible force he closed the gap between them with a few determined strides, stood still right in front of Angela, nose to nose, gently cupped her face with both his hands, and placed a forceful kiss on her lips. When he pulled away, he looked into two flabbergasted eyes.

"What are you doing?" Angela demanded to know, completely taken off guard.

"I'm kissing you," Tony answered laconically, as if it was the most natural thing to do. And he just couldn't help it, a magnetic pull kept dragging his lips towards hers. This time his mouth rested a little bit longer at its destination, and his kiss was so full of love that Angela's knees turned to jelly.

"But you can't," she whispered, struggling for breath.

"Why not?"

"You can't kiss me like that, Tony. You've got a girlfriend," Angela explained, and the matter-of-fact way she said it cut deeply into Tony's heart.

"You don't have to remind me, Angela, I know. But I also know that the last days were like hell for me. The mere thought that you might not be at my side for my commencement was driving me crazy. I couldn't think about anything else but whether you'd be there or not."

Tony hesitated. Only now he became completely aware of what was about to happen. He was about to turn the steering-wheel around and reset the navigation to his life. He would be back on course. Finally. After one year of wandering around aimlessly. If he hadn't been so excited and thrilled about it, a feeling of guilt and regret would've made it into his conscience, but he was simply too delighted to allow any negative feelings to burden his heart right now. Everything seemed to be so easy all of a sudden. His future popped up in front of his mind's eye, clearly and unambiguously. Why had he ever been insecure? How come he had ever not known that Angela was the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with? Now, the only thing he had to do was to make her understand.

"I know that I demanded a lot from you in the past year. I don't even try to apologize because there is no satisfactory excuse. Other than that I behaved like a complete jerk maybe." Tony stroked his hair with both hands. He was nervous, but determined. This had to be the decisive moment. If he screwed this up, he might have lost his last chance to make up with the woman he had secretly been in love with for years. So he tried to concentrate. "I can't even imagine the amount of strength it must have cost you to come to the ceremony today. What I can tell you is that I was devastated when you didn't show up, and equally overwhelmed when I suddenly spotted you in the back. The saddest day of my life had suddenly turned into the happiest for me. Nothing had any meaning without you. And what you said about being proud of me, ..." Tony hesitated and swallowed hard. "You made me flying high like no other woman since, ... well, you know, ... Marie. Kathleen never made me feel this way, ever. I should've never gotten involved with her. It wasn't fair, because I was never willing to give her my heart entirely. You once said that my relationship to her might be a part of our journey to something more serious. Well, I guess I've not only taken the scenic route but a world trip, and I'm sorry that it took me this long. But today, at the graduation party at Matthew's place, I felt so out of place. There was no connection between me and these people, including Kathleen. I only wanted to be near you, Angela. A life without you is unimaginable for me. Totally un-imaginable! I'll talk to Kathleen tomorrow, I promise. I'm going to break up with her. But for now, ..." Tony stepped close again and took Angela's hands, "I'd prefer not to talk about her any longer, but to go on kissing you."

With this, he let go of Angela's hands, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with one hand, and pulled her into a tight embrace with the other. Whereas his emotions were obviously doing somersaults, Angela seemed calm and serene on the outside. Her face was like a mask and she didn't show any reaction whatsoever to what he had just said. Didn't she believe him? Was it too late? Wouldn't she be able to forgive him? Tony could only think of one way to find out. It was possible that she slapped him in the face, but then he would've gotten his answer one way or the other. So he cupped her face again. His hands were trembling when he touched her soft cheeks. Then he closed his eyes and put his lips on hers. Cautiously at first, but when he didn't feel any resistance he demanded entrance to her mouth with the tip of his tongue, and his heart leaped for joy when she granted it and her tongue finally began to reciprocate. When he felt her hands around his waist, eventually slowly travelling up his back, he was completely blithe and also very relieved.

"I love you, Angela," he whispered through a blond lock into her ear. "I don't know what made me hang in with her for so long, what I was looking for in that relationship. I had everything I ever hoped for directly in front of my eyes. The most beautiful, caring, desireable woman. The woman I have a crush on from the very first day I moved into her house. The woman I can't imagine living without. The woman I love like no other."

"And it took you a whole year to find that out? I've waited so long for you to tell me this, Tony. You definitely allowed yourself plenty of time!"

"I know. And I am sorry. I wished we could wake up with amnesia tomorrow and forget all about the past year."

"But then all the good moments would fall into oblivion too," Angela pointed out.

"Yeah, like what?"

"Like when you gave me the bouquet of pink roses for my birthday. Like when you cancelled your plans for the weekend and stayed here because of a predicted thunderstorm. Like when you gave my car a lube change although someone else was waiting for you," Angela enumerated, avoiding to call Kathleen by her name. If Tony was willing to delete her out of their lives, she wouldn't invite her back in for sure.

"You value these moments? Seriously?"

"I took all I could get."

"Gee, that sounds as if I was some kind of prison guard who threw you breadcrumbs once in a while. How were you able to take this for a year?"

"I loved you, and hoped that you would be able love me back some day," she said in her soft voice, but couldn't completely hide her suffering. "Mother called me a masochist."

"I'm surprised Mona didn't strangle me." Tony knew that despite her hard shell, Mona had a soft heart and would fight for her daughter like a lioness for her cub. "I can't believe you're still talking to me, Angela. I treated you like shit! How could I ever do that? I'll use the rest of my life to make up for what I did to you, I promise. Never again will you be mistreated like this. If I could turn back time, I'd tell you about my true feelings after they took my appendix out, because that was when I first realized that I loved you and never again wanted to lose you. If I had been a little more gutsy then, we would've been spared all the detours. But I was too chicken to-"

"Shhh," Angela silenced him with putting her index finger on his mouth, "there's no use in racking your brain about the past. What's done is done. Let's enjoy the here and now." She gifted a smile full of love. "Kiss me!"

"Your wish is my command," and with an ear-to-ear grin he embraced her and kissed her as passionately as never before, not even in Jamaica. 'Never again the scenic route,' Tony silently swore to himself, 'make that blind nun get out of the car and check that spare tire, Micelli!'

THE END