14

Tony refused to wake up. His dreams were too sweet to let them be blown away by the early morning's onset of reality. It took him several minutes until he realized that waking up wasn't so bad after all because this day all of his dreams would come true. This was the day he would marry Angela, and that was even better than dreaming of it!

He crossed his arms behind his head and closed his eyes again. He reminisced about when he had begun to think that he might be marrying his boss one day. Certainly not when they had shared their first curious yet still very cautious adult kiss at summer camp at the sweet age of 11 and 13, although 'Ingrid' had occupied his childhood fantasies for a long time. None of his school mates had been able to hold a candle to her. Only when his early manhood juices had begun to run through his veins, had the memory about her faded. The more he had been mesmerized to find out that the woman he was admiring at a later stage in his life had been the first one he had ever set an eye on. And sometimes he wondered whether fate had led him to Angela's doorstep because it had been its initial plan all the way to pair him off with her.

The first 24 hours as employer and employee hadn't run so well though. He had ruined Angela's date with Grant, the president of the agency she had been vice-president of and a good-looking, very successful businessman, topping it with the incredibly inappropriate statement that he would never do such a stupid thing as to sleep with his boss. From today's perspective it had been stated much too hastily, especially insomuch as it had only taken a few months until he had kissed her - really kissed her, French-kissed her - in the kitchen, his workplace so to say. At first he had feared she would fire him because he had overstepped a border, but then they had ended up in the very same kitchen the next day, philosophizing over an Alka Selzer about whether they could lose each other as friends one day.

Tony thought back to their first movie night. He had been living in Angela's house for not much more than three months when Rosemary's Baby was on TV. They had talked about it over dinner and after both had said that it was too scary to be watched alone, Angela had proposed to watch it together. After having nibbled away a huge bowl of popcorn and having killed half a bottle of sherry, they had talked about their childhood, and their relationship had made a huge step from employer-employee to one of friends. The terrible fight they had faced only a few days later because he had had her Jaguar painted diabolo red instead of sandalwood had threatened to push them backwards again, but both had realized that they had begun to like each other too much to cancel their business contract. Not even Diane Wilmington and her generous offer had lured Tony away from Oak Hills Drive 3344.

Their second anniversary had definitely been a milestone. He had first voiced that he loved her. Even while under anesthesia, a kernel of truth had been buried in his words. Then there had been the day he had walked down the aisle with her at the Ferguson wedding. He had even been a little aghast when he had pictured the two of them as bride and groom. It might have been the reason why he had literally thrown Angela into Geoffrey's arms. It still had been so out of the question for him to even think about being in a romantic relationship with her. The jealousy which had taken possession of his body whenever she had been out on a date with that dork, and the fear to lose her when that same dork had proposed, had shown him that she had definitely become much more than just his boss. And the way she had reacted to Frankie's proposal somewhat later had been like a mirror's reflection.

Tony had to think back to when he had kissed Angela in his van at 'Inspiration Point'. Of course he had pretended to help her complete her list of things she had missed doing as a young woman, and making out at Inspiration Point had been the only one left, but if he was honest he'd have to admit that he had only grabbed the chance to kiss her. It had been a hot kiss, and her gaze afterward had brought his blood to a boil. He would've preferred to lead her into the back of his van to make out even more, but he had taken the glasses off her nose instead and had cleaned them just to have anything to do to work off his awkwardness. It had been one of the many incidents which had proven that he could talk himself into believing that there was nothing between them as much as he wanted, there definitely was something between them. They had grown so close over the years that he hadn't been able to think about his future any longer without picturing Angela in it.

And if it had ever needed to be spoken out loud, it couldn't have been said any more forward than when Angela had told him that even if he mowed lawn in Central Park she would still love him. Well, she hadn't used the word 'love' but it had been obvious that she had meant it. They had shared a hell of a kiss just a few moments earlier on a bench near the beach in Jamaica and her body signals had been easy to decipher. If he had wanted, he could've refuted his statement from the first night as her housekeeper with indeed sleeping with his boss. He had backpedaled, had vigorously stepped on the brakes, bringing their passionate romantic moment to a complete stop from one second to the next. He hadn't been sure whether he could handle being in a relationship with a woman like Angela without having graduated, despite being madly in love with her; that much he had already been clear about.

It had taken his lost years with Kathleen, with Lynnie being the only good coming out of it, to make him comprehend that Angela had always been the woman of his dreams; the one and only woman whom he could give his full heart to after Marie had given it back to him on her deathbed. 'Promise me to allow yourself to fall in love again, Tony,' she had demanded from him. 'I will never love another woman as much as I love you,' he had replied. 'I wish for you that you will. And if it happens, I want you to go for it. Go, and make this woman and yourself happy!' Tony had nodded but had secretly doubted that it would ever happen. But today it would, just like Marie had wished for him. He would promise to love and to cherish Angela in front of the priest, their little congregation, and in front of the whole world, and he knew that Marie would be sitting somewhere on a cloud high up in the sky, looking down on him, saying 'I told you!' with a triumphant smile on her face.

The moment Tony's thoughts were threatening to overwhelm him completely, Angela moved beside him. In her sleep she hadn't noticed any of his contemplations. Tony was grateful for being pulled out of his musings. He blinked away a tear and decided it was time for Angela to start this very important day.

"Good Morning, Mrs. Bower," he whispered into her ear, breathing a feathery kiss on her cheek. "Are you ready to face the day you're going to change that name into Micelli?"

"Mmmm, still sleepy," she mumbled with her eyes closed.

"Wake up, Sweetheart! This is your wedding day!"

"It really is, isn't it?"

"And did you sleep well the night before your wedding?"

"Tony, I've always slept well since I have you beside me," Angela told him. She opened her eyes, looked at him, and gifted him a loving smile.

"Nervous?"

"No, I don't think so."

Tony was a bit offended. This was going to be a big day, and she seemed to be a picture of calm, whereas his pulse had already accelerated a few beats.

"What was it like when you married Michael?"

"Oh, I was a complete wreck back then. We had this huge wedding planned, with so many people and so many different things about to happen. There was the wedding ceremony in that magnificent church, the big reception at the Country Club, various speeches, the cake cutting, the photo shootings, the wedding dance... It was all so overwhelming and frightening. And the rehearsal hadn't gone so well. So yes, I was very nervous and completely beside myself. I had thrown up several times in the morning."

"But you weren't..."

"No, Tony, I wasn't! Jonathan was born two and a half years after our wedding. You do the math!"

"So you were nervous about the wedding night then, huh," he grinned.

"Well..." Angela trailed off.

"Well what?"

"Not in the way you think."

"What's that supposed to mean? Have you and Michael...? I mean you were still... Weren't you?"

"Tony, it took almost a year to plan that wedding, and Michael and I were young and hot-blooded. We were crazy about each other! And besides, we were WASP's, no bible-abiding Catholics! Did you honestly think we waited until we were married? We waited until we were engaged though, if that eases your mind a little."

"Actually, it doesn't, Angela! I'm shocked!"

"Oh, come on, you had been with women before you got married, so what's your point? Is it okay for a man but not for a woman?"

"I hadn't been with Marie! We waited until after our wedding."

"But you eloped! And I bet one of your motives had been to be allowed to take her to bed afterwards. Admit it, Tony!"

"Hmmm," he grumbled.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Alright! There might be a tiny little grain of truth in there somewhere."

Angela looked deeply contented. "Uh huh! Does that mean you're going to marry me although I'm not a virgin anymore?"

"Well, in light of your beauty and-"

"Advanced age," Angela threw in.

"Charm I wanted to say, which any man can hardly resist, and as I'm partly to blame for this as well," he grinned sheepishly, "I think I could turn a blind eye to it."

"Lucky me!"

"No, Angela," Tony said with a sudden sincerity in his voice as well as facial expression, "it's me who is lucky. You make me the happiest man on earth with marrying me today." He leaned in for a kiss. "What do you say, shall we start the day?"

"Do we have to? As soon as we get up, it's going to be so busy and stressful with the all preparations. Can't we stay in bed a little while longer? It's so cozy here with you."

"I have an idea. How about you stay in bed and I scoot downstairs to make some coffee? We have the first cup here in bed. It'll give us another fifteen peaceful minutes together. Would that be okay?"

"Sounds wonderful."

"Always at your service, Ma'am!"

After Tony had left Angela alone in the bedroom she buried her head in his pillow. The spot where he had just been lying was still warm and smelled after him. She thought back to their conversation and actually also marveled at how calm she was. She felt so different today compared to the morning of her first wedding. The circumstances had been completely different back then, of course. She had been young and naïve, absolutely clueless about what it meant to be a wife and eventually a mother. She had been devoid of any experience in how to nourish and cherish a marriage, how to make a relationship to a man thrive. She had been on cloud nine and in the strong belief that as long as Michael and she were in love with each other, they would overcome any difficulty. Well, that had proven to be a fallacy.

Marrying Michael had been an adventure, whereas marrying Tony was the fulfillment of a long-felt dream. She had no doubt, not anymore, that she was doing the right thing. That was the difference, and that was exactly what left Angela so calm.

Like Tony, Angela couldn't help wandering down memory lane. She remembered how weird the idea of hiring a male housekeeper had seemed to be when her mother had first mentioned it. But it had only taken a few days until it had felt like he had always been living in her house. She remembered how shocked she had been when the first words of gossip had reached her ears. She had been very surprised to find out that she hadn't cared at all what her neighbors thought about her 'peculiar domestic arragement' like they had called it. Until then, Angela had been rather uptight about such things. She had grown up in a well-respected family and had a reputation to lose. But what people like Joanne Parker were spreading through their neighborhood had been pure invention and so ridiculous that Angela hadn't even tried to disprove their lies. Sometimes she had felt the strong urge to justify their 'arrangement', because the gossip not only humiliated her but also Tony. That people had been too snobbish to see that Tony was decent and honorable had made her want to scream it right into their ignorant faces sometimes.

Various sweet moments of their past emerged from the depths of Angela's memory. Like when he had decorated the entire living room to make her relive her senior prom, or when he had lent her his shoulder to cry on after she had been fired. Even learning to cook Japanese just to impress one of her clients hadn't been too much of a burden for him. Tony had backed her up so many times. He had thrown Jim 'the Rat' Peterson out of the house after he had dared to speak badly about her in front of Wallace & McQuade's clients. When she had been insecure about whether she was a good mother, pushing Jonathan to skip a class, he had given her the credit she needed. Angela had to chuckle when she thought back to when he had filled in as a secretary for Mona, whom she had been at odds with at the time.

Then there had been quite a few moments, even during their first years, when she had been at a point where a romantic relationship with her housekeeper hadn't been so unimaginable anymore. Like when they had shared a narrow bed in a motel near Jonathan's summer camp. If he had tried to put his arms around her, she wouldn't have pushed them away. After he had kissed her at Inspiration Point, she had hoped it had been more to him than just a favor to complete her list. When he had found her in the bar she had tried to hide in, after having shouted through the entire house in her sleep that she loved him, she had asked him how he felt about her, but instead of expressing his true feelings, he had only paraphrased them. She had replied, "I couldn't have said it better myself", but she had indeed. She should've said instead, "I meant every word I said in my sleep, Tony. I love you like I never loved a man before in my life, and I wished you'd feel the same way."

And what she had once believed to have been their crucial moment eventually occupied her mind: their conversation on the bench in Jamaica. She had been very clear about her own feelings at that point, and when they had kissed she definitely wouldn't have minded if he had asked to make love to her. Angela sighed. If he had only been a bit less doubtful about them at that particular moment. If he had only believed in them the way she had done, listening more closely to her declaration of love. She had tried to tell him that she didn't see the housekeeper and student in him but the wonderful man he was. The warm and caring man, the man who would be a wonderful teacher once he graduated, who made her feel so good, who gave her security and enriched her life every single day. If she had only been able to dissipate his worries about their different descents. Too many 'what ifs' Angela decided. It was no use whining about missed chances.

Suddenly Angela's head started pounding, and a delicate thought, one she'd rather push back into oblivion, knocked for admittance. She hadn't wanted to think about it in the first place, but it crept in by its own, and she couldn't do anything about it: Tony had betrayed her trust, and it had almost killed her that he had called off their friendship in the aftermath of his indiscretion.

They had fought so hard for this friendship, and he had thrown it in the garbage just because his wife hadn't been able to deal with it. They had sacrificed love and passion for this friendship, and Angela had believed that nothing and no one would ever be able to threaten it. Yet in less than two years Kathleen had managed to destroy everything which Tony and she had built up in the seven years before he had met her. Up to this very day, Angela had difficulties understanding how he could've been so weak as to relent to what 'whatsherface' had demanded of him. Before his marriage to Kathleen, Tony had always fought like a lion for their friendship, and at that point he had meekly drawn in his horns. She understood that he had faced a dilemma - he had felt bound to his wife and had thought he needed to do this - but hadn't she deserved to be fought for as well instead of being relinquished so easily? Hadn't he known that she would feel abandoned and forlorn? Hadn't he been aware that she wasn't able to live without him anymore? Tony had asked her to show understanding, and of course she had, but in a way she still lacked it. Angela had forgiven but not really comprehended why all of it had had to happen like that.

After Tony had left her, Angela had been short of his physical presence in so may ways. She had missed starting the day with him, having coffee and juice in the morning. She had missed talking to him about important and lesser important stuff. She had missed his advice when it came to raising Jonathan. She had missed their cozy movie nights, snuggling up against him on the sofa. She had missed hearing the Italian tunes he had sung or whistled, as well as smelling the delicious scents he had produced in the kitchen. Even the way he had fluffed up the pillows had felt different from how all the short-term maids had been doing it later on. His being part of her life had appealed to all her senses, and that had been the reason why her body as well as her soul had been hurting so much.

However, letting him back into her life after his divorce hadn't been easy either. It had taken a long time after her physical and emotional breakdown for Angela to find a way to manage her life without him. It had meant hard work, facing painful realities as well as getting rid of wrong assumptions: Tony had chosen to be with another women, but not because he had rejected her but because he hadn't seen any other solution. When he had reentered her life it had just gotten back into shallow waters. She had finally seen a silver lining at the horizon, had been at ease around men again, although she hadn't really dated. She had retrieved the right work-life-balance, had lived a healthier life and had started to enjoy it again. Angela had known that rebuilding her relationship with Tony would be a long process full of doubts, fears, and pain. And she had been right. Learning again to live with him had almost been as difficult as learning to live without him.

Just when Angela began to ask herself why these bleak thoughts made themselves heard so unrelentlessly on a day like this, Tony emerged in the doorframe.

"Room service!"

"What took you so long?" she asked, relieved to have him dissipate the long shadows of their past.

"You missed me!" he stated with a grin, somewhat uplifted by the notion that she had longed for his return so badly. He placed a tray table on the bed with two steaming cups of freshly brewed coffee, a plate with scrambled eggs and two slices of buttered toast, as well as a small vase with a single pink rose. "I thought once we started getting ready for the ceremony we wouldn't have time to grab anything to eat, and I don't want us to be interrupted saying 'I do' by our growling stomachs."

"I'm not sure whether I'll get anything down."

"You have to, Sweetheart," Tony insisted, "but only if you won't throw up!"

Angela laughed. "No, that won't happen today!"

"Because you're so calm. No excitement whatsoever this time!" he pouted.

"Tony!" Angela held on to the tray because she didn't want it to tip over. Looking deeply into his eyes she said, "Me being calm doesn't mean I'm not excited. I'm calm because I'm so damn sure that I do exactly the right thing with marrying you."

She stroked his cheek tenderly with her right hand, the left securing the tray table.

"Gee, so you are excited!"

"Of course I am! What makes you believe I wouldn't? I'm so much looking forward to this day. I've dreamed about this for a long time, and today the dream will come true." She leaned in for a kiss, meeting his lips above the plate with the scrambled eggs. It started as a quick peck on the mouth, but Angela wanted more. She put a hand in Tony's thick hair and pulled his head toward herself. Her kiss was deep and inviting.

"Baby, if you don't stop this, we're gonna be late for our own wedding."

"Don't you think they would wait for us?" Angela asked an octave lower than usual, with a lascivious undertone in her voice.

"I like the way you think," Tony was tempted, but then again his plan was to save his energy and passion for the wedding night, plus something else was overshadowing his libido. "But honestly, Angela, spending the night before my wedding with the bride at my side is one thing, having sex in the morning before leading her to the altar is another! I don't think I can do that."

Angela smiled to herself. "Alright! I don't want you to mess up with your Catholic conscience." She leaned back, pulled the duvet up to her chest and stuck it under her arm pits. "Well, now that I've been offered room service, I'd like to have some of my eggs, please! I hope the toast's still warm..."

Tony was breathing his arousal away, a bit stupefied by Angela's sudden change of attitude. There she was half a minute ago, trying to seduce him, and now she demanded her breakfast so matter-of-factly as if she was bossing the waiter of a five-star hotel around. But he could feel that something was bothering her, although he couldn't really tell what. It was like when you step into an abandoned house and the furniture is covered with sheets to keep the dust away. You can see that there is something, but you don't realize more that just its silhouettes.

"What's the matter, Honey?" he asked, self-conscious. He didn't want anything to spoil this day, he wanted it to be perfect. So if there was anything on her mind, he definitely needed to take it away. "I can see that something's been bothering you while I was away."

"How can you see?" Angela whispered.

"It's in your eyes. And there's this fine line between your brows, which is there only when you muse about unpleasant things."

Angela sighed. She cursed herself for having followed the thought about what had gone wrong all those years ago.

"I'm sorry, Tony. I didn't mean to contemplate about the past on our special day. This is about our future, not our past. Just forget it. I'm fine."

Now it was Tony who sighed. He stared at the floor and muttered flatly, "It will always be there, won't it? We will never be able to overcome it completely." What he meant by 'it' didn't need to be explained any further. Both knew exactly what he was talking about. "If only I hadn't started college. I would've never met her."

"Now you're talking nonsense, Tony! You'd still be a housekeeper. Do you really think you'd be happier?"

"As long as I was with you."

"But you wouldn't be with me! Being the housekeeper was exactly what kept you away from me, remember?"

Tony took a deep breath. "I was so stupid."

"You were insecure."

"Why are you defending me? I pushed you into the worst time of your life."

"You did. But you also pulled me back out." Angela smiled at him now, trying to meet his eyes, but he avoided hers. "Look at me, Tony," Angela demanded, but when he lifted his head and she saw his eyes so full of regret and shame, it almost broke her heart. "We did a good job coping with all this. I'm proud of us! We did our best to talk about everything. It wasn't always easy, some painful things needed to be said, but we never gave up. We fought for our second chance, and we were amply rewarded."

"But was it really necessary? The hard work I mean? Couldn't it have been a little easier?"

"Do you recall what I told you after you had confided in me about Kathleen? In my study?"

"Every word," Tony said dryly. "You said it might be part of our journey. Something we had to go through to see whether we could go any further."

"And I was right. Of course, I had no idea back then how long this journey would take, and I would've preferred had you told me right away that you didn't love her, that you'd break up with her the next day because you were in love me, but I doubt that we would've been where we are today if it had really happened."

"You think?"

"I do."

Both smiled shortly at the notion that this wouldn't be Angela's only 'I do' today.

"How come?"

"I believe our relationship is much more solid, now that we know how terrible life is without the other. The last ten years have been wonderful, Tony, and so will the rest of our lives."

Tony stared at her and lost himself in her deep brown eyes, which drew him in every time he looked into them. "Do you have any idea of how much I love you?" he asked. "I love all of you, even your little imperfections."

"Im-per-fections?" Angela repeated, pretending to be completely consternated. "Are you saying that I'm not perfect?"

It was meant as a joke, never in her life had Angela felt even close to being perfect, quite the contrary, but Tony had his very own opinion about womanly perfection.

"I'm saying that I love you. And you are perfect. I wished you'd believe me."

"Why don't you show me?"

This time, Tony couldn't resist what Angela implied with her request. He grabbed the handles of the tray table, which was still standing between them, and put it down on the floor. He tucked a strand of her unkempt hair behind her ear, gazed at her unmade-up face, which he thought was as beautiful without as with make-up, and kissed her lips. Tenderly at first, but then more vigorously. And when Angela leaned backward, ruffling his hair and joyfully welcoming his tongue with hers, there was no return anymore. So against his prior assertion, that the Catholic in him could never sleep with his bride in the morning of their wedding day, the passionate groom in him just couldn't help letting his desire take over control.

The scrambled eggs and the toast should remain unattended by the bridal pair for the rest of the morning, only to be picked up by Ruby with a shake of a head a few hours later.