This chapter takes place after the "Time Flies When You're Trying To Have Fun" chapter of "The Season Eight That Lives etc.." After this chapter, there will be no need to refer to the other story, they veer off in different directions.
In the solitude of her room, Angela sat at her dressing table. She didn't brush her hair, she didn't do anything other than think about their second anniversary; her resolve to revisit it was short lived. The more she thought about it, the more she became aware that that was when they'd started to build their house of cards. Tonight that house had come crashing down. Angela looked at the smashed house of their relationship, the pieces were piled together, crumbled on top of each other; try as she might she couldn't pick through the pieces to put it together again. Tonight had cemented the fact in her mind that Tony saw her as no more than a friend.
Tony's choice to revisit the street fair, although having a nice symmetry to it, wasn't the evening her heart had been hoping for. She compared and contrasted their two visits to the carnival in her mind. In some ways they had been much more comfortable with each other the first time around; at least then there hadn't been unfulfilled expectations, just five people getting to know each other, and all of them trying their best to get along. Jonathan had been so young and cute, Angela smiled at the memory. Tony made sure her son had a good time, even trying to teach him how to throw a baseball. It didn't work well, but at least he had tried, and even though her son hadn't won her a stuffed animal; the grin on his face was all the prize Angela needed. Tony wisely refrained from winning stuffed animals for anyone that night.
Where had it all gone so wrong? Even on the car ride home tonight Tony seemed oblivious to her needs. She'd been quiet while the rest of the family happily discussed the evening's events. Couldn't he see she was upset? Couldn't he see that her heart was breaking? Now she was angry with Tony for not being able to sense her inner turmoil.
Tony had noticed Angela's silence, but chalked it up to tiredness and didn't ask her about it.
If he had had even the slightest hint that anything more was amiss with Angela he would have stopped at nothing to make whatever was bothering her better; but as Angela had grown so adept at secret keeping over the past seven years, this new secret was something she was able to hide quite easily.
Angela left the dressing table and looked around her empty room. The silence that greeted her oppressed her. She was alone again, without the distractions of street fair crowds and activities to keep her mind off Tony and his decidedly unromantic anniversary present. Had her hopes been too high? She didn't know. On the bed the anniversary watch and the ladybug stuffed animal were perched in blissful ignorance; completely unaware of the pain they were causing.
Angela sat down on the side of the bed and forced herself to reopen the watch. Why she purchased it in the first place she couldn't say. It must have been a moment of hubris or insanity, she wasn't sure which. No matter what the impetus, she now realized it was a step too far for them. She turned the watch over in her hand, its presence so very vividly pointing out broken dreams. There would never be a time to say, "I love you." Angela berated herself for even buying the watch in the first place. What had she been thinking? That she and Tony might actually have a future together? She laughed bitterly at the thought; for if there was one truth that had become crystal clear to her tonight it was that there would never be anything more than friendship between them.
Angela shut the box, and buried it in her lingerie drawer. On Monday she would take it to the bank and leave it in the safe deposit box just to get it out of the house and hopefully out of her mind.
Angela forced herself to change for bed. She brushed her teeth, washed her face and checked the alarm clock; when her evening routine was complete she had nothing else to distract her from what would turn out to be a very long, very dark night of the soul. The truth that Tony would graduate in the spring weighed heavily on her. In only a few months Tony would be gone from the house. A house without Tony. It would be a home bereft of its soul; a place that would quickly go from a home full of warmth to a shell, nothing but walls and furniture; but it was an eventuality she was unhappily reconciled to come to terms with starting now.
As Angela sat on the side of the bed wearing only a nightgown, she started to look back at her relationship with Tony through the years. They'd always had a strong friendship; but it wasn't the friendship that concerned her at the moment, it was their romantic relationship that currently troubled her. She scoffed, it would be more precise to say their lack of romantic relationship. How could she not have seen it before? Tony had never made any romantic overture to her; ever. If anything, his actions should have alerted her to the truth far sooner than this.
Angela started taking inventory of her non-romantic, romantic history with Tony. Where were her expectations first dashed? It took her a few minutes to discern the first time she felt invisible to him; but when she did the hurt of the moment was as fresh as though it had just happened.
Frankie.
Beautiful. Brooklyn born and raised. Italian. Successful. Although Angela shared some of those traits, she would never share his past. Never know the circumstances that shaped him. She'd tried to fit in that whole day, but failed at every attempt. She didn't belong, and her ticket to belonging deserted her; dumped her in favor of someone more desirable. She'd never forget that dagger through her heart when Tony broke their date for sausage and peppers to spend time with Frankie. They had a date and he left her standing there...alone; rejected and humiliated. He'd asked her if it was all right, so what? What was she supposed to say? No? It was obvious that he wanted to be...wherever with Frankie and nowhere with her. She had to let him go, pretend she wasn't hurt. But she was, the pain was just as deep now reliving that memory as it had been at the time.
He'd left her, completely forgetting she was even there. She watched them from a lonely table; they were dancing. They looked so happy. Frankie had a stuffed animal. Of course she did; she probably had a walk in closet full of stuffed animals ardent admirers had won for her through the years. Angela didn't. Even the stuffed animal Tony had won for her tonight was an afterthought. She picked up that poor ladybug from where she'd thrown it on the bed when she came in and threw it across the room toward her closet door. It hit with an unsatisfying thud and fell to the floor.
An image of seeing them kiss sent a fresh wave of pain through her. She remembered trying to ignore the original hurt, do her best to salvage the day, but not even her unexpected Knight in Blue Jeans; Tiny, could save it.
The auction was another source of distress; feeling like she was drowning and her life-preserver was being taken away from her. Her helplessness as Frankie won him from her reminded her once again of her inadequacies when it came to men. How could she compete with her? When Frankie won that auction she felt as though something very precious had been stolen from her. For the remainder of the fair she felt like an observer of life, not a participant. She was alone at the party. Again. Tony spent the rest of his time at the fair with Frankie; while she had wandered around alone, trying to ignore the fact that she was alone. It was a script she had played out too many times in her life.
Her hopes had been so high that maybe this time it would be different, maybe this time she would have fun at the party. She remembered how much she had been looking forward to that festival, how Tony had promised her culinary delights and communal celebration. She was so looking forward to spending time with him she even bought a new outfit. She should have known from his reaction to the outfit that the day would turn out no different from so many others in her life. Disappointment would reign once again. Angela cringed at the memory.
Angela was determined not to revisit her visit to the psychiatrist; the words had been spoken out loud, but they were hardly a revelation to her, even then. There was no need to rehash that; but the terror of what drove her there would not be ignored. Not only had Frankie won Tony for the weekend; she had almost won him for the rest of her life. Angela wouldn't let herself think about how close she'd come to losing him; it was a thought she still couldn't bear, even to this very day.
An even worse thought threw itself into her consciousness, one that smashed her cherished dreams and turned her cold. The thought that just because Tony turned down the marriage proposal because he wasn't in love with Frankie; didn't conversely mean he was in love with herself. How could she have missed it for so long? Of course, it seemed obvious now, her own heart had been so euphoric from being freed from the prison she'd locked it in that she'd been blind to his lack of interest.
Angela continued to sit on the side of the bed; she grabbed the tissue box from the nightstand, ripped several out of the box and then let the box drop to the floor. She worried the tissues, distractedly pulling holes in them as her thoughts whirled in pain. Every former paramour of Tony's she had ever met appeared in her thoughts; she envied them, even as she hated them. Who was next on Tony's hit parade? Where else in the past did she feel non-existent to his libido?
Betty.
She chided herself for once again letting her expectations run rampant; she should have known to keep them low. When Tony suggested the trip to St. Louis she really hoped it would be a step forward in their relationship; time to make some long held fantasies come true. They'd been spending a lot of time together, having fun, strengthening their family bond. A weekend alone together seemed to her to be the next step, surely he saw the implications in that, hadn't he? Apparently he hadn't. At least not until his desperate ploy to distance himself from Betty. She remembered the thrill that ran through her as he put his arm around her and introduced her as, "his wife, Angela Micelli;" it had been a shock, but she was more than willing to play along.
When they were in their room working out the details she thought the weekend was taking the turn she fantasized it would take. The two of them would be alone; dinner, champagne, a nice weepy movie, a shoulder to cry on. Then perhaps, finally, some honesty, some romance. How did it all go so wrong? His friends, emphasis on his; they certainly weren't her friends. They had no idea how much of an intrusion they were. Off Tony went; abandoning her once again. It hurt; even after all this time, it still hurt. Obviously he hadn't wanted to be with her as much as she wanted to be with him.
Angela turned the name, "Mrs. Micelli," over in her mind; bitterly angry at Tony for playing such a heartless joke on her. How dared he use that name so flippantly? He'd used her as well and for what? What possible reason could he have had to be so cruel? Angela wasn't stupid, if Tony wanted to spend time reminiscing with Betty she wouldn't have stood in his way. She'd have been crushed, of course; just as she was now, but she wouldn't have had to live a lie; and maybe, just maybe, she would have come to her senses sooner about Tony. Been spared years of 'maybe' and 'someday'; illusions that existed only in her mind and now were completely annihilated.
Another memory invaded, that of finding him downstairs wrapped up with Betty. She still felt the punch in the gut seeing them together caused. It was just as potent now as it had been then. Just how much could a woman take? The humiliation, the embarrassment, the heartbreak. The anger.
Angela wanted to throw something again, she looked around and saw a pillow. She threw that against her closet door too, but it also fell with an unsatisfying thud. Oh, that man! When he'd started to fondly remember his time with Betty she shouldn't have thrown his clothes in the hallway, she should have thrown them out the window. Throwing him out the window too wouldn't have been a bad idea either, pity she didn't think of it at the time. She had a very brief joke of a thought to sneak into Tony's room right now and throw some clothes out the window. The idea did give her a moment of triumphant satisfaction; but was, of course, completely impractical to execute.
She didn't even want to think about the number of stuffed animals Betty had. No, she reconsidered, Betty's ardent admirers had probably gifted her a collection of baseballs. She wouldn't let herself wonder how many of them were from Tony.
She was angry then and she was angry now. She second guessed herself, realizing that she should have followed her first instinct at the time and left. Why did she call her mother? Her mother couldn't understand; she'd never had any problems attracting men, ever.
Why had she listened to her mother's advice? It wasn't as though it was even sincere advice, she knew it was self-serving; if whatever she said kept Angela in St. Louis it was another day of freedom for her. So she stayed, but in the long run, what was the point? Yes, she'd watched him play baseball. Her heart softened just a little as she remembered how happy he'd been to be on the field again. Then hardened again almost immediately as she berated herself for kissing him at the hotel; in front of everyone. Why had she done that? To keep up appearances? Hardly. Obviously she'd wanted to kiss him; and it was now obvious to her that it had meant nothing to him.
More dashed hopes, more disappointment and disillusionment. Angela was starting to feel numb from it all; which was good because she couldn't let herself face the next name without the shield of numbness.
Kathleen.
Just the name made her wince.
Why? To this day she couldn't make sense of it. She'd been sleeping ten feet away from him for years. If he suddenly felt he needed feminine companionship why did he bother to look any farther than her bedroom door? "Because he obviously didn't want you," her thoughts accused. She had no argument against that, and that knowledge drove her already bruised self-image off the cliff. All the trauma from that time welled up, once again forcing her to confront what she felt to be her failings as a woman. Only this time it was worse; now she had the lens of time to look through and it magnified every moment of rejection Angela had ever felt.
Angela left the bed to pick the ladybug stuffed animal up from the floor; not because she was bothered by its being there, but because she wanted to throw it again. It still landed with a pathetic thud; and it didn't make her feel at all better. She kicked it across the room, out of her sight; then collapsed on the bed in tears.
What a hypocrite he'd been. Hadn't it been only a few months before K-Day, when they were in Jamaica, that the word, 'marriage' passed between them? It was an awkward, not well explored, tentative conversation; but it had happened. Was his ego so bruised that weekend that he resorted to desperate lies to regain her attention? Apparently he had, because his later actions spoke much louder than his words. It was easy to say the words in the Caribbean moonlight; and she fell for them faster than the stock market on Black Tuesday. How could she have believed him? She was incredulous at her own previous naiveté. It had been such a wonderful night for them, one in which she really believed for a minute or two that their relationship was changing. She was certainly ready, and so hopeful that her dreams of love would finally come true.
But then he pulled away, used every excuse he could think of to not sleep with her. How could she not have seen it before? How did she miss the truth for so long? A man doesn't turn away from a willing woman without a damn good reason, and lack of interest was a very good reason. After all, she rationalized, he certainly didn't turn away from Kathleen. He probably hadn't hesitated at all with her.
It still hurt. She still felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath her. She'd tried so hard to keep it together that morning, the last thing she wanted was Tony's pity, that would have made it even worse. She was a strong, independent woman, she didn't need Tony, she didn't need anyone; and she'd be damned if she'd let him know the fact that he had a new girlfriend had the power to affect her at all. It wasn't an easy façade to maintain, but her self-respect demanded it. Who the hell was he to lie to her then flaunt a new romance under her nose?
No one.
Angela's mind could talk the tough talk, but her heart was telling another story. One of betrayal, of an ache that stayed with her constantly through that time no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. The ache was persistent, close to grief; as she looked back on it now, maybe it was grief, grief for a love lost, a heart broken. Grief for a friendship that would never be quite the same again. Grief for the number of times she cried herself to sleep over him. It was all coming back to her; she thought she'd put it behind her; the current pain in her heart told her otherwise.
More tears fell, more tissues were ripped to shreds. She couldn't fight it anymore; the anguish engulfed her and she sobbed for what seemed like an eternity to her.
After a long while she pulled herself together and dried her tears. Then she considered a question she'd never thought about before: why had she let him back into her life after he broke up with Kathleen? Why hadn't she kept him out of her heart? She couldn't kid herself there, he had never really been out of her heart. Had he missed her? No, she realized, he hadn't missed her; he missed the person who listened to everything he had to say. She knew he had a big ego, it was that that prompted him to reconcile with her, nothing else. He just wanted that person back, the one whose presence flattered his ego by her devotion. How could she have been so blind?
Angela was angry. Angry with him; but more angry with herself for letting herself fall in love with him in the first place; and even angrier that after all he put her through with Kathleen, she still loved him. Why? How could she still love him after he treated her like that? Did the good memories outweigh the bad? Yes, they did; but was that enough of a reason to forgive him? She'd thought so at the time; but her forgiveness only came back to haunt her and twist the knife into her heart once more.
Christine.
Oh, he could pretend he hadn't been fascinated by her, but she saw right through him. Again he was being a hypocrite, "I didn't sleep next to you, Angela." And she'd fallen for it again. When was she going to learn? Had he been hoping she'd succumb to his charms on the train? He was used to positive responses from women. Had their platonic relationship finally become a challenge to his male ego? Did he say that in order to add an Angela notch to his bedpost? No, she remembered, he'd been exhausted; he didn't come to her cabin on the train in order to seduce her. She was now certain his insomnia was caused by a combination of over thinking, worry about testifying before the committee and, ironically, being overly tired.
If he had meant what he said in any sort of romantic sense, his fickleness canceled it out. His head had been turned by the D.C. lifestyle; a lifestyle that included limos, power, and blondes in short, tight dresses. She'd been terrified she would lose him - again. But her thoughts reminded her, "how could you lose what you never had?" It was true. All she had to offer him was home, hearth and drudgery. She had no way of knowing Tony didn't see his life like that. He saw his work with Angela as building a family together.
All Angela could remember was the feeling of being dumped - once again - as Tony stood her up for their monument viewing excursion. Left behind once again. Holding down the fort, taking care of the kids while he was out; doing what she didn't care to think about. He'd never shown up at the Smithsonian; it was one thing to break a promise to her, but to break a promise to the kids was something he'd never done before. She remembered returning to the empty hotel room, no message from him awaited her. His silence created an ache in her she didn't dare confront. She was worn out, a mess; then they breezed in without a care in the world. She felt like a deserted wife; forgotten, used, taken for granted. She understood now as she had never before. How many times had his head been turned by glamour? Too many to even think about.
How had she missed the signs for so long? She'd never command his full attention as a lover, ever. Full attention? That was out of the question in her mind, she couldn't even command his attention in a playground sense. Hadn't she kissed him in Washington? Wasn't that enough of a hint? But he'd ignored it for the past few months. It dawned on Angela that inaction also spoke louder than words. Why had it taken her so long to understand that his silence meant, "thanks for the kiss, Angela, it was sweet, but I'm not interested."
Why had she listened to her mother's advice again? Her mother always saw more in her relationship with Tony than was really there. She kept trying to push her into Tony's arms, but obviously he never wanted to catch her.
He was always putting her off, hadn't she said blatantly said, "I love you," to him only a couple of weeks ago? He'd done his best to be flippant about that too. Angela was now drawing conclusions, they weren't happy, but it was time she faced the truth. Tony was not interested in her. She'd made a fool out of herself over him recently and he'd done his best to let her down easy; it was time she accepted the reality of their relationship.
She accepted the bitterest of ironies. All those years they'd spent apart out of fear of losing the kids; she now accepted this as one of her illusions, an excuse to cover up the facts. She'd believed they were staying apart for their sakes. It was obvious to her now it was just something she told herself to make herself feel better; and that there had never been any sort of consideration from Tony on the subject as Tony never thought about it.
Angela was wiped out, gutted; in a horrible twist she'd realized she'd lost Sam anyway. She was gone from the house too soon, off living her own life, if she was lucky she'd see her on holidays. Holidays. The word tormented Angela. The holidays would never be the same after Tony left; they'd be dull, lonely, like a wedding cake without the topper. Why had her mind hurt her with an image like that? There'd be no wedding cake for them. Never.
There were dreams that she now knew would never come true. There would never be a someday for them. Tony would leave, probably marry some beautiful babe and have a dozen more kids. Angela looked at her own future; she saw only solitude and a bleak emptiness. Her long starved heart would be forever alone. She started to shut her heart down, build a wall around it to keep away any further blows. She vowed to do a better job of protecting it; keep it safe from those who would harm her.
She felt like she was back in school, with a crush on the most popular guy and he never even knew she existed. Except in her case, he knew she existed, he just treated her like the person who helped him with his homework. She tried to push away the times when she did help him with his homework. The formerly happy memories of helping him practice his French now turned sour, day she say, triste?
She further realized she was a friend that he'd never looked at in any romantic sense; he'd discuss everything with her, even girlfriends, but he'd always leave her home on a Saturday night. She was, in effect, his wallflower. Angela gasped and sat up at this thought. She was stunned. Oh sure, he threw her a crumb every once in a while, but they were very few and very far between. A prom here, a forced date there; why did she not see them for the demonstrations of pity that they were?
Angela was numb. His wallflower, that's how he saw her. The realization shook her to the core of her soul. Anger returned, anger at being so used; anger that he was so confident in his dealings with women that he felt he could get away with treating her in such a fashion. That she would be so grateful for the slightest bit of attention he deigned to throw her way. Then she was angry with herself for letting him get away with treating her with such disrespect for so very long.
She closed her eyes to try to force back the tears of this realization, but it was, of course, a useless tactic. The sadness engulfed her and her tears flowed as she dropped herself onto a pillow and clutched it tightly. She cried for hours over the loss of the most cherished dream of heart. She cried for the loss of what 'might have been'. She cried over her own stupidity for thinking that she and Tony would actually be together someday. She cried at the thought of never resolving her wallflower traumas, they continued to mock her; she may look successful to the rest of the world, but deep inside Angela Robinson still struggled with her insecurities. She cried hardest when she realized she was going to have to make herself get over Tony...somehow, and she had no idea how to start that process.
Exhausted, Angela eventually succumbed to a dreamless sleep.