November 1985 – The Beverly Palms Hotel, Los Angeles
Angela stepped silently across the pool deck that night, looking up to the galaxy of city lights above her. A calm breeze tried to pry her attention, playing with wisps of her hair and the loose fabric of her swim cover, but she kept staring upward. With all the light in the darkness, she couldn't see the stars very well, and it made her even lonelier.
Where are you, Ben?
Where am I?
Angela picked a reclining Adirondack chair in the middle of all the other empty ones, right in front of the pool. The patio lights glimmered off random ripples in the water, although she didn't know what was causing them. If not for all the manmade opulence around her, it might as well have been Mars out there.
She sat down and looked around at the barren wonderland, actually finding it quite comforting. Loneliness had been sitting on her with increasing weight since they'd landed at LAX, and isolation was her most trusted, if ironic, escape.
She knew it was silly, but Tony openly flirting with every pretty girl in smiling distance didn't just ping some mild, yet annoyingly distinguishable, sense of jealousy she couldn't rationalize. Tony has been very clear that that's the kind of thing he does, and he's a free agent. But it felt lonely, regardless of her lack of claim on him.
And truthfully, even knowing and respecting Tony's reasons, it burned somewhere deep inside her that as recently as a few months ago, even in nothing but a jammie shirt and socks, she couldn't coax him to take from her what he was tossing freely to any bellhop with boobs. I know, I know. It's because he wants our situation to keep working out. But damn it, man. Can you not see my face?
Angela sighed. Logic never seemed to be all that persuasive to her emotions, anyway. Tonight, sitting across from Michael, Heather, and Jonathan at dinner… A tightness was forming in Angela's throat, and she slowly closed her eyes.
Finally giving attention to the small breeze, she smiled, appreciating it. This is nice.
But Pandora's box had been opened, and the recent memory came back with crystal clarity.
Jonathan had sat down in Chili Anchali next to Heather as fast as Angela had ever seen him run to Michael. In a flowy green sundress, the young woman was the spitting image of Tinkerbell, and Jonathan watched her like a lost boy.
Herself, Angela focused all her powers of concentration on not popping open her top-collar button.
Michael put his arm around Heather and addressed the bunch. "Have you all had Thai food before?"
"Of course," Mona answered as everyone else shook their heads and smiled politely.
Michael chuckled and reciprocated quietly, "Of course." He looked to Angela, "Well, you'll love it! There's sugar in everything."
Tony laughed and lightly ribbed Angela, whose stunned face fully absorbed Michael's hit. Mona stomped on Tony's foot next to her. Tony flinched and whipped his chin to Mona's pointed glare.
Tony turned a hesitant glance toward Angela, and his worried eyes flickered to hers.
Blinking away the attention and irritating moisture, Angela tried to breathe and read her menu at the same time.
Angela neither knew nor cared what anyone ordered, particularly herself. The point was, Jonathan ordered the same thing Heather did, and no cashew coconut anything could ease the sting. She didn't fault Jonathan; the little boy was understandably enamored with the flighty, little pixie. But it still hurt, and Angela had long stopped listening to the table's conversation.
She felt frumpy. What is it about women that makes us compare our appearances to each other? Men don't do that. Angela thought a minute. Well, not with looks, maybe - but bring up salary and you've never seen such a pissing contest. Angela's quick-growing glare rose from her pumpkin chili soup to Michael, and her consciousness reentered the conversation.
"Oh, you tell 'em, baby," Michael nodded, smiling at Heather.
Angela swallowed thickly and took a drink of whatever this Mekhong stuff was. 9 months ago, that had been her name, and this light, playful, suitable-for-public tone was not how she remembered it best. Okay, that hurts.
Heather leaned into Michael, with her hand on his chest and her eyes lit up as she watched his face. "Alright," her bright smile allowed.
Heather turned her animated face toward the rest of the group but didn't change her posture. "Well, he was such a sweetie pie, from the moment he hired me. He was really patient, teaching me all the things I needed to know…"
Angela gave up listening again and started watching Michael's face. Has it always been that cocky? She was well-acquainted with her freshly-ex husband's arrogance, in general, but this vitriol was practically spilling from his mouth.
What the hell? Is he mad at me? It feels like he's trying to get back at me… I apologized for that crack about their age difference. Could he still be upset about that? But the intensity to his smile felt older.
Wait- it's not us, is it? Wasn't the breakup mutual? Angela thought back to their last days together. Yeah, they were tense – eerie, even – but I thought we'd both decided our dreams were stumbling blocks to our relationship and that we couldn't be happy together.
Angela's eyes narrowed in confusion more than anything, and Michael's eyes met hers. The smirk hadn't left; it'd just found its rightful target. And why did he tell her I work for a green potato chip company? He knows very well what I do; it's been spearheading our fights since we met. That misinformation was deliberate. She wanted to keep glaring, but honestly, the sting from Michael's silent venom was overpowering her.
Flicking her eyebrows up and down, Angela looked back down at her soup to take another bite. She wasn't at all hungry, but she needed her attention to go somewhere else. Heather's story sure isn't the place for it.
But then she heard Tony's voice chip in.
"So, how'd you pop the question, Michael?"
Everything inside Angela froze. This was the very last thing she'd wanted to hear.
Heather patted Michael's chest, "Ooh, that's a good story, honey. Tell them!" She snuggled even farther into Michael's shoulder, and he squeezed his arms around her tightly.
Angela remembered well how that felt. Come to think of it, this absence has been about the length I'd normally have waited before starting to see my husband again... Damn biological clock.
"Alright, so we'd been in Zambia for…" Michael looked at Heather and shrugged, "a couple months?" She shrugged, still smiling, and he looked back to the group. "Anyway, the jungle was really hot that day, and everybody was annoying everybody. So, we all decided to leave each other alone that night. But like Heather was saying, all the guys had been buzzin' around all the girls the whole trip."
Heather interjected with a cutesy wink, "Even though they knew I had my eyes on Michael."
"Yeah," that smug smile didn't quit.
Angela rolled her eyes and took another swig.
"But mostly, they'd backed off and went after the other assistants. Then, my normal cameraman's dad died while we were out there, so we had to replace him in the middle of the trip. And the only guy available was this annoying prick from another crew." Tony looked pointedly at Michael, but he was smirking at Angela who was still eating her soup like she was the only one in the restaurant. "Anyway, he didn't care about boundaries or pecking order at all and was watching Heather leave the camp. I knew he was after her, so we had a little, long-overdue business meeting in the field." Michael and Heather chuckled together. "And then I went to find her."
Heather looked at everyone, "I'd gone to go swimming under this beautiful waterfall." She looked up at Michael. "And that's where he found me."
Angela tipped her cut glass far back over her face, begging it for one last drop.
"It was Ntumbachushi Falls – the most gorgeous, long, white spray falling into a little pool below. The moon was shining, and I swam up to her and kissed her." Tony's red face glanced briefly at Sam and Jonathan. "When we moved out from the water falling over us, I asked her, straight up."
Sam's elbow was on the table, and her hand held up her dreamy face, "That's so romantic."
Tony's wide eyes were clearly ambivalent, under their present circumstances.
Heather's giddy nod answered Sam. "We hadn't even been officially dating or anything!" she marveled to everyone.
"Yeah, well, it'd been on my mind for months," Michael growled.
Heather turned her head to kiss him on the mouth, "Mmm. I love you."
Michael smiled widely back at her, "I love you, too."
Angela wasn't sure how she'd made it through the meal, or what her face had looked like as she'd done it. But she was clearly still alive, as was Michael's everlasting smirk.
The kids were so excited for the beach the next day that it took an inordinate amount of time to get them to sleep. Sam put herself to bed, of course, and Tony went to the lounge to serve as Mona's wingman. But Angela waited until Jonathan was fully out and then changed into her bathing suit.
Even having an 8am meeting, she needed to get the collar off her neck. She needed some air. She needed to be alone. She needed to cry. And now that she was looking over the peaceful pool in front of her, only able to see Michael and Heather making out under an African waterfall, it seemed like the perfect place.
They weren't even dating.
He'd thought about it for months.
She cried harder.
I had to ask him three times before he agreed to marry me - and his baby was inside me at the time.
Angela's throat hurt. It was so tight. Just like her whole life had felt the day in the bathroom stall, the worst day of her life. She'd never felt that alone, before or since.
Or maybe I just got used to it.
Angela heard Tony's voice before she realized he was calling her name.
He gently shook her arm. "Angela? What are you doing out here? It's one o'clock in the morning."
Angela opened her eyes slowly and looked up at Tony. She hadn't been sleeping, but she could see how it had seemed like that.
"I know," she said softly.
He sat down on the matching footrest of the chair next to her, his bent knees in her direction. "You've been cryin'?" he asked carefully.
Her mascara had always been a tattler, but Angela, herself, didn't answer.
The breeze brushed her bangs lightly across her still face, and Tony looked increasingly uncomfortable.
His fingers started to fidget, and she blinked her gaze again to the pool. Irresolute as it was, he managed to scoot back into the seat, and they both looked out over the barely dancing water.
After a few flexed minutes, Tony managed to articulate his thoughts. "Angela?"
Her body stayed as it was, but her head rolled toward him.
He took it as a green light. "Look, I'm sorry I brought up the proposal and everything. I wasn't thinkin'. I was just curious," he shrugged weakly. "I like a good story, ya know?"
She blinked at him.
He continued with increasing tension and heavily dipped eyebrows, "Anyway, I mean, just because they have a nice- I mean, well, even though their story is probably different... I bet Michael meant the way he asked you just as much."
Two single streams of tears ran from Angela's otherwise unresponsive face. With a slow blink, she closed her eyes and turned her face away from him.
Tony's breathing quickened and he looked around nervously. His eyes flickered to her hand resting on the seat of her chair, and he swallowed.
She didn't stir as he got up and quietly moved his chair closer to hers. Sitting back down, he put his hand in hers and watched her face.
Several moments went by without a breath from Tony.
Then, Angela squeezed his hand and didn't let go.
