Addendum 5.6 – "Savor the Veal 'pt. 4'"
April 1993 – Branford, IA
Angela trudged up to the door of Tony's apartment in the wee hours of the morning. She was exhausted. The mental gymnastics her anxiety required had started taking its toll long before the cramped, evening flight, on which she was grateful to have snagged one of the last seats in coach, had landed her in Wisconsin. She'd spent the next few hours securing a car and driving over, and by the time she reached for her purse, she was remembering she'd returned her key.
Oh, that's right. Iowa. People trust people here.
She opened the unlocked door in a tiptoe and looked up to see the apartment looking the same as the day she'd left it. That's weird.
Tony had gotten in that afternoon, and him being the industrious fellow that he was, she'd expected there to already be stacks, boxes, and strewn butcher paper everywhere. But he was half-sitting against the couch's side table, staring at a healthy fire, with his arms folded across his chest.
Immediately granted a second wind at the mere sight of him, Angela smiled widely, "Hey! You're up late."
Tony used his butt to push himself to standing and turned toward her, but his return greeting was much more subdued. "Hey, baby."
Her brows dipped up a little, but she didn't drop her smile. "You're not surprised to see me?" Coming up to him, she followed her necessary kiss with a light swat to his butt.
His quiet demeanor didn't change, "I heard you were comin'." Looking down into her hopeful eyes, his smile softened, "I liked your hand there."
His hesitancy made her nervous, and she decided to probe from closer in. Tucking both hands in the back pockets of his Levi's, she pulled him to her. "Me, too." She kept smiling, but she was beginning to struggle with the notion that everything was fine. She squeezed both cheeks and yawned like a baby lion.
"Hey, what's with you?"
A few beats went by.
Tony's gaze flickered down to her glossed lips, then back up to her eyes, "I talked to Michael today."
Angela's brows scrunched. "Michael? My Michael?"
Tony squinted ever so slightly, and she tried to shake off her insensitivity. "You know what I mean- my ex-husband-Michael? You spoke with him?"
Tony let out a long breath and made a half-hearted attempt at kneading her shoulders. "Angela… I, uh- I've been wondering somethin' for a while now."
Any interaction with Michael strained her, but the apparently subsequent caution he was inspiring in Tony was truly starting to scare her.
"It wasn't my business before… and then I had a hard time bringing it up."
Angela felt her core tighten, but she was still trying to appear unphased.
"But uh, it's always bugged me."
She gave another, but gentler, encouraging squeeze to his rear and softened her voice, "What is it?"
Tony's voice came out in a higher pitch. "Why were you sleeping around before you got divorced?"
A shield of ice masked over Angela's browbone, and she lost all patience for breathing.
Michael, you son of a bitch.
"I mean, I helped you with Jeffrey… and I watched Jonathan so you could go be with Grant and- …and a few other guys, I think. I was happy for you, at the time."
The tightening in her core had spread to her entire body, and she was pretty sure a lack of oxygen was the cause of her brand new headache. She just didn't care.
"…But I didn't know you were still married. You made me a part of something I didn't even know about. You brought it in front of Sam. She sure put two and two together. I mean, I know Michael's a serious jackass, and- and he's as selfish as they come, but… he was working! How could you do that to him? I think it drove the guy nuts, and I bet it woulda me, too!"
Angela slipped her hands back out of his pockets and took a much-needed step back.
Et tu, Tony?
Tony picked up a photo from the side table and held it up like vilifying evidence. It was Marie, looking not much older than Sam, and not much younger than Angela when she'd first met Michael Bower. Angela's eyes rested on the picture as he kept going, louder and gruffer with each word.
"I was in St. Louis! I was on the road a lot when Sam was little, and Marie waited for me!"
Angela's stony voice cut in. "Did you wait for her?"
"What?"
She cocked her head, "Tony… those steamy exploits from your baseball days – the ones you've been so proud to share with us over the years – how many of them were after Marie passed away?"
"I never cheated on Marie!"
Her unimpressed eyebrows rose, "Never?"
"No!"
"So… you'd be fine with me doing everything you did, as a taken guy on the road – playing on farm teams, hundreds of miles away from his teenage girlfriend, his fiancée… attending professional after parties, thousands of miles away from his young wife - after we're married?"
Tony didn't answer for several seconds, and when he did, it was quiet. "Why are you saying that?"
She kept her voice level, "I'm saying, get off your high horse, Tony, and quit hiding behind your wife's innocence. It wasn't about 'waiting' - at least, not as far as Michael's obligations to his job were concerned. You have no idea what my life was like with him."
His eyes narrowed, and he leaned into the confrontation, "You really think it was okay to have sex with other men before you got divorced!?"
Angela held fierce eye contact, but she still saw through his tactlessness.
And she knew how provocative Michael could be; she could only imagine how he'd painted her.
With a quick shrug and a lick to her lips, her voice came out softer, "Look, I don't know what was 'okay'. All I know is-"
"You don't know? How can you not know!?"
At the return of her glare, and yet, complete lack of retort, Tony reached up to take both of her hands, "Angela, I'm scared. What if we're fighting or in a rut or something, and you do that to me!?"
The instant swelling in her head felt like it should've gotten medical attention, and she snatched back her hands for at least that bit of comfort. This was hardly about Michael anymore. "What if I do that to you!? You did do that to me, and you didn't know!"
"What!?"
"You didn't know if it were okay."
Angela allowed her voice and volume to drop under the heft of the memory.
"I'd been your best friend for six years. I was ready for you, Tony."
Tony's eyes rounded out and his breaths started to shorten.
In a methodical transition, Angela closed the space between them and kissed him deeply, running her hands up his back and pushing her hips to his, easily remembering all she'd been wanting for so long. She felt him kiss her back, too, but it was barely familiar.
Pulling back, her eyes found rest on his. "I was ready for years. We were waiting for you to be ready. We'd agreed. I couldn't push you. And even though you were fine to flirt and cuddle, to spend almost every spare moment together, I couldn't force another man to really be with me. Not after Michael."
"Michael?"
"Not after Brian."
"Brian?"
Tony wasn't catching up, and Angela didn't slow down.
"I wouldn't. But I was head over heels in love with you." She pulled her hands from his back, running them up his chest and across his shoulders. "I wanted your heart, I wanted your body, I wanted your life to be my life."
Her hands made their way to his biceps by the time tears blurred even the meager space between them, and with a growl that came from way down, or way back, Angela shoved him away from her, "And you gave it to Kathleen."
Probably more a matter of surprise than ordinance, Tony stumbled back, and she watched him catch his footing as overflowing tears made thick trails down her cheeks.
After a few moments of excruciating silence, his open mouth closed into a sticky swallow. "Why didn't you say this before?"
Oh, no he didn't!
"You're really pushing this on me? Coward!" she snarled into a sob that took her a few moments to cough out. Tony's face tightened but he didn't say anything.
She sniffed up fast-falling mucus, "But to answer your question, Tony, I was stunned. It hurt so badly. I wanted it all to go away." Her shoulders went up with her pitch, "So, I tried to explain it. I mean, it could've been just a weak moment of desperation, right? That's what men do, right? I tried to pretend it was okay with me. How else could I keep you? I couldn't lose you! So, I tried to get you to say it was just a one-time thing-" She had to finish her sentence though a full cry, "…something we could forget together."
Tony closed his eyes and kept them shut.
"All you had to do was say it was over, Tony."
She took a steadying breath, "But you said: 'I. Don't. Know.'"
His eyes finally opened only to be met with her relit glare.
"And now you're going to call my loyalty to you into question, based on something I did to a man who-" Angela flipped her head to the side and took a couple shuddery breaths to herself.
Turning her attention back to the man in front of her, she regrouped. "You have no idea what went into that decision. And even if you want double down on the excuses, saying you and I weren't technically together when you started dating Kathleen – like a relationship based on technicalities is what you're wanting – what about when you were with me?"
Now breathing heavily, Tony managed a whisper. "What are you talking about?"
"Would you be fine with me sitting on some other guy's lap, in our living room, while he drinks beer with his buddies? Would you be okay with me doing all that, openly belittling the investment of your heart in front of my friends …and your daughter?" An uncomfortable feeling sat on her, but she shoved it off.
His mouth flatlined, and his lip muscles worked against each other.
"You have some nerve, Tony! Taking Michael's side when you love me. When you know me. And when you know jack shit about what I went through in my marriage. How could I do that to Michael? How could you do this to me!?"
Still, he said nothing for an unknown amount of time where only breathing lapsed. Peripherally, she noticed that chest and shoulders she loved rise and fall, though the only thing she was targeting were those damn eyes that stared back but revealed nothing.
Finally, Tony swallowed, "Did Michael know you were so unhappy? …cuz I didn't know."
He's still relating with Michael?
Unbelievable.
Shaking by herself, her voice came out wavery, "Neither of you pay very good attention unless I'm screaming or crying."
Tony sniffed and stepped toward her. He reached for her arms, "Angela, listen to me. I need this. I need to know. You're not okay with cheating, right? Even if I hurt you? Even if you think I should know better? …Right?"
She shook free from his grasp. "You should know better, Tony. You should know snuggling some pizza girl's ass would hurt me. And that should bother you. You should know choosing other women over me – a second glance, a long stare, chumming in the teacher's lounge… several weeks of delusional fuckery – would hurt me."
Tony looked at the ground, and she stepped back toward him.
"We both knew we were in love with each other the whole time you were sleeping with Kathleen. Do you know how scared I was? Do you know how alone I felt, with you right next to me, in our house, with you acting like I didn't have any claim on you, like I had to stand there and defend my pain, without any technicalities on my side?" Her booming tirade started to rasp, "Technicalities you gave to her? And you stood there, looking helpless, like I was hurting you because I couldn't keep myself from crying!"
His mouth was still flat, but he looked up at her again.
"I was at home that night, Tony, loving you, turning my head on my pillow, imagining I was looking at your face – like I always did - and you were out there sharing my dream with some woman you barely knew. You knew how much I wanted us to be together. I knew how much you wanted us to be together."
She stood up straighter and spat, "You just wanted both. You wanted the safety of friendship and the closeness of sex – but it has to be with the same person, Tony! Otherwise, people. get. hurt. How can you still stand there and act like you don't know this, like what you did isn't that big of a deal? We agreed to wait. I took that as your word. Should I be afraid about what you think is technically cheating, what's technically 'okay'?"
"None of this was okay," Tony's whispered.
Angela didn't respond, and his eyebrows dipped up as he, again, reached for her arms.
"I mean, right?" he breathed. "Can't we agree on that?"
Her own chest was heaving, and she was having enough to do just keeping eye contact.
"Shit, Angela. I'm really sorry. I- I- I'm sorry I did all that. I really didn't want Kathleen. I sure didn't want the pizza girls. Everything was getting so close with us, before Kathleen. I was scared! I mean, you're… you. You're Angela Bower - hands down, the most impressive woman I have ever met. I didn't think I could ever go there. It wasn't 'till you slapped that watch in my hands at the carnival that any of this started to get real. It was like I didn't have permission, or somethin'. I wasn't enough for you."
"You're enough for me if I say you're enough." Her brows went down, deep, "And things were real for me way before that - certainly by Jamaica."
"Seriously, Angela? You've never felt not good enough? In your circles? Maybe you didn't know who you were! You had money out the wazoo! A fancy college degree, a big house, your own white-collar business – I mean, you actually know what they do on Wall Street! Every time we'd get close - I knew it; I felt it, too – every time, I'd think, 'this woman should not be looking at me like that'. I felt like the better friend would keep you away from guys like me."
Angela didn't want to hear it. His self-pitying excuses were tiring, and she had no interest in humanizing them. She couldn't believe he'd automatically take Michael's side, and she was still burning from his dirty assessment of her up against Marie. It was so callous and assumed a complete lack of regard for who she thought she was to him. She felt her fingers opening and closing at her sides.
"Then why are you so contemptuous of me?" Gears like an ancient puzzle box twisted inside of her, and she could almost hear them popping open.
"What?"
She narrowed her eyes, "I'm wondering why, if you think I'm so impressive, you keep twisting the knife."
His face still didn't look like he was catching on, and her irritation was almost unbearable.
"You act like I disappoint you - a lot. The way I look. The way I spend money and don't clip coupons. The way I want to spend time with you." She stepped up to him, shaking again, "The way I bag groceries!" She took a shakey breath, "If you think I'm so great, why do you act like I'm some feeble moron you're stuck with?"
At this point, Angela had no clue why she was risking everything to bring them here – after all, a quick, 'of course, infidelity is wrong' would've made him stand down. They could be doing a whole lot more fun things instead of packing than fight. But she had opened this vault, and she was going to empty it.
Tony put his arms around her and tried to rub her back through his own staggered breaths.
She wasn't done talking but didn't push him off her, either. His acceptance of her fury was setting her free, and with that, her temper actually seemed to relax. Pretty soon, she felt her shaking turn to breathing and found herself just talking.
"You used to be gentle with me, Tony. Yeah, you'd tease me, but it wasn't coming from this scornful place you sit now. I don't know how to process all your 'compliments', because you've spent the last couple of years talking down to me, going back and forth between scolding me and patting my head at all my domestic efforts – ways I was trying to impress you, going far out of my comfort zone to show you I can be what you want."
His eyes were still stuck on hers, and she continued even quieter.
"But if a slutty, pathetic woman is really how you see me, then I don't think I can."
I've had more than enough of that.
Tony kept breathing, but open fear took over his whole face.
Herself, Angela wanted to crumple under the weight of sadness in the room.
Why won't he care?
About me.
But she did feel his hands start to work her back.
"Angela, please," he breathed. "Please don't keep scaring me like this. You're talking about all this other stuff, and- and I can see that I've hurt you. But even in all that, I've gotta know. …It's not okay, right?" He slid his hands up to her shoulders and shook them only enough for her to notice. "You shot me up one side and down the other. Now, tell me what you did to Michael was wrong, too. Please! Let me hear you say it."
With her granite eyes set on him, Angela backed out of his hold and left.
A/N: While Tony's pre-Angela/baseball shenanigans (DAMN it; I hate euphemisms for that)/devoted husband and father timeline in the show has been fuzzy for everyone, I wanna thank bostonbarmaid for her suggestion in her story Private Talks that maybe it's better explained by technicalities. That's what I'm going with.
