Chapter Fifty-one

THE ANDERCHRONICLES

By Me, Ellee

[WARNING: The following story has been rated FNF*]
*Fiction NOT Fact
Translation: It's all just a bunch of malarky.

"Half A World Away"

Andy was back—but he wasn’t here. I mean, he was here, in the apartment, but . . .well, I had the feeling it was . . . actually . . . the ‘cliff thing.’ When he turned around to face me, after setting his baggage down in the front hall, his eyes told me immediately that the Andy I had spent every night with, half a world away, was not the same Andy, and although he was standing right next to me now, he was still half a world away.

My heart sank. I was under the impression we had made significant progress in our relationship over the past few weeks with all our cozy, late night chats. But now, face to face, I had to admit the possibility that this might not be the case. He'd been to the edge and got scared. Now he was pulling back to a safe distance.

I had been waiting all day for his return. When I finally heard the key being turned in the lock, I was so excited. I knew exactly what was going to happen. I had played the scene in my mind a million times already—He would see me, and I, him. Smiles of unimaginable joy would break across our faces, and with outstretched arms we would run to each other in slow motion, my hair flowing out behind me, also in slow motion. And when our arms locked around each other, we wouldn’t let go until we had planted little kisses all over one another. Then he would look deep into my eyes, and I his, and we would still be smiling and beaming, and even grinning with unspeakable happiness, and he would say, “Ellee, I’ve missed you more than a worm misses cool rain on a hot sidewalk," and I would say something similar, and then we would laugh and kiss and smile some more. But that’s not how it was—at all.

As he looked at me, he took a very deep breath and said . . . absolutely nothing. And there was no hint, whatsoever, of a smile . . . of any sort. He just bit his bottom lip the moment he squinted his eyes, and then . . . his phone rang, but just before he answered . . . well, it was then he spoke.

“Excuse me,” he said, pointing to his phone, “I need to get this.”

Excuse me—I need to get this???? After all these long weeks of waiting and wishing, and planning and expecting and dreaming and fantasizing, and . . . and . . . that was it—excuse me, I need to get this?

“A-Andy . . . “ I muttered under my breath in disbelief as he retreated down the hall toward his room.

The multicolored bubble of disillusion I had been caught up in for the past several weeks had finally been popped, in as ruthless a manner as a bubble slapped between the grubby little hands of a three-year old.

“Andy WAIT!” I called after him, but when he turned around in response, he waved me silent. “But . . . but Andy.”

Two minutes later, I heard a very terse and loud, “ELLEE!” I knew then, he had just met Buffalo Bill—his new roommate—without the advance warning I had been trying so hard to give him. And from the tone of his voice, I could tell he didn’t much care for the new guy.

“ELLEE!! WHAT IN THE H*** IS THIS?!!!!??” I heard him yell out as I approached his room, thinking I could set him straight about the real reason Bill was now part of the roomscape.

Through the open door I could see him standing before the huge mammal with the same incredible look on his face that had been on mine when I first met Buffalo Bill. He turned as I entered the room.

“Ellee, what is going on here? Please tell me this is some kind of joke, an ill-conceived, misguided joke.” There was a momentary pause and then, “or . . . or is this . . . a room make-over? Ellee, you haven’t been watching HGTV, have you?”

I don’t know what came over me at that point, but I just couldn’t resist playing along with that idea, so I hung my head slightly, biting on my bottom lip as my large, round blue eyes clouded over and looked up sadly at Andy. After fluttering my thick dark lashes several times, I choked up and said,

“Y-You . . . don’t like Buffalo Billllllll?”

I then scrunched up my face and started to cry, just a few controlled sobbing sounds at first, and then, full-blown bawling. And it just about did Andy in. He rushed over and snatched me up in his arms, hugging me tightly and said,

“Oh, Ellee, Ellee, I didn’t mean it like that.”

I continued with the crying, since it had produced such a wonderful response from Andy—the very one I had wanted from him at the front door. Finally after several tear-filled minutes of hugging, I sniffled a couple of times and managed to say,

“H-How did you mean it Andy?”

His reply wasn’t immediate, but finally after what appeared to be some careful consideration on his part he said,

“Well . . . I mean . . . I guess . . . I guess the buffalo head is . . . ,” he ran his hand over his hair a couple of times and took a breath, “ . . . not all . . . that bad . . .”

We both looked up at Bill. He was staring straight ahead. I’m sure Bill was, hands down, the ugliest thing either of us had ever seen. I wanted to laugh, and nearly bit my tongue off trying not to.

“ . . . I mean . . . his . . . his . . . fur is . . . how would you say . . . uhhhhh . . . his fur is . . . a nice shade of brown, and his horns are . . . well, Ellee, they’re nice, too . . . and . . . his nose uhh . . . glistens . . . rather well . . . actually. ”

He really had to stretch to find something positive to say about Bill.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, a big smile breaking though the clouds, “you really like him?”

“Of course . . . I like him, Ellee . . . I-I . . . I love him! Really . . . I DO. I love him.”

He was confirming all this with a head shake, but at the same time, I noticed his lips were pressed in on each other, and I could see a tell-tale look in his eyes that he was already plotting Bill’s second demise.

“Oh, Andy, that makes me so happy. There’s something else I want you to see.”

“Something else?”

“Yes, you’ll love it, too!”

“ . . . uhhh . . . this isn’t another make-over, is it, Ellee?”

“Just come with me. You’ll see.”

And I grabbed his hand, pulling him out the door and down the hall, our fingers sliding together so perfectly. I decided to save the savage wild boar for the grand finale, so I led him to the library next to meet Big Al.

“Andy, please allow me now to introduce Alfred, the Big Moose,” I said as we entered the room.

I watched as Andy rolled his eyes, and once again curled his top and bottom lips together, trying to summon up a correct and appropriate response.

“Ellee . . . this . . . this . . . moose is absolutely MORE . . . really . . . it’s more, much more, than I ever could have wished for.”

“Don’t you just feel warm inside when you see him, Andy? Why, look at those big glass eyeballs, staring forever into space. It kinda makes you wonder what he was thinking just before . . . just before . . . well, you know.”

“Yes, Ellee, I KNOW! . . . " There was a long pause, during which time Andy's eyes never left that huge beast, then all of a sudden he blurted out, "For cryin' out loud, what’s he doing HERE!!!???—in my library?

“Andy, you . . . you don’t want him here?” My eyes clouded up again on cue and my bottom lip started to quiver.

“Now wait a minute, I didn’t say thaaaaaat . . . exactly, Ellee.”

“You don’t like him, do you?”

“Ellee . . .”

“Then you probably won’t like Heinrich, either.”

“Heinrich?. . . Heinrich !! . . . How many are there, Ellee?”

He was tapping his foot. I didn’t answer.

“Ellee, how many?”

“Well . . . ” I was having so much fun—probably too much fun, and at Andy’s expense, I just couldn’t stop myself.

“Elleeeeeeeee.”

“Actually, Andy, there’s only three—for now.”

I had overheard Bertie mentioning to Harriet that for Andy’s welcome home, he would bring another grand surprise. I figured it had to be something really big and horrible.

“For now??????? What does that mean?”

“Well . . . you don’t have a mounted head of a muskox, do you? You know, with the sweet little curly horns, jutting out from the sides of its head, and the cute little squished nose at the end of its short snout—they really are adorable, Andy. You’ll love him as much as the others.”

I could see that a muskox head would never find favor with Andy. I really hoped Bertie would pick something sensible for him—like a stuffed gorilla, or a trophy alligator.

“So, where exactly, and on which wall have you nailed this next dead animal? What’s his name? Heinrich?”

“Yes, Heinrich.”

“Where is he, in the kitchen or perhaps in one of the bathrooms?”

He had folded his arms across his chest in a resigned, yet reprimanding kind of way. I was loving it.

“No, actually he keeps watch over my bed.”

“Okaaaay . . .” he said, rocking back and forth on his heels, arms still folded, “ . . . let’s seeeeee Heinrich.”

When we entered my bedroom and saw that ferocious, terrible-eyed beast just waiting for the right moment to attack, Andy gasped and the only thing he could say was,

“Elleeeeeee.” And then he said it again. “Elleeeeee.”

As a decorative element, this dead animal nailed to the wall just didn’t seem to give out good vibes. His texture, color and attitude were all wrong. I’m sure Andy recognized this, and felt this was going against the ch’i in my room. That's when he said,

“Why, oh, why would you want to decorate my apartment with this . . . this . . . pardon me for saying this, I mean, obviously you love these stuffed heads, with this gruesome display of . . . of . . . man’s inhumanity to these poor little non-humans?”

“Andy, I didn’t—it wasn’t me.”

“It wasn’t?” He was quite shocked at this revelation, he was so sure I had done it.

“No, you just assumed it was I. Actually, I don’t care for them any more than you do.”

“You don’t???”

“No, Andy, I don’t.”

“Well, who is responsible for them . . . Molly?”

“Actually, Molly doesn’t like them either. Whenever she sees them, she growls and then takes to howling. I have to hold her to calm her down.”

I then explained the whole story about Harriet’s Bertie, and his willingness to share his slaughtered animals with those he loves. I made it clear that Big Al belongs to Harriet, while Heinrich is mine, and mine alone, and Buffalo Bill is all his. He shook his head in response and said he was thankful the natural history museum wasn’t my idea. I said I was sorry, and that I was just having a little fun with him. I could see that he didn't think it was fun—at least he wasn't smiling.

He looked at me for a while through squinted eyes, like he was wanting to say something. I even thought for a split second he was going to say something about—us. I was waiting for him to mention all those long-distance tete-a-tetes we had during his absence. And how much they had meant to him. At least it seemed they meant something to him at the time. But he didn’t say a word, about anything, except,

“I’ll be gone for the rest of the day. See you later.”

His gaze lingered on me for a moment longer, and then raising his hand slightly to signal the good-bye, he slowly turned and walked away. Andy, my heart called out, where did you go? Even though you're here now, you’re still . . . half a world away . . .

Bye for now,
Love,
Ellee

[Author's Note: You may wish to download a copy of the companion song to this episode, Half A World Away. The group, Secret Garden, was nice enough to record this song just for this chapter. They even put it in their album, Earth Songs. What nice people! iTunes has it for only $.99.]