Chapter Forty-two

THE ANDERCHRONICLES

By Me, Ellee

[WARNING: The following story has been rated FNF*]
*Fiction NOT Fact

[ADDITIONAL WARNING: The following characters and events exist only in an alternate universe. However, there is a high probability that universe could be just next door—well . . . you never knooooow! It's possible. Okaaaay, okaaay, I just made that up. Sheesh! Leave me alone!]

"Enough Tears To Go Around"

A
ndy stared at the floor for a long time, his elbows still resting on his knees, fingers tips still touching, although from time to time, he would disengage them, only to let them come back together again the next moment. He did this several times, and each time he did, he would glance up at me, but his eyes quickly fell away to the floor again. After a while, he raised his head allowing our eyes to connect and then said,

“Ellee, I have something important I want to say . . .”

He took a breath to continue, but before he could even voice one syllable, Harriet broke in with a screech, yelling,

“ANDERSON . . . ELLEE, one of the women from the party last night is here, and wants to see both of you! And STEP ON IT—SHE’S IN A BAD STATE!”

Before I had a chance to encourage him to finish his thought, he was halfway to the door. Oh, DANG! I said to myself, and just when he was about to declare his undying love for me, or . . . or . . . or maybe he just wanted to talk about trade unions in Taiwan—I’d never know now, THANKS TO HHH. DANG!

When we got downstairs, we found Jen waiting for us and she was in tears, wringing her hands as she paced up and down, and then switched to back and forth when she saw us coming. She was really blubbering, and could hardly catch her breath she was so upset.

“Calm down, Jen. What’s wrong?” I responded, Andy at my side.

“It’s my hair!” she shrieked.

Now I didn’t think it looked all that bad. I mean, it could have used a little conditioner maybe, and possibly a few highlights for additional interest. Some homemade soapwort root shampoo, with a nice catnip rinse would have been good, too, but other than that, I didn’t see there was any cause for all those tears.

Andy directed her to the sofa and indicated for her to sit down. I followed and sat down next to her, with Andy seating himself on the other side.

“Oh, Ellee,” she said, turning to me, “it’s my hair, I lost
it . . .”

“I don’t think so Jen,” I assured her as I carefully inspected every angle of her head. “It’s all there. Don’t you think so, Andy?”

“It looks fine to me,” he replied, silently mouthing behind her back, What’s going on?

I haven’t the faintest idea, I mouthed back.

“NO! . . .You—don’t—understand!” she stressed, pausing after each word, giving emphasis to her distraught condition. “It’s my hair extension—the three foot one! When I woke up this morning, it was gone! I wore it to the party last night, but now I don’t have it—I’ve looked everywhere!”

And at that she burst into tears once again. More tears! This day had been filled with more tears than I could ever remember.

“When was the last time you saw it?” I asked, trying to jog her memory.

“Well . . . it was . . . well . . . uhhhhh. Oh, Ellee, it’s all so fuzzy. We drank so much of that expensive gourmet sparkling water last night, my mind isn’t too clear today, but I think I took it off and—"

“You did! I saw you!” Andy broke in, “you were swinging it around as you danced!”

“That’s right!” I remembered, “I saw it, too. You were whipping it around your head quite enthusiastically, while Clara Belle and the Four Gongs were singing, Love Keeps Me Wound Up!”

“Okay . . .” Andy added, “so the question is, what did you do with it after that?”

Jen shrugged her shoulders and admitted, “I don’t know, I really don’t know. I don’t remember seeing it after that.”

Cleaning Maids Anonymous hadn’t yet come to clean up the dining hall, so the three of us searched through all the debris looking for the hair extension in question—the one declared MIA. However, after twenty minutes we still hadn’t found anything that even resembled three feet of hair. When we finally conceded it wasn’t there, Jen dissolved into tears once more and the waterworks began again.

As we took her back to sit down, Andy offered to buy her another one, exactly like that one, probably in hopes this would shut down the water park once and for all, but curiously, it only caused a temporary suspension, followed by an eruption similar to Old Faithful Geyser.

“Oh, Anderson,” she wailed, tears gushing out like a broken water main, “you CAN’T buy another one like that one!”

“Why not?” he asked, confident he could.

“Becauzzzzzzzzz,” she bawled, “you don’t understaaaaaaaaaaand!”

“Jen, calm down and help us understand,” I pleaded.

Even after she calmed down, she continued jerking as silent sobs heaved their way to the surface.

“Well . . . you see . . .” she began, “it’s like this. My ninety-six-year-old Grammie, bless her heart, cut her long hair off and gave it to me . . . just before she . . . left us.”

“Oh Jen,” Andy condoled, “we’re so sorry. How long ago did she pass?” He had his arm around her in comforting fashion in this hour of grief.

“Oh!” she gasped, surprise filling her eyes, “she didn’t die!”

“She didn’t?” I responded, the same surprise filling my eyes.

“No, she didn’t.”

“Well . . . where’d she go then?” Andy asked.

There was a pause, and then, “Up the river. They sent her up the river.”

“Up the river?”

“Yes.”

“You mean . . . prison?” I gasped.

“Your ninety-six-year-old grandma is in prison???” Andy also gasped.

“Yes.”

Andy and I were gobsmacked at that point and couldn’t speak for a few moments. And then I said,

“Jen, they can’t just put a ninety-six-year-old grandma in prison. Surely there must be some mistake. What did she do?”

“She robbed at bank—at gun point.”

Andy choked, took several breaths, then raked his fingers through his shortened hair, and coughed out,

“She did ????? . . . Why did she do that?”

“It wasn’t really her fault. She just got into the wrong crowd, and her boyfriend convinced her that robbing the bank was a necessary thing, since their Social Security wouldn’t be enough to support their traveling plans to Istanbul. He made her hold the gun on everyone while he took the money at the bank. He was able to get away before the guards caught him, but she wasn’t—her walker got caught in the revolving door on the way out, and her boyfriend kept right on going and just left her there to face the consequences. It was a terrible thing. They broke up shortly after that. Actually he was never found. He’s probably in Istanbul—with another woman, and the money! ”

It was quiet for a minute. We were both trying to figure out what to say next. What can you say in a situation like this? Grammie is a bad girl came to mind, but I didn’t voice it.

“Jen,” I finally said, “certainly she can get parole.”

“No, she was denied parole.”

“She was!!??? Why???”

“ Because she started a riot . . . just after someone in her cell block stole her false teeth.”

Andy and I knew this was serious, so we made every attempt not to laugh, but as the next few seconds ticked by, my eyes wandered over to Andy. I could see he was having difficulty keeping his face as sober as it needed to be under the circumstances. He had his lips pressed firmly together so they couldn’t move. But when he saw that I wasn’t able to conceal the mirth breaking across my countenance at that moment, he started losing it. And then, after I asked Jen about the length of the sentence, and she informed us Grammie was in the slammer for life, we both just lost it. The only thing I could do was bury my face in my hands and let it happen. Andy, seeing my response, did likewise. Luckily Jen thought we were crying, so she revved up her waterworks and the three of us just stood there and cried together for the next five minutes. Finally she said,

“You guys . . . you’re so . . . so understanding and empathetic . . . so comforting.”

“Jen, we try,” Andy added, his face still hidden in his hands, bawling even harder at that moment.

When we finally sat down again, I passed around a box of tissues to everyone and we spent the next few minutes blowing our noses and wiping our eyes. And then Jen said,

“Thanks for commiserating with me. It means a lot. Now, hopefully you understand the value of that hair extension.”

Indeed we did, but that still didn’t solve the mystery of its whereabouts. At that moment we noticed Molly was in the room. Andy coaxed her over to him and she put her head on his lap as he scratched behind her ears. She looked up him with big doggie eyes, then glanced over at me. After a second her eyes flashed to Jen, and blinking several times, she barked, and then raced off somewhere.

For the next few minutes we brainstormed together about what could have happened to Grammie’s hair, each of us putting forth several ideas, none of which seemed too plausible. Just as I was mentioning perhaps one of the rats had snatched it up for nesting material, Molly came racing back into the room and slid to a stop right in front of Jen, a big snarled hair clog dripping with doggie slobber clutched firmly in her canine pearly whites. As the three of us gasped in concert, Molly dropped it, right at Jen’s feet. None of us said a word—we were too astonished to utter even a sound.

Finally, I reached down and very carefully picked up Molly’s . . . uhhhh . . . gift between my forefinger and thumb, and held it up for all to see.

“Is . . . Is this it?”

“Ohhhhhhhhh!” Jen shrieked in horror as she stared at the slimy, mucus-enriched, tangled mass of what appeared to be Grammie’s beloved hair extension. It was obvious Molly had spent considerable time gnawing on it to bring about its current condition.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh!” She cried again. "Ohhhhhhhhh!"

Then, when the full impact was complete, more tears welled up, breaching the eyes in seconds and the water park was open for business once again. This was followed by more consoling words and pats from both Andy and me, and lasted for the next thirty-five minutes. After which Andy said he would take the hair remains to his mother’s salon and see if they could perform some kind of hair restorative technique. Which as it later turned out, they could and did. And Jen was happy once again.

We said our good-byes to Jen, and after Andy closed the door, he turned to face me. His eyes held mine for a moment . . . When I started walking away, he grabbed hold of my arm swinging me around and said,

“ Ellee, I really need to talk with you, NOW, about something very important.”

I could see from the look in his eyes it WAS important.

“Andy, is . . . is this about . . . trade unions?”

“What???”

“In Taiwan?”

“NO! It’s not about trade unions in Taiwan. Why would I need to talk to you about trade unions in Taiwan?

Well, well, well . . . with trade unions out of the way, that only left one other possibility. Andy was about to scoop me up in his strong arms, and tell me just how much our Valentine kiss had really meant to him, and that he had come to love and adore me over the past few weeks, ever since I arrived in my FedEx box. AND THEN, he would beg me to stay forever!

Or . . . Or . . . Oh DANG! Another possibility suddenly occurred to me—Andy had finally had enough of me, and was going to ask me to leave. DANG! DANG! And just, DANG! Of course, that was it! He was asking me to leave. I couldn’t believe he was about to bring my world crashing down around me. How could he DO this? That’s when I said,

“Andy, how can you DO this?” And I stomped my foot as my hands flew to my hips in a how could you stance.

“Do WHAT, Ellee? What did I dooooooo?

“The trade unions in Taiwan! You don’t want to talk about them!”

And with that, I turned to flee from the hurt.

“Ellee, WAIT!,” he called after me, “we can talk about the trade unions in Taiwan . . . if that’s what you want! Ellee . . . pleeease . . . come back. We need to talk!”

“No,” I yelled, “I don’t want to talk!”

Why would I want to talk to him when he was about to break my heart—again? This whole day had been filled with tears. First Harriet, and then Jen, and now it was MY turn. I would cry a river of tears! DANG!

As I slammed my bedroom door, the first tear fell, and then another. One more was about to drop when Andy hammered on the door.

“Elleeeee, I’m sorry, whatever I did—and I don’t know what I did . . . But could you just overlook it? We need to talk! This is important!”

How could I overlook a broken heart that he was within minutes of inflicting on me?

“Andy, just go away and leave me alone. I don’t want to talk!!!!”

I really couldn’t bear to hear those words coming from his lips: Ellee, I think it’s finally time for you to leave. And then I knew—I would have to beat him to this finish line. I would leave before he could ask me to leave.

Bye for now,
Love,