Chapter Forty-eight

THE ANDERCHRONICLES

By Me, Ellee

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

[SECOND WARNING: The dog in this story is not real—she's only an actress, granted a very good one, so good in fact, you might think she is actually a dog you know, but keep in mind, at 5:00 she goes home to her real life, which is that of a prissy poodle.]

“The Love Of Molly”

Andy whirled me around several times more as we celebrated his television set finally having all its parts back together again in one place, and in such a way that it actually worked when the power button was depressed. This was indeed cause for merriment.

When he stopped, he set me down on the coffee table and told Molly to jump up there, too. He said he had something to tell us. As he stood before us, jacket open, hands on his hips, he looked first at me, and then at Molly. We were both sitting there very attentively, eyes big and round, full of excitement, awaiting Andy’s announcement. After a moment, he slipped his hands into his pockets and started pacing up and down.

As my eyes tracked his movements, I realized something. The cream puff kiss was yummy, AND that giant 103" HDTV actually worked ! This was more than a girl has a right to hope for in the very same day. That’s when it struck me. It had to be more than just luck—it had to be the power of that incredible cosmic alignment Andy and I were part of, when we planted his Christmas tree out in Quogue, earlier in the year. I mean, what else could it be? I was reflecting on all this when Andy broke in saying,

“Listen up Gals! Ellee, Molly . . . I’m leaving soon . . . to go out of the country that is, on assignment . . . for five or six weeks . . . ”

Andy . . . five or six weeks? That’s forever! Andy, you can’t do that to me—us.

“ . . . and while I’m gone, Ellee, I want you to take care of Molly.”

He leaned over, placing his hands on the table on either side of me. His eyes captured mine and wouldn’t let them go, and as our eyes held to each other, the sparkling display of blue from his eyes was interacting with that of mine, resulting in an auroral blaze of scintillating blue light, like four blue diamonds—the rarest and most expensive of all diamonds. Then, when that incredible moment passed, and Andy was able to catch his breath again, he continued,

“Ellee . . . I . . . uh . . . that is . . . you see, uhhhh . . . well, ohhhhhhh . . . there’s something you oughta know. Something I must tell you . . . ummmm . . . since you came here in your FedEx box . . . from that very moment actually, when . . . when you crawled out . . . Molly . . . uhhhh, yes Molly, fell in . . . I mean, that is, she has loved you . . . actually more than you know, Ellee . . . even more than you can imagine. She has never known such contentment in her entire life. You make the sun shine in her day , and when black clouds threaten a storm, you are her anchor. And late at night after a hard day’s work— uhhhh, that is . . . you know from doggie things, she likes knowing you’re here, even if she doesn’t always see you. And the food you cook for her is incredible, I mean . . . you can open a can of dog food better than anybody. And she doesn’t want to be separated from you . . . ever . . . I mean . . . Ohhhhh Ellee, can’t you see? not ever! even . . . well, you know . . . that is . . . if . . . if . . . I were to put her in a doggie daycare center. Do you know what I mean?”

“I . . . I think so, Andy.”

I blinked my big eyes several times, still preserving the connection to his.

“A-Andy . . . There’s something you should know, too.
I . . . I . . . I . . .”

I don’t know when, but somewhere during this time, my fingers had found a lock of my hair and began twisting it nervously. This little action had drawn Andy’s attention, and he was now focusing on it. All of a sudden, he reached up and took the lock from me and started twisting it himself. It was during this moment I said,

“Oh, Andy I love . . . her, also.”

“Oh Ellee! DO you? Do you REALLY?”

“Yes, Andy Yes—I DO! REALLY I do! Oh, yes, yes, YES!”

“OH Ellee, you have made her the happiest dog in the whole wide world!”

“And Andy, I am the happiest girl in the whole wide world . . . just knowing . . . just knowing your dog loves me.

At that teeny, tiny little moment in time, when we could no longer contain our bursting joy, having discovered the great love his dog and I have for each other, Andy dropped my lock of hair and threw his arms around me, pulling me to him and kissed me over and over and over, while the radio . . . well actually, it was playing, Love Is a Many Splendored Thing, in the background.

Two days later he was gone, but before leaving, he gave me my very own international cell phone with his number programmed at the top of the list, and told me he would call me every day . . . to see how Molly was doing, of course. Also, I was to call him whenever I had news—any news at all . . . about his pooch . . . of course.

The first day he called me six times, and each time I told him Molly was fine. On the second day, I called him six times—Molly was still fine, but he said he would call me later that night just in case. When he called after midnight, Molly was asleep, so I didn’t really know how she was at that point, but we talked until after 3:00 A.M. anyway, thinking she might wake up at any minute, and then I could tell him how she was. Finally at 3:30 A.M., we said good night, but before hanging up, he whispered into the phone,

“Ellee . . . Molly loves you so very much!”

And I whispered,

“Oh Andy . . . I really love . . . her, too!”

Then we said goodnight. It was hard to sleep that night, thinking about how much Molly loves me.

While Andy was away, every afternoon at precisely four o’clock, the doorbell rang and the delivery person from Beard Papa Cream Puff store on 76th and Broadway presented me with a white box, tied with white silk ribbon edged in silver. And each day when I opened it up, I found two cream puff swans in a cozy little neck embrace, their beaks touching. And each day I knew they were from Andy. And each day I quickly devoured them both since Andy wasn’t there to eat his—well, come on . . . I didn’t want them to waste! And then I would call him to let him know how simply divine they were, and he would tell me how he wished he could be there to share in the delight.

One night, when the rest of the world was sleeping, Andy called and we talked for three hours, discussing every topic known to man—and woman. Subjects like high finance, world markets, political candidates and elections, the high cost of health care, life in the Cambrian Period and how sponge spicules and worm tubes weren’t technically part of that period, but were actually from the Vendian Period, which preceded the Cambrian. Even Montesquieu, Voltaire and Diderot came up for discussion, and what their philosophies have meant to mankind in general. We chatted about bioflavonoids and their benefits on the vascular system, and even the half-life of plutonium 239—he said it was 24,360 years, I said it was 24,100 years, but in the end, we decided the 160-year difference didn’t really matter anyway. Then we talked of light years, and how many it would take to traverse the entire universe. Even irradiated foods came up, but in all our chit-chat, there was not one word about Molly. When we hung up, I thought about that for a long time.

The days gradually crawled into weeks, and one morning when I looked out the window, I discovered that winter had finally melted into spring. A bird flew past my window clutching a tuft of grass in its beak—a new season was arriving. Molly and I spent that day outside discovering other signs of new life.

Each and every night, when Andy called me at the stroke of midnight, his melodic cell phone ring sent tiny little jolts of excitement racing along my core sensor receptors, causing so much exhilaration, that I would let out a loud, YES!! On the thirty-first night, it was no different. After screaming, YES!, I opened the phone, placing it next to my ear and calmly said ,

“Hey!”

And he said, “Hey!” and then added,

“Ellee, go to the window and tell me what you see.”

When I reached the window, there was only one thing I could see. It filled the whole night sky with its white brilliance. It bathed the New York skyline, and everything under it. It flooded my room, giving definition to all the furniture, and even illuminated the two lovers kissing in the street below.

“The moon . . . Andy, I see the moon.”

“I see it, too, Ellee. That very same moon." His voice had grown husky. "If we both can see it . . . well . . . we can’t be that far away . . . right?”

“Right.”

Neither of us said anything after that for quite awhile, the implication of his statement reaching far deeper than either of us had realized at first. I heard him sigh, and then he quietly said,

“Is everything okay with Molly?”

“Everything is okay—Molly is fine, Andy.”

“Alright . . . well . . . goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

But neither of us hung up. Again there was silence for a long time and then he said,

“Ellee . . .?”

“Yeah . . .? ”

. . .

. . .

“ . . . Goodnight”

. . .

. . .

“ . . . Goodnight.”


Goodnight for now,
Love,
Ellee