Chapter Thirty-seven

THE ANDERCHRONICLES

By Me, Ellee

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

A Little Bit of AnderRomance
Part V


"The Party"

A
t the very moment Andy shut his mouth and sat down, the King started singing—no, not Elvis—Nat. The words just kind of rolled out of his mouth. Wait . . . maybe melted would be a better word. They just . . . melted out of Nat’s mouth, and Andy, upon hearing those words, just kinda melted into a stupor as he gazed at me. He placed his chin on the palm of his hand to support himself, and seemed to be in another world. But Nat wasn’t—he had a song to sing,

The More I See You

Each time I look at you
Is like the first time

Each time you're near me
The thrill is new

And there is nothing
That I wouldn't do for
The rare delight of the sight
Of you, for

The more I see you,
The more I want you

Somehow this feeling
Just grows and grows

With every sigh
I become more mad about you
More lost without you and so it goes

The music was so romantic, and Nat sounded so dreamy. I just knew from the look in Andy’s eyes he was singing Nat’s song, too, and all at once, I got swept away into that world where Andy had gone. He was there waiting for me. His arms were waiting for me. His lips were waiting for me. His cheeks were waiting for me. His eyes, especially, were waiting for me. Even his hair, and his chin, and also his nose, as well as his eyebrows . . . and even . . . even his jaw line—it was all there, every part—waiting for me. WAIT, I forgot his enchanting smile—that was there, too!

With reckless abandon, he reached for me and encircled me in his waiting arms, instantly pulling me close—so close, in fact, the Tetons were right outside my window. They were breathtaking and beautiful, so well defined with their majestic peaks rising mightily above the valley floor below. And . . . those very same mountains were moving—they were coming my way, closer and closer with each passing nano-second. And I was ready for them . . . waiting . . . excited . . . nervous . . . giddy . . . breathless . . . anxious, and yes, even . . . gaga!

Suddenly Andy reached for my hair in back, entangling his fingers until he had a firm grip on those lustrous and silken strands, and as he did so, he began pulling until my head was at just the right angle . . . the right angle for him to claim my lips . . . with his—but at that precise second I heard,

"Anderson! Anderson! Yoo hooo, ANDERSON!!!! I THOUGHT WE WERE HAVING A PARTY!"

It was Klem. She was shaking him. Also at that same moment, I felt an elbow being rammed into my ribs,

"ELLEE! HEY, ELLEE!"

It was Ally. She was sitting next to me on my left. She leaned over and discretely whispered in my ear,

"Ellee, you’re going all red."

"Oh, really?" I replied. "Ummm . . . I, uh . . . think it’s a seasonal thing." I giggled. "You know . . . Valentine and all?" I giggled again, still trying to catch my breath from that near kiss.

"Oh," was her response, like she understood, "Well . . . that’s why I wore pink." Then she giggled, too.

I looked over at Andy. Was he, too, trying to recover from that near kiss? I thought maybe he was. He was so handsome in his black tux with white shirt and black tie. His eyes were still on me, and when I saw them glistening in the brilliant lights from the Marie Antoinette chandeliers overhead, I wanted to grab him and run my fingers through the silverness of his hair, which as I mentioned before hadn’t been cropped for five wonderful weeks, and which, was also glistening in Marie’s lights. But by then, Mr. Cole had finished his song, and Klem had succeeded in shaking Andy back to the party.

As he turned toward Klem, my eyes began scanning the other guests. When they came to Julia at the other end of the table, they stopped. Her stare was piercing the space between us, and as my eyes made contact with hers, she started hissing—the same hiss I heard when she first arrived. She was less than pleased about her demotion nine places away from Andy.

After that, the music started up again playing, Lucky In Love, and the waiters brought in more of the bubbly at Anderson’s command. This was not your usual run-of-the-springs sparkling water, like San Pellegrino or Perier. Noooo waaay—NOT for this party! This was very expensive ‘gourmet water’ imported from Finland, specifically from the mountainous region of Sodankyla, which, as any cartographer knows, is actually in the heart of Lapland.

You’re probably wondering what makes the spring water from this part of the globe superior to that siphoned from . . . say . . . southern Idaho, but that’s simple! It all has to do with the celestial phenomenon known as the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, which as all astrophysics students can recite, are those bands, or curtains of colored lights that appear in the sky, predominantly in the Arctic region. These lights are in constant motion due to the changing interaction between the solar winds and earth’s magnetic field. This interaction generates up to one million megawatts of electricity as the auroral display unfolds—HEY! ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?—resulting in the bombardment of the glacial fields in these particular mountains with an incredible energy serge, causing a chemical reaction to occur in the snow, thus creating the sparkle in the water. And the millions and millions of bubbles per cubic centimeter, created as a result, make for some mighty fine drinking, because these bubbles produce an immediate reaction in the blood stream, causing euphoric feelings to emerge almost instantly. And Anderson was being vigilant in keeping his guests well-supplied with all the bubbly they could possibly drink!

And drink they did! The effects of which were evident tout de suite [immediately]. When Andy took a long sip from his fluted glass, those tiny bubbles just drifted right up his nose, and he immediately started giggling and said,

"Ahhhhh, that was a good year!"

Same thing happened to Mizzkel, and as she giggled, she raised her arm—the one that didn’t have a pink cast on it, and began waving frantically trying to get Andy’s attention. When that failed, because he was involved at that particular moment in a lively conversation with Mzh about rabbit farming in the Midwest, she resorted to yelling,

"HEY . . . ANDERSON OVER HERE! Tee, hee . . . hic! . . . LOOK OVER THIS WAY—A N D E R S O N!!!!!"

That finally caught his attention, so she yelled out,

"We want to see your . . . tee, hee, hee . . . . pet snake—SNARKY! Please, can we? . . . pweeze, pweeze, pweeze!"

The entire Andergaggle, giggling, then chimed in and said,

"PWEEZE, PWEEZE, PWEEZE, . . . PUUUURDY PWEEZE! Tee, hee, hee, heeeeee

Andy finally agreed.

"Okaaaaaaaay," he said, taking another long drink of bubbly. "Tee, hee, hee," he giggled, "come with me."

Then, herding his entire Andergaggle from the dining hall, Andy and girls made their way to Snarky’s suite, laughing and singing along the way with the Bandanas, who were crooning their new Valentine release, Love Ya, Love Ya!

I figured it was safe enough because Snarky was sleeping quite contentedly after consuming three nice pet store rats Andy had brought home two nights before, saying he didn’t want a hungry snake on the loose for his party. Several of the ladies screamed when they saw the snake, and a few giggled, and some even wanted to take him home, but all were laughing when they returned after seeing him. I heard Phylicia say,

"Anderson, I just love Snarky! He’s ssssooooo adorable!"

Whereupon, with a frisky glint in his eye, Andy replied, "Phylicia, my dear, would you like to take him for a walk sometime?"

And then he giggled, and she giggled, and everyone else giggled. And then they all had some more bubbly. And then they really giggled.

Finally, the maitre d’, Emile de Pourboire, informed us that dinner would be served in cinq minutes. He said cinq instead of five because he, too, like so much of everything else that night, was imported from Paris—and he only spoke three words of English—zee beeg teep.

Throughout the evening we were served twelve courses of the most fabulous French cuisine, prepared by none other than world-renowned French master chef, Jean-Claude Le Rond, himself—in person. Andy had him flown in just for our party.

Our gastronomic pleasure began with several Hors d’oeuvres: Coquille St. Jacques et Fruits de Mer Forestiere—fresh sea scallops, frog legs, sidewalk snails, and oysters sauteed in butter, flambe in brandy with cream of lobster sauce and wild mushrooms; Une Salade de Tomates au Viniagrette—needs no translation; Rillettes—for which there is no translation—actually, there is a translation, but you don’t want to know. The French have a policy about foods like that. It’s kind of a, don’t ask, don’t tell thing. You just eat it—it’s good. But, you never ask! NB: Even if you did ask, they wouldn’t tell.

And along this same line, some Pate de foie gras, which translated means, the over-bloated, enlarged liver of a poor unsuspecting French goose, who was force-fed copious amounts of food all his short life until his liver just gave out. At that point his neck was wrung, his liver harvested and then sold in the international market as a French delicacy—and he didn’t even know he was an organ donor—until it was too late! Then as if that wasn’t enough, his super-fatted liver was ground up, whipped into a buttery rich smoothness, marinated in Cognac and truffles, and finally ended up on Andy’s table for 175 Euros per half ounce. In U.S. dollars that’s $219.62. In Canadian dollars $249.31. I simply don’t know what it is in yens and pesos.

After eating all those hors d’oeuvres, we took a little breather while Andy presented the first of many entertainers he had brought in for our enjoyment. Mezzo soprano singer, Lillie Liverwort from the Metropolitan Opera treated us to several arias from Bizet’s Carmen. She had entertained us for nearly thirty-five minutes and had come to her last aria, L’amour est un oiseau rebelle.

Now I haven’t said a whole lot about Molly and Gizzy, Robin's cat, except that they had occasion to make each other’s acquaintance at the beginning of this party. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean they had been sitting somewhere together just twiddling their paws, shootin’ the breeze. Au contraire, to quote Rutherford, the charge de vaisselle, who, although his name doesn’t imply, is French, and was always saying, "au contraire" to everything everyone had to say. Which, however, doesn’t have a thing to do with Molly and Gizzy, so I’ll just leave it there, and continue on with what I was saying about these two. They had taken rather quickly to chasing each other around the apartment. First Molly chased Gizzy, then Gizzy chased Molly. It seemed to be a mutual arrangement between them. Neither Andy nor I had the time to corral them in separate rooms, so they had free run of the place the entire evening, but up to this point had not caused any problem, and they seemed to be having a good time at their own feline/canine-type party.

However, at the exact moment Mme Liverwort, whose hair just happened to be the same style and color as Robin’s, was about to execute her highest note of the evening, these two bolted into the hall. Molly was hot on the paws of Gizzy, barking all the way; and Gizzy, looking for a place of refuge, found it straight away when he noticed Mme Liverwort’s satin gown, which just happened to be cherry red, thinking it belonged to his very own master. It took only-seconds for him to reach Mme Liverwort, where he immediately clawed his way up the satin skirt to the bodice, ending up at the surprised mezzo soprano’s neck where he nuzzled under her hair, and instantly took up sucking on a curly lock, like a nursing kitten seeking comfort at his mother’s milk depot. And all this time Molly was jumping up and down on Madame, barking, trying to reach Gizzy.

Au contraire to what you might be thinking, Mme Liverwort did reach that high note—it just wasn’t the one she was looking for. At the moment of impact, she screeched out a word, which as far as I can tell, wasn’t part of the song, and that high note scaled up another octave. She was so horrified, she ran screaming from the room and left the building without even waiting for applause.

Everyone then went running after those horrible little beasts, but we never could catch them, because those two party animals thought it was a magnificent game, and loved running faster and smarter than all of us. Finally we gave up and returned to our seats to await what came next.That's when Mizzkell came over to Andy with a red, permanent marker, and asked him to sign her pink cast. She told us how she had taken a nasty fall and broken her arm in two places, and that she had insisted her doctor cast her arm with a pink cast just for the Valentine party. It was a lovely shade of pink, and had little red and white hearts all over. Andy was more than willing to comply with her request. So he took the pen and proceeded to draw two very large eyes, and an even larger smile, then signed his name. And as he handed the pen back to Mizzkell, he gave her one of his most fetching smiles. At that moment, her smile answered his with a smile bigger than the one he had drawn on her cast. She was one happy lady, to say the least!

By then the next course in our dining experience was ready, and Master Chef Le Rond told Andy that if we didn’t start eating right now, the whole dang thing would collapse and he would no longer be responsible for it—It was Souffle aux quatre fromage— four-cheese souffle, which, after the first bite, collapsed anyway, and sank to the bottom of the ramekin when the steam hissed forth.

Our sixth course of the evening was, La Soupe a l’oignon—onion soup with tons of melted fromage floating on top. When I had finished eating mine, there was a little string of cheese extending from the bowl to my bottom lip which I hadn’t noticed, but Andy did, so he reached over and pulled it off, then asked,

"Do you need this? If not, can I have it? I’m still hungry!" And then giggling, he popped it in his mouth with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Annnndddddy!" I protested, "I wanted that!

"OH! . . . Sorry! . . . Here . . ."And with that he pulled it out of his mouth and stuck it back on my bottom lip. And we both laughed as my tongue swept it into my mouth.

Now, Klem, who had been watching this whole exchange, most certainly did NOT approve, for at the precise moment I swallowed that little filament of cheese, she became so irate she ripped out those two mini Japanese samurai swords stuck in her top knot, and with absolutely no sense whatsoever of decorum, stabbed them both into the table in front of Andy and me and commenced hissing! But that wasn’t all—Julia obviously didn’t approve either, because she joined in with Klem and the two of them hissed together! Poor Ally, sitting next to me was so upset by this whole displeasing display of disdainful emotion, that she started shaking, and while eyeing Klem, whispered to me,

"Why did she do that?"

Crazed woman, came to mind, but I didn’t voice it.

By this time, most of the ladies had finished with the onion soup, and were busy talking and laughing and singing along with the music while waiting for the next course. Many had let their hair pieces down, and several had taken them off altogether and were swinging them as they danced on the in-laid mahogany wood floor. When Mzh started dancing, the train of her dress got in the way, so she reached down and pulling it between her legs, tucked it in her bustier to get it out of the way, allowing her to express herself freely as she danced.

When Andy heard the hissing, he yelled out, "Did you all hear that? That hissing? . . . quick, up on your chairs, it’s Snarky . . . He got out of his room . . . he’s under the table!"

At that, every one panicked—except Klem and Julia—and quickly leaped up on their chairs, scared to death, squealing and jumping up and down, screaming for Andy to save them. Andy was now totally beside himself laughing, and could hardly contain himself!

"Got cha! JUST KIDDING" he chortled.

His laughter was so contagious, soon everyone was caught up in it, even Klem and Julia stopped hissing to join in.

Once we were all settled down—again, and in our seats, and Monsieur Le Rond was on his way to our table with a large tray of Asperges hollandaise—asparagus with hollandaise sauce—for the seventh course, we heard barking and meowing, and then all of a sudden Rodney and Rhoda Rat and their fifteen little ratlettes all came scurrying onto the dining hall floor, their tiny little legs pumping as fast as they could go, and right behind them, Gizzy the cat scampering as fast as his legs would, and right behind him, Molly making even bigger strides with her longer legs, and falling behind the whole troupe, but still on the trail, rear guard Harriet, lumbering onto the floor, waving a broom and yelling,

"STOP, RIGHT THIS MINUTE—ALL YOU RATS, AND YOU DOG, AND YOU CAT!!!!!!" DID YOU HEAR ME? I SAID STOP!

Either they chose to ignore Harriet’s command, or they didn’t hear it, because everyone of them kept right on going.

Now Monsieur le chef, sporting his tall white chef’s hat and long white apron, which reached down to his ankles, had an aversion to cats and rats. At the second he noticed all the cat/rat/dog kerfuffle, he cried out, "Zut, alors!" lifting the tray he was carrying high over his head to protect it from the "rat infestation!" Surveying the developing situation at hand, he decided the most expedient course of action just might be to run. But at the moment he set his plan into motion, ten of Snarky’s tasty little late night snacks had already entered his projected escape route, causing him to do a little quick-step dance, which he hadn’t been planning on, and wasn’t ready for, and neither apparently was the tray of Asperges hollandaise.

As he danced his way through, around, over the tiny petite ratlettes, trying not to make rat tartare out of them, he was approaching closer and closer to the table where Barbara was seated, wearing her elegant, white chiffon full length evening gown with bustier. Although green is her favorite color, she would have preferred eating the Asperges hollandaise, as opposed to wearing it—but she had no choice in this matter just after the asparagus could no longer maintain it’s hold on the bed of lettuce, once the tray had achieved a forty-five degree angle, as it slid from Jean-Claude’s by now trembling hands, when he tripped on his long white chef’s apron and plunged belly first onto her lap.

"O, ma foi! Pardon Mademoiselle, Je regrette, Je m’excuse!" he exclaimed as he looked up at Barbara’s surprised countenance.

But being a sweet lady, she wasn’t upset, and she helped him to his feet and told him everything was cool. His face was as red as the rare Chateaubriand he would serve for our eighth course.

The cat, the dog, the rats and the human—well . . . Harriet has, on occasion, been known as human–were still chasing each other around the hall, and it looked like pandemonium was here to stay. The loud band playing at that moment was, The Shocking Truth, and their song, oddly enough, was "I Would Chase You To The Ends Of The Earth." And the faster the music played, the faster the animals and human ran. It was exhausting to watch. Eventually, when it became apparent that no progress was being made, Mysticspiral called out,

"Anderson, bring in Snarky. He’ll know what to do with those rats."

"Great idea, Mysticspiral. Why don’t YOU bring him in?" Andy chuckled.

Finally, the whole scene was resolved when Sissy was able to entice Molly away from the pack using the homemade gourmet doggie biscuits she personally had made, and brought with her as a present for Molly. Now Molly loves these biscuits and will do anything to get one. So all Sissy had to do was hold up the little bone-shaped treat and Molly came right to her. Sissy then led her away to Andy’s room where she would stay for the rest of the evening.

With Molly gone, Robin was able to capture Gizzy, also using one of Sissy’s biscuits. With Gizzy stowed safely away around his master's neck, the only loose ends remaining were the rats, and Chef Jean-Claude came up with a brilliant solution to that. He brought in a huge piece of Camembert cheese, setting it in a long box placed on its side. When the rats got wind of it, they all scurried to find it. Once inside the box, Jean-Claude tipped the box upright, trapping Rhoda and Rodney and the entire Rat family inside. They were then transported back to their tropical hideaway. After that, things settled down—again.

Before the ninth course was served, we had more entertainment. This time it was a juggling act from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Baily Circus. Impressive to say the least! Xtina was feeling so euphoric at the time [just between you and me, she had guzzled several litres of that imported sparkling water by this time] that she volunteered to juggle with them, and did rather well.

Mizzkel also tried, but didn’t do as well. With only one hand available, it proved disastrous when she threw the second pin into the air, because the first pin was due back before the second pin left her hand. However, according to Mizzkel, she said it wasn’t so bad getting knocked out cold with the first pin, because Andy was the one who revived her. She didn’t tell us how he did that, because he had carried her off somewhere after she hit the floor.

The ninth course consisted of vegetables in season, Les Legumes de Saison. The tenth course, Pommes de Terre saute au romarin— potatoes sauteed in rosemary. We could barely make it through the eleventh course: Le Feuillantine de Langoustine Bercy or in plain English, Scampi poached in butter, shallots and chablis, served in a puff pastryshell.

By the time we had finished eating the eleventh course, everyone commented that they felt like stuffed cochons! [pigs] But there was still one more course, the twelfeth, and the most important—the dessert, which, by the way, Andy declined. But the rest of us didn’t! When world famous patissier, Henri La Brioche wheeled the dessert cart into the dining room, with a French twinkle in his eye, as he twisted a length of his French moustache with one hand, while pushing the cart with his other, a hushed reverence fell over the Andergaggle at the moment they caught a glimpse of what he was bringing—tiny, heavenly treasures of super-saturated trans fats and sugar—the delectable, petits fours, little cubes of devastation in any Weight Watchers rule book.

These miniature creations are culinary wonders of the ultimate deception—so tiny, and innocuous, yet so lethal and destructive to health and diet alike! Made with pound cake—a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, a pound of eggs! And as if that didn’t bring the calorie count into the millions, layers of marzipan, chocolate ganache, and thick whipped almond creme were sandwiched in between several layers, and then the whole thing doused with apricot jam and fondant, AND glazed with pink butter cream frosting
AND THEN DECORATED WITH MORE BUTTER CREAM !!
AND . . . AND there were ten of those evil little things for each Anderlady there. AND!!!! AND!!!! Every one of us ate every one of them!!!—AND WANTED MORE! Cochons! Cochons!

As we were all gormandizing ourselves with Henri’s wonders, I couldn’t help but notice how fitting it was that we were eating ‘cake’ under Marie Antoinette chandeliers.

All twelve courses had been devoured; we were stuffed; we were sleepy, BUT the night had only just begun . . .



Bye for now,
Love,
Ellee