All Aboard Andi's Dream Ch. 01

"I hope there's more to it than that. I have work to do," groused Ayato.

"Oh, hush up. I'm trying to hear too," called Julissa from behind the bar.

"I don't know. You tell me. Before, and I mean just before Andi and I met, her husband met up with a cocktail waitress and left her. No kidding, he was a real piece of work. Left a note on the nightstand and took off with this babe for Branson, Missouri," Paul said to the mumbles coming from the ever-growing crowd. "So, like I said, we met, we talked a little lung doctor talk, we talked a little heart doctor talk, we posed for a group photo, and that was it. The whole thing was a waste of time, as far as I was concerned. Good thing South Boston hospital picked up the tab. She went back to Denver, and I came back here and that was it."

"So, where's the twilight zone material?" asked a voice from the crowd.

"So, she goes back to Denver and suddenly she started to have complications and fierce contractions. They rush her to the ED and next thing you know; the twins are born caesarian. Tiny, tiny preemies." Paul paused for a moment, trying to imagine the twins at birth. He wished for the thousandth time he were there to help, to hold Sandy and Madeline, especially his Maddy. Paul and Madeline have a special love for each other. He continued; "Meanwhile, I come back here and what do I do? I started updating the house on Howard, darn near every room..."

"That's right," said Gus. "Paul has had me and my guys on that house non-stop and we're still not done."

"Not done?" asked Paul.

"Andi has a few ideas she brought up to me. Go back to your story," said Gus to general laughter.

Paul gave Gus a glance then knocked back his beer and poured himself another cold one from the pitcher on the table. "So, what is going on? Out on the farm, I built a second cabin with all the modern conveniences..."

"Indoor plumbing and the works!" added Gus, who did the work.

"That's right. But I also dug out the pond. I ordered four truckloads of sand and added a beach. What am I going to do with a beach?"

"Macy and I came up with a few things to do on the beach," added John to the general laughter.

"And I built a lifeguard tower...

"I thought that was a deer stand," said a drunk at the bar.

"It's that too," said Gus to general laughter.

"But the moment I met Andi, it was the last time I talked to a woman alone. No dates, no movies, no calls, and you know what? I didn't care. I was busy. If you remember, that's when the car business exploded, too."

John nodded in agreement. "I remember that. You kept saying that you had to put money away 'for a rainy day' and you pushed and acquired more dealerships. I don't remember you ever having as much as a savings account before this, and suddenly, you're investing and setting up annuities."

"Meanwhile, in Denver, Andi is having the same thing with men that I'm having with women. They're not calling her and she's not caring. She's got her job and her babies. Then one day her boss sees that South Boston, tiny little South Boston hospital is going to have a medical conference and offers Andi the chance to go, and she jumps on it because she has an exceptionally good friend here working at CEMC. She packs up the twins, flies to Buffalo, and gets stuck in a snowdrift practically in my backyard. The Town of Concord PD calls me and asks if I can go pluck a tourist out of the ditch."

"When I see her, she's terrified. She doesn't know me from a mad rapist. She wouldn't let me help. In fact, she told me to go away. I couldn't go. I could not leave her and the babies behind. So, I knelt down in that storm in the middle of the street and prayed that something would happen. Anything that would help. I'm freezing, cold, wet, and just praying for those babies. And just when I thought I couldn't take anymore, her phone rings. It's 911 telling her who her rescuer would be..."

Paul took a long drink before continuing and one of the barflies yelled, "Who's it gonna be???"

After the laughter settled down, Paul said, "Me! Why else would I be telling this? She let me take her back to my cabin and warm up some, and soon we warm up to each other. And soon it was like... like our hearts flowered, we couldn't be apart more than 10 feet. I asked her to marry me, out of the blue, the idea just popped into my head, and at the same time I asked her, she asked me, the idea just popped in her head too."

The room was quiet except for the chatter from a football pregame show on the TV.

"Anyhow, that's the story," said Paul. "Take it for what it's worth, but that's what happened." He got up and placed his empty glass on the bar. "I have to go back and help the twins take down the Christmas tree so we can get on the road."

"I'll catch up with you," called out John, and after Paul had left and started walking home, Pastors John and Vincent, and Father Juan all leaned back in their chairs. John sipped from his cola and shook his head. "They both believe that it is the Holy Spirit that brought them together in Minneapolis, and when they separated the Holy Spirit isolated them from the opposite sex until the Holy Spirit saw fit to bring them back together and, they both told me this on separate occasions, 'unlocked their hearts'."

"Spiritually, where are they?" asked Pastor D'Angelo.

"Right now? Andi was brought up Christian until her father was killed in Iraq and her mother's faith was shattered. Her mother remarried. Harold is a very nice guy, a lapsed Jew. She went to friends' weddings, she attended church on random occasions for random reasons, but otherwise a lost soul."

"But now she has a real hunger for God's word, she told Macy that when she first sat down to dinner with Paul, and he broke bread during grace, she knew it was communion, and knew there was a reason for her being there at that very moment. It's been a hectic few weeks, but she wants to learn, she wants to join our church, and when it comes time, she wants to be baptized in their pond."

"As for Paul, he's doing very good. He is on the brink of eldership."

"What do you, the brother, think?" asked Father Juan, finishing his beer.

"I really don't know," said John. "I see a couple happily married after knowing each other for only a few weeks, and they are truly in love. Or at least think they are. Andi tells me that quick engagements and long marriages run in her family. She and Paul are the slowpokes. If you total up all the time between the moment they met and the moment they said, 'I do' for Andi, her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother you come up with less than 3 months total, but their marriages have all been till death do us part."

"It truly has to be His spirit. Nowadays we just don't recognize it," said Pastor Vincent, nodding in agreement.

Father Juan shook his head, "I don't know, I'm not convinced, and what about her first marriage..."

"ENOUGH!" roared Ayato. "You guys, you theologians get together and pick, pick, pick, you dissect everything and take the joy out of life. Let God be God and let Him do His thing and let the lovers' love! Isn't their love a reflection of God's love? Didn't He say, "Though the mountains be shaken, and the hills be removed, my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor will my covenant of peace be removed?"

The Springville men of God looked at Ayato in shock. From back in the kitchen, Julissa yelled, "You tell 'em, babe!"

"It was a month for Julissa and me," said the retired lieutenant colonel as he picked up the empty glassware.

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"I can't wear this to a party, it might be handy if I was breastfeeding twins again though," Andi was trying on dresses to wear to the New Year's Eve party and the current selection showed incredible amounts of side-boob from multiple directions.

"You look darling!" said Macy.

"Paul will like it a lot, but not out in public." She was wearing a copper sequin plunging cowl neck, a backless minidress that Macy picked out for her. More of her skin was exposed than covered. The neckline plunged to her naval and whenever she moved, one of her nipples popped out. The dress was backless, and the beltline was so low the dimples above her rear cheeks could be seen.

"I like it. You should get it."

"This makes my legs look fat. Why did you pick this?" demanded Andi.

Macy smiled. "Because look!"

Lucy stepped out of the dressing room wearing a gold sequin plunging cowl neck, backless minidress, the same dress as Andi, just a different color. Its plunging neckline showed off her incredible abs, and the backless dress showed off her muscular back. "I feel so naked," she said sadly. She turned to Andi. "One wrong move and you show off everything you have, and I show off everything I wished I had."

"You look beautiful! If we do something with your hair," said Macy, taking Lucy's hair out of its perpetual bun and she began teased it with a comb until she was satisfied. "Just wait," said Macy and she ducked into the dressing room and came out moments later in the same dress but this time in silver, which both Lucy and Andi said was beautiful on her.

"You forgot the important part," said Macy, producing a roll of double-sided 'Fashion Tape.' She applied pieces here and there, using tape to hold the dresses in place on the doctors. "How is that?"

Andi and Lucy moved around and found that they were still covered. The dresses stayed in place. Macy handed her phone to the salesgirl and asked for her to take a photo of the three of them together. She took a few minutes trying to get Lucy and Andi to strike poses worthy of a professional model, then stepped between them, struck a beautiful pose, and nodded to the salesgirl. "Everyone say 'penis'!"

The photo was beautiful, the three of them in saucy poses and huge smiles, but the following photograph was even better, Andi and Lucy in a fit of giggles and Macy in the middle dumbfounded, eyes rolled skyward, that two medical professionals were giggling over an anatomical term.

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When Andi got home, the big beautiful blue spruce in the parlor was gone; the ornaments, garlands and lights were boxed up and hauled off to storage, the tree disappeared, and the twins were in tears. "How can your unicorn have a magic castle if the giant Christmas tree is gone?" they cried. That logic confused poor Paul nearly to tears, but Andi was used to it. The twins are Sandy and Madeline, they're darling little five-year-old girls with bright blond hair and they're much smaller than the average five-year-old, and they're also much brighter. They're both math wizards for their age and read at a fourth-grade level. Sandy is outgoing and vivacious, Madeline is reserved and thoughtful, but together they can be little terrorists if they put their minds to it.

"Did you girls help daddy take down the tree?"

"Yes, but we didn't want to," said Madeline angrily.

Andi crouched down and gathered the girls to her. "But we had to take the tree down so we could go on vacation, and ride the boat, and play on the beaches..." encouraged Andi.

"And see Anna?" said Sandy.

"And Ella?" said Madeline.

"And Minnie?" they said in unison.

"Why don't you girls bring your dirty laundry down here so we can get ready to go see Anna, Ella, and Minnie."

The girls took off like twin rockets, leaving new dad Paul bewildered in their wake. "How did you do that? I've been trying all day to light a fire under them."

"They're sort of self-igniting, if you know where the secret buttons are located," said Andi, giving Paul a hug. "One of those buttons is at a theme park," she said as they kissed. "This is one of those shoals we mentioned that you need to navigate through."

"Is Lucy around?" asked Paul after they kissed again.

"Sure, why?"

"Why don't you two meet me in the kitchen. I have two more boxes to hand out."

Andi looked perplexed but found Lucy, down on the treadmill as usual, and asked her to come back upstairs when she was done with her workout. Soon the two women joined Paul, who had two gaily wrapped packages about six inches long, two inches high, and three inches wide. Lucy and Andi's minds both went straight to "Dildo," and they started giggled again. He handed one box to each woman, who found that the boxes were quite heavy for their size, too heavy for a dildo. Lucy opened her first and found that it was a box of business cards. Andi's were the same.

"Doctor Adrianna L. Roberts, Pulmonary Medicine, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Tift Memorial Veterans Clinic... What is this?"

"Doctor Evangeline L. Kocsis, Thoracic surgery, Pulmonary Medicine, and Critical Care, Tift Memorial Veterans Clinic... same question and don't ever call me Evangeline." Lucy glared at Paul.

"Look at this as a job offer. The clinic will not be ready for months, so you have time to consider it, but you heard my talk at the seminar. Five percent of the civilian population has sleep apnea, while up to sixty percent of veterans have it. In the civilian world, pulmonary hypertension is incredibly rare, 2 cases in a million. In our veterans, the rate is much higher, as is arthritis of the lungs. COPD is killing our vets. Men and women are coming back from the desert with COPD so brutal that they are being rated at 100% disabled. I want to implement a three-prong approach in our clinic: help our veterans who have it, try to determine a cause, and come up with preventative measures so we don't lose a generation of soldiers."

"I'm in. I would like to get back to regular thoracic surgery," said Lucy, "not this meatball M*A*S*H nightmare I've been living."

"If it means that much to you, it means that much to me," said Andi. "I'm all yours."

"I'm not the head honcho on this endeavor. I'm just the damn fool that walked into the VA and spouted off and wouldn't shut up until they did something. I'll be on staff just the same as you guys."

"This will be interesting, I never slept with a colleague before," said Andi with what she hoped was an innocent little smile then rubbed her round ass against his crotch.

"You get used to it," said Lucy, then noticing the shocked stares she was getting, she called out, "What?"

Trying to ignore Lucy's accidental revelation, he continued. "Our mission in this endeavor is primarily research, then treatment..."

Paul was interrupted by a loud banging from the laundry room, and they all rose to investigate. In there they found Sandy and Madeline standing on a pile of clothing and banging their hands on the drier as they yelled, "Let's go!"

Andi looked at the pile of clothes and sighed, then laughed... they brought down every stitch of clothing they had here in New York. The clean clothes were mixed with the dirty clothes, so now there was a lot of laundry to be done. Paul took her in his arms as she tried to determine whether to laugh or cry. "Got their fuses lit pretty darn good, mama."

"Our babies want to see Anna," sighed Andi.

"And Ella!" they shouted.

As they got the laundry drama sorted out, there came a knock at the back door. "Come on in, Veronica!" called Paul without looking.

"How did you know it was Veronica?" asked Andi, as they properly loaded the washer with as much of the girls' clothes as they could.

"She's the only one that knocks."

"Aw! You took your tree down," said the vivacious blond. "What about January sixth?"

"Yeah, what about January Sixth?" asked Andi.

"That's the day I traditionally take the tree down. What's up, blondie?"

"I just wanted to ask if I can borrow your library tomorrow night. The company party is Thursday, and Mitch and I want a few more practices." Veronica was once a beauty queen (she won Miss Ohio and came in 10th at Miss USA) and her talent was ballroom dancing. The company she works for puts on a huge holiday party and she and her coach Mitch dance there every year. Paul's library is a big empty room with a sprung dance floor.

"Sure, no problem," said Paul. "Hey, we're going to Cheektowaga for our annual Christmas Eve dinner in a little bit. Would you like to join us?"

"I don't... Christmas Eve? We're about three hundred sixty-four days early, don't you think?"

"We're two days late... there was this wedding... It's a long story. Come on along."

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Christmas Eve dinner at Giardini's

(three hundred sixty-four days early)

Against her common sense, Veronica von Köster rode with Gus and Lucy in Lucy's Lexus into Cheektowaga for dinner at Giardini's Italian Family Restaurant, a place she has heard of for ages from Paul, but she's never gone. Good Italian food is not conducive to a trim waistline. "Thank you for getting my reading room done so nicely, Gus."

"Reading room?" asked Lucy.

"I added a small reading room to her house," said Gus. "It has five sides and is big enough for what, two rocking chairs?"

"It catches the morning sunlight so beautifully. This morning I had my tea out there and saw the most beautiful cardinal in my tree," said Veronica.

"Don't let the twins see that. They want to put a cardinal in a cage."

It was starting to snow as they followed Paul off US33 on to Harlem Drive and they turned onto Maryvale drive then into Cedargrove Heights. "Isn't this Tiorunda Housing?" asked Veronica.

"Yup," said Gus. "It used to be called that." He pointed toward a large, gray, slab-sided two-story building. "That's where John and Paul grew up."

"That's kind of gloomy," said Lucy, seeing the trash around the dumpsters and the bicycles sticking out of snowdrifts.

"It used to be really bad," and he continued around the park. Many of the buildings were split-level duplexes and decorated with Christmas lights, but the big gloomy two-story gray boxes only had lights in the occasional window. After cruising through the neighborhood, they pulled on to Genesee Street and there was Giardini's. They pulled into the parking lot and Gus complained that a proper Italian Restaurant should have several black 1968 Cadillacs in the parking lot.

"Hush," said Lucy. "People will hear you."

"I'm Italian. What are they going to say? Come on, Veronica." Gus led them to the entrance and as soon as he entered, they were assailed by Momma Giardini.

"Augusto!" she cried and threw her hands around Gus. "You finally come home."

"I was here two weeks ago, momma."

"Not enough for a hardworking man! And who do you have with? So pretty!"

"Momma, this is Veronica von Köster, a neighbor we have been trying to get to come here, and you have met Lucy."

As Momma Giardini teased Lucy for being too skinny, Veronica smelled the wonderful medley of fragrances wafting from the kitchen... it smelled like Italy. It's been a while since she's been there, but she remembers those smells like it was yesterday. Momma led them to a table in a private room where Andi, Paul, Sandy, and Madeline sat with John, Macy, and Andi's parents, Harold and Heather Driscoll. Their waiter Tony pulled chairs out for Veronica and Lucy and the twins swarmed into their grandparent's laps. Harold and Heather were heading back to Denver after dinner, so the twins were getting as much grandma and grandpa time as they could.

"Such a happy family," sniffed Momma. "Such love! It's a shame Pauli and John's parents weren't here to see this." Andi and Paul were taking a moment to study each other's eyes. Even after everything that happened in the past five weeks, Paul's breath still catches in his chest when he looks into Andi's eyes.

As their lips parted, the newlyweds realized that everyone was looking at them. "Um, sorry," mumbled Paul. "Gus? Would you like to do the honors?"