Andrea Millhouse Pt. 07

I think by then, that Mom had been so extremely resentful and disgusted by him that it made her feel filthy and flawed just to be in close proximity of him and I think the car symbolized this for Mom. ...He made advances toward her during that time which was pathetic. By then he wasn't even bathing and he stank." I said disgustedly.

Andrea said nothing.

"...Mom hated that Trans-Am, Andrea ...which is too bad really because it's a beautiful machine. Nineteen eighty, Firebird Trans-Am, official pace car and limited edition - only fifty seven hundred pace-cars like it were built that year, it was special" I said dismissively.

"She called it the Ego Machine?" Andrea asked.

"When she was being nice about it, yes" I replied.

"Let me guess, the dealership wouldn't take the new car back and the mint condition Studebaker wound up in some private collectors stable, someplace." Andrea said.

"A guy in Texas has it, I think. ...When I was in my twenties and thirties I had a little pipe dream that I'd eventually find it and buy it back and surprise Mom with it someday ...but that never happened" I answered.

"...Did Lovey ever drive the white one at all?" Andrea asked.

"She only drove it when there was no other alternative, Andrea. I do remember her driving it once when she had to pick up Ricky someplace, once. It was a Saturday and I was hanging out with some other guys from school that day. We were working on an old car that one of the neighborhood kids had when Mom drove slowly by us and waved. She had on her leather dress coat and sunglasses ...she looked good in that car, baby, ain't no denying that.

The other guys with me had their jaws on the ground by the time Mom rounded the corner and was gone. She looked hot in that car, Andrea, and she was. She let Ricky and I take it out on a few dates but otherwise it stayed in the garage and out of sight." I said.

"I can just imagine how you and Ricky felt about that car, Tim, the ultimate muscle car." Andrea replied.

"Again, yes and no, Andrea, Ricky and I both knew that it wasn't fair when the Old Man had blatantly overstepped Mom's boundaries and traded off her car without her knowledge. We never knew how tight money was for Mom, after that. Myron told us that part, years later. I reflected.

"You and Ricky eventually sold the white car?" Andrea asked.

"Yeah, one day Mom just told us that she was done driving and asked Ricky and me to list it in Hemming's magazine, which we did. We knew the car's actual value and listed it accordingly. It took a few years but we finally sold it for her when Mom was eighty three, I think. It fetched forty thousand dollars; that Trans-Am only had sixty eight hundred miles on it then, or something like that. Ricky and I would drive the thing sometimes just to make sure the engine didn't stick from sitting.

We'd back it from Mom's garage, drive it a few miles and just let it run for a few hours and keep fresh gas in it. I think we did two oil changes the whole time Mom had that car. There was a big write-up on it in HotRod magazine with photos and everything when we listed it. The article was entitled 'Lovey's Car The Ultimate Barn Find' or something like that; Ricky still has a few copies of that issue, I think.

"Was Lovey glad to see it go?" Andrea asked.

"Oh yes, what she ever did with the money though, I can't recall." I said trying to remember.

"What was Pat's reaction when she rejected the car, earlier?" Andrea asked.

"I never saw the Old Man again after that. A few days after the Trans-Am showed up at the house Ricky and I tangled with him in the living room and it got very ugly, Mom ran him off with his own pistol. The gun was still inside her bedroom when they demolished that house; I kicked it down the air vent on the day that you and I rescued the vanity." I said.

"I saw you kicking something in her bedroom, that day, but couldn't see exactly what it was, Tim" Andrea replied.

I said nothing in reply.

"Your Grandfather must have been a beautiful man, Tim" Andrea said.

"Both my grandparents were beautiful, Andrea. When Aunt Elsie gave birth to Myron, they bought her a brand new, little red Rambler. That's another story in and of itself, Andrea, a funny story actually." I said smiling a little.

"Aunt Elsie was the wild one, wasn't she, Tim?" Andrea asked.

"Yes she was, Andrea, but she could always encourage and egg-on Mom into trouble right along with her though." I said smiling.

"That's so cute, Tim" Andrea replied, pulling me closer.

"...I still can't quite understand Mom's hardened disposition during the time of the Trans-Am though. I just feel like I'm missing something that I can't quite put my finger on, Andrea." I said, thinking hard.

"It'll come with time, Tim. Whatever became of Pat?" Andrea asked quietly.

"One of the bikers that Ricky hangs out with claims he was killed in a bar fight, someplace in Oregon, during the early nineties, ninety one I think. Rather fitting, I guess" I answered, shrugging my shoulder.

"You're not certain?" Andrea asked.

"Don't know, don't care, Andrea, neither does Ricky" I replied sullenly.

Andrea and I were both silent for several minutes then.

"...Tim what year was Doc born, do you remember?" Andrea suddenly asked.

"Eighteen eighty six" I replied.

"And the car was purchased, new, in nineteen eighty, right?" Andrea asked.

"Yes, nineteen eighty Firebird Trans-Am official pace car, limited edition" I replied.

"Did Doc ever ride in the car?" Andrea asked.

"Only once, I think, just before he passed - he wasn't impressed with it, Andrea, it was just a car to him. Doc never liked vehicles or aeroplanes either, for that matter." I said quietly.

"Then Doc would have been ninety four if he passed in nineteen eighty. It wasn't nineteen eighty three as you told me before ...So he was forty one years, Lovey's senior..." Andrea said quietly, staring off into the distance and calculating.

"Yes it must have been nineteen eighty when we lost him then, because it was the same time period when she got the new Trans-Am and Doc only rode it once or maybe twice just before he left us. I said trying to fit it all together in my memory.

"...Tim, your mom had e-mail didn't she?" Andrea suddenly asked.

"Oh yes, Mom was one of the first people that I knew with a computer, Andrea" I answered.

"Have you looked in her e-mail account for any answers to more about Rick Sheffield or something related to the time period of the Trans-Am? Maybe she told Aunt Elsie something and it's still in her inbox" Andrea asked, changing the subject.

"We could never figure out the password, Andrea, Brenda's tried on numerous occasions to figure it out. Knowing Mom, it was probably on a slip of paper someplace within plain sight. The only problem with that, of course, is that the house has been demolished." I said sitting up and stretching.

"You could get a court order" Andrea said, also sitting up.

"The lawyer that helped us settle Mom's estate was going to do all of that but it never happened, Andrea. Anyway, that's the story on the Trans-Am. You ready shower?" I asked.

"What was her e-mail address, do you remember, Tim?" Andrea asked curiously.

"loveyinstonybrook@_____.com -no caps, no spaces, I rattled off quickly. Are you ready for a shower?" I asked again.

"Maybe, if you'll be a gentleman and come over to my side of the bed and kiss me, like you're supposed to." Andrea said, tilting her head back and looking up at me.

Andrea and I put away the photos of Mom and Rick Sheffield, for the time being. For the next eight days we concentrated only on play, mostly this involved vigorous bicycling and making love. We really didn't go anyplace in a vehicle or spend too much time with anyone else and our phones were set on 'Silent' most of the time. We'd get up whenever we felt like it, make love, shower, eat and bicycle our twenty six or twenty eight mile route and then come home and make love for the rest of the day. A few times we even went through this entire scenario twice within the same day, totaling fifty two miles or more, depending on which routes we chose.

Our bodies and minds were becoming increasingly toned with the vigorous exercise and I was in the best physical shape that I had ever been in during my entire life. This degree of exercise, I was quickly discovering, could actually become an addictive drug in and of itself. Realistically, I believe that Andrea and I were both trying to subconsciously impress the other with fitness while fulfilling our own individual teenage fantasies of what we each considered, as hooking the ultimate catch for ourselves. We were making love with reckless abandon now and in a way; it almost felt as if we were cast upon the stage while making a B-grade movie and portraying two uncontrollable characters similar to Bonnie and Clyde, we felt like we owned the world.

I drank deeply of Andrea's well during this time of solitude with her and we shared an intimacy at a level of which I had never experienced before in life, an intimacy which I had long since given-up on as fictitious. For countless years now, my heart had been cloaked within a dark and bitter veil of ridicule and cynicism, declaring love as nothing more than the childish myth of movies and story books consumed by fools. Love was simply a cruel joke of fate to be used as a weapon of combat between two senseless individuals as they proceeded onward to a prosaic destiny of nowhere, forever chasing an illusion of smoke and mirrors that had only existed in their simple minds to begin with. I had dropped my guard, months ago with Andrea, and I suddenly realized how incredibly vulnerable I had since become.

"You simply cannot be in-love and be safe, son. You have to put it all on the line and risk everything at once, otherwise it isn't love" Mom had explained to Ricky and me on countless occasions during our youth.

...Now I abruptly began to comprehend some of the things that my mother had tried to explain to me as an adolescent and young man seeking love. Making love with Andrea, I had discovered, was as close to flying through thin air as a human being could ever hope to experience and I was becoming increasingly intoxicated by her with each passing day. During times past, I'd had women friends and I'd had lovers, sometimes good ones but I had never experienced a woman as both friend and lover, not before Andrea. Yet the harder I tried to control my emotions and use pragmatic logic to protect my heart, the faster our romance seemed to careen further out of control.

This degree of intimacy is what I had been so desperately seeking when I had married Susan more than a decade earlier. I felt as though I were now going through a second adolescence and caught within the vortex of a wild and uncontrollable romance that would take us well and beyond destiny and time itself. In essence, the hardened, arrogant walls and blatant cynicism which I had so diligently constructed to protect my own heart were now beginning to crumble, and I suddenly believed that angels could fly. Andrea Millhouse had changed me forever and there was no turning back now, I would never be the same ever again and I knew it. Without any conscious thought or effort, I abruptly came to peace with this fact now as she stood before me and answered her telephone.

"...Hans wants to know if we can leave for Lake Havasu with him in the morning and help Owen with his project?" Andrea said covering the phone and looking at me as she stood naked in the kitchen.

"...Yeah, we've watched all of your Rockford Files and are starting to watch them as re-runs now, I think we need a break, Andrea." I replied, smiling at the irony of the words "we need a break."

My legs were starting to let me know that a few days away from the recumbent bicycle was in order now and really, a man can only make love with a beautiful woman, all day, for so many days in a row -regardless of how stunning she may be, the thought occurred to me as I admired Andrea openly now.

"...OK, nine AM then, yes we'll see you then. ...OK we will, Hans, -bye, hon'. Andrea said as she clicked-off with Hans.

"NINE A.M. -in the morning you mean? You slave driver, Andrea Millhouse. Why would ANYONE want to get out of bed at THAT God forsaken hour?" I moaned, having heard Andrea's side of the conversation.

"Nooo, we LEAVE here at nine AM, which means we have to be UP at seven forty five." Andrea retorted.

"Oh my God, couldn't we at least, have made it noon ...ish or so?" I asked.

"How long has it been since you've watched Das Boot?" Andrea asked, ignoring my protests.

"I dunno, couple years, I guess. Want to watch it?" I asked.

"It's nine PM now ...let's slide into a bubble bath and then we'll watch it. You'll watch it again wont you?" Andrea asked.

"Absolutely!" I replied, following her to the bathroom.

Andrea drew our bubble bath and we soon slid into the luxurious water together with its fragrant cent of jasmine. Pulling her against me, she then leaned the back of her head below my chin and put her hands on my knees.

"...I never met a chick before, that likes the movie Das Boot" I said as I began scrubbing Andrea's shoulders with a washcloth.

"That's because you've never met a chick, like me, before" Andrea replied, as she leaned forward, closing her eyes and tilting her head back while reveling in my sensual scrubbing.

"No I haven't. You're a smokin' hot lady, Andrea Millhouse" I sighing with awe.

"You're the hotty, babe. What are we going to give Ricky and Brenda as a wedding present" Andrea now asked.

"I just thought we'd leave them a nice envelope and encourage them to go play someplace warm, honey" I said thoughtfully.

"OK, but I want to go halfers with you this time though, OK, Tim?" Andrea responded.

"Sure, sounds good to me, babe" I said, pulling Andrea back against me.

"...When I was a teen, I liked Das Boot for all the muscled men in it. Now I appreciate the film for its historical accuracy and the story line, Tim. Once you realize that most of those guys were just sailors and not fanatical monsters, they become personalized and you can actually FEEL the loneliness those men felt, in that movie. That was a very well casted and directed movie, I don't like sad movies but Das Boot is the exception to that rule." Andrea now replied to my earlier comment.

"From Grey Wolves to Iron Coffins, Andrea" I replied stoically.

"The old bunch is gone, Phillip..." Andrea quietly quoted from the movie.

"Personally, I like the movie for the sexy Dame singing in the French brothel, at the movie's opening, myself." I said philosophically.

"I was waiting for that, thank you very much, Tim." Andrea sighed.

Twenty minutes later Andrea started the movie as we crawled into bed together. I lasted approximately half an hour before falling asleep, whereupon Andrea stopped the movie and turned out the lights.

"Dream happy dreams, cowboy" Andrea said curling up against me and closing her eyes.

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