Chapter 42

Unlike most of Andi’s shopping trips, this one didn’t leave Springville’s village limits unless you count a trip to the Walmart on the edge of town. There, they plied Yi and Andi with heavy socks, thermal underwear, and ski glasses. For Yi, they got a decent parka, a ski jacket, scarf, several hats, mittens, and gloves. For the twins, they found warm socks, thermal underwear, and Mini Mouse boots. They also stocked up on snacks and soft drinks, which Yi, for the life of her, couldn’t bring herself to call “pop” like everyone else in Western New York.

As Yi grabbed a case of bottled water, Andi stopped her. “We don’t need that.”

“If we’re going to be drinking wine all week, we don’t have enough,” huffed Yi.

“Oh, mon cher ami,” reassured Macy, “for water consummation we shall be drinking only the best! Natural spring water from the vallée de Zoar.”

“Sore Valley?” asked Yi.

“Zoar Valley,” corrected Lucy, “it’s named after an ancient biblical oasis.”

“Oui, from Genesis,” nodded Macy. “John and Paul fill our twenty-liter water bottles from a spring not far from the cabin.”

“It’s good water,” agreed Andi. “The girls won’t drink anything but ‘Poppa’s water’ now. We had to convince them that the bottled water in Florida came from the same place that Poppa gets his water.” When Lucy looked shocked at Andi’s subterfuge, Andi continued, “Well ... same planet.”

From there they traveled to Cheap Chollies liquor store and stocked up on wine and peppermint schnapps, then on to the real reason for the trip, Johnson’s Feed Mill. Yi was noticeably quiet as they entered the store. Macy led them back to a corner that Andi and Yi hadn’t noticed before and found it to be filled with sports equipment, much of it geared to the Nordic forms of winter sports. Shoes and boots, cross-country skis and snowshoes decorated the walls and shelves, and in a locked glass case some of the weirdest looking rifles that Andi and Yi had ever seen.

“Oh ... My ... God...” gasped Lucy, “this is an Anschütz 1827F biathlon rifle. It’s Olympic quality. It’s got to be worth four grand.”

“Four thousand, five hundred, seventy-five dollars and ninety-five cents,” announced Archie Johnson as he stepped into the sporting good section, the thumping of his cane on the wooden floor announcing his arrival. “But since you’re here with my favorite munchkin, let’s say forty-five seventy even.”

“Munchkin?” demanded Andi. She knew Archie from church, and they would speak together occasionally, but munchkin? “Where did that come from?”

“Can I hold the Anschütz?” Lucy’s voice was trembling with the desire to hold the highly accurate weapon.

Archie unlocked the gun cabinet and handed the Anschütz 1827F Comfort competition rifle to Lucy with a stern “No drooling!” then turned to Andi, “The term ‘Munchkin’ came from our pastor’s sister-in-law.”

Andi tried to figure out how she was related to everyone at church until she realized she was the sister-in-law of the pastor. “Ok, how and when did this happen?”

“At your wedding,” smiled Archie, “Pastor Macy introduced me to you at the reception and was trying to tell me that you and Paul had the shortest engagement of any bride they had on their altar. I don’t hear so good, so I thought she said the shortest bride, sooooo...” he smiled again, “I asked you if you represented the Lollypop Guild.”

Andi suddenly blushed. “Did I say yes?” she asked sheepishly. It was such a whirlwind evening that she couldn’t remember what she said to anyone, mostly.

“Oui,” said Macy, trying hard not to laugh. “I did not really understand until...”

“Until we watched the Wizard of Oz on the boat!” Andi swatted Macy on the arm. “No wonder why you were laughing so hard!”

“The Lollypop Guild is a funny scene,” said Lucy, who was laughing now that she realized why Macy was laughing so hard at the Lollypop Guild scene in the Wizard of Oz.

“You’re not helping!” said Andi with a swat at her oldest friend. Lucy just giggled and dodged out of the way of Andi’s swing.

“I’m just funnin’ with ya,” said Archie. “When I told my buddy Larry Newsom that you were getting married in our church, he told me that you were the best damn doctor in all of Munchkin Land.”

Andi’s face immediately softened from mock anger and embarrassment to an expression of kind joy, as if someone gave her a puppy for her birthday. “Awwww, do you know Larry?” Larry was a long-time patient back in Denver who stands six foot eight and teases her occasionally about her height, or lack thereof.

“Larry and I go way back,” said Archie, “he always talks about his sweet little doctor, so when Paul shows up one day with a sweet little doctor from Denver and asked permission to use our church, I called him up and sure enough, it were you!”

“This has such a nice feel to it!” gasped Lucy as she raised the gun to her shoulder over and over and tested, aiming it at several objects.

“Maybe I should get a gun too,” pondered Andi aloud.

“NO!” Macy and Lucy were pretty forceful in their answer.

Archie turned to Lucy, who was still admiring the competition rifle. “You like?”

“I LOVE!” sighed Lucy. “I wish I had a place where I could shoot it, though.”

Andi took a compound bow down off the wall, and test pulled the string. “You can shoot whenever you want on our land.” She looked at the bow with a disappointed look on her face.

Lucy handed the rifle gently to Archie. “I’ll take it, and about 200 SK Match 40 grains, and did you say forty-four hundred?”

“I think it was forty-four fifty ... with the ammo and the carrying case.”

“You’re a good man, Archie.”

As Archie carried the rifle to the counter, he glanced over at Andi, who was looking at the complexities of the compound bow she was holding. “Need some help over there, doc? If you’re not familiar with those, I’d suggest a nice recurve. Compound bows are awful complex contraptions.”

“Ohhhhh, I don’t know ... none of them come in pink...”

“I have that one you’re holding in pink camo, if you have your heart set on pink,” smiled Archie.

Just as Macy was going to step in and ask Archie to not take advantage of the new girl in town, Andi said, “Really? Oh goody! I’ll take that, a Trophy Ridge React 5 sight, a Bee Stinger Xtreme stabilizer, a dozen flu-flus, and two dozen practice shafts in HSO.”

“Girl!” cried Lucy as she and Andi high-fived each other. Looking at the shocked look on Macy’s face, Lucy said, “What do you think we did all day long in Colorado, sit around and treat patients?”

“We used to do a lot of shooting when we were in pre-med,” said Andi.

“You’re a doctor too?” asked Archie.

“Yes sir, trauma surgeon at ECMC, but I’m starting with the VA in a couple of weeks,” said Lucy as she ran her fingers along the carrying case of the Anschütz.

“Well, then!” smiled Archie as he placed two more boxes of .22 caliber ammo on the counter and a cushioned, adjustable shoulder strap. “No charge. I just may need your services someday.”

As Lucy and Andi rang up their purchases, Macy stepped up behind them and put a hand on a shoulder of each doctor and whispered “Mes amis, regardez s’il vous plaît...” and nodded toward something going on back in sporting goods.

Yi-jin was looking for the cross-country ski boots and snowshoes and while Lucy and Andi talked with Archie, she began by looking at the boots by herself. The feed store had a few ski boots, but they were huge and clunky and incredibly heavy, and she gave up the idea of cross-country skiing. Maybe snowboarding was her speed. The boots look much more comfortable. Just as she took a snowboarding boot off the shelf, she felt rather than heard someone come up behind her.

“Can I help you, ma’am?”

She turned, and it was him, that guy that was staring at her yesterday, Kenny. He stepped a little closer, and she was suddenly taken with how tall he was, and how handsome. It never occurred to her he was expecting her to say something.

For Kenny’s part, he was running on auto-pilot because his actual thought process had shut down. Here he was talking to the most beautiful woman he has ever seen in his life, and she was Korean...