Bellini’s Christmas Burlesque Show

Chapter 1

Bellini

“Honey, my uterus has been stolen, and I need you to come home for Christmas and run the bar. Bring the cats.”

What? What did my mom want me to do?

I instinctively slapped a hand to my forehead and accidently stabbed myself with the black felt pen I was holding. “Ouch,” I said into my phone. “Mom, first off, what do you mean your uterus has been stolen?”

And what do you mean I need to come home for Christmas and run the bar? That’s a no.

“The good Dr. Brenda took it.”

“Where…What are you talking about? When?” I slumped back in my chair in my peaceful, little white and pink cottage in Oregon that no longer felt quite so peaceful. “When did the doctor steal your uterus?”

“Two days ago.”

“And why did Dr. Brenda steal it, Mom?”

“Perhaps ‘steal’ isn’t quite the right word, Bellini Mae. I did give permission, although reluctantly so.”

Yes, that is my name. Bellini Mae. As in the drink Bellini, which has prosecco and peach puree in it. I cannot talk about Bellinis right now. “What is the right word, then?”

“That uterus of mine had been giving me fits for years. It was a shriveled and annoying thing, fit for a prickly witch, not someone like me, and I finally told Dr. Brenda, ‘Take that brat out.’”

I held my breath for long seconds as my brain processed the conversation.

Take that brat out. Yes, that’s how my mother, Whiskey O’Donnell, talks.

She is an original. Her real name is Margaret Marie O’Donnell.

Yes, that’s Irish. She unofficially changed her name when she bought her bar and named it Lady Whiskey’s.

“Mom, why didn’t you call me before this? Before you had your uterus taken out?”

“Because your aunt Emmie is here, and she’s taking care of me, and I thought we could handle things ourselves, along with help from The Sisters.”

“The Sisters” are my mother’s six sisters.

They’re all outspoken, opinionated, loud, and the kindest ball-breaking women you’ll ever meet, but they are exhausting.

It’s like watching seven human hurricanes at once.

I have twenty-five first cousins and more first cousins once removed.

I love my family in Montana, but I live in Oregon because I cannot endure the heartbreak of seeing him again, but that is another story that I will tell after getting to the bottom of this prickly uterus issue.

“Mom, this is upsetting. You should have told me.” Tears sprang to my eyes. “I would have been there for you. Why did you wait this long to tell me?”

“Because I have respect for you and your time. I know you’re working on your Roxy Belle books, sugarplum, and I didn’t want to turn your world upside down and shake it like a martini, but now I’m afraid I’m going to have to do that. I need someone to run Lady Whiskey’s.”

“Oh, dear God, no.” The words escaped before I could stop them. I did not want to run Lady Whiskey’s Bar and Grill—for many reasons. One reason was that I needed to write another Roxy Belle book, but I could not think of anything to write. No storyline. No plot. Nothing. That was a problem.

“Oh, dear God, yes, Bellini Mae O’Donnell! You’re the only one who can handle the customers and the staff and the books and the occasional”—she coughed— “bar fight.”

“Bar fights are more than occasional, Mom.” I stabbed myself in the forehead again with my black pen and sighed at my own clumsy self. I dropped the pen to protect me from myself.

“Nonsense. You know how to break them up, anyhow. Everyone was so impressed with your peacekeeping abilities that night last December when Bobby Joe and Lucien were fighting, and you settled everything right on down when you wielded that chair like a lasso and yelled, ‘Who wants to get hit in the head? I said, who wants to get hit in the head?’ Those boys knew you would sooner smack their craniums than allow them to continue fighting and ruin our wholesome family environment.”

I choked a bit on that. Wholesome family environment?

It’s a bar. It’s loud. Raucous. Teetering on being out of control when it’s packed.

No minors are allowed, except for me when I was a kid and my mother had me mixing drinks in the back.

A five-year-old should not know how to make Manhattans and cosmopolitans, but I did.

I thought it was fun to add tiny umbrellas and lemon slices and mint to the drinks.

“You have a powerful temper you unharness now and then like an avenging goddess, and everyone knows it.”

“I do not have a temper.” I sounded a tad wimpy.

“I would not have cracked Bobby Joe or Lucien. Well, maybe I would have, but I didn’t want anyone getting hurt.

” That didn’t make sense, but I ignored it.

I stood up from my drawing table and started to pace around my charming, quiet cottage in the country.

We were hundreds of miles away from each other, and I missed my mom, but I already felt like I was being run over by a whiskey bottle named Whiskey.

“Mom, let’s back up. How are you feeling?

Be honest. Don’t skip around the question.

” I peered out my window. We were getting a little snow.

Light and fluffy. One of my cats, Sir Scott, jumped from the top of my pink refrigerator to the kitchen table.

Then he meowed at me. He wants praise when he does an Evel Knievel jump.

“I’m feeling like someone opened me up, took something out, and left a porcupine inside of me, sweetheart. But I know I’ll be up and rockin’ it soon.”

“That’s a bad image,” I muttered. I started pacing, then stared into a mirror that has an antique frame and hangs above my favorite blue reading chair.

I had two black spots on my forehead from the pen.

I hadn’t washed my hair in three days because it’s a waste of time, but my reddish-brownish curls, tending to frizz, were piled on top of my head in a loose, messy ball.

To be clear: not a sexy, loose, messy ball.

When the curls aren’t in a ball or ponytail, they fall below my shoulder blades. I have dark brown eyes, not like my mother’s, which are light blue, and I have a big ol’ mouth and big teeth. It’s not like they’re the size of dinosaurs, but they’re wide and bright.

All seven O’Donnell sisters have big mouths, big teeth, and big smiles.

Their children do, too. It’s a family trait.

Aunt Emmie has insisted that this is why our family was able to evolve.

“Our big teeth meant we could chomp down on food, and our big mouths meant we could stick in huge bites of deer and bear and snake and whatever else our cavewomen ancestors ate.”

I put aside the snake-eating image. Surely my ancestors wouldn’t have done that?

“I feel better,” my mother said. “But the good doctor, Brenda, told me I have to rest. I told her, ‘Good Dr. Brenda, you know I have the coat drive at the bar to organize for the kids, and you know I have Lady Whiskey’s Christmas show coming up, too,’ and she said, ‘I know you do, Whiskey, and Brad and I are participating again this year. We’re going to sing a song about the importance of checkups and colonoscopies and mammograms, but you’re going to have to have someone else handle the show for you because you can’t do it.

Doctor’s orders,’ and I said, ‘I’ll have Bellini come home,’ and she said, ‘That is the perfect idea. She has a temper when people get out of line, so she can handle the bar. Plus, she’s so organized that the show will go off without a wrinkle! ’”

“I do not have a temper,” I said yet again, and she ignored me.

Honestly, you grow up in a small town with a bunch of aunts and uncles and cousins and family friends that go back generations, and once you get a label, it would be easier to pull the moon out of the sky and hide it under your bed.

Even Dr. Brenda has labeled me. Now and then, I do turn into a whirling she-devil—I have since I was a kid—but almost every time, it’s to protect someone who’s getting beaten up or bullied.

“Don’t be embarrassed about that temper,” Mom said.

“I’ve told you that a hundred times. It’s something to be proud of, sugar.

You always want to help others. Now, listen.

Emmie and I are going to watch that reality dating show Marry Me now, for the older folks.

Remember that show? A seventy-year-old woman named Ruthie Deschutes O’Hara won it last time and fell in love and lust with a man named Tony.

He looked like Robert Redford but had that Jimmy Smits smoldering sexiness and the coolness of Denzel Washington.

She’s part of that Deschutes family—we buy their tequila.

It’s a very educational show. But I’ll see you tomorrow. ”

“What? Tomorrow?” Petunia, my tabby, jumped up for a hug. I almost dropped her, and she meowed in protest as she hung down my body like a stretched-out Gumby doll. “Tomorrow?”

“Yes, sugar. And you’ll need to be here through mid-January. The good doctor said so.”

“I can’t,” I said, my voice pitching up and down.

“I’ll come and visit you. I’ll help you, Mom, but then I’m coming home.

” No, I would not go back to Kalulell for seven weeks.

I go and visit for major family events and Christmas, although I have not always been there on Christmas, which caused my mother to guilt-trip me like no other.

There are always family parties, anniversaries, dinners, baby showers, and bridal parties—disorganized chaos, as half my cousins are as crazy and unhinged as their mothers.

I need peace and quiet. I need to be a hermit.

I need my pink and white cottage so I can stay sane. Plus, I’m proud to be a cat lady.