Chapter 5
Logan
Logan Hamilton could hardly concentrate on the meeting he had arranged to discuss upcoming projects.
He sat at the head of the carved wood table in his large, open-concept office and tried to seem interested and engaged.
He tried hard. He had a dedicated staff, several had prepared presentations, there were ongoing discussions, and he needed to respect their work and their time.
At the end, he said, “Thanks to all of you. Thank you for your hard work and dedication.” He shared more words of appreciation, then said, “I know the holidays are going to be super busy for all of you. Remember that you have ten days paid vacation coming up. No work allowed.” He pretended to glower at his staff.
“Oh, one more thing. We always participate in Whiskey O’Donnell’s Christmas fundraiser. You know what this one is called?”
Oh, his staff did, and they were already laughing.
“Lady Whiskey’s T and A Christmas Burlesque Show,” Macie Xander said. The young woman had a multitude of piercings in her ears, tattoos down her arms, and was an excellent architect.
“Yes, that’s it,” Logan said, tapping his finger like a drum roll and grinning. “The T and A are supposed to stand for tinsel and All I Want for Christmas Is Santa.”
“Sure, sure,” said DeLanders Smyth, cackling. “That’s exactly what Whiskey meant.”
They laughed again.
“I’ll need volunteers to get their own acts together. It’s a burlesque show, whatever that means,” Logan said. “Dancing. Jokes. Bands. Playing instruments. I don’t really know. Who’s in?”
And that was the funny part. All his employees raised their hands, as always.
He hired people who were super bright, curious, and adventurous.
“Being in a burlesque show fits right in with my image of myself,” Bre’Anna D’Angelo said. “I am a show girl!” She spread her arms and pitched a long high C.
“If you haven’t seen me in sparkles and a pink boa, you haven’t seen anything yet,” D’Shawn Alexander said. He was six six and a former football player.
“This I have to see,” Logan said.
“But I heard that Whiskey isn’t organizing it,” Fred Chao said. “She had an operation, and Dr. Brenda stole her uterus, and Bellini is back and taking over.”
“Bellini’s back?”
There was cheerful chitchat about her return.
They liked her! She was fun! She had officially lived in Oregon for years, but she was in and out of Kalulell for Christmas—usually, although sometimes in the past she hadn’t been there for Christmas, right?
But her reputation as being quirky, kind, her momma’s girl, and a bartender with a photographic memory of everyone’s favorite drinks made her famous.
“I can’t imagine her in a burlesque-type outfit,” Coralinne Zhu said, “but if you want this show to be organized from top to bottom, down to the minutiae, she’s your gal.”
They all agreed it was true.
“She’s a list maker, and so am I,” Coralinne said. “I relate to her need to rule over tiny details.”
“Get ready for a military-type planning for the T and A Christmas Burlesque Show,” Bre’Anna said.
“I went to school one year behind Bellini and Logan here, and when Bellini was involved in something, whether it was the debate club or chess club or some dance at school, it was done right. Plus, she doesn’t drink, which means we’ll have at least one sober person running the show, and that’s important.
Especially if D’Shawn is wearing pink wings or a pink bathing suit. Who knows what will happen?”
There was a lot of joking and chortling, but they began their discussions about their own performances, which, they were sure, would “bring down the house.”
Logan drifted off but pretended to pay attention.
He had known, through Whiskey, that Bellini was coming home to help, but seeing her on the sidewalk, with no warning, had been like being hit by a truck.
He had stopped walking until the shock faded, then started again, pulled to Bellini as if she were a human magnet.
She was a red-haired, green-eyed truck with full lips and dimples.
She looked thinner than she was before, but she was still beautiful.
Her voice was deeper, maybe. The wind had ruffled her hair, and it had been falling out of her bun.
She liked to wear it in a bun so it wouldn’t “look like a red-brown beehive,” she’d told him years ago.
“I can’t have bees making a home in my hair. ”
There’d been something…tired about her, maybe. He’d seen her before she’d seen him, and there’d been an expression on her face that was definitely sad…
His face had probably looked sad, too, but he’d tried to cover it.
He, too, had fought a lingering sadness for years.
He couldn’t remember when he’d fallen in love with Bellini.
It could literally have been in kindergarten because he couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t in love with her. He was still in love with her.
And that’s what had him taking deep, calming breaths to slow his heart rate and his heartache as he continued to pretend to pay attention to the meeting in which his team was having a “drawing contest” to see whose burlesque outfit would be the most outrageous.
“But keep your T and A covered,” Bre’Anna reminded them. “We don’t want to get arrested on the night of the burlesque show.”
This set off another round of laughter.
“Whiskey is so funny!” Larry Tan said.
“I love her,” Charles Martinez said, who was seventy years old—no ageism in Logan’s office. “She’s a legend. As famous as they get in Montana.”
“It’s like watching a movie star walk down the street,” Larry said. “Have you seen her when she’s mad at some drunk in the bar? She hauled one out in a headlock once. I saw it!”
“Bellini’s done the same thing,” Charles said. “Remember that time two men were fighting, and she stood in the center of them with her arms outstretched, holding beer steins in each, and yelled that if they didn’t get out right that second, she was going to smash the steins over their heads?”
“That’s a story that went down in the books,” Coralinne said, slapping both hands on the table.
“They wouldn’t stop, and she cracked them both on the head, and they hit the ground, and beer went everywhere.” Charles hooted.
“Bellini flipped a table when two rich, privileged men came to the bar and didn’t treat Stacy, the waitress there, right.
One of them, old and balding, told Stacy, who was only twenty-three at the time, that he could ‘show her a good time,’ and his buddy, another entitled creep, told her she had nice, uh, well, I won’t say it out loud because it’s rude and inappropriate.
He followed that up with what he wanted to do with them.
Stacy told Bellini, and Bellini stalked over like the devil was beside her and flipped their table straight over.
Their meals and their glasses crashed to the floor, and she told them to get the hell out or she’d start flipping out. ”
“Classic,” Fred said. “She flips the table and then warns those jerks she’s going to ‘flip out.’ They were baffled. No one flips out at rich men! What the hell was she doing? One of them started to argue with her, saying he was going to sue her and Whiskey…”
Everyone started to laugh and pound the table—they knew what was coming! It was part of the lore of Lady Whiskey’s.
“…Bellini grabbed two forks from the floor, held them straight out at the men like swords, and yelled, ‘Sue me! Try it! Now get out before I show you what I think of you, you lazy lumps of lackluster leeches!’”
Several people at the table repeated the line, “Get out before I show you what I think of you, you lazy lumps of lackluster leeches!”
“I will never forget that phrase.”
“So damn clever.”
“It’s famous. Famous!”
Oh, they all agreed that had been an epic night! Totally epic!
“And remember when Bellini stood in front of our table and reeled off the exact drink that we had all had the year before at our holiday dinner?” Bre’Anna asked. “She was home for a visit, and Whiskey put her to work.”
“Photographic memory,” D’Shawn said.
“My grandma comes to visit me once a year,” Bre’Anna said. “Every time Bellini’s here, she remembers my grandma’s drink. She knew it even when she was a little girl. Too young to serve, but no one told. Bellini always makes my grandma feel special.”
They all agreed that Bellini was her mother’s daughter, and they were glad she was organizing the Lady Whiskey’s T and A Christmas Burlesque Show.
And, they agreed, it was too bad that Bellini didn’t live here full time. She was so much fun. Such a good friend. Had a temperamental streak, though, like her momma and all her momma’s sisters!
“Those O’Donnell sisters! Don’t mess with any of them!”
Logan gritted his teeth, a black feeling of doom settling on his shoulders.
Fred glanced at Logan. “Uh, guys, let’s move on.”
An uncomfortable silence settled. Shoot! They’d all forgotten that Bellini and Logan had dated in high school. It was a long time ago, though…
He waved a hand. “Don’t worry. I like Bellini, too. She’s a fantastic woman.”
Once everyone left the meeting, Logan returned to his office with a view of the Rockies.
The stories about Bellini had hurt. He had a hundred more.
The truth was, there was no one like Bellini.
There never would be. She was original to the core.
She was a children’s book writer and illustrator.
She wasn’t officially an accountant, but she could outdo any accountant.
She’d been keeping the books at the bar since she was a kid.
She was a bartender with an impeccable memory who served drinks with flair to make others feel important.
She was deeply empathetic, an introverted cat lover, a crossword-puzzle fiend, a solid chess player, and a book lover who watched documentaries and romance movies.
She didn’t care how she looked and rarely wore makeup.
She talked to herself. She ran miles and miles to calm her mind. She wrote books that brought joy and laughter to thousands of kids.
He’d missed her. He would always miss her.
He sighed and looked out the windows. After college and grad school, a job as an architect back East, and a stint in London, where he’d traveled all over Western and Eastern Europe, he’d returned.
He’d missed Montana. He’d missed his mother’s land.
He could feel her out there with him when he rode his horses or hiked or watched sunsets and sunrises.
The land was inextricably wound up with his mother, her love, her courage, her devotion to him.
She’d loved the land and him. He’d loved the land and her.
They had had so much fun together outside, away from his raving father, hiking through pine trees, cross-country skiing, canoeing in the lake, taking in the view, and watching the wildlife. They’d talked and laughed and sometimes cried.
He felt obligated to regularly check on his ill father, but he could barely stand to be around him for more than an hour.
He had his sad suspicions about why his mother never left her husband, and it all had to do with wanting to protect her son from his father, which made Logan catch his breath every time he thought of it.
The sacrifices his mother had made for him…
But Logan had found peace here, and purpose, back in Kalulell.
In terms of business, he was swamped. People knew him and trusted him.
He had hired employees he knew and trusted.
A lot of the people he’d been friends with forever were still here.
Many were cousins of Bellini. Some weren’t.
There were a lot of O’Donnells running around, though.
Two of his friends from college had moved here, too—Kelson Halloway and Damon Zelder—and started businesses. Montana was heaven. Clear air, clear water, mountains, lakes, rivers, streams for fly-fishing, and solid people.
He was seen as a workaholic, but he wasn’t.
He filled his time with work because he hadn’t been able to fill his time with Bellini.
When he skied, he found peace in the mountains.
Same with hiking and biking. He had a boat he took out on Flathead Lake.
Sometimes he went with friends. Sometimes he went alone.
There was only one person he wanted to be with all the time, in the mountains, on forested trails, or on Flathead Lake.
And she had just said goodbye to him.
Again.
He sighed and rubbed his face and blinked as a few hot tears filled his eyes.
Ho ho ho.
He wished Christmas was ho-ho-over.