Chapter 37 #2
We turned down the lights, ready to invite the guests in.
The loft had been transformed. It was no longer a modern place of business.
It was a Christmas wonderland. The tiny lights on the tables and the stage and across the ceiling glowed.
The candles flickered. The huge white snowflakes covered in silver glitter sparkled and twirled.
The tables along the side covered in white tablecloths were all ready to hold the immense amounts of food that would soon make the tables groan.
“Here we go, everyone!” I stood on top of a chair so everyone could hear me.
“Thank you again for all your help. Remember tonight is for the kids of Kalulell. We’re here to make Christmas fun and happy for them.
Every minute that you spent getting ready for the burlesque show, whether it was preparing for your performance, or making decorations, or building a stage, or creating these incredible, artful snowflakes, or rolling in tables, or cooking for our potluck, you contributed to all the presents we’re going to buy the kids.
Thank you, truly. From me and, especially, from my mother. ”
Everyone clapped and cheered. “Here we go, everyone. Have a happy night!”
Logan and I opened the doors, and people streamed in, hugging, laughing, greeting one another, their arms laden with platters of food. The Christmas cheer grew louder as people got their beer and wine, and dinner began.
Oh, my dear mother. She always has to make a grand entrance.
Dinner had been cleared, and everyone was awaiting the grand T and A (tinsel and All I Want for Christmas Is Santa) event.
I nodded at the tech, lighting, and music people, and the lights and music suddenly snapped off, encasing the room in darkness except for the thousands of tiny white lights.
Everyone went wild. Then, so dramatically, one white spotlight popped on, and there, magically, in the middle of the stage, stood my mother, dressed in the most outlandish, feathery, sparkling, sequined red dress anyone had ever seen, complete with a long train.
She raised her arms, her smile beaming, her enormous white feathered angel wings popping out behind her.
She wore a glittery golden halo, which was hilarious and ironic, given my mother’s “salty” language, her loving but tough demeanor, her generosity, and her bawdy humor.
She flapped her wings, twirled around, her white hair shining, and fluttered her spiky fake eyelashes as everyone stood and cheered at the tops of their lungs.
“Merry Christmas!” Mom yelled. “Merry Christmas from your Whiskey angel!”
More laughter. Whiskey is so funny!
When people settled down, she grabbed the microphone. “Thank you so much everyone for being here. My heart is happy knowing the kids of Kalulell will all have a Santa-blessed Christmas.”
We all clapped and hooted for my mother, a dear friend, a caring sister, a loving aunt, and the best mom in the world.
She pointed at me. “That’s my girl, Bellini O’Donnell. Now she’s one ball-busting elf, isn’t she? Did y’all thank her for the work she did?”
It appeared that people there agreed with my mother—I was a ball-busting elf.
“Come on up here, Bellini.”
I did because she insisted.
“Every year, since Bellini was five years old, she has helped me with this show. She works harder than I do, but this year, I couldn’t do anything because Dr. Brenda over here…” She pointed accusingly to Dr. Brenda, who was sitting with her husband and five children. “She stole my uterus!”
Dr. Brenda stood, holding a baby, and bowed as we cheered and mock-booed her.
“But Dr. Brenda and Brad are going to do a routine to remind all of you of the importance of checkups and colonoscopies and mammograms!”
The crowd booed again, good-naturedly, and Gertrude Lenger, a college professor, said something about not liking having “a snake up her butt,” and one of my cousins, Lilann, said she did not like having her boobs “squished like pancakes” during her mammogram.
The funny show had begun! Whiskey was at her best, even without her uterus!
“I think we’re ready to show off our performers!
” my mother shouted from her red throne near the stage.
“Who wants to see our dentist, Dr. Zoe Castille, in black leather? You do? What about our kindergarten teacher, Erez LaToya? He’s here, too, and he’s in a flashing dress and red heels and ready to, you guessed it, sing!
” More cheers. “We even have our heart surgeon, Sanjay Patal, and his husband, bone surgeon Mike Herschbaum, here in their tassels. No, you won’t see either of them dressed like this when they get their knives and axes out and open you up, now will you?
Let’s get Lady Whiskey’s T and A Christmas Burlesque Show started!
” She fluttered her white feathery wings again.
“Our first performance of the night is…”
I stepped off the stage and pointed at the group who were the first act. “You’re up!” I announced.
My mother’s red dress shimmered, her halo glowed, and the show began with a bang.
In a private area of the office, surrounded by red curtains that we had set up as a dressing room, I gaped at myself.
Logan stood right beside me. Onstage, my mother continued her silly banter and off-the-cuff jokes, the music blared, and the performances started and ended, the audience delighted.
I stared at myself in shock. We’d had three mirrors set up so the burlesque performers could see what they looked like before heading to the stage.
As everyone was supposed to dress in a burlesque style, they were decked out in towering hats and fishnets, high heels and knee-high boots, colorful satins and silks, sequins and wings, flapper dresses and corsets, wobbly but huge headdresses, and heavy, sparkly makeup.
I was decked out in…almost nothing.
“Oh no oh no oh no,” I breathed. I could not look away from my barely dressed self.
“Oh yes oh yes oh yes,” Logan said, eyeing me up and down.
He was in a black suit, a black hat with a red feather, and a red “boa constrictor,” otherwise known as a feathered boa, as planned.
The feathered boa would dramatically fly off at the beginning of our routine.
A long red silky scarf was wrapped around his neck.
“I don’t think my heart is beating, sweetheart.
I may need to get Sanjay in here to operate. ”
Stacy had designed and sewn my costume. I had trusted her and my mother!
Trusted them! Stacy had taken my measurements, but the bodice was way too small.
My boobs were almost bursting over the top of a teeny tiny gold-sequined flapper-style dress.
It was too short, too. One could almost get a peek at my ya-ya.
I was wearing fishnets and knee-high shiny red boots. Was this even burlesque?
“How about we go upstairs and skip the show?” Logan said, his voice quite jolly. “Please? Pretty please?”
“Logan!” I snapped. “I am barely decent!”
“I think you look sexy.”
“I am half naked, Logan!” I snapped, once again.
“I can see that.” His eyes dropped to my cleavage. “Looks good!”
“My boobs are half out! When you start spinning me around, they will probably pop out, and I’ll be arrested.
This is a size small! I haven’t been a size small since middle school!
Maybe not even then. We have to fix this!
” My breathing was not normal. We were act number fourteen.
We were expected onstage in minutes. “We have got to get me covered up. Now! RIGHT NOW! Logan, please.” I turned to him. “Help me.”
He saw my panic and lost the lusty expression. “Okay, honey.” He stared at me and my half-naked body—analytically this time.
We had to do something. Anything. I was not going to dance on a stage worried about my nipples surprising everyone. This was a family show!
He said, “Huh,” then he took off his long red silk scarf. He studied my burgeoning boobs.
“I can’t keep the top part up!” I pulled on it. “It’s gaping!”
“Hang on.” He went to the office supplies in the cabinet and got a stapler and scissors.
He cut the scarf in half. He stapled one end to the top of my bodice, with about ten staples, then flung it over my shoulder.
He stapled the other half the same way, threw that over my shoulder, then tied it in a big red bow at the back of my neck. I felt my boobs yanked up.
“There ya go, fair Bellini. Your boobs are fully covered and tucked in.”
It was true. He’d done it. My boobs would not pop out and make a scene. They were covered by the scarf. Next problem. “My skirt,” I said, pulling at the hem. “Way too short. You can almost see my ya-ya.”
“Your ya-ya?” Logan smiled.
“Logan, this is not funny.”
“No.” He put a stern expression on his face.
“This is not funny. This is a serious situation. We do not want a wardrobe malfunction. Let me think. I got it.” He hurried to his office and came back with a black dress shirt.
It was huge because he is huge. He cut two wide strips, then stapled the strips to the front and back hem of my skirt, making it about nine inches longer.
Then he took scissors and created a three-inch fringe.
“What are you, a clothing designer?” I asked as he carefully cut. “You made me a hippie skirt.” I twirled around when he was done. Where my gold dress ended, the black hippie fringe skirt began. “I like it.”
He grinned. “You would have made a cool and groovy hippie, Bellini. The lights are down out there, so no one will notice that we’ve pieced you together with a stapler.
I liked it the other way better, but what Bellini wants, I’ll provide.
” He dropped a kiss on my lips. “But tonight, upstairs, you’re wearing the original. ”