Funny! Oh, everyone thought Colin was over-the-top funny. More laughter and clapping and whispers of lettuce.
I felt my face grow hot again and snuck a peek at Logan. He was definitely confused.
“Wow, Bellini!” Mrs. Rosenbaum said. She was the juggler. “Quite a list! Let’s give Bellini a hand for her slide deck and her T and A to-do list!” She stood and, literally, juggled plastic hands. It was a little gross seeing detached hands flying through the air, but we liked it anyhow because she is an incredible juggler. “Too bad I can’t juggle…” Mrs. Rosenbaum paused, too, for effect.
“Lettuce,” everyone shouted together.
“No one writes a better to-do list than Bellini,” my cousin Jaxi said. “I’ve been looking at her lists since kindergarten. One list consisted of who was going to wake everyone up from their nap each day with a feather and how hitting someone with the feather was, and I quote, ‘Bad feather manners.’ Most of us couldn’t read it as we were only five years old—well, Logan could. He could probably even read the word…”
Gall. There was that pause.
Everyone yelled, “Lettuce!”
Oh, more merriment! I wanted to drop through the floor.
“Good job, Bellini, with the slide deck, but perhaps if we are to bring a salad, it would be helpful if we had a list of the best types of…” Truck O’Neal paused and held the room in the palm of his hand.
“Lettuce!” they boomed out, cackling with glee.
Yes, yes! Everyone agreed a list of best lettuces was well needed. Wasn’t this fun and funny? Was my face on fire? It felt like it.
Logan looked so confused. What was all this talk about lettuce?
I quickly thanked everyone for coming, trying to change the “lettuce” subject, told them my mother would be the emcee, and we were so grateful to everyone there for putting together an act or a song or a dance for the kids of Kalulell, blah blah blah.
“Oh yes!” I said, going to the last slide on the slide deck. “Remember to recommend Whiskey to be the next bachelorette onMarry Me. She says she’s going to find a husband.” I sighed—I did not mean to sigh—and that set off another round of laughter.
“Yay, Whiskey,” someone said, and many announced they had already nominated her to be on the dating show.
“How is her uterus?” someone else asked, in all seriousness. “Is she feeling better after her uterus was stolen by Dr. Brenda?”
“Is she resting?”
“Is she bored? I bet she can’t wait to get back to Lady Whiskey’s.”
“Can I bring her dinner tomorrow? I know there’s a list to bring her dinners, but I’m making my grandmother’s beef stroganoff, and I know she’ll love it…”
“Will you have enough lettuce for my hamburger tomorrow, Bellini?” Sam Sato called out. “Or is it all gone?”
I would never live down the lettuce incident. I knew that.
After the meeting, everyone filed out, excitedly talking about their acts, which included comedy routines, magic tricks, and two eighty-year-olds singing a naughty—but not too naughty—Christmas song about Santa and Mrs. Claus.
“Nice job, Bellini,” Logan said when it was just us.
“Thank you.” His blue jacket and flannel shirt emphasized his shoulders. Jeans hugged him, but not too tight, and he wore winter work boots. He’s always been tall, but the years have added bulk. He is simply a smoldering, hot human tank now. “You’re a hot tank.”
He blinked, then smiled. “A hot tank?”
I slapped a hand to my forehead. “I should not have said that out loud, Logan.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. You look…” I paused, then decided to be honest. “You look amazingly good.”
The smile disappeared, and a serious expression came over his face. “And you, Bellini, are even more beautiful than you were before.”
I felt tears fizz in my eyes. Martin told me I was beautiful only before he married me. Afterward, I rarely heard it, and only when he was trying to appease me. But here was Logan, as always, making me feel better about myself.
