queen on her own color ♡ JFK

p.9 nervous

With new acts in mind and the big one just around the corner, the girls assembled at the Cherry Pop on a Saturday, nearing the middle of July. Complaints against the heat were unending, and some kept asking Pop if he was going to give them a break so they could have an arguably refreshing day at the beach soon.

Ivy waved a fan toward her face, blowing strawberry blonde clumps of bangs away from it in the process.

"When are you installing air conditioning in this old joint?"

"This place is meant to make one hot and bothered, Ivy. Can't have the audience cold as corpses, now, can we?" The chorus manager retorted.

"We're sweating ourselves dry here, Pop," Sherry, the only woman with pure black hair in the whole chorus, complained.

"You'll live." It might have appeared as indifference, but they all were accustomed to Pop sounding like that—he didn't really mean it. "So, you all know Pearl is going up to the White House in a few weeks. She needs backup singers for the loco-motion, three to be precise. Any volunteers?"

All the girls threw their hands up, surprisingly, so did Junie. Although the girl would be a fool to pass on the opportunity just because of a petty, nonsensical strife.

"You, you, and you," he said, first pointing at Sherry's heat-dazed face, then at Annette, and Junie lastly. "You'll stay back after tonight's show and Pearl will tell you what to do for the White House."

"I'll also need Ralph for the If I can't have you duo," Pearl added.

The Frank Sinatra lookalike revived with those words, jumping up from his previous position and recovering some color on his beige complexion and big blue eyes.

Pop made a sound of unbothered approval. "All yours."

"Even if you're not participating, you're all invited. You too, Salvador." Knowing what it was like to be a stagehand and often kept in the sidelines, she wished for everyone to be included.

That was why, after rehearsal, Christina wrote down all the names for the invitations. She sat in a private changing room next to Pop's office. It was the quietest place there, and it smelled of cherry perfume and of all the flowers from admirers that the girls stored in it.

As her quill, the one from her father that she carried around everywhere, scribbled out the beautiful lettering she'd been practicing, the doorknob made a rattle. Her head turned to see someone entering. It was a languid man with skin full of craters whom she did not recognize, although there was a déjà vu aspect to it.

"Hey there," he said to her with a subdued tone. He carried a pen and notepad in his left hand.

On edge despite his docile greeting, Christina stopped what she was doing to stand up.

"Who are you and how did you get in here?"

"Jerry Weisner. I'm a reporter."

"And I'm not interested," she told him, firmly pointing at the door.

Mr Weisner completely ignored that and proceeded to approach her.

"Trust me. You will be. It'll be good to have us... rooting for you." Continuing with that jaunty tone made him think to himself that he was the perfect deceiver. But Christina knew better, thanks in part to Marilyn, she knew the media were predators and that right now, what the man was seeing before him was a jumpy little bunny. "You could be our next cover."

The predator laid his hand on her forearm and made her jolt, causing that image to become even more vivid in his mind.

Christina shook off his grip. "Don't touch me."