queen on her own color ♡ JFK

p.19 garland

Christina never questioned how or why Leo had stumbled into her new apartment. She wasn't really in a position to.

The starlet barely straightened up from her slouching position on the floor underneath the covered window to greet him in an odd way.

"Hey there, brother," she said to him with a distorted voice—something highly unlike herself—and a fist lifted up high.

Leo scowled at the unusual mannerisms coming from her.

"Do you have a fever?" As soon as he got closer, Leo crouched to outstretch his arm and touch her forehead with the back of his hand, and a stench made him realize what was truly going on. "You've been drinking."

"Mm-hmm. Drinking is nice."

"No, it's not. I want to speak to Christina, not Judy Garland on a Wednesday morning." He helped Pearl up from her abysmal stance and toward one of the stools by the kitchen counter. "Do you have any coffee here?"

He didn't wait for an answer before searching the cabinets on his own and finding a pot of Folgers instant coffee.

"This'll do," he said to himself and began the quick task.

Leonard soon journeyed back to his friend, holding a brand new cup with steamy swirls oozing from the top.

"It's only four in the afternoon, Pearl. Why are you doing this? Is it because he's back again?"

All Leo knew was that Lowell had returned, and that Christina hadn't been home in a while, and that she'd acquired this apartment, but he lacked the correlation between all of it.

Sat in an unseemly manner at the counter, Chris noisily blew air out of her lips a little too soon after sipping some of the hot coffee, causing droplets to splutter around.

"He ruined it."

"Ruined what?"

"He found out."

"Stop speaking in drunken riddles, please. I don't like the pronoun game."

"Jack saw my daddy. He knows I'm 'black'." Her fingers made half-hearted quotation marks, alluding in part to the fact that physically, her blackness wasn't apparent, and to how tired she was of labels like the 'one-drop rule' defining her and many others as fully black even if they weren't.

The realization that Christina and the President had become something serious hit him then. It was surrealistic. Her best friend and the freaking President of the United States were a couple.

"Damn." The cursing was both a reflection of that realization and of Christina's quandary. "How did he take it? What did he do?"

"Nothin'," she blabbered. "He just stood there like a statue until my daddy told him to leave. Hasn't spoken to me since then."

"He's been a little occupied lately, has he not? I'm sure he'll get back to you when he can."

This attitude toward the events differed from where their conversation at O'Nick's that was cut short by Ma was heading. Leo had been concerned about how they'd unfold and now that he was living it firsthand, he was taking a more liberal approach and giving Jack the benefit of the doubt. It made Chris' eyebrows curve up.

"You're sure? That's different from what you thought last time. You sound... reasonable. It's unlike you."

Leo let the cheap jab slide because of her inebriation. And because he admitted his jealousy might have caused him to be harsh, and blind to listen to common sense.

"I never said he'd react badly if he ever found out. To me, it was more like flipping a coin. But at the moment, we both know squat, and you can't do anything about it, so might as well move on with your life until he breaks his silence. Because he will."