The President realized at last she was serious, grinned broadly and said in his hoarse Arkansas twang, "I'll make the arrangements right away." He bolted for the door before the bluebird of political correctness could settle on the First Lady's cashmere shoulders.
"While you're at it . . ." the First Lady called tartly.
The President froze. "New Year's?"
"A traditional New Year's. See to it."
"Done," said the President, relaxing all over again. His hand was on the door. He paused to issue a warm sigh of relief and forevermore regretted not flinging open the door and charging through to do his presidential duty.
"But in between, we're doing Kwanzaa," said the Voice of Steel.
The President whirled as if shot in the back. "Kwanzaa? The Black Christmas!"
"It's not Christmas," she corrected gently. "Christmas is the 25th. New Year's is January 1. Kwanzaa is celebrated during the six days in between. And don't say 'Black: Say 'Afrocentric.' It's more correct."
"Didn't we have this argument once before?" the President said, thick of voice and tongue.
"And I let you win. But the election is over with. We have nothing to lose by celebrating Kwanzaa."
"I won't have to wear a dashiki or anything, will I."
"No, we light a candle a day and host Afrocentric cultural events."
The President thought that wouldn't be so bad. And the election was behind them. What had they to lose-except a little more of their fading dignity?
"I'll look into it."
"No, you do it," the First Lady said, the familiar steel creeping back into her tone. Then she used her perfect white incisors to gouge a hank of dark meat from the bone.
Closing the door behind him, the President was halfway down the red-carpeted hall when he thought he heard the crunching of dry bone. He hoped she didn't choke on a bone fragment. Even for a lawyer, the woman sure had peculiar appetites.
The First Lady didn't choke. Not on the turkey thigh bone. And not on the Kwanzaa deal.
And so on the second day after Christmas, the President of the United States found himself at a Blue Room photo op standing before the African candelabra called a kinara, lighting the red candle that the First Lady whispered in his ear stood for the basic principle of kuji-chagulia.
"It means 'self-determination,'" she added.
"Maybe you should be lighting this one," said the President, holding the long candle lighter, which smelled exactly like the punk cigarettes he used to smoke in his boyhood days in Arkansas.
"Smile and light it," the First Lady urged with her most steely smile. "In that order."
The President applied the flame to the red candle.
"Now pick up the unity cup," she undertoned.
The President blew out the lighter and laid it aside. He took up the small wooden goblet that sat on the table mat on which the kinara reposed with quiet dignity.
"I drink to unity," said the President.
Flashbulbs popped in his face. The President looked into the cup. The previous day, after lighting the green unity candle, the fluid had been clear. Water. Now it was red.
"What's this?" he hissed through his own fixed smile.
"Goat blood or something," the First Lady said vaguely.
"I can't drink goat's blood!"
"If you don't, you'll insult our Afro-constituents."
"Let one of them drink goat blood."
And overhearing that, the Reverend Juniper Jackman stepped out of the backdrop of Afro-American dignitaries, wearing a gigantic smile and saying, "Allow me to instruct our President on the ways of my people."
The First Lady hissed like a cat. This was mistaken for the hissing of a steam radiator and unnoticed for what it was, while Black national leader and intermittent failed presidential candidate Juniper Jackman brought the cup to his lips and gulped it right down.
When he smiled again, his teeth were as red as melting Chiclets.
"What did I just drink?" he hissed through his own version of the fixed political smile.
"Goat blood," the President and First Lady whispered in chorus.
"We don't use goat blood in our Kwanzaa," Jackman said, still smiling his scarlet-and-ivory smile.
"I improvised," the First Lady said.
And the President clapped his hand on Jackman's back as the flashbulbs popped, stunning their unprotected retinas.
The questions started as the popping subsided.
"Mr. President. How do you feel about celebrating your first Kwanzaa?"
"It's really fun!"
"What is the significance of the red candle?" asked another.
Jackman answered that while the President looked to the First Lady for guidance.
"The red candle stands for the blood of the African people shed by the oppressive white man," he said.
Again the low hissing of the First Lady was mistaken for a leaky radiator valve.
"The green candle stands for our black youth and their future," Jackman continued. "While the middle black candle represents African-Americans as a people."
"I agree with everything Reverend Jackman just said," the President added brightly, happy to be off the hook.
"Mr. President, does it concern you that Kwanzaa has no traditional basis?" a reporter asked.