The Color of Family

by Patricia Jones

  Antonia stood so as to be as close to eye to eye with her son as she could. She clutched the bottom of her bag in her hand as if it had some heft to it, then said, “I finally got it, baby. I finally got the proof you’ve been telling me I don’t have.”

  Aaron looked suspiciously around before whispering, “Ma, come on. How could you come to my job with this? This is where I work, Ma, please.” His voice cracked with desperation.

  “How could I come here?” Antonia said incredulously. “I came here to help you. You have a chance to break a story in which you are directly involved. I came here to give you the opportunity of your career. You could put this on the five o’clock news tonight!”

  Aaron said nothing as he took her by the arm and directed her through the door and into the newsroom. They went down a long narrow walkway that meandered past a number of cubicles and in every single one sat a woman, except for two with men, who all talked on the phone with the urgency of news. And when Antonia and Aaron came to the end of the line of all those pseudo-offices, Aaron led her into a room with a long table and chairs twisted haphazardly around them, as if the last people in the room had had to evacuate in haste. As he closed the door, he said, “Ma, sit down, please.”

  Antonia went to the head of the table and sat. Only when Aaron closed the door and came to sit beside her did she say, “I’m going to show you exactly what I have and shut your doubts up once and for all.” She dug in her purse and pulled out the small rectangular box. “Just wait till you hear what I have here.”

  Aaron looked questioningly at the thing, then at her and asked, “Ma, is that a tape recorder?”

  “Well, it sure isn’t a Victrola,” she said as she looked to make certain the tape was cued up.

  “Ma, where did you get that?”

  “I bought it, and that is, as the young kids say, so not the point,” she said with a mockingly arrogant throw of her head. “The point is what I have on this tape recorder.”

  “Ma,” Aaron shrieked, twisting where he sat in agitation. “I don’t want to hear this! I can’t imagine what it is you think you have here, but I swear I don’t want to be party to this!”

  Antonia turned on the tape recorder and Agnes Cannon’s voice, nasally and drawling nearly every word, floated from it in its one dimension. And Antonia watched with an intense smile as her son stared intently at the recorder as if he were looking directly into Agnes Cannon’s mouth, waiting for the moment when she’d say it. “Just wait, it’s coming,” Antonia whispered to him. She sat in anticipation herself, until the electronic version of Agnes said all that Antonia would ever need to confirm that she’d been right all these years. “You hear! Did you hear that? She’s admitting it in her sly old way,” she said excitedly.

  Aaron looked at her with squinted eyes, then said, “No, Ma. I didn’t hear anything. I heard her talking about the supposition of Clayton Cannon being your brother’s son. But—”

  “Here, let me rewind it. And this time really listen,” she said as the high-pitch squeak of Agnes’s voice going fast and in reverse took over.

  But Aaron spoke up urgently. “No, Ma, I don’t want to hear it again.” He stood up and walked to the other end of the table, rubbing the back of his neck like a man filled to his capacity with frustration before continuing, “Look, Ma, about the only thing I’m willing to believe right now is that, okay, you knew Agnes Cannon down in New Orleans where she had a love affair with your brother, and yes, okay, I do believe that somehow you got the woman over to your house. But there was nothing that she said on this tape that even comes close to her admitting what you’re saying about Clayton Cannon being Uncle Emeril’s son. Now I want you to be reasonable, Ma, and tell me what you really hear that woman saying on that tape, because I swear to God, I don’t see how you hear anything she said as an admission of anything other than the fact that she loved Uncle Emeril.”

  Antonia, her face fallen to the floor, put the recorder back into her purse. She blew out a long defeated breath and said in the smallest voice she’d ever known, “You had to have seen her eyes. Her eyes said it all, and just her whole spirit told me.” She slumped back in the oversized, boss’s chair, knowing that she couldn’t begin to conquer the heft of Aaron’s skepticism. Then she continued in a deflated tone, “I’m not making this up, Aaron, and I’m not crazy enough to be imagining this, either.”

  Aaron’s demeanor softened as he went back to where his mother was and sat beside her again, saying, “All right, Ma, I agree with you. Half of what is truth is visual. But you’ve got to admit that she didn’t say anything on this tape about Clayton Cannon being Uncle Emeril’s son. I mean, what am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to believe? Nothing in what she said there on that tape incriminated her in the way you’re suggesting it did. I’m sorry, Ma, but it just didn’t.” He drew in a considerable breath that brought with it the nerve to say, “Yeah, Ma, it’s clear that she and Uncle Emeril were gettin’ it on, but from where I sit, she came there to see you because of all those letters you sent her harassing her to death.”

  “Harassing her!” Antonia said, pumped up with angry breath.

  Just then, the door opened with an immediacy that, along with the thin face of a man with a shock of white hair streaking toward the back of his head, was enough to startle Antonia into a small quiver and shake of her head. She regarded the man’s creamy brown face for a few seconds, trying to decide if he was bona fide handsome or if he was one of those rare, unfortunate few people born with such exotic beauty that he had actually gone the next step, becoming positively odd-looking. So, since she’d always known that staring was ill-mannered, she said, “Hello.”

  “Hello,” the man said. “Aaron, I thought I saw you come in here. Listen, we’ve got a story breaking out in Randallstown. A hostage situation and shootout with the police. All the information is pretty sketchy at this point, but the word is that it’s a domestic thing. I just sent Keith out there to set up for a live feed. Anyway, I need you in the studio at the desk, ready to roll with it if we need to break into Oprah before five. Maggie’s already in there waiting for you, so I really need you to move your—” He regarded Antonia with a half, insincere smile, as if he were holding back the salt at the tip of his tongue for the benefit of this elder woman. Then he continued with no less urgency, “I need you to hustle.”

  And hustle he did. Aaron jumped up, leaving the chair haphazardly twisted from the table. “I’m there, Mark,” he said. Then he turned to his mother quickly and said, “Come on, Ma.”

  “Oh, this is your mother?” Mark asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Aaron said. He paused before doing what would be natural under most circumstances, as if too hurried for an introduction, or possibly too doubtful about it. Then he continued, “Ma, this is our new news director here, Mark Allen. Mark, this is my mother, Antonia Jackson.”

  “Mrs. Jackson, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Mark said.

  Antonia passed by Aaron and quickly studied the chair he’d just let fly willy-nilly, thinking that this must be the way chairs end up in newsrooms, with breaking stories and all. Then she got to Mark and took the hand he offered her and said with enough smiling charm to warm a newsman’s guarded heart, “The pleasure’s all mine.”

  As Aaron brushed past the two, he was stopped when he heard Mark say, “Mrs. Jackson, would you like to sit inside the studio and watch Aaron do the show?”

  “Oh, I’d love that!” Antonia chirped giddily. “All these years he’s been working here and he’s never, ever asked me to come in and watch him work live. I would just love to.”

  Well, even with a story breaking and Baltimore’s need to know about it, Aaron could not move from where he’d stopped in mid-stride. He looked absolutely stricken with his eyes shocked into a widened stare and his mouth open. And at first, what came out were unintelligible words that seemed to be garbled by some kind of dense filter just inside his mouth that would not let his thoughts free. Then as if he’d just spit the f
ilter out like a man with the sheer desperation to save his own life, he said, “Oh no, Mark, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I don’t like having anyone in the studio other than the people who have to be there. Besides, I’m not sure if it’s such a good idea with that story breaking and everything.”

  “Oh, come on, Aaron,” Mark said, slapping Aaron on his back and leading the way toward the studio. “What could happen? Let’s just get on in there. I need you on that desk ready to go right now, and there’s no time to debate something this trivial. Your mother’s a sensible lady. She’s not going to interrupt the newscast in any way. You won’t, will you, Mrs. Jackson?”

  “No, of course I won’t,” Antonia said, staring daggers into the side of Aaron’s face, trying to get him to look at her and take them directly like a man.

  “Okay then, it’s all settled. Your mother will sit in and you’ll give her the thrill of her life—to watch her son do what he does best.”

  Aaron picked up his pace as if he were trying to lose his mother in the newsroom. He said over his shoulder, “Besides, Ma, don’t you need to get home and feed Tippy the Fourth?”

  “Since when have you been so concerned about Tippy the Fourth? You hardly know she’s alive,” Antonia said in a whisper to hide the snippiness of her agitation from Mark. Then, she said a little louder, but no less acerbically, “Tippy the Fourth will be just fine till I get home, and you know that.”

  So, with that resolved, Mark said to a large rugged man in dungarees and a faded well-worn shirt who looked more like he’d be ready to fell a tree than work in a news studio, “That’s Aaron’s mom. She’s going to sit in the studio and watch the newscast. Can you get her settled in there?”

  “Sure can, boss,” the man said, smiling at Antonia who was just past Aaron’s shoulder.

  “Terrific,” Mark said in the way men accustomed to always having their commands obeyed speak. “Josh here’s the floor director, Mrs. Jackson. He’ll take care of you. Enjoy the show, Mrs. Jackson.” And then he walked away with a swagger that wreaked of his authority.

  Josh led Antonia into the studio as she watched Aaron, out of the corner of her eye, go through another door for his makeup. Once inside the studio where it seemed as if the space above her head went on forever in infinite darkness, she looked all around, amazed by everything, and knowing what absolutely nothing was called. And she never would have imagined that one side of the studio would be so brightly lit in such striking comparison to the other half, which was in stark darkness. So as she marveled at it all like a tourist dumbfounded by newness, she was suddenly aware of more than the presence of just herself and Josh.

  “So, Maggie, I didn’t get a chance to say welcome back from vacation. How was your New Year’s Eve?” Josh said.

  And without looking up from the pages she studied, Maggie Poole said, “Oh, Josh, you know how it is. New Year’s Eve is like bad sex. It’s nothing but weeks and days and hours and then seemingly unending minutes of basically uninteresting foreplay leading up to one anticlimactic second you’d rather forget anyway.”

  And at Maggie’s analogy, Antonia let out the bashful twitter that seemed to have been channeled from a virginal youngster. She wasn’t quite sure which embarrassed her more—hearing her son’s lover say such things, or knowing that none of it would ever have been said for her to hear had Maggie been aware of her presence. The worst part, though, was that Antonia felt like an accidental voyeur, particularly since it was possible that she was being given a glimpse into her son’s sex life, which was somehow dysfunctional by the sound of Maggie’s lackluster account. So the only thing Antonia could think to say that would possibly make an itchy nightmare of a situation less so was “That was very funny.”

  “Mrs. Jackson!” Maggie said, her voice crumbling with the same fear it just might have had if she’d unintentionally said what she’d said into an open microphone for all of Baltimore to hear.

  “Maggie, how are you sweetie?” Antonia said as she stepped gingerly over wires and maneuvered around things to get to where Maggie sat on the set.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Jackson. It’s just so good to see you.” Then Maggie hung her head and looked past Antonia’s eyes to say, “About what I was saying to Josh. You know, we…Well, I was just—”

  Antonia stopped Maggie’s fumbling and stumbling for words by grabbing her up. She hugged her close, and when she was through, she took one step back and said, “Why haven’t you two been around lately? You are still seeing one another, aren’t you? You know Aaron wouldn’t tell me if you weren’t because he knows I’d give him the devil for it.”

  Maggie laughed, smiling broadly before saying, “Oh yes, Mrs. Jackson. We’re stuck in love with each other and not going anywhere. It’s just that I’ve moved my aunt in with me and she’s nearly blind, so I’ve had to make a lot of adjustments to my schedule to accommodate her and all.”

  Antonia didn’t speak right away, being under the momentary spell of Maggie’s smile, which always made her think of the sweetness of children. Then she said, slapping her flattened palm to her thigh, remembering, “Oh, that’s right. Aaron did tell me that you’d taken in your widowed aunt. And he did say that that’s why you’re not doing the eleven o’clock news anymore. You are such a good woman. I guess that’s why I love you so much,” and Antonia took Maggie into a hug once more.

  “Well, I guess it’s like they say, I’ll get my rewards in heaven,” she said as she patted Antonia’s back in a way that seemed instinctive.

  “You’ll get them there, and you’ll get them right here on earth too. You’d better believe it, because I know it’s true.” Antonia slackened her hold on Maggie and whispered, “And part of your reward will be my son. I can’t wait until the day you’re my daughter-in-law, although I don’t know what my son could have done to deserve a peach like you, but you didn’t hear that from me,” and she laughed heartily, giving Maggie one last squeeze before she stepped back, having heard footsteps that she assumed were Aaron’s.

  Maggie let out a nervous burst of laughter, then said, “Oh my, well that’s some praise you sing of me, Mrs. Jackson.”

  “Okay, okay,” Aaron said good-naturedly. “Let’s knock this off. We’ve got a show to do.” He sat in his chair, just to the right of Maggie’s and looked at his mother impatiently, then let his eyes drift down to study the news copy in his hands.

  “All right, I’m going. Josh, where do I sit?”

  “Right over here, ma’am.”

  “I’m not going to be on camera, am I?” she said as again she navigated her way over cables and around things.

  “Oh no ma’am. You’re way out of shot of any of these cameras.”

  “Where are the cameras, anyway?” she asked as she settled herself into the chair in which Josh directed her to sit, which sat among two other chairs and a small table that looked good for absolutely nothing. The whole little area, which was hidden in darkness, looked to her like an abandoned living room corner.

  “See those three big structures right there? Well, they’re the cameras.”

  Antonia looked skeptically at them, studying them with her head turned first this way and then that, and said, “Well, now, I didn’t expect them to look like that. To be that big. I always thought they’d look like regular movie cameras. You know, like the ones you see those guys out on the street carrying for those reporters.”

  “Well, these are the studio cameras” was all that Josh said distractedly. His tone and actions made it clear that something was about to happen and he was about to turn his attention from her. He looked over to Aaron and Maggie, who had already slipped into their five o’clock news personas, ready for the camera. He said, “Cue to Aaron. We’re ready to go in five, four, three…”

  And that’s when Aaron said, “Good afternoon. We’re interrupting regular programming to take you to Randallstown where a hostage situation is underway. Six people are being held hostage in a home on Allenswood Road, including a three-year-old g
irl. The shooting between the hostage taker and the police has prompted the police to block off Brenbrook Road from Liberty Heights to McDonough, and all the side streets surrounding Allenswood. People in this area are being warned to stay in their homes. Right now, we’re going live to Keith Pettiford who’s at the scene. Keith, what’s the latest?”

  Antonia could hear the reporter’s voice coming from somewhere to the right of where she sat, and judging from Aaron’s and Maggie’s gazes, the screen Maggie watched must have been smack between cameras two and three, and the one Aaron watched must have been smack between cameras one and two. As badly as she also wanted to be taken live to the scene of the crime in progress, she couldn’t go. No matter how hard she strained and craned her neck, her just-barely side view of the monitor was blocked by the bulk of camera three. Camera three. She suddenly thought about camera three, and then two, and then one. There wasn’t a soul behind even one of the cameras, yet these things moved back and forth, from Aaron to Maggie as if someone were pushing and pulling them. They had to be computerized, she thought, and operated by someone up there in that dimly lit room with the board full of buttons and knobs and sliding doo-dads, whatever that place was called. She’d only been in there once, and then only briefly. Still, that couldn’t help her to reason why the age of computers had come to this place to take three good jobs from three men who just may not be competent to do anything else but push and pull a camera around.

  While she’d sat pondering the fate of the displaced cameramen, the news had gone into its regular hour and Maggie was talking about something completely unrelated to the shooting out in Randallstown. Whatever it was that was hot enough to be news had eluded Antonia in that moment, because all she could wonder about now was why Aaron was burning a stare into her. She couldn’t imagine what she could have done while simply sitting there quietly that would warrant such a look from him. So she stared back at him, with questioning eyes and an unsure smile. They locked onto one another in this way until the commercial break, and even though there was no possible way her voice could have been heard throughout Baltimore, Antonia still whispered to Aaron, “What?”