Just as she asked, Rick appeared with a tray carrying the pasta and tea. He looked with surprise at his father-in-law, as if Junior was the last person he’d expected to see. “How are you, Dr. Jackson?” he said as he set the tray down in front of Ellen, then stood to shake Junior’s hand.
“How are you, son? How’re you holding up under the pressure?” Junior said as he eased into the chair by the window after helping Antonia ease into its twin on the other side of a small table.
“Oh well, it’s nerve wracking, that’s for sure. The anxiety of knowing that this baby is really coming is enough to make me shake in my shoes. Last night I slept in my clothes, and most likely I’m going to do the same thing tonight.”
“Oh yeah, Poppa, he’s a mess,” Ellen said twirling the skinny pasta onto her fork, as she split her mind between what she was saying and how the pasta really did have the downy texture of what angels’ hairs must feel like on the tongue. And while she twirled away, it struck her that Rick wasn’t moving fast enough to get her father whatever he wanted, so quick as lightning her humor shifted when she completed, “Rick, get something for my father. I’m sure he wants something.”
“Ellen, honey, I was just about to ask him,” Rick said as if trying to keep tight hold of his patience. Then he turned to Junior and asked, “Dr. Jackson, can I get you anything?”
“Well I’ll take a cola if you have one.”
“We sure do. Can I get you something to snack on, like some cheese and crackers?”
“That might be nice,” Junior said.
“Come to think of it, Rick, I wouldn’t mind a few myself,” Antonia said.
“No problem,” Rick said as he turned to leave. “I’ll just bring a tray.” Then he looked at Ellen, as if he knew he’d be expected to ask, “Honey, are you all set? Can I get you something else?”
“I guess some water, please” was all she said before sliding another forkful in her mouth. And before she took another bite, she said, “So you two don’t have to rush back home, do you? Why don’t you stay for dinner?”
“Dinner?” Antonia asked, surprised. “I would think that pasta might be your dinner.”
“Well, Ma, dinner’s not for another three or four hours. I’m sure I’ll be ready to eat a little something for dinner. The point is not what or whether I’ll eat, it’s that you two don’t have to worry about dinner when you get home, and I’ll get to spend some time with you.”
“Before you send me to the crazy house,” Antonia said jokingly.
Ellen’s face fell so suddenly that tears seemed immediate, and then she realized the levity her mother had found in it all. She looked at Antonia then cocked her head one way and the other. There was so much about this child of New Orleans that Ellen would never understand, much in the same way she could never quite get her mind to process that place in the bayou that had a box for every shade in the race of black folks. And it was in this moment that she knew her mother was like the jazz whose roots also grew up out of the Big Easy—never the same way twice, and much more complex than the simplicity of a mere melody. And because of her mother’s ability to laugh off something quite so hurtful as her family wanting her to have her mind checked for cobwebs and cracks, Ellen said, “Ma, are you really okay about this? I mean you’re joking about it now, but does it hurt you?”
“You told her?” Junior said, regarding Ellen with the shock of his widened eyes.
“Yeah, Poppa, and she said she’d do it.”
Junior sat forward in his seat and turned his whole body toward Antonia and said, “Antonia, you’re really going to do this? I thought you’d kick like a mule.”
“Junior, please. How long have you known me?” And she hesitated as if she’d let him answer, but before he could, she continued, “For as long as I can remember everybody thought I was crazy. Fou-fou. I knew a long time ago that I wasn’t crazy. That’s always been enough for me. Because whether you’re crazy or whether you’re sane, somebody, at some point, is always going to think they have cause to question your sanity. Remember that. Both of you.” Then she leaned toward where Ellen sat on the sofa and lowered her voice as if she was attempting to whisper—but not really—and said, “And remember, honey, down south, you don’t ask people if they have crazy people in their family, you ask which side they’re on. It’s just your bad luck that they’re on both, because this one isn’t playing with a completely full deck either,” she said, raising her eyebrows drolly and pointing playfully at Junior. But not so playfully. “Anyway, it’s like the Bible says, ye who has the truth lives without fear.”
Ellen let out a child’s giggle knowing she was the only one who saw her father shake his head from a years-old vexation and frustration with her mother—his wife—and all those biblical non-quotes. Then, as her laugh faded, she smiled distantly and to no one else, and thought about her baby boy and just what he might think of her, his mother, forty-one years hence. Yet it was a thought too daunting to ponder thoroughly, placing herself across the room in her mother’s shoes, sitting with her son and his wife—oh, heaven forbid his wife!—with their talk of having her mind checked for the same cobwebs and cracks that she thinks are in her own mother’s mind. And so she looked despondently at her mother and thought about jazz.
Aaron sat at his computer fighting against the momentum of his heavy, nodding head that could have slammed his face down onto the keyboard in a solid sleep. After the night he’d just had with Ellen—and until she gets that baby out of her, he thought, any time with her was more than one man should have to bear—and having gotten only an hour of sleep after that, he couldn’t imagine how he would get through the newscast. He’d hit a wall hours ago, and now all that was keeping him awake was sheer will.
It seemed to him that his mind was taking hold of information several seconds behind real time, which would turn him into quite the fool on the air so he reread the script that one of the writers had put into the system for him, because it didn’t completely register the first time. It read well enough, close enough, he thought to his own speaking style. He went on to the next one. This time around, though, he read it aloud, but plainly—without his newsman’s voice. “Today, as Clayton Cannon comes to the last leg of his European tour, back here at home he got a rather special delivery. Cannon will return to Baltimore to a new concert grand piano that was delivered to his condominium at Harbor Court. But the piano was too large for normal delivery, so it had to be lifted by crane way up to the twentieth floor. The piano is reported to be a Bursendorfer, a German-made piano that is said to be the best made today, better, even than the renowned Steinway. Nothing but the best for the best. He will store the Steinway concert grand he’s now touring with at the Meyerhoff, making it easier to take on the road with him.” He paused to read cut away to interview of president of Meyerhoff, then cue back to Aaron. Then he continued to read aloud, “Apparently, his new residence high up on the twentieth floor makes taking the Steinway piano in and out for tours a bigger production than a staging of Aida. He will not tour with the Bursendorfer because many concert halls are not willing to pay the costs of insuring it.”
Aaron stared blankly at the screen while he felt his ire rise—rise higher and hotter until he could no longer sit there and abide it another second. He leapt from where he sat as he brought his fist lightly down on the edge of his desk. Before he knew it, he found himself in the newsroom, not really in a rage, but furious despite his natural evenness. “I need to see the writer who wrote the script on Clayton Cannon.”
“I think it was Bobby,” someone said.
“Where’s Bobby?” Clayton demanded. “I want to see him right now.”
A young face turned from across the room with surprised eyes. “Yeah, Aaron, here I am. Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, something’s wrong. The script you wrote for me on Clayton Cannon. What kind of crap was that?” Aaron said walking over to Bobby with his hands on his hips in a challenging manner.
“What do you mean?�
�� Bobby said.
“What I mean is that I wouldn’t say anything so absolutely cornball as ‘Apparently, his new residence high up on the twentieth floor makes taking the piano in and out for tours a bigger production than a staging of Aida.’ Who in the hell is going to get that, man? Not everybody in this city is an opera fan and most don’t know Aida from their Aunt Ada. It’s just a stupid reference, that’s all.”
Bobby opened his mouth to defend his script when Mark sauntered from his office to stand in the middle of the newsroom, directly between the two. “What’s this about?”
“It’s about this script, man,” Aaron said, throwing up his hands in frustration. “He wrote this script about Clayton Cannon having a new piano delivered to him, then he writes this corny-ass reference to a staging of Aida. I mean, Mark, do I need to point out to you what’s wrong with that? How many people are going to get that, man? How many people are going to, first of all, know that Aida is a reference to an opera, and then understand that it’s a damned difficult opera to stage? I’ll tell you how many—about two.” He was visibly disturbed, but on his face, in his posture, in the way he paced in a circle, he revealed emotions he wished he weren’t putting on exhibition. Aaron simply couldn’t help himself.
Mark stared at Aaron for several seconds, then turned to Bobby and chuckled when he said, “Well, Bobby, I’m going to have to agree with Aaron on this one. It’s too obscure a reference.” And then he turned back to Aaron, regarding him with sternness, and continued, “But, Aaron, where’s all this anger coming from, man? I mean, you don’t like it, fine, then change it. That’s all that needed to happen here. You didn’t need to get in Bobby’s face like that.”
“I’m not in his face. Does it look like I’m in his face? I’m all the way over here. If I was in his face, I’d be all the way over there.” He turned to walk back into his office, when he thought of another thing. “And I’ll tell you where the anger’s coming from, if you need to know. I don’t know how this is news, anyway. Who the hell gives two good damns whether Clayton Cannon gets a new piano.”
Mark reared back his head, then lowered it to peer at Aaron over the top of his reading glasses and said, “Well, first of all, it’s news because I say it’s news. But second of all, it’s news because everybody in this town, whether they can tell Bach from Beethoven, is proud to have him choose their humble town to make his home. Concert pianists of his stature are generally not living in places like Baltimore. They’re living in New York or London or Paris. So do you know what it does to the psyche of the people in this town to have him living here? In their small way, it’s just as impressive as having Madonna move in down there at Harbor Court. Celebrity is celebrity, no matter how esoteric the field, Aaron. When a guy like this moves to New York, it’s no big deal. Just another celebrity in the crowd. But when he moves to Baltimore, they claim him. And when the people of this city feel that he’s a celebrity that they can embrace and claim, that’s what makes this story news. You got it now?”
“I’ve got it,” Aaron mumbled as he walked into his office, slamming the door behind him. He sat in his chair and leaned back. Suddenly, with only an hour before he had to go on the air as a steady, unflappable newsman, he couldn’t have cared less about reading scripts, or writing them, or even correcting them. All that mattered to him now was wondering what part of his life Clayton Cannon would invade next.
Before he could become too ensconced in his thoughts of all the ways and whys for which he detested Clayton, he was distracted by Tilly, his producer, who had come in and settled herself in the chair in front of his desk. It was clear she was there for some undetermined duration, so Aaron simply stared at her questionably without saying one word.
“Well, I guess I’m approaching you at my own risk after what just happened in there a few minutes ago, but I’ll take my chances,” Tilly said superciliously, with a grin of equal scope. It was just her way.
Aaron stayed steady in his glare for several seconds, then replied, “Okay, I guess I’ll bite. So what is it you’re taking your chances with, Tilly?”
“It’s a special I’m thinking about and I want you to be the host of it.”
“What kind of special?” Aaron asked with a curiosity that had nothing to do with actual interest.
“Okay, well, what I’m thinking about is doing a one-hour show with four of Baltimore’s famous children. I’m thinking of Barry Levinson, and Jada Pinkett-Smith, and Cal Ripken, and Clayton Cannon.” Tilly stopped as if to give Aaron his moment of eruption. But when none came in five or so seconds, she continued, “I figured, two who live here, and two who don’t.”
Although Aaron still held Tilly in his gaze, she wasn’t in his focus. He stared through her to see Clayton sitting before him, no longer the phantom of his boyhood and manhood imaginings, but a man in full. Flesh and feeling. And would that feeling tell that man’s flesh of the bad blood boiling in Aaron for him? The interview. Aaron wondered what he would possibly ask him, because his most reasonable question, the only one in which he had interest was somewhere in the neighborhood of outright impudence—“Why in hell did you drag your sorry ass back here to Baltimore, anyway?” Of course he’d have to word it a little better. Mostly, though, the one question Aaron would have is the one that had hovered beside him for as long as he’d had memory, and it was one to which Clayton would never have the answer—“Why did you steal my mother from me?”
Finally, Tilly broke through the silence when she said, “Well, don’t just sit there and stare at me. Tell me what you think.”
When Aaron brought Tilly back into focus, he said, “First of all, Cal Ripken doesn’t live in Baltimore. He lives in Timonium.”
And Tilly snapped, “Oh please, Aaron. Do not pick that nit with me. If you take somebody who lives in Timonium across the country and ask them where they’re from, they’re not going to say I’m from Timonium. They’re going to say I’m from Baltimore. Pikesville, Randallstown, Towson, Timonium, who cares. It’s all Baltimore. He’s from Baltimore.”
“All I’m saying is that, technically, it’s not. Furthermore, technically Clayton Cannon is not a child of Baltimore, since he wasn’t born and raised here.”
It started in her eyes, then Tilly’s sarcasm became fully known when she said, “Okay, well let’s just say for now that Timonium is Baltimore and Clayton Cannon has been given honorary child of Baltimore status by me, and leave it at that. Now, what do you think you see for a show like this in terms of the interviews?”
“So I wouldn’t just be the host doing an intro and closing. I’d have to do the interviews too?”
“Yes, of course. It would be your show. You’d have them take you to their favorite places around the city, tell you what they love about the city, what makes it special to them. That kind of thing. Any ideas?”
“Why me? Why not Maggie? Nobody loves Baltimore more than Maggie. She even knows the Banfield sisters—the mother and the aunts—pretty well, so she’d be the best one to interview Jada. Anyway, Maggie would love this kind of stuff.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want to do it?”
“I’m telling you I don’t want to do it,” Aaron said flatly. And he was flat in every way.
Aaron watched Tilly rise up and leave without closing his door, and he wondered about her thoughts of him. And in those moments as he watched her back decrease and then disappear into Maggie’s office, he had to wonder what he thought of himself. But only mere seconds later, Tilly was out of Maggie’s office, with Maggie following. And here they come, he thought. So he braced himself for what came next.
When his door opened, he looked at the two of them and said, “Tilly, what is it, now?”
“What this is, Aaron, is that you should be the one doing this story,” Maggie said.
“I don’t want to do it.”
Maggie turned to Tilly and, with her hand on the door asked, “Tilly, can you give us a moment alone, please?”
Tilly left without a word, pul
ling the door closed behind her.
Then Maggie turned to Aaron and said, “Is this about Clayton Cannon? Because you know a piece like this can’t be done without including him. It would be like doing a documentary about the Chesapeake Bay without talking about crabbing. But you need to do more pieces like this. Maybe it’s time you confront your demon.”
Aaron lowered his head and then looked off to the side of his desk where he’d hoped to find calm, but didn’t. He looked back up at Maggie and said, “Maggie, you’re about to make me mad. I have said that I don’t want to do it, that I’m not going to do it, and I don’t need you coming in here telling me about the bay, or my demon, or what I need for my career, because you’re my co-anchor and the woman I date. You’re not my agent or my psychiatrist.”
Maggie took him in with a stunned gawking and said, “I’m the woman you date?”
But Aaron didn’t understand the question, because if she wasn’t that, if he had misspoken or insulted her in some way, he didn’t know how he’d managed to do it with what he’d said. So with the previous second’s anger forgotten, he replied earnestly, “You’re the woman I date. Is there something wrong with saying that?”
“It sounds meaningless,” she said flatly. “After four years together, it never occurred to me that it was still that meaningless to you.”
“Maggie, I think you’re blowing this all out of proportion. We’re not married, we’re not engaged. I’m too old to be the boyfriend to a girlfriend. What else am I supposed to say?”
“You could say something that makes me feel like I’m more than somebody you occasionally go out and have a burger and a beer with, Aaron,” Maggie said in a whisper.
The Color of Family Page 21
