The Color of Family Page 3

  “Emeril’s gone, girl. He ain’t down at the Dupreses’ today,” her mother bellowed down the stairs. “Said he was goin’ over to the Garden District lookin’ for lawn work. Said some friend of his told him ’bout somebody over there needin’ somebody to look after their yard.”

  But this time, her mother’s words stopped Antonia where she strode. The Garden District. That’s exactly where she was headed, but not because Emeril was down there looking for a job in some white man’s yard. What did he need with a job over there with him working at the Dupreses’ the way he did and being paid generously to do so? She was headed there because she knew that one of those moneyed families—she didn’t know which one, but Cora Calliup from next door said they lived in a house that was the color of flamingoes with lawn jockeys on either side of the porch steps—had let that Agnes Marquette into their home as the charge of their children. Antonia didn’t know the name of these misguided people, but unless there was more than one pink house with little black men holding lanterns, finding Emeril and saving him was going to be easy, because something, maybe those fishes in her dream, maybe that extra twin sense, told her that that’s where she’d most likely find him. What kind of people, especially of the Garden District variety, would look at Agnes Marquette and not see that she was simply not fit to care for cat or child? And then there was Emeril, sniffing after that girl’s secrets, that weren’t so secret, with such hunger that he’d put himself in peril by sneaking over to the wealthiest white part of town for sex while the children in Agnes’s care skipped rope or played tag. So Antonia asked her mother, just to be certain, “Momma, where’d you say Emeril had gone?”

  “He’s down at the Garden District, Antonia. What do you want with him, anyway?”

  “Uh, I need to tell him that Junior Jackson won’t be goin’ with him and Junior’s cousin Willie up to Jackson, Mississippi, tonight for a visit with Willie’s girl.” It wasn’t altogether a lie. Junior wasn’t going, that much was true, but he had told Emeril as much days before.

  “Well, you hurry on back here, now,” her mother said. “And don’t you go messin’ things up for Emeril. That’s one hard-workin’ boy. I wish he could light some of his fire underneath you.”

  Antonia rolled her eyes up in her head, then mumbled to Tippy, “She would die if she only knew what kind of fire he’s got lit under him. And she’d double-die if I had it lit under me.” Just before she dashed from the back door, she snatched a square of cornbread from the basket on the edge of the counter and went on her way.

  Antonia, with Tippy in tow, got off the streetcar in just one hop. She stopped to situate her cat better in the basket and then went on her way to find the street and then the house that held her brother. She turned onto the street with confidence, but that’s when she discovered that there was indeed more than one flamingo pink house on the rue. So she approached the first one, which was the second in from the corner, and studied every inch of the front lawn without spotting one small ceramic black man dressed up for the sport of kings. And just as she was about to walk on, someone called to her from just inside the screened door.

  “You lost, gal?” a woman said.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m lookin’ for a pink house with some lawn jockeys.”

  “Well, that could be the DuBoises’ or the Laniers’. Which one do you want?”

  Antonia hesitated, since she wouldn’t know a Lanier or a DuBois if one came up and slapped her on the bottom, so she asked, “Which one has the two young children, a boy and a girl, and a baby-sitter named Agnes?”

  “Oh, well that would be the DuBoises’.”

  “Yes, ma’am. The DuBois, that’s who I’m lookin’ for.”

  “Well, you wanna go all the way to the end of the street. They’ll be the third house in from the corner down there.” And that’s all the woman said, as she stepped onto the porch, studying Antonia curiously.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” and she walked briskly on her way.

  But the woman slowed her, saying with a raised brow, “What, you a friend of Agnes?”

  “Not really. I just need to bring her a message” was all Antonia said.

  “Hmmf,” the woman grunted as she twisted her lips into a bow of disapproval. “Well, that’s where you’ll find her.”

  “Thank you again, ma’am,” Antonia said with a gracious and grateful smile. And in considering the scowl across that woman’s face, Antonia believed that Agnes’s reputation had reached and singed this woman’s ears, and this sent Antonia crossing the street with an extra puff of righteous wind in her sails. And it wasn’t until she reached the other side of the street that she took in the magnificence of this neighborhood without the distraction of not knowing where she was headed. The smell is what hit her first. It was nothing terribly distinguishable, but it was definitely floral, smelling like the inside of a lady’s boudoir. Then there were the colors that were everywhere she looked. Flowers dripping in strong primary tones from every jutting gallery, and bleeding onto lawns kissed by God’s green, and overflowing large pots on every front porch. It put her in mind of weddings, and funerals, and parties, all of which were practically the same in New Orleans. This street was like stepping down the banquettes of heaven. And then she heard the whiny accordion of zydeco gliding faintly through the air. All of it washed over her to put a slight bounce and sway to her gait as she stepped to the beat.

  “Antonia?” a young voice called to her from somewhere behind.

  She turned with a snatch of her head, then looked up and down and side to side, suddenly unsure if she’d even heard her name at all.

  “Antonia, it’s me Cora,” she said, stepping onto the side porch that was darkened under the cover of a low-hung awning. “Hey, cher. What ya doin’ round here?”

  “What you think I’m doin’, Cora?” Antonia said, walking over to meet Cora at the edge of the yard. “I’m goin’ down here to stop my damn fool brother from ruinin’ his life with that Agnes Marquette.”

  “Oooo, Antonia, you gonna be startin’ some mess, ain’t ya?” Cora said with a giddy, secretive laugh as she walked toward Antonia with the whispery shuffle of her bedroom slippers sliding across the short carpet of grass.

  “That’s right. And don’t worry, ’cause I won’t say nothin’ about you tellin’ me that they were there.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry ’bout that. Emeril don’t know that I seen him, cher.”

  “Tell me somethin’, Cora. You seen that Agnes sneakin’ anybody else in there?”

  “Not since June. Back in June it was some black-headed boy, look like he coulda been from Spain or somewhere. But all of June, it was Emeril. Nobody else I seen, that’s for sure.”

  Antonia was transported for a few seconds by the zydeco that she could still hear until Tippy meowed and brought her back to Cora. “Who’s playin’ that zydeco?” she said as she began to step and sway her rear end to the rhythm.

  “Oh, that’s the lady next door,” Cora said, as she joined Antonia in the dance. “She plays it all day long. It’s nice sometimes, but sometimes it really gets on your nerves, you know.”

  And as Antonia danced, with her dips going deeper and her swaying becoming more fluid and all her moves coming more fully into a dance, she laughed, then howled with the joy of a child and said, “This is my victory dance for saving my brother from that she-devil.” And her laughter nearly drowned the music until she calmed it down when she asked Cora, “So, you work here in this house?”

  “Yeah, this is it,” Cora said, as she followed Antonia’s lead in the dance. “The baby’s sleep now. Matter of fact, he sleeps most of the day. It’s pretty easy. He sleeps, I clean up a little, watch some TV. It’s easy as pie.”

  “All right, Cora, well let me get on down here and do what I need to do,” Antonia said, forcing herself to stop moving.

  “Okay, bye now.” Then Cora, still bouncing to the zydeco, slipped her hand into the basket to give Tippy a scratch between her ears and said, “Bye, Tippy.
Y’all be good, now.”

  Antonia was nearly trotting down the banquette to get to Emeril. Forget the flowers, forget the heaven-sent scents, even the zydeco. Nothing was on her mind other than setting her brother back on the straight path from which he’d veered to follow a seductress. There it is, she thought, as she reached the edge of the lawn where the jockeys, small and black-faced, stood guard. It was enclosed by a white-washed fence that may have been the purest white she’d ever seen. But as she went to open the gate to step into the yard, she heard tiny voices with giddy summer glee on the side of the house. So she went to the corner of the house and peeked around the corner to find two towheaded children, a boy and a girl, one not much older than the other, splashing and kicking and clapping just as happy as they pleased in an inflated wading pool. She tipped away without the children knowing she was there and climbed the stairs that led to the porch. There was nothing separating her from the inside of the house but a thin screen door, so she knocked on the wooden frame of it, then waited. But then, in the time it took for the sound of impassioned panting to waft out onto the porch and smack her in the face with its obvious lust, she went immediately from cool porcelain to hot steel. And that’s when she knocked again, this time louder and with the staccato of a machine gun, and this time yelling, “Emeril Caleb Racine, you get yourself out here right now!”

  “What the hell!” Emeril said.

  “Come on, Emeril! Come on right now!” she called again. Tippy even let out a call of her own.

  Then in no time, Emeril came hopping into the hall threading one leg into his pants. He got to the door and stared at his sister through the screen as he tucked in his shirt and zipped his pants. Emeril drew in his lips, as if to hold back a gusher, then said, “Antonia, are you crazy or somethin’? What in the name of hell are you doin’ here?”

  “I came to save you from yourself.” She looked behind him to see Agnes straightening herself and continued, “And to save you from her.”

  “What’re you talkin’ about, Antonia?” Agnes said as she stepped up to the door next to Emeril.

  “Y’all think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? I know what you been doin’ in there. I know what you been doin’ over at the Dupreses’, and you just need to come on here and stop it, Emeril.”

  “We ain’t been doin’ nothin’, Antonia,” Agnes protested indignantly. “You just need to get your mind out of the sewer.”

  Antonia looked at Agnes and said, “Is that why you look a hot mess, girl?”

  Agnes looked down and then turned only slightly away from Antonia while she buttoned up, then said, “Okay, so we were foolin’ around a little. What business is it of yours? You ain’t his keeper, Antonia.”

  “That’s right,” Emeril added. “And you sure ain’t Momma.”

  Antonia took one step back in incredulity, laughed haughtily and replied, “Oh, is it Momma you want? ’Cause she’d sure luuv to see this, Emeril. Now, are you comin’ or do I have to go on home alone and tell Momma what I’ve just seen here today?”

  Emeril stared her down without flinching. But for as tightly as he held her in his gaze, it was clear that she was equally as defiant, so he turned to Agnes and said, “Listen, I’m gonna go on with her. I’ll see you when I get back from Mississippi.”

  “Promise,” Agnes said with a pout and an innocent coyness in her eyes cast up at Emeril.

  And Antonia rolled her eyes so far up into her head it seemed they just might get stuck there. Then she turned and walked to the edge of the porch, stroking Tippy for calm. Despite her sugary sweet pouts and guileless gazes, Agnes could simply not make Antonia believe her to be chaste. She tried not to acknowledge the wet smacks of their lips as they said good-bye, and when she heard the screen door open, she started down the porch steps. By the time she passed through the gate, Emeril was right behind her.

  Taking her gently by the elbow, he said, “You’ve got two seconds to tell me what’s got into you, so you’d better talk fast, gal.”

  “What’s got into me is that you and that wretch of a girl Agnes Marquette just made yourselves a baby,” Antonia said, getting her elbow back from her brother’s palm. “Now whatcha gonna do, Emeril?”

  Emeril’s feet simply stopped moving. He took her arm again, turned her to him and said with a dismissive laugh, “Antonia, no wonder they call you fou-fou Antonia. ’Cause you’re crazy. Where in the world did you get somethin’ like that from?”

  “I’ll tell you where. I had a dream last night. I had a dream about fish, and you know what Momma says about people dreamin’ about fishes.”

  “No, Antonia, I don’t know what Momma says about fishes.”

  “Emeril, Momma has always said that when somebody has a dream about fishes that means somebody is gonna have a baby. And it ain’t me, it ain’t Momma, since Daddy’s dead. So since you’re the only one doin’ what it takes to make a baby, it’s gotta be you and Agnes.”

  Emeril let out a big laugh, then said, mostly to himself, “I don’t believe this nonsense.” He walked in a circle rubbing his head in frustration with the palm of his hand, as if he had not been doing that he just might have punched or thrown something. Then he turned back to Antonia and said directly to her, “So, you mean to tell me that you came down here and…well, stuck your nose where it doesn’t belong because you believe that some dream about fishes told you I was over here makin’ a baby with Agnes?”

  “That’s right. That’s exactly what I’m tellin’ you. But I’m also over here because you don’t need to be here with that awful Agnes Marquette, Emeril. You’re too good for her. That girl’s been around.”

  “That’s none of your business, Antonia,” he said with a sly smile that told of the memory of something.

  “Well, maybe not,” Antonia said, turning from her brother and continuing on her path to get him out of there. “But I know one thing, you’re my business. You’ve been my business ever since I came into this world two minutes before you, and you ain’t gonna stop bein’ my business till one of us dies.”

  Emeril caught up to her in one stride and said, “Antonia, I’ve told you before, two minutes does not make you my big sister, so stop acting like you’re responsible for me. You ain’t never been responsible for me, and you ain’t never gonna be, you got that?”

  Antonia didn’t respond, didn’t even act as if she heard him. She walked on like this until they got to the corner and crossed for the streetcar that was on its way. Then, just as the streetcar was pulling up to the stop, she turned to Emeril and said, “You are one selfish somebody, Emeril Racine. You didn’t think anything was wrong with me bein’ responsible for you when you were failin’ math last year and you needed my help. But now that you’re failin’ in another part of your life, you think you have all the answers and you don’t need my help. Well, you go right ahead, ruin your ole stupid life and see how much I care.” She stood firmly, her arms quivering with more anger than she could ever remember feeling toward her brother.

  The streetcar came to a stop with the door opening right in front of Emeril. He took a step back to allow Antonia to get on first, but when she didn’t budge from where she stood, he said, “Come on, Antonia. Get on the streetcar.”

  “I don’t want to get on there with you.”

  “Well, now you’re bein’ childish.”

  “What do you care? I’m not responsible for you, so you ain’t responsible for me either. Why don’t you just go ahead on.”

  Emeril blew out a chest full of exasperation, then stepped up onto the streetcar waving his hand dismissively at her and saying, “Ah, just forget you, Antonia.”

  “Forget you too, Emeril.” And just as the streetcar closed up its doors tight and it was clearer than ever that Emeril was indeed going on his way, she yelled, “I hate you, anyway, Emeril Racine! I hate your stupid face!” And now, she shook furiously and angry tears were on the edge of breaking loose and sliding down her cheeks. The last glimpse she had of her brother, as the streetca
r pulled away, was of him swiping his hand at her through the open window as he sat down in the last seat. She lifted poor Tippy out of the basket and snuggled against the side of her soft face, and then she wept quietly to appease her own ire at her brother and his lost ways.

  “Hey, Antonia,” Cora called to her from across the street.

  Antonia wiped her face, put on the biggest, fakest smile she could find in her bag of smiles, then went to the bench and sat to wait for Cora to get to her with the cumbersome stroller she pushed. “Cora”—Antonia called to her with a giggle as she approached where Antonia sat—“You’re just what I need to get my mind off of how mad I am with that stupid Emeril.” Then she got back up from where she’d just sat and said, “Let’s just take the baby and Tippy for a stroll.”

  “Did you find Emeril?” Cora asked as they headed off on their walk.

  “I found him all right. He got on that streetcar that just left.”

  “So you ran him on home?”

  “I sure did, and I told him that he was way too good for that Agnes. You shoulda seen her, Cora. She was standin’ up there with her breast hangin’ all outta her blouse. And I told her, ‘You look a hot mess.’”

  “What’d Emeril say?” Cora asked eagerly.

  “He didn’t say nothin’ when I said that, ’cause he knew it was the truth. But when we were goin’ to get the streetcar, he told me that I wasn’t responsible for him, and that made me hoppin’ mad.”

  “I’ll bet it did,” Cora said as she stopped to make sure the baby wasn’t getting a direct hit of the sun, since they’d turned a corner. “He had some nerve.”

  “Don’t you know it. And so I was so mad I couldn’t even ride the streetcar with him, that’s why I’m still here with you. But I don’t know what this is in me, Cora, but I just feel…no, I actually know that something is going to happen. Something bad. For the last two weeks, even before I knew about him and Agnes, Emeril has been constantly on my mind along with this funny feelin’ all over my body. I guess it’s the same way a dog knows when a storm’s comin’. In my gut, Cora, I feel like somethin’ bad is comin’.”