Cheryl stayed on the couch for what she thought was the requisite amount of time, and then stood. “Okay, well, I’m going to bed. Good night.” She leaned over to give her a hug.
“Don’t be such a shit. Watch the movie with me.”
“It’s no fun watching the second half of a movie.” She made her way to the stairs.
“Come on, the good part’s starting, when the young rogue officers plot the overthrow of the city! I was a young buck once. And boy, can I identify with Callahan’s new partner … the woman? Hard to believe they are only now making a movie with a female officer. How come no one called me?”
Now she was talking to herself.
“Night, Mother,” Cheryl called from the top of the stairs.
The night was too warm to put on her father’s sweater, the one she wore whenever she could get away with it, whenever her mother didn’t yell at her to go upstairs and take the damned thing off or she’d put it in the trash. But she did pull it out of her drawer and hold it to her face, inhaling the scents which only seemed to get stronger each day of his absence.
9
Fall, 1981
Cheryl couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited. Her mother wasn’t home, but her grandmother was. Still, she didn’t want to spill the beans to Grandma without telling her mother about the contest first. But how to tell her? Maybe she’d wait until just before she went to bed, then nonchalantly say, Oh, by the way … Or maybe she’d yell it as soon as her mother came through the door after her shift.
Like all the applicants, Cheryl had submitted her entry to the contest last spring at the end of her junior year, and then had to wait until today, the first day of her senior year to find out the results. The outcome of the contest had been in the back of her mind all summer. She’d remember it at odd times, out of the blue. Why did it torment her so? At times, the agony of waiting for the results resembled the distress she felt during the first few months after her father had left for his trip. She’d checked the mailbox every day thinking there might be a letter. There never was.
As she waited impatiently for her mother to get home, she tried to read one of her assigned books for the year, but each sentence lay like lead on her eyelids. It was hard to do homework after the first day as a senior. So, she turned on the television and watched a rerun of MASH. Every few minutes, she got up as if to get something from the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door and peered inside, even though she wasn’t hungry. She closed the door and went back to watch more TV.
Since her mother hadn’t come home yet, she figured she must be working the second shift at her precinct in Chicago and wouldn’t be back until ten or eleven that night. She fought the urge to call someone and tell them her good news. Maya already knew after they bumped into each other at school. She acted impressed and happy for her, but Maya seemed to have no idea what this really meant to Cheryl. She could call one of her uncles and share her success, but they probably wouldn’t get it, either. No one understood how important her writing was to her.
Her father would have understood. If only he’d been there.
Too antsy to concentrate, she turned off the TV and went back to the kitchen. She decided to occupy herself making food that could last them a few days. Her mother said she was just like her father, cooking large batches to freeze for the week. Cheryl relished that, even though she was certain her mother hadn’t meant the remark to be a compliment. There was little in the cupboard. Spotting an old jar of grape leaves in brine juice at the very back of the shelf, she pulled it out, then found some rice and a can of chicken stock and was about to start preparing stuffed grape leaves when the back door opened and her grandmother walked into the kitchen.
“Hi, Grandma,” Cheryl said, reaching out to give her a hug. “Where’ve you been?”
“I was at St. Ignatius, working the charity sale. They’ve got some good stuff. Nice clothes. Name brands. You should go see if you need something for school. I picked out a few things for you and your mom.”
Cheryl groaned. The last thing she wanted was cast-off clothes from a church basement charity sale. “Grandma, you should have asked someone to walk you home. Mom keeps saying it’s not safe anymore.”
As usual, the woman ignored her, as she did everyone who thought they knew what was best for her. “I declare,” she said, as she dropped a garbage bag full of clothes on the floor, “these darkies roaming the avenue get louder and ruder every day.”
Cheryl cringed and stopped wrapping one of the grape leaves. “Did something happen?”
“Four of them walked right past me carrying a radio or some such thing. So big it took two of them to hold it up and the other two were gyrating and shaking their be-hinds and taking up the whole sidewalk. The pounding of the music about split my eardrums as they passed.”
Cheryl laughed. “That’s called a ghetto blaster or boom box.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. But they didn’t bother you, did they?”
“Of course, they bothered me. I wouldn’t have brought it up if they hadn’t.” She frowned at no one in particular.
“I didn’t mean their music. I meant did they threaten you in any way?”
“One of them made an ugly face. He said something, but I couldn’t understand him.”
“Were you staring at them? You can’t stare at them, Grandma. They take that as a threat.”
“Of course I stared at them. I wanted to make sure they knew I had as much right to be on that sidewalk as they did.”
“It’s not illegal to walk down the street playing music.”
“It’s a public space. They have no right to pollute the air with their noise.”
Cheryl couldn’t disagree. She smiled at her grandmother and changed the subject. “Guess what I’m making for dinner?”
“The empty jar of grape leaves is a hint, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes. So it is.” Cheryl remembered her contest, and a wide smile brightened her face. “I have a gigantic surprise to tell you and Mom. But I have to tell Mom first.”
“That’s fine, child. At my age, getting up the next day is plenty of surprise.”
By the time her mother returned home, Cheryl had fallen asleep in front of the television. Paula stripped off her coat and placed her keys and purse on the counter, then punched the off button on the set.
“How many times I gotta tell you no television this late on a school night.” No response. “You asleep?” Paula rustled her daughter with a rough hand to her shoulder.
Cheryl woke with a start. “Mom? What time is it?”
“Time for you to be in bed. Summer vacation’s over.”
Through a huge yawn, Cheryl lied. “We don’t have homework yet.”
“Well, surely you have something better to do than fall asleep watching TV.”
“Not really, I started on one of my assigned books for English.”
“Well, I’m bushed. I need my beauty sleep. Tomorrow’s another day fighting crime. So, let’s get to bed.”
Cheryl rubbed her eyes and then sat up straight. “Guess what?”
“Cheryl, I’m too tired to guess.”
“No, seriously, this is so great!” Cheryl followed her mother into the kitchen.
“We got anything to eat in here?” Paula asked, leaning into the refrigerator.
“I made grape leaves. But, Mom, guess what?”
She pulled a tray out with the food. “So, tell me already, if that’s the only way to get that goofy smile off your face.”
“I got admitted to Mr. Dalton’s advanced English Composition course!”
Paula stopped chewing.
“What? Why are you looking at me that way?” Cheryl’s euphoria was deflating.
“It’s … well … honey, I might as well come out and say it. You need to be careful around him. I heard he knocked up one of his students last year. She didn’t rat him out, so no one knows for sure, and I know he’s popular, and you’ve wanted to take h
is classes, but you know rumors have a nasty habit of being true.”
“Mother! I’ve waited all summer to find out if I would get into this class, and all you care about is some rumor? Every teacher in that school has rumors following them around like a tail on a kite.”
“Honey, I’m just saying you can’t be too careful these days. Believe me, I’m glad one of your classes excites you.”
Not the least mollified, Cheryl pointed and wagged her finger. “You don’t trust anyone. You think every guy on this planet wants to get in my pants.”
“Oh, I don’t think that, babe. I know that. And whether they do or not, I know how damn easy it is to make a mistake you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”
“Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?”
Her mother turned and stared at her. “It means I’m a cop. I deal with the fallout from people’s mistakes every single day.”
“You hate everyone. Blacks. Ricans. You think the Jews run the city, you refuse to do anything to find your missing husband—my father— and you think the one and only class I care about is taught by some lech who knocks up his students!” She enunciated each syllable like handfuls of tinder tossed onto a controlled burn.
“Hush up or I’m gonna smack you one.” The decibel level on Paula’s voice rose dramatically. “And don’t wake up your grandmother.”
“You’re the one yelling,” Cheryl said, in a lower voice. “Cheryl—” Paula said, her tone clearly indicating the end of her patience.
Cheryl glared directly into her mother’s eyes, then spoke as if she were the authority figure scolding a subordinate, hitting her mother where she knew it would hurt her the most.
“You’re a police officer in Chicago, for God’s sake, and you can’t find out anything about my father? They have detectives working on murders and missing person cases twenty years old, but you can’t even locate one man. You don’t want to find him. I realized that long ago, Mother. I don’t know why, but I know now you never wanted to find him!”
Cheryl rushed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. Paula watched her daughter go, then walked into the front room and dropped into her recliner, a bottle of beer clenched in one hand and a stuffed grape leaf squished in the other.
In October, Mr. Dalton announced to his composition class that he’d gotten approval for a special collaboration between the English and Drama Departments.
Instead of staging the traditional school play between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he told the class that this year they would select three short, one-act plays, written by English composition students. “The drama department will stage them. We’ll open the competition to all students who have taken a unit of drama and a unit of composition. All of you in this advanced class will help evaluate the entries. Of course, you are also free to enter, and I fully expect at least one, if not more, of the slots to be filled by students in this class.” Dalton beamed toward his students with pride.
“Stage directions can’t be too elaborate in terms of costumes, scenery, or props, so if you plan to enter, think simple. Think abstract. Get your conflict development, tension, and resolution across as quickly as possible.
Cheryl was excited to be in Dalton’s class, but this chance, the chance to have her work acted out in front of an audience was something she never imagined.
The musical pieces Cheryl chose to accompany her play were Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Chicago’s “Color My World.” The contemporary work would introduce the play. Then the sonata would begin and gradually increase in volume in the last scene, through the climax, until the last character walked off stage, at which point the volume would slowly diminish to silence. The only prop she wrote into the script was her father’s sweater, the one she loved.
When Mr. Dalton announced the winners and Cheryl’s play was among them, she almost couldn’t believe it. For the first time, Cheryl felt recognized for something other than the mere fact of being a girl who received the natural attentions of boys and men, for something she created, not school work assigned to the entire class. She felt like she accomplished something important, not just to get a decent grade, or please others, but to satisfy a yearning from deep within. The week before the performances, kids she barely knew approached her and acknowledged her being selected. Others congratulated her. Even a few of the jocks seemed friendlier. And while that was all cool, what she really wanted was for her father to be there. He would understand what it meant to her.
Her mother had been happy for her, but after a congratulatory hug, the first thing she’d said was, “Does this mean you’ll have to spend more time after school with Mr. Dalton?” That had led to yet another nasty scene and instead of sitting down together to enjoy the dinner she’d made, Cheryl once again ended up stomping up the stairs and slamming the door to her room.
Besides her mother and grandmother, two of her uncles also attended the performance. As they took their seats, Paula leaned over to her two brothers. “She refuses to tell me what it’s about, but I’m hoping with three cops in the family that maybe we’ve got a budding crime writer.”
Cheryl rolled and unrolled the program in her hand, excitement, nervousness, and trepidation all rolled into a dynamic state of disequilibrium. Anticipation of her own work blotted everything out—except wondering what her mother’s reaction would be.
Cheryl warmed toward her mother as she smiled at the people she knew and chatted more than usual.
“I’m excited that you are excited, Mom!” Cheryl said. Paula patted her daughter’s knee, finally calming herself long enough to open the program and read the title of her daughter’s play. Cheryl held her breath as she watched her mother’s face. Then her mother’s jaw fell open, and her eyes narrowed as she pinched her lips together and slapped the program closed. Cheryl stopped breathing.
“Mom?” She touched her mother’s hand, but Paula jerked her arm away.
Applause filled the auditorium as the first play ended. Cheryl stood up and walked towards the back of the room. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she had to watch her play standing. As the curtain came up, her stomach roiled as if a flock of birds were pecking and clawing in her gut. She’d watched all the rehearsals and was confident the actors would recite their lines to perfection, but what would the audience think? And considering how her mother reacted to the title, “Had Dad,” what would she think? What would she do?
The cast had three characters: a young woman, an older man, and an older woman. The set was enclosed with a waist-high wall. She’d wanted the audience to sense being enclosed. One side of the stage was empty. The other side was a simple setting—a couch, a television, and a kitchen area.
In the first scene, with the song, “Color My World” playing softly, the man enters stage left. He tells the young woman how and why he disappeared. The lights dim for a short pause, then come up again. The man enters from stage right, and does the same thing, only this time it’s a completely different story of how and why he disappeared. Lights dim again, and the man enters from the audience side and tells yet another tale of his disappearance.
As her play unfurled, Cheryl found herself no longer listening to the lines as if she had written them, but as if she were the person on the stage listening to her father. Of course, this wasn’t the first time she’d imagined different scenarios with her father, like when she went shopping, or when she was sitting at a restaurant having a pop with Maya. Sometimes, she imagined he’d come running to her, and out of breath, hug her and say, “I finally found you!” Other times, she’d come running to him as he sat at a table, and when he saw her, a smile would break across his face and he’d wrap her in his arms and say, “I’ve been waiting for you forever.” It never mattered where she was—walking to school, walking home, or lying in her bedroom staring up at the ceiling.
Cheryl began to cry.
While the man on the stage came and went in each scene, under dim lighting, the older woman worked in the kitchen. Always busy. Ignoring the
girl and the man, except for a furtive glance in their direction.
In the final scene, as Moonlight Sonata played, the man and the young woman turn their eyes toward the sky, then approach the older woman. Puzzled and curious, and with sadness, they both look at the woman, who acts as if they are not there. Then, turning, she walks off stage as if nothing had happened, and the curtain comes down.
Thundering applause brought Cheryl back to the moment. Her heart swelled and she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. As the lights came up for intermission, she glanced over at her family to see their reactions, and her breath caught. Her uncles stood and immediately left. That’s okay, Cheryl told herself. She knew they probably had to work night shifts. Her mother and grandmother remained seated. She edged her way toward them. She hoped that seeing her play, her mother would be proud of what her daughter had created and would maybe even understand some of what she’d never really been able to express about the pain of missing her dad.
“Well?” she asked, breathless.
Looking straight ahead, Paula clutched the program in her right hand as if it were a dagger. “Go get us some punch and whatever else they’re serving out there,” she told her mother.
“I’ll go with you, Grandma,” Cheryl offered, and started to follow her grandmother.
“Oh no you don’t. Get back here.” She grabbed Cheryl’s arm and yanked her back down into the chair beside her.
Cheryl tried to pull her arm away, but her mother held her tight. “Mother!” Horrified, she looked around the auditorium to see if anyone had witnessed what her mother had just done.
“What the hell was the meaning of that?”
“What? You mean the play?”
The Moment Before Page 7