The Moment Before

by Jason Makansi

One lone man stood behind the counter in the restaurant.

  “I’m here to apply for the job.”

  Brusquely, the man introduced himself as Constant Kosake. At least that’s what it sounded like to her. “See that door?” he said. Cheryl turned and glanced back at the door she’d just entered. “Saturday, waitress storms out, like that!” He threw his hands up in the air. “During dinner rush!”

  “I live nearby and can start tomorrow.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “What experience you have?”

  “Umm, none, but your sign says you need someone N.O.W.”

  “What you mean?”

  Cheryl pointed to the sign. The man snatched the sign from the window. “Ah … my son, Billy. He must have written this. Kids don’t want to work these days.” He handed her an application.

  As she filled it out, the only person she could think of to list as a reference was Mr. Dalton. She had barely given the clipboard back to the man before he snatched it with a burly, hairy hand. “Okay, you seem like honest, good girl,” he said without looking at her application. “You start tomorrow. But if something turns up from your background check,” he threw his thumb up, “you’re outta here. I call your reference.”

  At once, she began to imagine what it would be like to have her own money, spend her own money, never have to ask her mother for money again. She could take the train into Chicago and go to the big bookstores. She could buy one of those fancy writing journals she’d seen last time she’d been in the city. She’d buy an album when she wanted to, not when she had put together enough chores to earn her allowance. She’d save for a car or even buy one on a loan.

  “You work six days a week, sometimes seven. Second shift—3:30 prompt. No excuse. You shadow another server. You are low waitress on totem pole. So you fill in for others. Minimum wage and tips.”

  Second shift hadn’t occurred to Cheryl, and neither had working on Saturdays.

  Cheryl frowned at Mr. Kosake’s tired eyes, his gleam of sweat.

  “Can I talk to my mother about it?”

  “Young lady, if you have to get mama’s permission, you not old enough to work.”

  Cheryl glared at him. “I’m eighteen.” She held his gaze long enough, to make him uncomfortable. “Can I work my way up to first shift?”

  “Go on. I got a restaurant to run.” He waved his arm toward the door in dismissal.

  Cheryl eyed him again and lowered her voice as she enunciated her syllables. “I don’t think my question was that much of an imposition, sir.”

  Mr. Kosake stared back for a minute before respondeding. “Running a restaurant, it makes you impatient. Talk it over with your mother. You let me know this evening if I count on you being here tomorrow.” He reached for an order pad and scrawled on it. “Here’s the restaurant’s number.”

  Cheryl hesitated for a moment, and then shook her head. “No, that’s okay. I’ll be here. Tomorrow, 3:30 sharp.”

  During Cheryl’s Saturday shift, she was surprised to see Mr. Dalton cramming French fries smothered with ketchup into his mouth and washing them down with long slurps from a large chocolate milkshake. “I know that guy,” Cheryl said to the older waitress who was assigned to his table.

  “Someone should tell him ketchup is a condiment, not a sauce.” Cheryl burst out laughing. “He’s eating like he’s got a bad case of the munchies.”

  Frank Dalton looked around until he saw Cheryl behind the counter. “I recognize that laugh.”

  Cheryl kept giggling as she walked over. “I have a message from your server. Ketchup is a condiment, not a sauce to slather over everything.”

  He dipped a bunch of fries into the pile of ketchup and held them up as if they were important evidence in a trial. “Perhaps for others, but I am condemned to treat my fries as carriers for my cravings for this delicious tomato concoction. He paused, as if to admire the words as they alliterated into the air.

  “Do you come here often to satisfy your ketchup cravings?”

  “I haven’t in the past. But the fries are so good, I might become a regular.”

  Dalton confessed that Mr. Kosake had called him about a reference, and that he’d stopped by to see if she’d gotten the job. And after that first day, Dalton appeared regularly during Cheryl’s shift, and she often joined him in his booth when she was on break. Even though Mr. Kosake knew who he was, that didn’t make him any less suspicious of the older man hanging around with his youngest waitress.

  “I have Billy take care of him,” he told her one day. “No, Mr. Kosake, he’s a good guy. He was the one teacher who encouraged me to write.”

  Dalton began to time his visits to coincide with the end of Cheryl’s shift. As time went on, he offered to give her a lift home, but she declined. He gave her his phone number and said to call him if she needed a ride, if she wanted to talk about writing, or if she just wanted to hang out. But she didn’t. Mr. Kosake would always offer Billy as an escort home, but she waved him off, too. She could take care of herself.

  Then, a few weeks later, she passed a group of kids along the train trestle, maybe they were black or Hispanic, it was too dark to tell. They started catcalling and moving in her direction. One of them started to chase her, or at least acted like he would, then stopped and laughed when she took off running. She didn’t stop until she was on her porch several long blocks later. The next day, she called Mr. Dalton and told him she’d welcome a ride home if he was still offering. Gun or no gun, she didn’t feel safe. If it was so easy for her to have a gun, maybe they had guns, too.

  Dalton showed up the next evening shortly before her shift ended.

  12

  Summer, 1982

  Even though he graduated in the top ten percent of his class, John Veranda couldn’t find a job. Stuart said he was too idealistic, too intent on holding out for the perfect positon saving the world, and that there were plenty of places that would hire him if he’d just get off his high horse. But, for whatever the reason, as friends took jobs with lobbyists, or at white-glove law firms, government offices, or NGOs, John went home. He intended to only stay a few weeks while still sending out resumes, but a year later he was still in Southern Illinois being a glorified gopher at his father’s small firm. Finally, after his father pulled every string he could, John was offered a position in Senator Tim Wamsler’s Capitol Hill office. John couldn’t wait to head back to DC.

  Once he got moved in to the chic-but-shabby brownstone he shared with two other staffers, he called Stuart and they agreed to meet for drinks. Stuart, who was already putting in long hours and making a name for himself at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and who now had a serious girlfriend with “high earning potential,” walked in sporting a three-piece suit, starched white shirt, and the kind of tie with a gold pin under the knot that they’d always joked was only worn by politicians looking to pull one over on the easily impressed common man.

  While Stuart described his work, John realized how much his friend had changed. Stuart now carried himself as if prepared for scrutiny of every movement of limb and torso. His hair was as perfectly manicured as the greens prepped for a major golf tournament. Veranda was six inches taller than Stuart, but Stuart projected a stature he didn’t physically possess. Plus, he had a way of staring at you as if he’d never yield his position. John hoped he never faced him in a court of law. Had Stuart always been this serious? Maybe, John thought, he hadn’t been serious enough.

  Over a second round of beers, John talked about his new position. “Basically, the only thing I know about him is that he’s a Democrat, he’s got seniority on Foreign Relations, and my dad thinks he’s a solid guy.”

  “Find out what other committees he serves on,” Stuart suggested. “Those are the best clues as to what you might be working on. Get hold of some of the testimony presented to his committees and study it. It’s all in the Congressional Record.”

  It seemed like good advice, and he intended to follow up on it, but just getting moved
in had been a full-time job. Plus, John hadn’t yet had time to enjoy himself now that he was back east. What he really wanted was to get up to New York and see college friends, go to a few Baltimore Orioles games, hang out at the Maryland and Delaware beaches, and pretty much do anything but think about work before his official start date.

  The next time Stuart called, he asked if he’d looked into the senator’s committees.

  “Not really. I’ve been busy with other things.”

  “Well, a word of warning. I mentioned Senator Wamsler to a few people. He’s got an AIPAC target on this back.”

  “Air pack? What’s that?”

  “AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. It’s a lobbying organization. A powerful one. I’m telling you this as a friend. You’ve got a lot to learn about life on Capitol Hill, John Boy.”

  I’m not a complete rube, Jew boy, he’d wanted to retort, but he didn’t. Stuart had always made fun of John’s Midwestern roots and the fact that he’d grown up on a farm, but John knew there was a world of difference between John Boy and Jew Boy.

  Still, John always took Stuart’s advice to heart and with his start date approaching, he was soon reading through the Congressional Record and studying committee testimony. Turned out Wamsler was knee deep in the messy politics of the Middle East, a part of the world John knew next to nothing about. So he dutifully set about trying to untangle the various political perspectives to understand Wamsler’s positions. It was in the middle of this effort, less than a month after he’d joined the senator’s staff, that a man by the name of Frank Dalton and a young girl named Cheryl Halia Haddad walked into the office and requested to see Wamsler about an urgent family matter.

  John had been instructed to be as patient and friendly as possible with constituents from the home state, but to push the meeting to a speedy conclusion if there was no policy, political, or fund-raising angle. He quickly realized there was an art to this: keep one eye on the clock and the other on constituent service.

  After introductions and arranging themselves in Veranda’s minuscule office, he opened the conversation. “How can the senator be of help?”

  “Actually, Mr. Veranda,” Dalton said, “our representative in Illinois recommended we take our request directly to Senator Wamsler. He said he was going to send a letter to the senator letting us know we would be coming. Cheryl here, was one of my students, and I came along to help her.”

  “Are you related?” John asked, confused as to why her teacher and not her parents were with her.

  “No,” Dalton said, with no further explanation. Then Dalton must have sensed his hesitation, because he added, “I’m just an interested party. Cheryl was one of my best students. Occasionally, I take a special interest in a personal matter, especially if it has educational value.”

  “I need to find my father,” Cheryl blurted out, and the story of her father’s disappearance while on a trip home to Syria to visit his ailing father poured out. “He was only supposed to be gone a couple of weeks, a month at most.” Cheryl leaned forward, tears glistening in her eyes. “We haven’t heard from him since.”

  “I see.” Veranda glanced between Cheryl and Dalton, but directed his answer at Dalton. “Actually, Senator Wamsler does work closely with interests in the Middle East, but, respectfully, locating her father seems a job for local law enforcement, or even family.”

  “The family has exhausted other avenues,” Dalton said. Of course, that was a lie. Along with her mother, Cheryl’s uncles had exerted zero effort to find her father.

  “What does law enforcement say about—”

  Irritated at being ignored, Cheryl interrupted. “My mother is law enforcement. She’s a cop in Chicago, and she and the other cops there—including my two uncles—have refused to do anything including even making sure he got on the plane. Which he did. I’m sure of it. My father didn’t disappear in this country. Who would have kidnapped him? What would be the motive for that? He would never just leave me, never disappear without letting me know why. He was on his way to Syria and something must have happened between the time he left Chicago and when he got there. All these years, my mother has refused to do anything. She just insists he abandoned us. But I know that’s not true! And now that I’m eighteen, I decided I’d try to find something out. Our congressman told us to come here, that Senator Wamsler would do whatever he could to help. Was he telling the truth? Will the senator help me?”

  John studied the girl before him. She was trying very hard to be determined and strong, but he sensed a sad vulnerability beneath the skin. He shifted in his seat. Syria, he thought; well, that’s better than Lebanon. At least Syria wasn’t embroiled in a civil war.

  “Do you know for certain he left the country?” This time Veranda directed his question to Cheryl.

  Before she could answer, Dalton said, “We’re not certain, actually—“

  Cheryl pursed her lips and glared at Dalton. She sat forward in her chair, gripped Dalton’s arm, and he stopped. “Yes, I am certain, Mr. Veranda. I know my father, and he would not—under any circumstances—have changed his plans without telling me.” She slumped back, her resolve clearly dissolving. John thought she looked younger than eighteen. “That’s why we suspect foul play. It sounds ridiculous, but maybe he was kidnapped. I just don’t know.”

  “So is your father an American citizen? Does he have dual citizenship, or is he still a Syrian citizen?” John asked.

  Cheryl looked at Dalton and back at John. “Congressman Bradford was supposed to find out about his status. My mother won’t even talk about it. She won’t tell me anything. She doesn’t even know I’m here.”

  John’s brow furrowed, and he cast a dark look at Dalton.

  “It’s not like that! Mr. Dalton’s the only person who would help me,” Cheryl said, her voice pleading. “I need answers, and no one else will even listen to me.”

  “Okay,” John said turning back to Cheryl, resisting the urge to reach out and pat the poor girl’s knee or wrap her up in a hug. “Well, it seems this is more complicated than a simple missing persons case. What’s your father’s name?”

  “Elias. Elias Haddad.” Cheryl grabbed the folder sitting in Dalton’s lap and shoved it toward Veranda. “Here, Mr. Veranda. This contains everything I know.”

  “Please, call me John.” Cheryl blushed and nodded. He opened the file and scanned the paper, then shook his head, confused. “Wait, you mean, he disappeared nine years ago? In 1973?”

  “Right,” said Cheryl. “I was nine years old.” She sat up straighter. “Now I’m eighteen. And I can vote, too.”

  John smiled at the girl’s innocence, her earnestness. He cast another glance over at the man sitting next to her and wondered again about Dalton’s real motives.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll neeed some time to look this over. I’ll call you if I have questions. Is your contact information in here?” John held up the folder.

  “Yes, but … we want to talk to the senator,” Cheryl said.

  John studied her. She wore a simple, but pretty yellow sundress and flat sandles, and was petite, but with strong rounded shoulders, like a swimmer who excelled at the butterfly. Her coal-colored hair was streaked with lighter shades of brown, like dark coffee with cream. Its fullness reminded him of the soft yarn that sat in tangled bundles in the basket beside his mother’s chair. She had a healthy summer tan and a flawless complexion, creamy and smooth as perfectly griddled buttermilk pancakes, that magnified deep-set green eyes. He could certainly imagine why Dalton’s interest might go beyond helping a student in need. He could certainly imagine …

  “But the Congressman said—”

  “The senator isn’t in today, but I promise I will speak directly with him, Miss Haddad, and I’ll let you know how he wishes to handle this.”

  Dalton stood up and shook John’s hand. “We’re staying in DC for a few days. The number you can reach us at is in the folder.”

  “We’re staying at a
really cool youth hostel,” Cheryl piped up. “The one on Fourteenth Street?” John knew the area. It was anything but cool.

  “Yeah. It’s very cool and we’re going to see all the museums. It’s my first time here.”

  “It’s a bit worn,” Dalton said, “but at least the sheets are clean. Lodging, as you probably know, is exorbitant in this town.”

  John didn’t comment. He’d just gone through the process of finding a place to live and knew full well how expensive DC was. Instead, he said, “You should definitely see the museums and tour the White House, too. In the meantime, I’ll make some calls and let you know what I find out before you return home.”

  Cheryl reached out to shake his hand. “Thank you, Mr … John.”

  John knew he would have little time to fill the senator in on the details of the missing man before he headed home for a district fund-raising event, so he boiled the details down to a quick pitch.

  “Nine years?” Wamsler asked, looking puzzled. “Why are we just now hearing about this?”

  “It seems the girl’s mother never pursued an inquiry, and it seems, sir, she’s unlikely to.”

  “Maybe this girl doesn’t know all the details. Details her mother didn’t then—and doesn’t now—want to share with her. Maybe the marriage went south and the man decided to return home to stay and didn’t want to disappoint his daughter. See what you can find out from the mother. Though, I suspect that after all this time, there’s little hope of finding him.”

  “There is little hope, I agree. But perhaps pursuing his disappearance may help us make a few new friends with the American-Arab and Middle Eastern policy groups in town. God knows, we always need new friends.”

  “Hmm, that’s not a bad idea. It’s a humanitarian pursuit. Good constituent service for a first-time voter and smart policy outreach.” The Senator reflected in silence for a few minutes, then said, “OK, do some checking. Don’t make it missionary work or anything. Start with the local American-Arab groups back in Chicago. Here,” the senator scribbled a name on a piece of paper and handed it to him, “check in with this fellow, he’s a former state department official who worked the Middle East beat and now publishes a magazine about the region.” The senator stood and placed his hands on his desk, the unspoken signal their meeting was over.