Her Last Memory

by C. A. Wittman

  Serene looked down, long lashes naturally curling up. "I know."

  Her voice was so low that Steve had to strain his ears to hear.

  "You think you'd go out with him?" He could feel his pulse in his ears and a flush of heat to his cheeks.

  Serene glanced back up at him. "No."

  The no was delivered swiftly. She had not even paused to think about it, and Steve felt the relief flood through his system. His face still flamed from the flush of embarrassment over talking about such a thing with Serene. Yet he couldn't help himself from prodding more.

  "Why not?"

  Serene ran her tongue under her top lip. "He's not my type."

  "What's your type?" He knew he was pushing it now, but couldn't stop.

  Serene shrugged. He scooted closer to the edge of the sofa, their eyes locking. She returned her focus to the VCR, slipping the videotape in, the moment over.

  "I haven't seen this one yet," he said, trying to rescue the situation and wondering what had just happened. "Dylan says it's like Indiana Jones set in Africa. "

  "That's cool." Serene grinned. She pressed play before coming to sit next to him.

  They never really watched the movie that afternoon. Steve had let his fingers graze hers lightly, and she'd returned the gesture, pushing her head back against the sofa. As if in a dream, he moved closer to her and Serene turned toward him, eyes moist. He kissed her then, his mouth touching hers gently, and the light moan that escaped her lips set a fire of longing through his body, their tongues meeting instinctively. They had squirmed and rubbed against each other for an hour, mouths locked. The sound of a key being inserted into the front door drew them apart, the movie more than halfway over.

  * * *

  They made love everywhere. The first time was in Serene's room, their sex raw and voracious, with none of the preening and seductive teasing that Steve got from Taylor. Serene flew at him, a hurricane of energy. She gnawed his lips bloody, sucking at his tongue as if he were administering the last bit of moisture to someone dying of thirst. He often found himself in clumsy positions. Trying to hold her around his hips and stand at the same time. Bending backward to meet her mouth, open and hungry, her tongue stroking the roof of his mouth. Tasting her everywhere. Bellybutton. Ears. Ass. Pussy. And when he came, the orgasm exploded from him with such violence that he sometimes found himself shuddering for a full minute. Steve felt like an addict. He thought of Serene constantly, her smile and dark liquid eyes. Taut breasts, nipples like firm little raisins. The way she walked. Assured. The way she skated like she owned the pavement. They made love every day, sometimes multiple times in the day. Thanks to Ramani's non-issue with her teenage daughter having a sex life, no one bothered them in Serene's tiny closet of a room.

  This afternoon was no different from all the other afternoons in the last fifteen days. The hazy light of a late spring day streamed through the glass door and the small window above the futon bed, making visible dust moats floating in the stillness. He moved languidly inside of her, this being their second go around. Steve slowly traced Serene's lips with his tongue, feeling her muscles tensing in a way he'd never felt before. Something was about to happen and he kept his rhythm steady. A flush of wet warmth washed over him. All of her muscles contracted as she buried her face into his neck, the heat of her breath sending a shower of goose bumps over his skin.

  "Serene? Did you come?"

  She nodded, another small shudder going through her body. So quiet. Not like the show Taylor put on, making a big deal every time. Overcome with it all, he flipped her over, her skin slick, and entered her from behind. It took only one thrust, with her back arching to meet him, to send him over the edge. After, they lay silently side-by-side, his little finger running slowly up and down her outer thigh.

  "Serene?"

  She turned to look at him.

  "Was that the first time you came while we were doing it?"

  She swallowed, her smooth throat muscles constricting, lips bruised from all the kissing. "Yeah," she finally said, and then, "I love you."

  They kissed like they had all the time in the world.

  "You're so wild and beautiful," he whispered. In minutes they were both asleep.

  * * *

  When Steve woke up, Serene was still sleeping. The light had faded to dusk, the room left in shadows.

  "Shit," he hissed. It was late, too late for his parents. Although they often didn't get home until seven or seven-thirty, they expected Steve and Carrie to be there, to have dinner as a family. Serene mumbled something, her eyelids fluttering, and turned her back to him, emitting a soft snore. He slipped out of bed, trying to dress as quietly as he could.

  He wasn't prepared to find Ramani in the living room, kicking lumberjack boots off her feet, her face partially concealed by a large pair of safety glasses. She was in blue jeans and a black wife-beater. A thin layer of sawdust covered her arms and frosted her dark curls. She grinned when she saw Steve. A flash of teeth. Ramani had a gap between her front teeth that gave the impression she was sharing a secret when she smiled.

  Ramani pushed her glasses up to the top of her head. "You two done with your date?"

  Steve never really knew how to be around Ramani or how to answer some of her questions that often disregarded boundaries. He stood for a moment, trying to find something to say to her brazen acknowledgment of the sex life he had with her daughter.

  "Um. I have to get home." His voice came out hoarse.

  Ramani dug into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small pipe and a lighter. She placed the pipe in her mouth, lit up the pot that was left in there, inhaled deeply and sighed out her exhaustion with a cloud of smoke.

  "Cool. See you tomorrow, hon." Her words came out tight as she talked over the remnant of smoke still making its way back up from her lungs.

  Steve gave a little nod. "Yeah, bye."

  "Bye." The farewell came from behind him.

  Steve spun around to see Aarav sitting still and quiet, cross-legged in front of his altar. God, Serene's family was fucking wonky, he thought for the zillionth time. He gave a small wave at Aarav and went in search of his shoes by the door as Ramani started to sing to herself.

  “There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear.”

  Steve felt his face grow warm as he pulled on his vans, barely tying them before stumbling out the door.

  * * *

  The last person he wanted to see was Enzo. Enzo stood outside his own house, separated from Serene's by a fence and patch of sidewalk, watching Taylor climb into Julie's car. The first days of Steve and Serene's relationship, Enzo had given them smoldering looks. Laughed too hard in front of them. Made crude jokes followed by a wink. Just kidding, a slap on the back. A playful punch on the shoulder that made Steve's muscle ache for days. But Steve had let it go. He'd been a dick, he knew. Enzo had confided in him, and then he'd gone and taken the girl Enzo had specifically set his eyes on. But Enzo didn't get it. Didn't see how Steve and Serene had been slowly making their way toward each other. It didn't take Taylor long to swoop Enzo up after that, and when Enzo found out that she and Steve had dated, he was only too happy to have her.

  Not long ago, Enzo had intercepted him.“Steve.” A casual arm thrown around the shoulder, a smile that had never reached the eyes. Enzo had given him a hard flick under his chin with two fingers and an even harder kiss on the cheek. “Taylor's pretty cute, huh?”

  Steve had shrugged, not comfortable walking arm in arm with another guy, intimidated that Enzo might just as well beat the shit out of him rather than kiss his cheek. Enzo was two inches shorter than Steve, but all muscle and machismo.

  “She's fucking sexy, right?” Enzo had said, turning around and walking backward, grinning at Steve.

  “Yeah, sure. Whatever, man.”

  He’d hooted at Steve's reply, full of himself, full of being young. “Sexy girl,” he'd said and licked his lips.

  After that, it was as if Enzo
and Taylor's whole relationship existed solely to be performed specifically for Steve and Serene's benefit. Although, Serene was really good at being oblivious to things she didn't want to see. She had this way of looking straight through a person, turning her shoulder or her back with indifferent nonchalance. Her snubs were so subtle that they made a person second guess them, thinking they were misreading something.

  Enzo caught Steve's eye when he stepped out Serene's front door, and he put his index finger and thumb in his mouth, making that shrill whistle that Steve was never able to learn. Taylor paused as Enzo waved her over. She swished her hair over her shoulder, before making her way back to Enzo, who swooped an arm around her waist, his hand gliding down to her butt while they kissed. Steve rolled his eyes. The beep of Julie's horn prompted Taylor to turn around. Julie waved impatiently for her to come on, and that's when Taylor noticed him. She froze and then kissed her hand and blew across it, making the mwah motion with her lips, her signature see you. Steve didn't return the gesture. Instead, he crossed the street to his house.

  * * *

  Prepared to make excuses for coming home late, the wrongness hit him like a hammer between the eyes. In the evenings, his dad, without fail, could be found in his armchair, watching sports or the news. Instead, he stood gazing at the wall, a glass of whiskey in his hand. The kitchen was dark and the usual dinner aroma that should have been wafting through the house was absent.

  "Hey," Steve said.

  His dad threw back his drink. "Steve's home," he called out. "Why don't you come out here, Carrie, and let him know what a dirty old man your dad is."

  Their mother strode into the living room from the hallway that led to the bedrooms, face pinched, eyes glittering. "Stop it, Ron. Just stop it!"

  "What's going on?" Steve took a step toward his parents and his dad spun to face him.

  "Talk to your sister. She seems to think I'm some sort of pervert. Right, Carrie?" He yelled over their mother's shoulder.

  "Ron! You've had too much to drink." Maggie grabbed at his arm, but he yanked himself out of her grasp, his lips thinned, colorless and pressed hard together.

  "Where's Carrie?" Steve asked.

  "Yeah. Where is Carrie?" His dad slurred back, but the question was directed at their mother.

  Steve headed toward his sister's room, mind spinning. If his dad did something to her.

  He knocked on her door. "It's me."

  Carrie opened it, looking wan and small.

  "Carrie, what the fuck is going on? Are you okay? Did Dad do something to you?"

  She crossed her arms and said nothing.

  "Can I come in?"

  "Yeah, come in," she said in a low voice. Once her brother was inside, she shut the door.

  "What the hell is going on?"

  "It's Taylor."

  "Taylor?" What was she talking about? What did Taylor have to do with any of this?

  "She came by, looking for you."

  Steve still felt confused.

  "So?"

  "Dad was here, and he told her you'd be home soon. That she could wait. I was around for that part, and then I came in here to do some homework, and when I went back into the living room, Taylor was sitting on Dad's lap."

  "What?!"

  His exclamation was so loud that their dad yelled back.

  "I hear you got the memo."

  "She was sitting on his fucking lap. Playing with his fucking hair. As soon as she saw me, she jumped up." Carrie spat out the words, face white. Her features looked frozen and all Steve could focus on was her mouth and how tiny it was. He'd never noticed before.

  He felt like he was going to be sick. "So Dad was just… did it look romantic?" His head spun with the implications.

  "Everything happened so fast," Carrie said, her anger dialed down a little. "Dad says he didn't know she was going to do that. That one minute she was sitting on the sofa and next she was in his lap."

  "Well, he should have fucking pushed her off. Shit!"

  "Exactly. Instead, he let her stay for a few moments to play with his fucking hair because––get this," Carrie made air quotes, "she seemed lost."

  "Christ," Steve muttered. "This is taking things too far, flirting with Dad like that. And I just saw her coming from Enzo's."

  "Yeah. She hightailed it out of here when I caught them. The last half hour has been a regular shit show."

  There was a soft knock on the door and they both knew it was their mother before she came inside. She looked drained, cheeks sagging.

  "I've been talking to your dad," she said, eyes darting from one to the other of them. "And I believe him. I believe that he didn't know Taylor was going to do what she did."

  "Why didn't he tell her to get off him?!" Carrie demanded.

  Their mother brought her hands to her face and shook her head, speaking into them. "I don't know. He keeps saying he felt sorry for her." She brought her hands down, stretching out her fingers. “And you know what? I believe him. That girl…” Their mother pointed at the door as if it were Taylor. "She's a terrible flirt. I've seen how she flirts with other boys, even how she's interacted with your dad, flirting with him. Still, he's never given her the slightest provocation. Maybe Taylor's expressing a need for a father figure. Didn't her dad recently move out?"

  "She's too fucking old to be crawling into grown men's laps!" Steve snapped.

  Their mother nodded forcefully. "Yes. But you know your dad. This is just so out of character for him. It has to be what he says. And I agree, it was poor judgment on his part to let her stay, to––I don't know––try and be understanding, I guess. He should have put a stop to it immediately. I told him with all these accusations of molestation these days, you just can't. Even if you're trying to be kind." Their mother's voice broke and she started to cry, but neither Steve nor Carrie felt inclined to step forward and comfort her.

  "I don't want her in this house ever again," Carrie hissed.

  "No. We're done," Steve said quietly.

  21

  Serene - June 1996

  * * *

  “No. I'm putting my foot down about this. Kanani's not welcome here. Not after the trouble she's caused. Not when she's probably still using ice.” Aarav's narrow features screwed up tight in anger. He had to look up when he talked to Serene, who was several inches taller than him.

  “It was a one-time thing!” Serene screamed back at her stepfather.

  “It's never a one-time thing,” he hissed.

  “So, it's okay for Ramani to smoke all the fucking pot she wants. That's not a problem?”

  “To be fair,” Darpan interrupted, “marijuana and methamphetamine are two very different drugs.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Darpan!” Serene whipped around, her rage so hot she felt that she might just exhale fire. “You stupid fucking haole!”

  “Watch your language,” Aarav yelled, stepping so close to her that he now screamed in her face.

  “Whoa, whoa,” Darpan made patting motions with his hands. “Let's all calm down. We can talk. We don't need to scream at each other.”

  “Shut up! Just shut up!” Serene wanted to put her hands around his long thin neck and squeeze.

  “You need to go to your room until you can calm down,” Aarav ordered.

  “You're going to stand up for him?”

  “Yes. You're out of control.”

  “And you're not? Are you really in control, Aarav, or is it just an illusion?” Serene gestured upstairs and watched her stepfather's face redden.

  “You need to go to your room now. Right now.”

  Serene stomped away, feeling childish and silly. She was too old for such tantrums, too big to be stomping around. She went into her room and slammed the door, despite recognizing her own immaturity. Ramani wasn't home. Ramani wasn't there to settle how things would shake out, because it always came down to Ramani. She always had the final say about everything.

  * * *

  Their explosive argument, like the kind of spi
tting mad fights Serene used to have with Aarav, was the first in a long time. Like warring countries that suddenly had a more formidable enemy to contend with, she and Aarav had formed a tepid alliance out of necessity since Darpan's arrival. Ramani was the superpower in the household, but Darpan was gaining more control over how that superpower handled their lives.

  Serene was steaming. She felt betrayed that Aarav would take Darpan's side, even if she had been verbally trashing him.

  Before the meltdown with Aarav, Kanani had called to tell Serene she had, unbelievably, won tickets to Disneyland from a radio show. All expenses paid for five days for herself and a friend. Kanani wanted to extend her trip for several weeks. Summer had just begun.

  “It's going to go down,” she'd gushed to Serene over the phone.

  Half an hour later, Serene had her stupid argument with her stepdad over a one-time event, an arrest at a party Upcountry on Maui last year. A neighbour had called the police about the gathering of teens at a remote residence in the forest. At the party, Kanani decided to try a little meth for the first time, offered by a scraggly twenty-year-old. Serene had declined. When the police arrived, they were both arrested, along with several others. Serene had drunk a few beers, but she had no drugs on her––the police searched. Searched the pockets of her shorts, her sweater. Two hours later, she was released to Aarav and Kanani to her mom, who loudly berated her for three meth crystals the cops found in a little plastic bag in her pocket. Kanani had been so high and belligerent with the officers when they showed up at the party, she'd forgotten what she'd pocketed until they began to manhandle her right then and there. At the station, they'd taken her blood.

  The cops’ handling of the teenagers, Ramani declared inept. Ramani put on her lawyer cap, contacted the public defender, Bob Pearce, before he'd lifted a finger to dial their number. The underage drinking charge was dropped for Serene. After all, she wasn't drunk at the time of the bust. And the police didn't find her with actual alcohol in her hands—end of story. Kanani wasn't charged either, but that was because a cousin and an uncle of hers were in the MPD. Maui police were notoriously crooked.