"Do you know her?" Asked the woman who told Cuppa not to move Dora.
"Yes. She's married to my friend."
"Just don't move her," the woman said again in a softer voice and tutted under her breath.
"I'm sorry," the man with the yapping dog said. "I didn't see her." He was trying to soothe the poodle by petting its head repeatedly, but the dog wouldn't stop.
“You need to lift her legs up to get blood flow to her head,” another man said, stepping out of the small crowd of people.
“No, I wouldn't do that,” the woman in the hat argued.
The man ignored her and picked up Dora's legs. Cuppa hovered over him. She'd never seen anyone faint before and had no idea what to do. After some seconds, Dora's eyes fluttered open and she stared blankly up at Cuppa.
“Stay still,” the man said to her. “Don't try to sit up.”
“What?” Dora croaked and cleared her throat. “What happened?”
Cuppa knelt down next to her friend and took her hand. “Dora. It's me, Cuppa. You've gone and fainted, but I'm here and the ambulance is on its way.”
A small wrinkle appeared between Dora's brows, her eyes emanating incomprehension.
“It's me, Cuppa,” Cuppa tried again.
“Give her some space. She's disoriented,” the man holding her legs said. Gently he lowered her legs down as some of the people gathered began to disperse. The sound of the siren drew Cuppa's attention toward the street and she sighed a breath of relief as the ambulance pulled up and two paramedics climbed out, taking in the scene. The man who had revived Dora spoke to one of the paramedics while the other squatted over Dora, Cuppa still holding her hand.
“Hi there,” the paramedic said. “I want you to stay just like that for me. Can you tell me your name?”
“Serene,” she rasped.
Cuppa sucked in her breath. “That's not her name.”
The paramedic glanced up at her.
“It used to be, years ago. She goes by Dora now.”
“No, I'm not Dora.” She reached up a hand and then tried to sit up.
“Easy now. We don't want you upright at the moment,” the paramedic said and then turned to Cuppa. “Can I have you step away, please? Let me talk to her.”
“But I'm her friend. We live together.”
“I understand. Step aside, please.”
Cuppa stood and moved back several feet. Dora's skin was a mustardy grey now and her dark eyes emanated fear and confusion.
“Can you tell me your name one more time?” The paramedic said.
“Yes,” Dora said softly. “It's Serene. Serene Hokulani.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Hollywood. I think. Everything looks different.” The paramedic's brows drew together, and he picked up her arm, examining it. “She's got a contusion on her right forearm. It's formed a hematoma at the ulna,” he said to the other paramedic. “Do you know how you got this?”
She shook her head no and he picked up her other arm, placing a blood pressure cuff over the bicep. “Serene, do you know what day of the week it is?”
“Wednesday.”
Cuppa gasped and was back hovering over them.
“Ma'am, please, we need some space.”
“But, it's not Wednesday,” Cuppa said, and then to Dora, “It's not Wednesday.”
Cuppa felt a tug on her hand, it was the other paramedic. He guided her several feet back, before saying in a low voice. “You'll get a chance to check in with your friend, but right now we need to assess her vitals. We'll talk with you when we're done with her.”
The paramedic tending to Dora took her temperature and then asked her the name of the president.
“Clinton,” she said softly.
“My god,” Cuppa said under her breath.
“And what year is it, Serene?”
“1996.” Tears filled her eyes. “I think,” she added.
The second paramedic retrieved the stretcher.
“How old are you, Serene?”
“Sixteen.”
She was loaded onto the stretcher and lifted up and through the small ambulance's double doors. Cuppa was told to meet them at Cedars Sinai and then the ambulance sped away, leaving Cuppa to scroll through her recent calls until she got to Erica's name.
2
Serene - April 1996
"Make a right here," Ramani said.
Aarav put on his blinker and made a tight, fast turn at a sliver of a sign that read Jackson Ave. "Well, you didn't need to do that," she admonished.
"You didn't give me much time."
"You can always turn around, you know."
"Ramani, please." Arav paused at the split in the road.
"Keep to the right," Ramani said.
They moved forward slowly. Serene sat in the back of the recently purchased twelve-year-old Volvo station wagon, ignoring her mother and stepfather's tiff. She stared out the window at the shaded street. Jackson Avenue was a lot better to look at than the ugly urban sprawl they'd sped through under a grey LA sky. June gloom, Ramani called the blanket of cloud cover at the airport. It wasn't June, though. It wasn't even May.
Ramani and her second husband Darpan arrived in Culver City from Maui ten days earlier than Serene and Aarav. Darpan was waiting for them at the house, the house Ramani grew up in back in the 1950s and 60s when she was Brenda Wilson. Brenda Wilson with two younger sisters, Clair and Dottie. Clair and Dottie were like twins, Ramani had told Serene many times. It was one of those details about her mother's earlier life that she often repeated, like how she once saw Lucille Ball in downtown Culver City near MGM studios and waved at the actress. Lucille had waved back. As a girl, Serene's mother played with her sisters and other neighborhood children at a nearby creek, tracking through the water and exploring the culverts. On her walks home from school, she had liked to stop at a neighborhood store called Jackson Market, where she'd buy a coke. When Ramani told Serene these stories of her childhood, Serene found them hard to imagine. For instance, she could not imagine her New Age fit mother eating white sugar or drinking Coca Cola after school. This
