SERENA JOY'S REWARDS FROM DADDY

Serena Joy had excelled with her grades that term. Just in time for a serious application to grad-school. As a reward, her dad had promised 'a trip for two' for his daughter - to any Caribbean Island, to escape the depths of Boston's winter.

He had also surprised her at Christmas with this car, the one she was now sitting in, with that new car smell. In the hospital parking lot - that smell was the smell of success she knew was coming.

Her daddy, he did not ever need a reason to dote on his daughter. It drove her mom crazy. The two 'women of the house' had had words over that very subject, never in front of him. Her mom had had the gall to accuse Serena - even as a 10 year old - of being an 'entitled little bitch'. Serena had thrown her mom's sorority ties into her face - "isn't that why you married dad? Hmmm? Hmmm! To get your university 'Mrs.' degree? At least I'm getting grades. They're telling me I have 'post-grad chops', that I'm a natural writer. That's more than YOU ever had. What did you ever do except stalk the popular guys at the big frat houses?"

Serena had been 19 then. A match for her mother. A delicate flower for her daddy. Hence, this car and the travel brochure in her hand.

As she waited for her friend, Sonia, there in the hospital parking lot.

It was the number '365' on the Antigua brochure that had caught Serena's eye. Out of all the Leeward Islands, for some reason Antigua had stood out. '365' were the number of days in the year, also the number of beaches on Antigua.

That was not counting neighbouring Barbuda, which had idyllic beaches but few of the 'touristy' traps. A slower island, which made a 19-year old Serena laugh, because St. John's, its capital, was hardly Boston.

There she was, coming out from the hospital's main entrance. Seeing Sonia, Serena put the brochure on the passenger seat, got out into the rain to wave her hand, so that Sonia could see where she was parked.

As Sonia got closer it became clearer why she'd had to seek medical services. Both young women settled into the new-car smell of Serena's present, but both remained silent. Sonia looked like she should have been crying, but also looked exhausted - simply cried-out.

PORTENT OF DAYS TO COME

Befudddled as what else to say, Serena Joy started by saying, "Hey Sonia, daddy has paid for a trip to somewhere in the Caribbean. For two. I was thinking Antigua, just you and me. Two weeks, spring break."

Sonia neither moved nor reacted to the invitation. She just sat in the car, not even inquiring why they weren't moving.

Finally Sonia spoke. "I don't know if Ray will allow it. My folks, they really like him. Call him 'godly'. Ha! They think he's a step-up from the jerks I dated in high school. My dad called those guys, knuckle-draggers'."

Serena swiveled to her right as much as the car-seat and steering wheel would allow. She tried to make eye-contact, but Sonia was having none of it. The visuals around Sonia excused Serena being so forthright about it.

Serena said, trying her best to back off on an interrogator's tone, "did Ray hit you?"

At that, the tears flowed. Sonia related how when the hospital had called in a female police officer, that Sonia had recounted how clumsy she'd been, and how the carpet on the top stair had come loose. Sonia told Serena, "I told her I hit every branch on the way down of the stupid tree." That one at least had had some factuality to do with it. That's how Ray had often described Sonia to his friends.

Serena felt punitive, saying, "lying to the police does no one any good, Sonia." It's what Serena's daddy had always told her.

Sonia sat there unfazed. She probably hadn't even heard Serena's words.

Finally Sonia spoke again, "I won't be going to the Caribbean any time soon." Eyes down surveying the footwell of the seat where her legs were, Sonia said calmly…..

".…. I'm pregnant."

ANTIGUA

"Are there ANY cocktails on this island WITHOUT rum?" Sonia asked.

Sonia wasn't complaining, mind you. As Serena had noted, it had taken Sonia a good two days to say anything, probably acclimatizing to the Leeward Island's warmth.

The first thing Sonia had said on deplaning and looking around at the tropical airport terminal, it was not as strange as the second thing she said. First, "I may spend these two weeks permanently in my bikini."

Second thing Serena regarded as strange given that the airplane had just landed, "I will have to come back here one day."

That had been three days' previous. So far, both young women had made good on Sonia's first statement.

What had surprised both of them? Today was day four of their sandy sojourn, and they'd only been harassed twice by local, over testosterone'd men. The Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda, so the clerk at the hotel desk had said, was committed to helping tourists have a 'safe stay', including patrols on a few of the more crowded beaches. Seeing them wearing shorts with badges and guns, Serena had quipped, "they had better not complain about their working conditions!"

Serena's goal, though, was to get Sonia talking. About 'things'. Sonia was quite adept at diverting topics - Serena always fell for it when Sonia would reply to a question by asking about Serena's planned, post-graduate work. Serena loved talking about herself.

Serena had asked about Ray. Sonia had asked about grad-school in Boston, about how that level of education was still under the thrall of men. Sonia had assessed all that as, "somehow, Serena, I don't think you'll have a problem putting guys in their place."

So there on the sand, on their blankets with the umbrella above them strategically positioned, Serena set a clock in her self-confessed vanity. 'I'm going to tell her everything,' Serena thought, 'when that's exhausted, then next time she'll only be able to talk about Ray, that rat-bastard son-of-a-bitch.'

THE EXCEPTIONS ONLY APPLY TO US

It may as well be there, on the Antiguan beach, that Serena risked bursting the bubble, the no man's land of conversation.

Serena was well aware of Sonia's abortion, Serena had driving her to the appointment. And why it needed to be kept quiet - what with the circles in which the two of them ran. Add to all that, Sonia knew that the pregnancy had not been Ray's. All she would say about that was, 'he must never know, either about the pregnancy, especially about the termination.'

But because she'd asked about her studies, Serena had bulled forward, trying to make it short so that they'd end up talking about Sonia.

"There's a fertility crisis, my studies have proven it," Serena lectured. "But what's coming is worse. My post-grad, if it works out, is a mixture of sociology and human reproduction. I've got a couple of profs interested in sponsoring - but, here's the bizarre bit, they're concerned about 'fascist political outcomes' or some such things. I keep telling them that political science is the farthest thing from my ideas, but they keep dangling post-grad dollars at me to moderate my views. Geez, I'm an undergrad!"

Sonia lifted the front of her sunhat, made eye-contact with Serena for the first time since they'd landed.

Right there on the beach, laying with rum-laced cocktails under the shade of a hotel umbrella, Sonia suddenly started 'talking turkey', as she said her dad would have said.

"Why aren't you judging me, Serena," Sonia asked, not acknowledging the sudden change of topic.

"Judging you?" Serena repeated. "Why would I judge you!? Judge not, lest ye be judged."

"You gave me the ride. You waited. You made sure I was home, you even diverted my parents when I couldn't face them. You diverted Ray." Sonia looked to be crying when she said, "I owe you, Serena. For this beach. For my privacy." She then sat silently, looked out at the waves lapping up onto the sand, wondering when they were going to have to move because of the tide.

"I was nothing but the friend you needed," Serena said.

"Your campus group, The Jacobs - you know what they say about abortion, Serena," Sonia said.

"No, I know," Serena offered. "They teach about public policy and morality, how The United States is failing under the thrall of amoral secularism." Serena paused, "but this is you, honey. Besides, I needed someone to enjoy this beach with."

Sonia said, "isn't that what your studies are, though? Isn't that what your profs are saying is getting you into trouble?"

Serena sighed with frustration, "if you're going to be like this, honey…. I mean, I'm on a beach in the Caribbean, and all that stuff is back home." Serena softened her voice. "Public policy is not for sandy beaches, girl."

"But infertility, Serena?" Sonia said, not really as a question. "Didn't your sociological stuff say that women were a resource? We've just murdered, Serena!"

"Geez, girl," Serena huffed. "Have another mojito, will you?"

RUBBER, MEET ROAD

"Ok, that's me, Sonia," Serena counseled. "We've another 11 days and I'm putting you on notice that Jacob-style morality is taking a holiday." Serena lifted her rum-laced cocktail pointed to it, so that Sonia could see it, and leaned back to catch the umbrella's shade more.

"Ok, Sonia, that was me. Now for you, no more evasions. Out here I can simply out-wait you. Spill, baby, spill."

The skinny - the baby had not been Ray's. Ray, as president of the campus Jacob-club himself was, 'saving himself for marriage' as Sonia had put it. At first Sonia had thought that it had been her own 'advances' towards him, advances to her own boyfriend, which had brought out his ugly side. His lectures on 'sin'.

The trip to the hospital? She had found condoms in his room at the frat-house. She'd counted them. A week later when he'd sent her to pick-up some of his homework, she'd opened the drawer to count them again. There only had been one left.

She'd confronted him about it, accusing him of seeing other girls. He'd laughed. He reiterated that he was saving himself for marriage, as God's law dictated. She'd then made a huge mistake, a mistake she would never make again.

She'd heard what had gone on at fraternities. Not only their hazings with prostitutes - but also the way they'd covered for each other in worse perversions. In anger, she'd only meant it sarcastically. Even the young Ray Cushing, he did not do sarcasm well. She'd accused him of using condoms with other men.

The next morning, she'd regained consciousness. Serena had picked her up at the hospital parking lot. In Serena's new car.

Which for Serena did not answer the obvious.

If not Ray, who? Only secondarily, Serena had thought, what are the odds of an unplanned pregnancy at the beginning of a world-wide infertility epidemic?

THE FLIGHT HOME

"We board in an hour," Serena said. "Can you believe it's been two weeks? Time really does stop here."

Sonia said, "Serena, I really have not thanked you enough." She paused, "truth be told, I'm not ready to go back."

Serena smiled, "who in their right mind would be? Rum - I'm going to miss you the most!"

Sonia said, "I never answered your question."

Serena looked surprised, "honey, I've peppered you with a virtual inquisition! I'll be the judge of the veracity of the answers!"

Sonia said, "no, no. You never asked it, not directly anyway. Who was the daddy?"

Serena smiled, "hey, it's a long flight back to Miami, then Boston. I'd have it out of you before we hit snow."

Sonia said, "I need you not to judge me, Serena. This isn't like the termination." She paused and looked stone faced, "I was at Ray's fraternity house, he wasn't there. I'd just missed him. The guys, the Jacobs who lived there, they said he'd gone with another of them, a guy named 'Waterman', 'Rutherford', 'Westerfall', or 'Walter…..' something. The Jacob named Warren, he then gave me a big wink."

"So I stayed. I mean this was a frat-house, so I knew what I was getting into, but by that time I did not care. It was the Jacobs, they were the ones who brought out the booze. Jacobs! To say that I got loaded, that would be an understatement."

"I don't remember much past that. I do remember that that 'Warren' guy got on top of me. The others were chanting his surname, except they'd changed it to 'put-it-in, put-it-in."

"I guess they each had a turn. One of them said that they were just doing what Ray wouldn't. Or couldn't. Two weeks later, I missed my period - I mean, I'm like a Swiss clock."

Sonia sat silently in the airport waiting room, waiting for her return to the cold of Boston.

"Then I told Ray. I was angry. I'd told him that none of that would have happened if he'd not be out with 'Waterman', or 'Walterman' or whoever. Next thing I knew, I was in hospital, with a female Boston cop standing over me."

"So who's the daddy?" She looked straight ahead, "it was Jacob, honey…. he was all Jacob."