We all agreed that we clearly couldn’t allow Cole to go around drugging people and God knows what else, but I insisted that we hold off making any decisions until we consulted with Stella in the morning. I longed to share my undeniably similar blackout experience, but I knew it would likely be the final straw, and selfishly, I didn’t want Jackson to pull the plug on the film for the sake of my own welfare.
I was ashamed of my cowardice; I admired women who called out their abusive bosses and sorely wished I were brave enough to join their ranks. But I knew if I spoke out against Cole, my prior alleged indiscretions would resurface and no one would believe me. And regardless of whether I spoke out, if I left Power Pictures I’d be jobless again, with nothing to show for these torturous months working for Cole—and no prospects.
Neither of these options was in the least bit appetizing; hence my escapist fantasy of looking at property on Saint Ann. I’d never really considered living in a small town, let alone on an island—and hadn’t actually spent any time on Saint Ann, of course. But that didn’t stop me from dreaming up a fictitious life on what (according to Rick) was an idyllic Caribbean island with a population of nearly 100,000, a lively town center, and a state-of-the-art hospital. I could…I wasn’t sure what I could do; all my job skills were film-related. Maybe I’d run a small production company, produce locally? It was the kind of thing that would have depressed me to no end five years ago, but I had to admit was sounding better and better of late. But I was getting way ahead of myself. It was purely a fantasy.
I’d just emerged from the steam-filled bathroom when there was a knock at my door. “Who is it?” I called.
“Francisco.”
I pulled on a robe and swung open the door. He was wearing a short-sleeved button-down, his hair pomaded to perfection, as usual. I cringed to think what a mess I must look, but he was scrolling through his phone. “Sorry to bother you,” he said without looking up. “You weren’t answering your phone.”
“What’s up?” I asked, concerned.
He clicked on something and handed me his phone. The blog picture was of Stella, slumped against the wall next to the bathroom at Coco’s last night, and the caption read “Stella Rivers Can’t Keep Her Act Together.”
“Shit,” I said.
“The insurance rep has already called,” he said gravely.
I frowned. “Can you get Jackson and Stella over here as soon as possible?”
“Not Cole?”
“Not Cole,” I confirmed.
He saluted. “Got it.”
I barely had time to pull on clothes before Stella turned up looking like death warmed over despite her carefully made-up face, Felicity at her side.
“I need her.” Stella gestured to Felicity as she entered without removing her sunglasses. She winced at the sunlight streaming through the wall of glass overlooking the calm sea. “Can we…?” She made a half-hearted gesture in the direction of the windows.
I hit the switch that lowered the transparent mahogany sunshade. “Blackout shades too?” I asked.
She sank onto the couch. “No, that’s fine.” She kicked off her sandals and curled up with her head on a turquoise silk pillow.
I pressed a cup of coffee into her hands and instructed Felicity to brew another pot while I opened the door to Jackson. He crept over to Stella like she was a dog that had been mistreated and might bite; I half expected him to extend his hand palm-up before squatting next to her.
“How you doing?” he asked quietly.
“I’m hungover, not dying,” she said. “Though I feel like I’m dying.”
He patted her hand with sympathy, and she recoiled. “Go sit. You’re creeping me out.”
Felicity giggled and perched at the end of the couch, catching Jackson’s eye as he moved to a chair. I took the seat opposite him. “You’ve all seen the photos?” I asked.
Everyone nodded.
“We have to figure out how we want to play it with the insurance,” I went on.
“Or whether we pull the plug,” Jackson interrupted, tucking a strand of dark hair behind his ear.
This roused Stella. “Pull the plug?” she asked, sitting up. “Why?”
He looked at her incredulously. “Because my father drugged you last night?”
“Cole’s an asshole.” She shrugged. “It’s no reason to can the film.”
“What he did was criminal,” Jackson protested.
“And we have no proof it was him,” Stella pointed out. “The bigger question is who leaked the picture. I’m guessing Madison. I saw her in the crowd the day I fell in the puddle, and that picture was leaked too. She’s so desperate for fame, she probably has some deal where she sends unflattering pictures of me in return for them printing flattering pictures of her.”
Jackson furrowed his brow. “So you don’t care that he drugged you?”
Stella finally took off her sunglasses and looked him in the eye. “I made twenty thousand dollars last year. My credit cards are maxed out, my house is reverse mortgaged, and I can’t pay my property taxes. This job is a lifeline, and I’m not letting him—or you—take it away from me. Besides,” she muttered, “drugging me is the least of his offenses.”
She lay back down on the couch and flung her arm over her eyes with a dramatic sigh. Jackson looked to me expectantly.
“None of us wants to shut down the film,” I said. “That’s a last resort.”
He nodded in agreement. “But if it comes to that, I’m not afraid to—”
“We know.” Stella groaned without moving. “What you really need to do is fire Madison. She’s going to ruin the film. Felicity would be much better.”
“This was not my idea,” Felicity piped up. “I’m not trying to steal anybody’s part.”
Jackson looked over at Felicity and smiled. “I know you’re not. But she’s right—I’ve thought of it myself. Problem is, getting rid of Madison isn’t so easy. She’s got a contract and is screwing my dad.”
“Funny, she screwed my dad, too,” I said dryly, debating whether to voice what else I knew about Madison. I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t, after what my father had put her through, but now that I’d gotten to know her, I realized perhaps she wasn’t worthy of my empathy. Life was turning out never to be black-and-white. “I don’t know if it helps, but…Madison never had leukemia,” I blurted.
Felicity and Jackson gaped at me. Stella sat up, her bloodshot eyes wide. “Wait, what?”
“How do you know this?” Jackson asked.
“My dad found out. It’s a long story…”
“Summarize,” Stella demanded.
I sighed. I knew my part in the story wouldn’t cast me in the best light, but at this point I had few fucks left to give. “Madison had a recurring part on one of my dad’s shows when she first got to Hollywood. According to him, she threw herself at him and he accepted what she offered. Which, now that I know her, I don’t doubt. Anyway, while they were involved, he did her the favor of making sure she got promoted to series regular on Dallas Divas. When it got canceled, she threatened to expose their relationship and say it wasn’t consensual if he didn’t put her on another show. So he dug up dirt on her in the event he needed to fight back and found out she’d never had cancer. The whole thing was a giant hoax designed to make her famous.”
“Jesus,” Stella breathed. “That’s evil genius.”
“It’s the real reason I got fired,” I admitted. I’d told Jackson and Cole my side of the Rory scenario when they hired me, though I withheld exactly what dirty work my father had asked me to do. “My dad wanted me to release all the info on Madison to preempt any attempt by her to accuse him of anything, and I refused. I didn’t really know what had happened between them, and it just didn’t seem right.”
“So that’s why you threw her into the mix for this,” Jackson surmised.
“I knew he would hear about it and it would get under his skin,” I admitted. “I didn’t do the things my father accused me of,” I
explained to Stella and Felicity. “But that’s a story for another day. Anyway, I’m sorry I ever brought Madison in for an audition.”
“Wait, she auditioned?” Felicity asked.
Jackson nodded. “And she was actually good. Not first-choice good, but fifth on the list when the first four were unavailable.”
“She must’ve been coached to within an inch of her life,” Stella scoffed.
“By someone who’s a better director than me,” Jackson added.
Felicity rolled her eyes. “You don’t have the time to spend hours a day coaxing a performance out of one of your actresses. You have an entire cast and crew to worry about.”
“And a tight schedule,” I added.
“Great.” Stella beamed. “So we all agree we can get rid of her.”
Jackson held up a hand. “Let’s put a pin in this right now. We’ll take the night off from filming.” Off my look, he continued. “It’s the scene where Marguerite tries to drown herself and the nanny saves her.” He indicated Stella. “She’s in no shape to be out in the ocean doing a physical scene tonight.”
“We’ll have to make it up,” I pointed out.
“Fine. But I’m not putting anyone in danger again.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Beyond that, we have two problems to solve to keep the film running.” I held up two fingers. “How to keep our insurance in light of those pictures, and how to contain Cole. Anyone have any bright ideas?”
“Well, yeah,” Felicity chimed in. “On the insurance thing, they need to know she wasn’t drunk to keep her insured, right? So she releases a statement. Says she was roofied. Does a post about roofie awareness—how it can happen to anyone. Says she wants to share to prevent it from happening to other people.”
Jackson nodded, thinking. “Great idea.”
“What about Cole?” I asked.
For a moment no one spoke. Finally, Felicity shrugged. “We could kill him,” she said lightly.
I involuntarily emitted a short bark of a laugh.
“Jackson would inherit his estate,” she went on, “we’d recast his role, and violà!”
Jackson smirked. “Anyone have any ideas that don’t end with us all in jail?”
“Oh, come on.” Felicity laughed. “If I were going to murder someone, I think we all know I wouldn’t get caught.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. Obviously she was joking, but it didn’t feel right to be talking this way, no matter how much I detested Cole. Actually, it felt so wrong precisely because of how much I detested him: the idea of murdering him, if I were really honest, sounded for just a moment, like a good one. And that, I knew, was not good. Even if the world would totally be better off without him. “Nobody’s murdering anyone.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Jackson said.
“Way less exciting,” Felicity drolled.
“I’m coming with you to talk to him,” Stella asserted.
“No,” Jackson said. “I need to do this alone.”
Felicity
Four Months Ago
I’m curled up on the soft white couch in my apartment with a mug of chamomile on a rainy afternoon when my phone dings with a notification that an article mentioning Cole Power has been posted. I have alerts set for both Stella and Cole, though they rarely turn up anything useful. The only time Stella’s name has come up at all in the past few months was in connection with an interview she gave to a horror fan site regarding a low-budget film she starred in that no one saw. Most of it was bullshit about her craft and rambling stories about bigger movies she’d shot a decade ago. But there was one memorable moment where she likened her “past mistakes” to the mistakes her character in the film makes that lead to her death—namely, attempting and failing to murder her husband’s mistress, who later stalks and kills her. An odd admission for sure.
When the interviewer pressed her on it, she walked the comment back with a meandering statement about the importance of “coming clean” and living honestly and alluded to a memoir she wanted to write. The video only got 453 hits, so whatever she said didn’t matter much. But it did get my attention.
Cole, on the other hand, comes up at least once a week, though usually it’s a picture of him shopping with his latest model girlfriend or a promotion for a movie he has coming out. There were some juicy stories when one girlfriend broke up with him claiming he threw a cell phone at her head, but they went away when “sources close to the couple” revealed that she’d been on acid at the time and had threatened him with a knife. No report about why she felt the need to threaten him with a knife, and she of course denied the claims, but it was enough to throw doubt into the mix, and the rumors about Cole died down after a few weeks.
This latest alert, however, is a Hollywood Gazette report concerning his production company, Power Pictures—and to my shock, Stella:
Stella Rivers joins cast of The Siren.
My mouth falls open when I read the title. I immediately click on the alert, the seconds it takes to load stretching out like hours.
Stella Rivers, best known as Mary Elizabeth in Under the Blue Moon, will join the cast of The Siren, an indie thriller currently in preproduction at Cole Power’s Power Pictures. Rivers will play Marguerite, a woman struggling with postpartum depression, who becomes paranoid when her husband (played by real-life ex-husband Power) hires a beautiful young nanny to watch their child.
Taylor Wasserman, formerly of Woodland Studios, is producing for Power Pictures, and Power’s son Jackson Power is set to direct. The Siren is slated for production early summer in the Caribbean.
I reread the article until I have it memorized, then frantically search the internet for more information about the film, but this is apparently the first report. It’s unbelievable; I immediately feel negligent for not knowing sooner. Cole, Stella, and Jackson together in one place—it’s what I’ve been trying for months to figure out how to engineer.
After my run-in with Cole at the Ninth Circle, I never returned to work, never collected the money I was owed. I completely ghosted Marty and Lacey and all the other people who knew Nikki Nimes. I moved clear across the 101 to Echo Park, ditched acting classes, changed my email and phone, and became Felicity Fox—Felicity for luck and because I can use the nickname my mom used to call me, “Fee.” Fox because I hope to be smart like a fox in this incarnation. Plus, it sounds cool.
My ID still reads Phoenix Pendley, though this time I’m taking the steps to change it legally.
Felicity is brown-eyed, with chin-length brunette hair and bangs. The thing I find the funniest is the difference in the men I attract. As a blonde, it was generally either guys with fast cars and lots of money or the really good-looking ones, both of whom predictably wanted a roll in the hay and a trophy on their arm. As a redhead it was the artsy ones in search of their own manic pixie dream girl. As a brunette, it’s the more serious types looking for a girlfriend, who want to cook me dinner and discuss our dreams before they make sweet love to me. Barf.
One more adjustment I made to be totally sure Cole wouldn’t remember me the next time we meet: I got a nose job. Expensive and painful, but worth it, I think. Though it was tempting to take a picture of my mother to the surgeon and ask for her nose, I didn’t. I simply had the bump shaved off, leaving it smaller and straighter and slightly turned up at the end, when it had been turned down before. My profile is completely different now, and with the cut-and-dye-job and darker eyes, I really do look like another person. It’s taken some time for me not to start when I see myself in the mirror, but I’m getting used to it.
Once the task of starting a new life was taken care of, I set about the business of devising a plan. There could be nothing haphazard this time; I needed to unearth what had happened to Iris that terrible night in Miami and carefully plot my retaliation accordingly.
The encounter with Cole had made me realize I couldn’t exact revenge without total certainty of the truth and an airtight strategy, and I ruled out any interaction with him because
he would inevitably want to fuck me, an option that was off the table.
That left Stella and Jackson.
After her reality show tanked, the tabloids finally tired of Stella, and she disappeared from the public eye. Time passed and people forgot about her. Then last year she got cast in a low-budget horror movie that released to no fanfare on Amazon, in support of which she gave the odd interview I saw. The thing was, she was really good in the film—as she was in the handful of other small roles she’s done since. There’s a rawness to her acting, a very real availability. She’s no longer the sweet, spunky girl she was in the Harriet films or the manic madwoman she became after Cole dumped her. The chip on her shoulder is gone, as is the starry-eyed optimism, buried somewhere within her, covered by a thin layer of humble fragility that’s both heartbreaking and fascinating to watch.
Jackson’s story is much lighter fare. A year older than me, he took a year off to travel after high school, then went to college at NYU, returning to Hollywood for the directing program at the American Film Institute, unarguably the most prestigious film school in the world. He’d somehow managed to stay out of the spotlight growing up, despite the stardom of his father and, to a lesser degree, his mother, a model and party girl turned philanthropist after marrying a wealthy French businessman and birthing twins. She was even younger than Cole when she got pregnant with Jackson and has herself admitted she’d had him only in an effort to save their failing marriage. Now she lives in Paris, making up for her lackluster performance with Jackson by doting upon his little half siblings with every waking breath.
I have a couple of fake social media accounts I use to keep tabs on him, and as far as I can tell, he’s not a partier like his parents were at his age. He rarely checks in at bars or clubs, and there are no photos with models or celebrities, nothing with Cole. His pictures are all black-and-white and of the artistic variety: bare tree branches across a full moon, the bottom half of a girl’s face as she turns to smile.
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