The Siren

by Katherine St. John

  We watch as the boat plunges into the oncoming waves, listing heavily to one side. In a matter of seconds, she’s disappeared from view, swallowed up by the turbulent wall of wind and water that will doubtless soon sink her.

  Stella sways, and I slip my arm around her waist to steady her, noticing the wind has suddenly downshifted. The change is slight but enough I no longer feel as though I’m going to be swept into the sea. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She nods, gingerly touching the gaping wound above her eyebrow. “Is it terrible?”

  “It’ll be hardly noticeable once a plastic surgeon is done with it,” I assure her. “And the scar tissue will prevent you from ever needing Botox again.”

  She smiles wanly, her eyes tired. “A silver lining.”

  “Do you feel that?” Jackson asks, coming around to support Stella’s other side. “The wind is dying.”

  I activate my flashlight. “The eye.”

  “We should get to the cellar,” Jackson suggests. “There’s a first aid kit in the supply closet next to it. We can patch everyone up and get our story straight.”

  “Just give me a little direction. I’m ready to play my part,” Stella croaks.

  A rush of gratitude warms my chest. I hide my emotion with a glance out toward where the ship has disappeared into the black night, hoping the pocket of relative calm allows it to sail far enough out that the ocean swallows Cole’s body whole, never to be seen again.

  We turn our backs on the roiling sea and climb the hill arm in arm.

  Taylor

  The wind outside had abruptly stopped, the only noise the chaotic ocean sloshing against the boards of the bungalow.

  “It’s time,” I said to Mary Elizabeth, scooping her from the cocoon of Cole’s bed and zipping her into my bag. “Sorry.”

  She yelped as I slung the bag across my body and waded through the ankle-deep seawater swirling across the living room in the flickering candlelight.

  Through the windows, the moon in the suddenly clear sky illuminated the storm-tossed sea in shimmering silver. The water was still high, the waves cresting over the porch outside, but I couldn’t wait any longer for the tide to go out. The eye was upon us.

  I said a silent prayer and swung open the door. The wind immediately blew out the candle, but after the total darkness of the storm, the moonlight was as bright as day. I was relieved to see the path of the pier stretching to the island seemingly intact. The water level was even with the deck, the peaks of waves periodically washing up and over the boards, like a bridge through the clouds. I took my first tentative step onto the wood. Then another, and another. The dock was stable. As I sprinted toward the beach, I could make out three shadows moving across the sand, a flashlight bouncing between them. Two women and a man too tall and thin to be Cole. Water crashed into my calves and thighs as I ran faster and faster over the planks toward the island, my heart soaring with each step closer to land.

  Part VII:

  The Aftermath

  January 14, 2020

  The Biz Report

  Ninth Woman Speaks Out against Cole Power

  Talia Goldman announced today that she is representing yet another woman who has come forward with allegations that the late Cole Power drugged and sexually assaulted her. The woman’s name has at this time been withheld, but she detailed meeting Power at the Ninth Circle nightclub and going back to his home in the Hollywood Hills with a group of friends, only to wake up alone with him in his bed with no recollection of the prior evening and signs she’d had intercourse. The woman claims not to have been drinking heavily the evening in question and says she did not come forward earlier because she was ashamed of the incident.

  This is the ninth woman to come forward with allegations of assault against Power in the two months since Taylor Wasserman wrote an op-ed detailing her alleged rape by Power while she was working with him as producer on The Siren, the film he was shooting when he died in June. Both Power’s son, Jackson Power, and his ex-wife, Stella Rivers, have corroborated Wasserman’s claims that the rape resulted in a pregnancy, which she miscarried, and the miscarriage was confirmed by a doctor on the island of Saint Ann, where Wasserman now resides.

  Jackson Power is the sole heir of Cole Power and has said he plans to compensate his father’s victims for the pain and suffering they endured at his hands.

  May 2, 2021

  The Book Blog

  What We’re Reading This Week:

  “Coming Clean,” by Stella Rivers

  Stella Rivers’s memoir Coming Clean predictably reads like something between a tabloid and an after-school special…so why couldn’t any of us over here at the Book Blog put it down?

  I’ve been familiar with Stella Rivers since I was a child: first as the talented kid in Under the Blue Moon and the Harriet films, then as the sexy ingenue in Call of the Sea and Faster, but the image of Stella that’s burned into my mind is the tawdry one we all remember, from a grocery store in Hollywood. Her pickle-jar-throwing fall from grace coincided with the pinnacle of tabloid culture, when paparazzi stalked celebrities like prey and the public gawked, ever hungry for more.

  But the Stella pictured in the makeup-free, unedited black-and-white photo that graces the cover of Coming Clean is a Stella Rivers we haven’t yet gotten to know. And the content of her memoir is just as honest as the jacket. Rivers unflinchingly details her troubled childhood, meteoric rise to fame, and rocky marriage to Cole Power with surprising candor and wit. But it’s her candid account of the overdose death of the woman she loved, during a time (only fifteen years ago!) when neither bisexuality nor opioid addiction could be discussed without stigma that makes Coming Clean a must read this summer.

  Everyone knows the press account of Rivers’s miscarriage (thought to be an abortion at the time), divorce, and the substance abuse that led to her shocking fall from grace, but experiencing it from her viewpoint is both heartbreaking and eye-opening. The hindsight she’s gained with her hard-won sobriety gives her a unique perspective on the ways she both benefited from and was destroyed by fame and provides her cautionary tale the happy ending it deserves.

  Stella, forgive us, for we have misjudged you.

  June 2021 Issue

  Hollywood Life

  SMART LIKE A FOX:

  Inside the World of Breakout Star Felicity Fox

  By Max Jones

  On a bright spring morning in the Eighteenth Arrondissement of Paris, I find myself facing an ascent of what must be fifty stairs up to the faded cream building actress Felicity Fox calls home. As I contemplate the torture before me, I look up to see her backlit by the sun at the top of the stone staircase, her red dress billowing around her slim frame, shoulder-length blond hair framing her face like a halo. She waves, enveloping me in the warmth of her bright smile, and rushes down the stairs to meet me. “I know it’s a climb,” she says, laughing. “But wait’ll you see the view.”

  We make our way through a heavy green door and up another flight of creaking wood stairs. A Chihuahua circles our legs as we enter an old-world apartment decorated with a bohemian flair. “This is Mimi,” Felicity says, scooping up the dog and scratching her ears. “She’s visiting while her mama is way across the world in China.”

  (Though Fox doesn’t mention it, I’ll later discover Mimi’s mama is Fox’s good friend Stella Rivers, who recently adopted her daughter, Iris, from mainland China.)

  The view of Montmartre from the tall windows is, as promised, breathtaking, but it pales in comparison to Felicity Fox in person. Without a stitch of makeup, she glows as though lit from within—and for good reason. Her turn in the title role of this month’s Barbie, which she co-wrote with boyfriend, Jackson Power (son of the late actor Cole Power), is being hailed as the must-see performance of the season. The film, directed by Power, is a dark fairy tale with elements of magical realism based on the life of Fox’s mother, a sex worker who was forced into heroin use by an abusive client before finding love with a woman shortly befor
e passing away of an overdose when Fox was ten. “I wanted to do something to honor my mother’s memory,” Fox explains. “The story isn’t strictly factual, but more of an interpretation of who she was and who she could have been, set in 1890s Paris. I fell in love with the city while we were shooting, so here we are.”

  Fox and Power met on the set of the ill-fated The Siren, during which Power’s now notorious father famously drowned when his boat capsized during Hurricane Celia. Fox was working as actress Stella Rivers’s stand-in at the time, and director Power recognized her talent during blocking rehearsals, but she wasn’t at first interested in acting. “It’s not that I don’t love acting. It’s the fame I was afraid of,” Fox admits. “I’ve seen what it does to people, and it’s not pretty. It took some convincing, but Jackson can be very persuasive, and when he came to me with the idea to do something based on my mother’s life, I couldn’t turn him down.”

  When asked about her relationship with Power, Felicity instantly becomes demure. “Our relationship is private,” she says. “But I will say it’s very important to me. He’s an incredible person.”

  Now the two are working on revamping Power’s script for The Siren, in which Fox will play the role originated by disgraced YouTube star Madison Kasabian, who dropped off the radar after it came out that she’d never had the cancer she became famous for beating. Fox’s friend and former boss, Stella Rivers, will star opposite her, and Taylor Wasserman, who produced the original film but has since moved on to a position as director of the Caribbean Film Commission, will executive produce.

  “I’m really excited to be working with Taylor and Stella again, and to get to spend some time in the beautiful Caribbean,” Fox says. “But we’re still doing a little rewriting before we cast the male lead. I can’t say too much because I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but I really didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t going to be totally empowering to women. If having a platform is a side effect of doing what I love, then I want to use it for something positive, and to me that means empowering women and girls.”

  True to her word, Fox and Rivers founded the charity Women Care, which has to date raised more than two million for women’s shelters in Fox’s home state of Florida. “We started in Florida, but we’re expanding across the United States in the coming months. Stella has started a program within Women Care where women write and perform their stories for one another in a supportive environment, which we’ve found really helps with self-acceptance and healing. Whether they’re battling addiction or fleeing an abusive partner, it’s so important for people to know they’re not alone.”

  Meanwhile, Fox is unfazed by the rumors swirling about possible awards recognition for her breakout role in Barbie. “It’s flattering,” she says, “but it’s not about me. All I’ve ever wanted was to give my mother a voice, and I’m grateful every day for the opportunity to do so.”

  Epilogue

  Felicity

  Two Years after the Storm

  Paris teeters on the far edge of springtime, poised to plunge into sultry summer any day now. Pink buds litter the grass, and sunbathers line the shores of the Seine; in the parks, the daffodils and tulips of May are already giving way to the roses and peonies of June. I won’t be needing the cardigan tucked into the canvas bag on my shoulder, next to the nearly empty urn of my mother’s ashes.

  Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of Iris’s death, and I’ve finally followed through on my intention to spread her remains throughout the city she never got to visit before she died. Jackson was understanding of my need to spend the day treading the streets of Paris alone with her memory, dropping handfuls of ashes beneath willow trees and into banks of purple blossoms. I took her with me to the Louvre, where we lingered in front of the enigmatic Mona Lisa and the seductive Bathsheba at Her Bath, then to the Jardin des Tuileries, where we enjoyed a baguette next to a statue of a nude nymph with her dog. Along the wide Champ de Mars, we FaceTimed with Stella and her adorable daughter from a bench beneath a towering linden tree.

  By the time the sun begins its dive toward the horizon, my feet are sore from all the walking and my shoulders are sunburned, but my heart is a little bit lighter. Saying a silent prayer for her spirit to find peace, I sprinkle the remainder of her ashes over a bed of colorful violets in the shade of the Eiffel Tower and return the urn to my bag.

  It’s been nearly two years since I killed Cole. For months afterward I was a nervous wreck, torn apart by pangs of conscience over taking a life, mixed with the fear that I’d be caught. But Stella, Taylor, and especially Jackson stood by me, reminding me persistently that I’d done the right thing. My apprehension peaked the following fall, when Cole’s badly damaged boat was discovered deep beneath the sea miles off shore. But the alibi we provided one another—of helping Taylor through a miscarriage in the wine cellar during the storm—was never questioned. No foul play was ever suspected, and his body was never recovered. It won’t be, they say. Eventually I realized that if Jackson could forgive me for killing his father, I had to forgive myself.

  The soft evening is awash in muted apricot and rose as I hurry past the massive iron Tower and onto the Pont d’léna, crowded with Parisians whiling away the last minutes of the long day. I spy Jackson halfway across the bridge, looking out over the passing boats on the river that reflects the brilliant sky in swirls and ripples, the Jardins du Trocadéro behind him. My heart swells with the realization that he is Iris’s last gift to me; after all the darkness, we are each a ray of light for the other.

  Sensing my presence, he turns. “Everything okay?” he asks.

  I close my eyes as he brushes his thumb across my cheek, wiping away an errant tear. “Better than okay.” I can’t help but laugh at myself; I’ve become such a softy. “They’re happy tears.”

  He wraps me in his arms and presses his lips to mine, and everything stops, the same way it does every time he kisses me. As the sun dips beneath the horizon over the Seine, I’m certain that somehow, somewhere my mother is smiling, knowing that her little girl is going to be okay.

  Acknowledgments

  So much goes into producing a book, and I am forever grateful to have the support of such a fantabulous team.

  First and always, to my family: my husband, Alex, the best life partner a girl could ask for; my wonderful parents; and my adorable little girls, who remind me daily of what’s truly important.

  To my supercalifragilistic agent, Sarah Bedingfield, my rock and my guiding light, without whom there would be no books, and to the whole gang at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency.

  To the unparalleled team at Grand Central Publishing, all of whom are such a delight to work with: my fantastic editor, Karen Kosztolnyik, for making this book the best it can be, and her terrific editorial assistant, Rachael Kelly; the superb Brian McLendon and Tiffany Porcelli in marketing; Andy Dodds and Matthew Ballast in publicity; and Albert Tang and Lynn Buckley for the gorgeous cover art. Additionally a huge thanks to Ben Sevier, Karen Torres, Alison Lazarus, Ali Cutrone, Nancy Wiese, Joelle Dieu, Kristen Lemire, Jeff Holt, Penina Lopez, and Tricia Tamburr, all of whom have worked so hard to usher this book into the world. I am so fortunate to work with all of you!

  Before I wrote books, I worked in the film industry for many years as an actress, producer, director, and screenwriter, and this book draws on those experiences. As Taylor notes, a set can be a wonderful place to work if you’re working with the right people, and I had the good fortune of working with many incredible artists and filmmakers over the years. So I’d like to say thank you to all of the dreamers and creators whose blood, sweat, and tears go into the content that entertains and inspires us every day. Keep dreaming and keep creating! We need artists now more than ever.

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  About the Author

  Katherine St. John is a native o
f Mississippi, a graduate of the University of Southern California, and the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Lion’s Den. When she’s not writing, she can be found hiking or on the beach with a good book. Katherine currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and children.

  The Siren

  Reading Group Guide

  Throughout the novel, the author comments on vanity, body positivity, and the traditionally fraught connection between image and self-worth. Discuss the double standards women face when it comes to physical appearance and aging, especially in a male-dominated, beauty-obsessed environment like Hollywood.

  What do you think it takes to build a career in entertainment? Stamina? Charisma? Perseverance? Knowing the immense pressures actors face to look and behave a certain way, how do Stella’s struggles with substance abuse reflect the real-life consequences of stardom?

  Taylor was recruited to produce The Siren because Cole’s media company, Power Pictures, was criticized for being too much of a “boy’s club,” yet she’s still certain she was intentionally left out of Cole’s fishing trip because of her “extra X chromosome.” Based on the reckoning the entertainment industry faced during #MeToo, how do you think expectations regarding safety and pay equity have changed on movie sets? How do you hope other industries have changed as a whole?