“But…why did you say yes?”
“The lady was so nice, and she really seemed to want you to come. She said there’d be gift bags with that expensive face cream you were talking about the other day in them.”
I sat in a chair in shock and scooped Mary Elizabeth into my lap. “I don’t go to those things anymore.”
“I know the press has been cruel to you, but you’re different now, and they need to see that! If you start going out sometimes, people will realize how much you’ve grown. Public opinion changes. People’s memories are short.”
Maybe she was right. After all, I finally had something good to say when people asked what I was working on; I was once again relevant.
Before I knew it, we were playing dress-up in my closet like long-lost sisters. I may not have had cash, but I had clothes; my walk-in closet was just the start of it. The walls of my bedroom were lined with rolling racks, and I’d had a door put through to a guest room that was packed with more crowded rolling racks. Most of the clothes were at least a few years old, but they were all designer and half of them still had the tags on.
Felicity stripped off her sundress without an ounce of self-consciousness, strutting about in nothing but a yellow lace thong as she shimmied into dresses I hadn’t worn since I was her age, which I figured to be somewhere around twenty-three.
I tried not to stare, but her body was a work of art—tan and toned and curvy in all the right places without an ounce of cellulite anywhere. Her full breasts defied gravity. A nipple grazed my bare arm as she reached past me to pull a dress off the rack, and I caught a whiff of jasmine. I suddenly grew light-headed.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, fine,” I said, realizing I’d stopped breathing. “What’s that perfume you’re wearing?”
“Do you not like it?” she asked, worried. “I won’t wear it anymore.”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” I took the dress from her and rushed into the bathroom to change. When I returned, I noticed she’d spritzed herself with one of the perfumes from my shelf. I didn’t say anything, but I was glad.
The light was fading by the time Felicity and I stepped out of our black limo into the balmy night. I was a little embarrassed to be arriving in a limo, but it was surprisingly cheaper than a town car and less than half the rate of a Suburban.
A single flame of jealousy flickered as I watched Felicity slink up the walk to the massive Mediterranean mansion in my low-cut emerald dress, the photographers eyeing her through the open door the way they used to eye me. But then she turned, engulfing me in the radiance of her smile. My envy evaporated, leaving in its place ghastly apprehension of the task at hand.
It had been ages since I’d set foot on a step-and-repeat. How I used to love it! Like standing before the sun if the sun shone only for you. All its white-hot energy directed at you, wanting your attention, calling your name, showering you with love and light. But in that moment that night, I would rather have had my fingernails pried off than stand before the flashbulbs. It was too much, too soon. I needed a cigarette, but I couldn’t let any of these Hollywood health nuts see me smoking.
A woman with a clipboard greeted us at the top of the stairs and recorded our names, then conferred with the photographers while we waited.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered to Felicity.
The woman pointed at me and waved me forward impatiently.
“You’re a star; go shine.” Felicity gave me a little push.
My heart hammering, I stepped onto the red carpet in front of a backdrop emblazoned with the name of whatever the evening’s charity was. I pressed my lips into a smile, feeling like a specimen under a microscope as the flashes popped. A man’s voice yelled that I was looking good. Another wanted to see the back of my dress. The fear began to melt.
I stepped off the carpet dazzled, some part of my effervescence restored by the brilliance of the flashbulbs. Felicity linked her arm through mine and led me around a giant marble statue of a naked Venus and into an enormous living room, where a man in a tuxedo played Elton John on a white grand piano. Ornate chandeliers twinkled overhead, and endless pink roses gave off an intoxicating scent.
A beautiful girl in a black cocktail dress proffered a tray of champagne. Felicity accepted a glass; I sadly had to pass to maintain the illusion of New Stella.
“You can have some of mine when no one’s looking,” Felicity whispered.
Washed in the lavender of the fading sky, the rolling lawn was set with what must have been a hundred round tables covered with white tablecloths, each adorned with centerpieces of pink roses. At the far end of the lawn was a stage prepared for a band.
I was initially disappointed to find there was no one famous or powerful at our table, only a bunch of rich people who actually paid the $5,000 for their plates. But Felicity was undaunted. Before long we were drawn into a discussion about the continued relevance of my film Under the Blue Moon with the man next to me, who turned out to be a fan. His adoration warmed me like a sable coat.
At some point, Felicity returned from the bar with a sparkling water for me that turned out to be mostly gin. The band had started playing a song I heard on the radio ad nauseum, and most of our table had gotten up to dance.
“Wanna dance?” Felicity asked.
I pushed up to my feet. “I’d rather take a walk around.”
The alcohol hit me as I stood; darkness vignetted my vision. I must’ve swayed, because Felicity caught my elbow, steadied me. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe in my Spanx. The night was too close. I was suffocating.
As though reading my mind, she gently guided me between the tables toward the house. “I bet it’s cooler inside,” she murmured as we tripped across the manicured lawn.
Up two steps, and we were caught in the crowd gathered around the chocolate fondue fountain, inconveniently positioned blocking the French doors that led into the house.
Felicity’s eyes lit up when she saw it. “We have to try, don’t we?”
We’d just joined the jovial crowd around the fountain when I heard my name. I turned to see none other than that bitch Hannah Bridges, her thin lips curled into a cruel smile, her flat blue eyes directed at me. Her platinum hair was board straight, her skeletal frame draped in gray sequins.
Hannah, once my best friend and closest confidante. Hannah, never as famous as I until she sold the most hurtful story of all to the press and took up with Cole before we’d even divorced.
“So good to see you out and about,” Hannah said as we air-kissed. “Rumor had it you’d died. Overdose, I think?”
I was meant to have overdosed on pills in a hotel in Rome. Why Rome, I wasn’t sure (I’d only been there once), but I always did like the spirit of it. If I ever took a nosedive into the infinite abyss, Rome sounded like as good a place as any to do it. In my weaker moments I sometimes wished the rumors were true. Then at least I’d be immortalized, tragically preserved in time instead of barreling toward anonymity in middle age.
“The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” I quipped gamely. It was my party line, designed to prove my sense of humor was intact, and generally got at least a polite laugh. Not this time. “I’m sober now,” I added.
“Whatever you want to call it.” She sniffed as though she smelled alcohol on my breath. “Good to see you’re back from the dead. Maybe you’ll book a Hallmark movie and finally refill your pool.”
The air went out of me. How did she know about my empty pool? I was flabbergasted, acutely aware of the dinner guests watching our exchange like a tennis match but at a complete loss for words.
Felicity leaped to the rescue. “So thoughtful of her, right? With this drought, it’s just terrible how some people continue to waste water. Stella was really impacted by all the work she’s been doing building houses for refugees—”
Hannah stared at Felicity, confounded. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
I noticed more than
one cell phone, angled vertically. At least one of them was likely live streaming.
“I’m her assistant.” Felicity’s hand flew to her mouth as she turned to me. “I’m so sorry. I know I wasn’t supposed to say anything. But what you’re doing is so amazing, I just—” She had the crowd eating out of her hand. “That’s why Stella hasn’t been acting,” she explained to the sea of faces. “She won’t tell anyone because she’s so humble, but she’s been using her time to do good in the world, building homes for those in need. That’s all I’ll say. Now we really do have to go.”
She seized my hand and led me from the fountain into the house, through the foyer and out the front door. The valet signaled our driver, and we dove into the shadowy safety of the limo.
“I’m sorry,” Felicity said breathlessly as we pulled away. “I couldn’t stand to see her treat you like that.”
“N-no,” I stammered, still trying to wrap my head around what exactly had happened back there. “Thank you for standing up for me. But the refugee thing. I didn’t—”
“I know.” She laughed. “I don’t know why I said it. It’s just what came to mind. She was being such a bitch, and it makes you look like you’re so much better than her, which of course you are.”
“Yeah, but they’re gonna ask questions now. They’re gonna find out it’s a lie,” I protested, my thoughts spiraling into a dark hole.
“No, no, it’s fine. It’s better if you’re mysterious about it. Makes it look like you weren’t doing it for the press. We’ll Photoshop a picture of you in a hard hat to look like it was taken in Central America and leak it. And if anyone pokes around, I have a friend with a construction company. He’ll say you worked for him. No one will ever know.”
“She used to be my best friend,” I lamented. “Un-fucking-real, what she did. Sold horrible lies about me and started dating Cole before our divorce had even gone through.”
“I know,” she said. Then, off my look, “There wasn’t much to do in the town I grew up in. I spent way too much time online and looked forward to my weekly tabloid delivery on Thursdays like it was Christmas. Embarrassing, I know, but I’m pretty much a walking encyclopedia of pop culture.”
My mind reeled. “So what else do you know about me?”
“You were a super-talented kid who got famous young and wasn’t prepared to deal with the stress of it. You suffered from depression, used drugs and alcohol to cope, and ended up losing your career in the process.”
I gaped at her, stunned by the accuracy of her summary. There were parts she couldn’t know, of course, that no one knew—my story behind the story. In the darkness I could feel her kind eyes on me. “You’re not alone.” She squeezed my hand. “It’s actually super common among stars who made it really young. At least you’re here now. You didn’t lose your life or end up in some kind of conservatorship.”
A tightness in my throat, and suddenly tears were pouring down my cheeks. She put her arms around me, and I bawled into her perfect breast.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she soothed me. “You’ll see. You’re gonna get it all back.”
I was so inspired by her kindness that later that evening I put down the story of how Cole and I met for my memoir.
Love at First Sight:
,
When I was cast in Faster, I’d just wrapped the last of the three Harriet films. As much as I’d enjoyed playing a bookish witch dealing with the pressures of college while hiding from an evil coven, I’d spent four years of my life on it and was ready for something different. Something meatier. So I was thrilled when the offer turned up to play an heiress seduced by Cole Power’s con man in a gritty romance. The script was fantastic—something I could really sink my teeth into—and the costar…Let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to spend a couple of months getting paid to make out with Cole Power? Like most of the girls in the world, I’d had a mad crush on him ever since I saw him in Bad Boy when I was thirteen.
I’d met Cole in passing a handful of times at events, but we’d always been on the arms of other people and had never had a chance to get to know each other. In fact, I knew his ex-wife, Bar Salmaan (the Israeli model with whom he shares a son, Jackson Power), better, which is to say we had mutual friends and had partied together on a couple of occasions. At any rate, when I came in to sign the contracts, my agent at the time asked for a word with me, off the record.
Andy had immaculately gelled hair and pristine suits, but he always reeked of cigarette smoke hastily covered up with cologne, so I generally tried to stay on the opposite side of his desk. However, this time he came around the heavy slab of glass and leaned in close, lowering his voice. “You know Cole was a client of mine for years,” he began. Yes, I knew this. Not only had he mentioned it fifty times, but his walls were littered with posters of the movies Cole had done while they were working together. “I wouldn’t normally share something like this, but I care about you, so I’m gonna tell you. But it needs to stay between us.”
“Jesus, Andy, what is it?” I asked.
“Look, Cole’s charming, right? But he’s a method actor,” he warned. I relaxed a little. I knew plenty of method actors. “And not just on set. He believes his characters live on inside him after wrap, so you can’t ever be too sure what you’re going to get. He can be incredibly sensitive, like Steve in Bad Boy, but he can also turn on a dime, like”—his eyes shot to the posters on his wall, landing on one featuring Cole with a smirk and a gun—“Wesley in Snake Bit.”
“So you’re saying he’s an actor.” I laughed. “Got it. We’re all a little crazy, Andy.”
“It’s more than that.” Andy pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Look, you’re playing star-crossed lovers, right? I know how these things go. He’s gonna want to sleep with you—”
I rolled my eyes. “Thank you for your concern, Andy, but I’m a grown woman, and who knows? I may want to sleep with him too.”
“I’m just saying be careful.” He bit his lip like there was something else he wanted to say, but decided better of it. “Please.”
I saluted him. “You got it, Captain.”
Careful I was not.
When I arrived on the soundstage in Miami for our first read-through, Cole was already seated at the long table with his script before him. Someone called his name, and he turned, his gaze landing on me. He hastily got to his feet as I approached, never once taking his ice-blue eyes from mine. Everything went into slow motion, and suddenly the only people that existed in the entire world were the two of us. And then, like an idiot, I tripped over a wire that hadn’t been properly taped down, landing squarely in his strong arms. My skin burned beneath his touch, as though the pull between us was so strong that our bodies set off chemical reactions in each other just by being in proximity.
During the read-through, everyone could see the electricity between us was palpable. So much so that afterward the director pulled me aside to request that Cole and I not spend any time together until after we’d shot our first love scene. I begrudgingly complied, allowing the chemistry to blossom between us on-screen while going home alone at night to the high-rise executive apartment overlooking the bay that production had rented for me. I fantasized about him so intensely in those first few weeks that I hardly slept.
When the day finally arrived for us to shoot our first love scene, I was a jangle of nerves. The scene called for Cole and me to tumble into bed together, tearing off each other’s clothes, culminating with us wearing nothing but privacy covers as we writhed beneath the sheets. The nudity would all be tasteful, they assured me, and was necessary to the story—but that wasn’t what I was worried about. I’d done love scenes before, situations ranging from awkward to gross to sexy, but had never had chemistry like this with a costar and was self-conscious about being that turned on by someone in front of the crew. I needn’t have worried.
From the time our lips met in the first shot, everyone else melted away, and it was just Cole and me. All day long I ached for him as
he kissed me and caressed my body in fits and starts between “action” and “cut.” I’ll leave the details to your imagination, but suffice it to say that by the time we wrapped that day, we were both so hot for each other that the idea of waiting any longer was unbearable. Without much regard for who might see or gossip, he slipped into my trailer and we ravaged each other for real.
From that day forward we were inseparable. We screwed on every surface of his yacht and his beautiful house on the bay, snuck into each other’s trailers between setups, slinked off to the bathroom together in restaurants. When his character in the film proposed to mine, he asked if perhaps I might like a rock just like the prop stunner he slipped on my finger; within weeks, he’d given me a genuine five-carat square-cut diamond.
Andy, however, wasn’t the only person who tried to warn me off Cole. Our director, while thrilled our chemistry jumped off screen, was visibly nervous about our relationship, doubtless concerned about what it would mean for the film if it burned out. An actress I’d worked with years ago called after seeing a picture of Cole and me hand in hand in the tabloids to say she’d dated him and it had not ended well. She’d signed an NDA so couldn’t give me details, but she said she felt it was her duty to at least warn me to be careful. I kept my promise not to tell Cole she’d called but dismissed her claims, figuring she was just jealous. What Cole and I had was special.
The weekend after he gave me the ring, Cole and I went to the annual white party at Thrive, an open-air nightclub on the sand in Miami Beach with a VIP lounge situated on a high deck with daybeds and a view of the sea. Before the bouncer even lifted the white velvet rope at the top of the stairs, I spotted her: tall and gorgeous with bronzed skin and long straight chestnut hair swept over one eye, Bar Salmaan was the kind of girl who lived for the number of heads she turned, so it made sense that she was seated at the most visible table in the club, surrounded by her model-girl posse. I squeezed Cole’s hand and nodded in her direction.
The Siren Page 6
