I glanced at her. “I don’t think that was about you.”
“Hey.” I turned to see Tawny, her eyes full of compassion. “I told him that was unacceptable,” she offered.
“Lemme guess—he said it was a joke,” Stella said.
Tawny pointed at her. “You know him well.”
“I wish I didn’t, believe me.”
The bartender approached, and Tawny promptly ordered three shots of tequila. “One more!” Felicity called, elbowing her way past the darts game to slide in next to Stella. “What’s going on?”
Stella explained while I attempted in vain to free myself from the claws of rage with deep breaths. “Maybe you should quit,” Felicity suggested. “See how long he can make it without you.”
“Please don’t quit,” Stella said. “You’re the only thing holding this film together.”
“I can’t anyway.” I placed my fingers in the inside corners of my eyes to stop the tears, too upset to pretend anymore. “I need the money, and I have no other opportunities. I have to finish this fucking movie or sell my condo and change careers—which right now honestly doesn’t sound too bad.”
The bartender set the shots in front of us, and we all downed them without ceremony. The alcohol burned my throat, warming my chest and blunting the ire in my brain.
“I mean, but seriously…are you sleeping with Rick, though?” Felicity asked playfully. “Because he’s really hot.”
I laughed. “No! Are you sleeping with Jackson?”
She gaped at me. “No! We’re just friends.”
Stella snorted. “You keep saying that.”
“Really!” Felicity insisted, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening.
“I’ll tell you who is screwing,” Tawny said conspiratorially, shooting her eyes in the direction of Cole and Madison.
I got a strong whiff of what smelled like rubbing alcohol as Stella took a slurp of the “tonic” Cole had given her. “She can have him,” she said. “He’s not even good in bed.”
“The best-looking ones never are,” Tawny chimed in. “They’ve never had to work for it.”
Stella snorted. “Exactly. It’s all about him. He couldn’t find your clit if you gave him a map.”
We all roared with laughter.
“I tell you what,” Tawny confided. “I knew I was gonna marry my husband the first time he went down on me. And thirteen years later I’m still glad!”
“You’ve been married thirteen years?” Felicity balked. “Don’t you ever want to be with somebody else?”
Tawny shook her head. “Sure, I recognize an attractive man when I see one, but I know what I’ve got. He’s my best friend. And our kids are pretty cute too.”
An unconscionable yearning squeezed my heart. I didn’t need anyone; I was totally fine alone—but a best friend who knew where my clit was? Man, that sounded nice.
“Well, you certainly have better taste in men than I do, so cheers to that.” Stella raised her glass. By this point, she’d obviously forgotten she was supposed to be sober in front of me, but I didn’t care. I knew I should care, but we weren’t working, and I didn’t have it in me today to fight another battle.
Tawny turned her attention to Felicity. “I know you’re just friends, but look—” She cut her eyes in the direction of Jackson, who was indeed gazing at Felicity from across the bar. Stella waved, and he saluted us. “I mean, I don’t know him well, but I can tell he’s talented and he seems like a good guy.”
“Also hot,” Stella pointed out.
“Aaaand he’s head over heels for you. Everybody knows it,” I added.
“You like him too. I can tell you do!” Stella sang gleefully.
Felicity stared at her, a deer caught in the headlights. “I don’t know,” she said, all of a sudden uncharacteristically shy. “He’s great. I’m not gonna lie…But I’m not looking for a relationship.”
“That’s when they find you,” Tawny chimed in.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Felicity said. “I can’t—”
“Oh,” I said, suddenly realizing. “Is there someone at home?”
“Something like that,” she said softly, looking into her drink. I sensed a sadness in her and felt perhaps I’d been too quick to judge her before.
“Okay, fine, we’ll stop bothering you about it.” Tawny squeezed her shoulder. The band started into an upbeat number. “Wanna dance?”
I wasn’t normally much of a dancer, but what the hell. I was having fun tonight. We followed Tawny toward the half of the restaurant that had been cleared for the band, where the makeup and wardrobe girls danced with a handful of crew guys and locals. The overhead lights were dark, replaced with rotating colored ones that made for a festive lo-fi scene, and on the far side of the dance floor I immediately spotted Rick, leaning casually against an open window in conversation with Cole.
I didn’t like the way I perked up at the sight of him. He smiled and raised his beer to me, but not wanting to give Cole any more ammunition, I pretended not to see and angled my back toward them. Cole was probably telling Rick how I’d gotten blackout drunk and thrown myself at him. Rick was probably laughing at my expense. Suddenly self-conscious, I no longer felt much like dancing, so I made my excuses and threaded my way toward a side exit leading down to the beach.
I wouldn’t make a fool of myself over a man again. I was better off alone.
Stella
Steel drums. Laughter. The burn of tequila in my throat. I preferred gin, but Tawny was funny! I liked this song. You put the lime in the coconut. It was the right thing to do. The coconut needed the lime and the lime needed the coconut. And they both needed the rum. The rum! I hadn’t fully appreciated rum before. A travesty, really. Travesty tragedy thespian lesbian tongue twister mama’s mister. I missed doing plays. The stage was where the real art was. And Taylor was nicer than I’d given her credit for. Cole was an asshole to her at the table. What had he said? I couldn’t remember, but it wasn’t nice. He wasn’t a nice person, I remembered that much. Why had he asked me here? Madison could have him. That bitch. It was her who sold that picture of me in the puddle, I knew it was. I saw that atrocious lime-green raincoat—you couldn’t miss it. I wanted to dance. The balmy breeze on my skin, the music, and the waves…This was the islands! Steel drums! I should dance. Felicity could read my mind, she was pulling me toward the dance floor. She would be so much better in Madison’s role. Red and purple and green lights spinning. I needed to take off my shoes they were in my way, that must be why my limbs felt so slow. This beat was slippery. I moved across the dance floor, and suddenly my drink was on the floor. But no one seemed to mind. It was almost empty anyway. I would clean it up but my head was too heavy. I stumbled, but the wall caught me. The floor was uneven. Was it dark in here, or was it me?
Where was the bathroom? Cole was in the hallway, smiling. He caught me when I tripped. It was the shoes, I explained. You should really replace Madison. I know you’re fucking her, but Felicity is so much better, Taylor agrees. Don’t you want the movie to be good then you should fire Madison and hire Felicity. He was laughing, but it wasn’t a nice laugh. He was saying something about my drink and helping me sit down against the wall. A flash, dots of green. I just wanted to take my shoes off. Oh hell there was Madison had she been there all along? She was an evil doll with empty eyes but my head was so heavy. Sleep. Cole said I needed to sleep right here. His teeth looked like a wolf’s.
June 27, 2019
Taylor
I sat on a bench outside the entrance to Coco’s, facing the sea and nursing my dark mood. The waxing moon was high and the tide was low, the shore only a stone’s throw away. The sea gurgled as it raked broken bits of shells back and forth along the beach, oddly in sync with the music wafting through the open windows of the restaurant. I gazed across the moonlit water toward the shimmering lights of Saint Ann, considering whether anyone would notice if I cut out early and snuck back to my bungalow. Behind
me, a screen door slammed.
“Hey.”
I turned to see Rick, his muscular form backlit as he approached. Great.
“Hi.” I gave him a perfunctory smile as he sat next to me, but he saw straight through me.
“Everything cool?”
“Yeah. I just needed a break,” I fibbed.
He gave me the side-eye. “Okay.”
“It’s Cole, if you must know.” I sighed. “He said some shit to me that…wasn’t very nice.”
“Wanna tell me about it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to give him any more of my time tonight. Was he saying nasty things about me behind my back?”
“I thought you didn’t want to give him any more of your time tonight.”
I groaned and crossed my arms.
“No, he wasn’t,” he said. I could feel his eyes on me. “But even if he was, who cares? He’s an asshole—you said it yourself.”
“Fine.” I met his steady gaze and felt the corners of my mouth involuntarily turn up. I couldn’t help it. I felt good when I was around him. “No more Cole tonight.”
He raised his beer in salute. I grabbed it and took a slug, and he laughed.
“So,” I said.
“So.”
I looked down at his cargo shorts. “Nice pants.”
He noticed my matching pair. “Same. Pockets, right?”
“So useful,” I agreed.
He stood and kicked off his flip-flops. “Wanna see something cool?” I knew I shouldn’t, but I’d started to feel my mood lighten since he sat next to me, and he was only being friendly, right? I nodded. “This way.” He moved down the pathway toward the ocean, and I slipped out of my sandals and followed him.
The breeze was stronger on the beach, away from the shelter of the trees and buildings. I wrapped my arms around myself to stay warm, looking up at the countless glinting stars as we shuffled through the sand. Rick must have noticed me shivering because he stopped walking and shed the button-down denim shirt he wore over his T-shirt, draping it across my shoulders.
“Thanks.” The shirt was soft, still warm from his body heat. I slipped my arms through the roomy sleeves, unsure whether the sudden rush of heat I felt was from the extra layer of clothing or the feeling of his hand lingering on my back for a hair too long. We were just friends, taking a beach walk.
“Did you have a good week?” he asked.
I nodded, glad it was too dark for him to see the blush I felt in my cheeks. “After Monday. I kinda yelled at some people on Monday.”
His eyes glinted in the moonlight, amused. “Tell me more.”
“Just Madison and Stella. They deserved it. Well, Madison did. I’ve gotten to know Stella a little better, and she’s not so bad.”
I outlined what had happened as we trekked along the shore, and he assured me I was completely justified in berating them. “That girl with the phone—”
“Madison.”
“She’s obsessed with herself,” he said.
“Yeah.” I shuddered. “And her fans reflect it back at her, making her think she’s really as important as she thinks she is. It’s gross.”
“It’s not only celebrities who act like that, though,” he added. “When I take fishing groups out on the boat, a lot of them don’t even care about catching fish. They just want pictures with the fish, so it looks like they caught them. It drives me nuts.”
I thought about when I’d driven out to see the super bloom in the California desert a few months ago and found hordes of people with cameras trampling the poppies to take pictures of themselves on the fluorescent orange carpet. As a child, I’d made the annual trek to the Antelope Valley or Santa Monica mountains to see the explosion of color that reappears every spring in Southern California with my mom, and we were always nearly alone on the trails. These days the trails were off-limits, due to crowds of careless Instagrammers who cared nothing about preserving nature. “It’s like they’re more interested in capturing the moment than experiencing it,” I agreed.
“There is no moment. It’s all capturing.” He laughed.
I thought of JeanieBabie24’s myriad bikini pictures and wondered what he thought of his girlfriend posing in a hot-pink thong. Had he shot those pictures? I had to ask him about her. Asking would make her real, make me stop fantasizing about a man who didn’t belong to me. So what if he thought I was a crazy stalker? It didn’t matter.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked before I could lose my nerve.
“Sure.”
I gazed out at the sea, afraid to look at him. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.” He stopped walking and turned to me, but I still wouldn’t give him my eyes, unsure whether to believe him. “Taylor? What’s up?”
“It’s…well, you were mentioned in one of the resort’s pictures on Instagram, so I clicked on your profile, and I saw you were tagged—”
“Jeanette.” He sighed. So that was JeanieBabie24’s real name. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s friends with a group of people I know, the younger half sister of a guy I went to school with. We dated, sort of, but not for long before I realized she wasn’t—we weren’t a fit. She’s a sweet girl but misguided and she—we just don’t have anything in common.”
I frowned. I wanted to believe him, but… “But she was posting pictures of you guys together last week.”
He nodded. “That was from months ago. She posts all these pictures of me—some she takes directly off my account. I’ve asked her to stop, but she says it’s to make some guy jealous, or that she just liked the picture. I don’t want to hurt her, and she’s my friend’s sister, so I don’t know, I kinda gave up worrying about it. But I can see…how it looks a certain way.”
We’d reached the end of the beach, where a path led up a small hill into the trees. “I wouldn’t be here with you right now if I had a girlfriend,” he said. “I’m not that kind of guy.”
If he wouldn’t be here with me if he had a girlfriend, did that mean what I thought it meant? I finally looked at him then, and his eyes were clear. He wasn’t Rory or Cole, and he wasn’t looking for a friend or a piece on the side or a fuck buddy. I wasn’t sure why or what exactly he was looking for, but this guy was telling me point-blank he was interested in me. Heat bloomed in my chest and tingled all the way down my arms. I smiled, miraculously keeping my voice light. “Cool.”
He returned my smile and jerked his head toward the path into the trees. “It’s dark, but worth it, I promise,” he said, holding his hand out to me.
I took it, aware of nothing but the touch of his skin against mine as we hiked along the shadowy trail. His palm was smooth with calluses, his grip firm. Everything about him was strong, steadying, solid. And he doesn’t have a girlfriend. The world was suddenly full of possibility.
When we came out of the trees on the other side of the hill, I gasped. The bay before us was lit from within by an otherworldly blue-green light. The glimmering fluorescence was stronger around the edges and along the floating dock that stretched into the water.
“Firefly Bay,” he said, sweeping his arm out at the bay.
“It’s beautiful,” I breathed.
“Bioluminescence,” he explained. “The tiny plankton glow when they move or touch anything. They’re especially bright tonight because the water’s still disturbed from the storm. Watch this.”
He walked out into the shallow water, ripples of eerie blue light cascading around his calves as he moved. “Is it safe to be in it?” I asked.
“Sure,” he said.
I slowly walked toward him, dragging my feet through the warm sea to produce glowing waves. “This is incredible!” I trailed my hand through the water, amazed by the electric glimmer it produced. “The water’s so warm, it’s like bathwater.”
“Yeah,” he said, his face darkening. “It’s a little too warm. Not a good sign for this time of year.”
“Why?”
“Hurricane conditions.”
> I stared at him. “Are you serious?”
He tilted his head, amused. “You do realize you’re in the Caribbean during hurricane season.”
“But it’s June,” I protested. “Everyone assured us hurricanes never show up until August.”
“Typically. But climate change is warming the water, bringing them earlier and making them bigger.”
“Oh God.” I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes, the beauty of the bay suddenly forgotten. “A hurricane would end us.”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “We’re far enough south that we don’t usually get hit as hard. We more often get the beginning stages of a hurricane—a tropical storm or category one or two, before they turn and eviscerate our neighbors to the north.”
“How do you live here, knowing everything could be destroyed?”
He laughed. “At least we don’t have earthquakes and fires.”
“Touché.”
“We build to withstand storms the same way you build to withstand earthquakes. With the exception of those over-water bungalows and—well, a lot of the older, less expensively built buildings. But I love it here. The people, the ocean…I came back for a reason.”
He seemed so at home here in his shorts and sunglasses with his perennial grin, it was hard to imagine him anywhere else. “You came back?”
“I went to college in Philadelphia, then lived in New York for a couple of years.”
I gaped at him. “The city?”
He laughed at my shock. “I was in banking,” he explained. “Wore suits every day. Never worked less than twelve hours.”
I blinked at him, picturing him in a crisp suit in the snow. “Wow. I’m trying to imagine you in that world, and I have to admit, it’s hard.”
“It was hard,” he agreed. “But I’d grown up seeing the rich bankers that kept their money in offshore accounts down here, so I figured if I wanted to be rich, I needed to go into banking.”
“How’d that work out for ya?”
“I did make a lot of money—enough that it was difficult to give up even though I was miserable. And cold. So, so cold.” He shivered.
The Siren Page 20
