The immediate need for arrangements to move fifty-four people to a different country had briefly taken my mind off my physical and emotional troubles, but the sight of Rick’s boat reminded me of the far-reaching impact this storm was likely to have. There was no denying the very real possibility that the island might no longer be a place we could shoot a film after this. Despite Cole’s claims, I couldn’t imagine these over-water bungalows weathering much more than a thunderstorm. Our cameras and computers would fly with us, but would the rest of our film equipment survive? Would there be electricity? Clean water?
I had the sinking feeling that a postponement of the film signaled the end. Which, I realized, meant I might never see Rick again. An uninvited lump formed in my throat at the thought. It wasn’t fair. I liked him. I really liked him. But it didn’t matter. As much as I hated it, with the recent turn of events, separation was probably for the best. I hadn’t yet had the time or brain space to formulate a plan as to how to address my current predicament, but no matter what I decided, it didn’t bode well for our budding romance.
“Okay,” Francisco said, hanging up the phone. “I’ve got it down to two hotels, and they’re across the street from each other. We can divide everyone up on the plane.”
“Nice work.” I raised my palm, and he slapped it. “Wheels up is at one tomorrow, so I’ve reserved a ferry at eleven and a bus to shuttle us to the airport on Saint Ann. Breakfast at nine thirty. The hotel staff that haven’t already left will be traveling on the ferry with us to Saint Ann and sheltering in a church there.”
“You’re a rock star,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, relieved we’d made all the arrangements. “Make sure you tell everyone to take all of their belongings with them. If the storm’s a bad one…”
“Aw.” He gave my shoulders a squeeze. “This is so sad. It’s been fun, hasn’t it?” Not exactly the adjective I would have chosen, but I was glad he thought so. He looked out at the sea. “I’m gonna go meet some guys for a last game of volleyball on the beach. You wanna join?”
“Thank you,” I said, “but I need to pack. Have fun.”
He gave me a little wave as he headed for the door, and I returned to my computer screen to check the names one last time.
“Look who I found,” Francisco called from the doorway.
I heard the door slam behind him as I turned to see Rick, looking more serious than I ever recalled seeing him.
“What are you doing over here?” I asked with a smile. “I figured you’d be storm prepping.”
“I’m in the middle of it. Came over to collect Cole’s boat to put it in safe storage on Saint Ann, but he wouldn’t let me take it.”
“He wants to keep it here? Won’t it—I don’t know, sink?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s his boat. I can’t force him to protect it.” He scanned the mess of papers spread across the table before me. “Is this a bad time?”
I shut my laptop and laughed. “It’s always a bad time, but not for you. I’m glad you’re here.”
“I hear you guys are flying to Guyana tomorrow.”
I rose to hug him. “Yeah.” Time slowed as we lingered with our arms around each other. I rested my head on his chest, storing the memory of his strong body against mine, the light smell of his aftershave mixed with salt air. After a moment, he pulled away just enough to force me to look up at him.
“Hey,” he said, his caramel eyes searching mine. “You okay?”
No. I wasn’t. The lump in my throat swelled. “I…” I wiped away a stray tear with the back of my hand, unsure what to say. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” He bear-hugged me, which only made me cry more. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t. I took a deep breath and looked up at him.
“Do you wanna talk?” he asked.
Brave man.
I nodded. “I just need to get a tissue.”
He smiled and released me. “Okay.”
In the bathroom, I blew my nose, then splashed my face with cold water and rubbed depuffer under my eyes as I tried to figure out what exactly to say to him. I didn’t have to tell him, of course. I’d only known him a couple of weeks, and it was unlikely I’d ever see him again after tomorrow. We hadn’t even slept together. But he’d been kind to me; he’d reminded me that there were good guys out there.
And since we couldn’t end up together anyway, what was the harm in telling him the truth? Sure, I didn’t like the fact that I’d allowed myself to be taken advantage of—the optics weren’t great, but I was sick of optics. I was sick of trying so freaking hard to be cool, of caring so freaking much what everyone else thought of me.
I found him outside, lounging on the daybed in the shade of the palapa. I sat next to him, and he took my hand. “I’m pregnant,” I said. I waited for him to flinch and remove his hand, but he didn’t. “I was raped.”
At this, he sat up. “What?”
Rick listened intently as I clumsily unspooled the tale of my blackout night with Cole, his denial we’d slept together, and my realization that he’d drugged me. When I was finished, he pulled me into another bear hug as I shed more tears—though this time they were tears of relief. Just the act of voicing my story had lifted an enormous weight from my shoulders.
“I wanna kill him,” Rick growled into my hair.
“Me too.”
He pulled me into his lap and cupped my face in his hands. “I am so sorry this happened to you.”
“On the bright side, at least I don’t remember the rape part.”
“Are you going to press charges?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I want to. But it’s my word against his, and after the lies my father spread about me, my word isn’t exactly golden. I am gonna quit working for him though.”
“Shit. I’d hope so.” He stopped himself. “I support you whatever you want to do, but…” His jaw tensed. “He should have to pay for what he’s done. He shouldn’t be allowed to do it to other women.”
“Like Stella,” I agreed. “I know.”
“I don’t want you to go to Guyana with him.” He popped his knuckles. “I don’t want you anywhere near him. I want to—” He balled his hand into a fist and slammed it into the mattress.
“He’s not coming,” I said. “He’s staying here.”
He looked at me sideways. “On the island?”
“Yep. Says it’s safe, and we’re all being crazy.”
“Maybe he’ll get blown away by the storm.”
“One can dream,” I agreed. “You could come to Guyana with us? There’s room on the plane.”
He sighed. “I need to stay here with my family. It’s not so much the storm—a cat one won’t be such a big a deal on Saint Ann—it’s the cleanup. My parents—they aren’t getting any younger.”
I nodded. “You know we probably won’t be coming back.”
He pressed his forehead to mine. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“It’s probably for the best though,” I said. “I’m a wreck, in a complicated situation. You don’t want to be involved with me right now.”
He placed a finger lightly to my lips. “Don’t tell me what I want.” His eyes grew serious. “I know it’s crazy because we just met, and we live thousands of miles apart—”
“And I’m pregnant and haven’t decided yet what to do about it,” I added. “Because I have to be honest, I haven’t. If you’d asked me before this happened what I would do, what I should do…” I sighed. “It’s different when it’s hypothetical. I’m not sure yet, and you should know that.”
He nodded, rubbing my palm with his thumb. “That too. But I guess I’m a romantic. I don’t meet a lot of girls I like, and I like you. I’d like to…” He shrugged, and the corner of his mouth lifted. “See?”
My heart inflated like a balloon. “Even if where it goes is nowhere?”
He laughed. “With expectations that low, what do we have to lose?”
<
br /> He wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed me. Every nerve in my body tingled as he ran his big hands up my back beneath my shirt. “Is this okay?” he asked, laying me gently back on the daybed.
The breeze caressed my skin as I lifted my shirt over my head in answer and pulled him to me.
Felicity
Last sunset on the island. Last beach stroll in the rosy twilight, the crescent bay reflecting the radiant sky. The waves this evening are larger than I’ve seen them, cresting chest high before crashing onto the shore, leaving cliff-like ridges in their wake. The wind is cool on my bare shoulders, blowing my short hair into my face. In all my incarnations, this is the shortest my hair has been, and I like it. I do miss my eyes though. With all the sand and seawater, the contacts are irritating, and I never quite feel like I’m seeing myself when I look in the mirror.
Mary Elizabeth runs circles around my feet as I march across the sand toward where Jackson waits for me at the water’s edge like a heartthrob from a teen movie, his locks tousled by the steady breeze.
“Hi.” He goes in for a hug as I turn to start walking, leaving us in a clumsy spoon embrace. He laughs, and the awkwardness is immediately diffused. I allow myself a brief moment to enjoy the comfortable closeness of his arms around me before pulling away to give Mary Elizabeth a bit of kibble. Every inch I permit myself with him only makes me want another. It’s a vicious cycle that can’t last. “I can’t believe this is all going to be destroyed tomorrow,” I comment.
“Hopefully not completely destroyed. Maybe we’ll be back to finish the film.” Our eyes meet. “No, you’re right. We’re not finishing the film. Fuck.”
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No. But maybe it’s for the best. I knew going into it that working with my dad was going to be hard, but shit. This has been worse than I’d ever imagined.” He laughs bitterly. “It’s my fault for giving in to the lure of nepotism.”
I roll my eyes. “Believe me, if nepotism had been available to me at any point in my life, I would have been on it like white on rice. And so would pretty much everyone else in the world.”
He smiles. “So stop being a little bitch?”
I hit him playfully in the biceps. “Exactly.”
“It helps having you around to talk to.” I can feel his eyes on me, but I keep mine trained on the pink-tinged sand in front of me. “I hope we can keep it up when we’re back in LA.”
A crab scuttles across our path, and Mary Elizabeth scampers backward. My mouth struggles to form the words I don’t want to say. “I don’t know whether I’m going back to LA.”
It’s an idea I’ve been toying with but now realize I probably need to follow through on. I’ve grown too close to Stella and Taylor—and most of all, Jackson. As much as I’d love nothing more than to do all the dirty things I’ve been fantasizing about with Jackson in real life, I haven’t been able to come up with a scenario that doesn’t involve me hurting him in the end. So while it will be painful to sever ties, I need to start over—start honestly—somewhere else.
He stops and grabs my hand, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Why? Where would you go?”
“I don’t know.” I start to walk again, trailing my feet through the warm water. “Travel, maybe. You know I’ve never even left the United States?”
He looks at me sideways. “You’re out of the United States right now.”
“I mean besides this.”
“I love to travel,” he says. “And it looks like I’m gonna have some free time on my hands. Where do you want to go?”
Why does he have to be so awesome?
“I don’t know.”
I can tell he’s disheartened by my lack of enthusiasm, but he doesn’t push. When we reach the outcropping of rocks that marks the end of the beach, he scoops up Mary Elizabeth and we scramble up the boulders to the top, where we stand watching the sun sink into the sea in a blaze of amber.
The temptation to travel with Jackson is almost enough to make me reconsider. But if he knew the truth of who I am, of why I’m here, of the lies I’ve told him—he wouldn’t want anything to do with me. And I can’t live a lie anymore.
My revenge tour is coming to an abrupt end without my learning anything definitive about my mother’s death or executing any part of my plan. Well, that’s not totally true. I can almost say with certainty that Stella’s not responsible, and whether or not he murdered anyone, the world would unquestionably be a better place without Cole Power in it. But what purpose would killing him serve, other than to ruin me? Iris is gone; nothing can change that. I’m finally starting to be able to imagine a life for myself beyond all this, and it seems wrong to allow him to steal both my mother’s future and my own. It also seems wrong to let him walk free, but life isn’t fair. Jackson talks a lot about allowing. Maybe this is my time to learn that.
I feel him looking at me but keep my eyes trained on the horizon. “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris,” I murmur. “My mom had this poster of the Eiffel Tower in her room when I was a kid, and we dreamed about going, but it never happened. I want to spread her ashes there.”
“Funny,” he says. “My mom lives in Paris. I’d love to take you there.”
His gaze is still on me, but I don’t turn, for fear he might kiss me—or perhaps for fear he might not. Finally he laughs, and I meet his olive eyes. “What?”
“You’re like a rosebud,” he says. “Slowly opening to the sun.”
Hot tears spring to my eyes, I don’t know why. It was a cheesy thing to say, but the thing is, it’s true. I’ve been so tightly closed for so long, and suddenly, terribly inconveniently, I’ve begun to open. He wraps his arms around me, and I bury my wet face in his T-shirt. We’ve never been so close. I can hear his heartbeat beneath the warmth of his skin, and for the first time in thirteen years, I feel almost hopeful. But I don’t dare look up; what could he possibly want with me? Regardless of my plans for an honest future, right now I’m a lie, and he deserves better.
We stand like that, the ocean breeze soft on our skin, until the color has drained from the sky. Finally, Mary Elizabeth starts yapping, impatient for her dinner. “I have to feed her,” I say, kneeling beside her as an excuse not to look at him.
I scratch behind her ears and scoop her up, then scamper down the rocks to the sand. The entire way back to the bungalows in the gloaming, we speak lightly of matters of no consequence, but something’s shifted between us. Thickened. If only I were the girl he thinks I am.
His bungalow is closer to shore than mine, and when we reach it, he turns to me with an inviting half smile. “Wanna chill here?”
“I can’t,” I say. “I’ve gotta check on Stella—I’ve left her alone all day.”
“Good luck,” he says. “Hope she’s not too drunk.”
“Thanks.” I blow him a kiss.
I push open the door to my bungalow to find it dark and quiet. “Stella?” I call out. No answer.
I flip on a lamp and pour Mary Elizabeth’s dinner into a bowl in the kitchen, then call out again, “Hello? Anybody home?”
When she still doesn’t answer, I shed my shoes and tromp back to her room. I nudge open her door to find her curled in a ball on top of the bed in the growing darkness, softly crying into a pillow. “Stella?”
I turn on the lamp next to the bed, and my heart detonates in my chest. A series of sketches are spread around her on the down comforter, unmistakably my mother’s. I hear a strangled sound come out of my throat.
“Go away,” she wails without looking up.
But I’m not going anywhere. All this time she’s kept the truth shut up and locked away, and suddenly the door is open, light spilling through the crack. It’s up to me to walk through it and learn the truth before she slams it shut again.
I gingerly pick up a sketch of Iris asleep on a red blanket, her golden hair spread around her. I notice the paper quivering slightly and realize my hand is shaking. I want nothing more than to examine eac
h of the drawings, to see the world through my mother’s eyes, taking in each detail of her sketch work, but I can’t let Stella detect my desperate interest. I force myself to set the drawing back on the comforter before she notices I’m trembling. “These are beautiful,” I venture, carefully controlling my voice.
She doesn’t respond. I sit on the edge of the bed next to her, noting the empty bottle of rum on the bedside table. I have to get her to talk. “Did something happen?” I ask. Her shoulders shake as she cries, and I gently lay a hand on her arm. “It would help if you’d tell me what’s going on.”
She sits up, her eyes feral. “It’s all his fault,” she cries, pointing at the sketches. “He got her addicted, and now she’s gone.”
This is it, the moment I’ve been waiting for. Every nerve in my body stands at attention; the room pulses with hyperreality. I swallow, doing my best impression of calm. “Who is she?” I coax, not wanting to push too far and scare her off. But she’s so insulated by the rum that she’s not afraid of anything.
“Iris.” She breaks into a fresh round of tears.
Yes, that’s how I feel too! I want to scream. But I never expected to see Stella so upset over her death. “Who was she to you?” I ask.
“Everything,” she sobs. “I loved her. We were going to start a family.”
My mind snags. She loved her?
Stella collapses into a fresh round of tears, and I hug her to me like a child while my brain tries to grasp what she’s saying.
Stella loved Iris? They were going to start a family? Her revelation is so opposite of everything I expected that I’m having trouble processing it. “You were in love?” I ask.
“We were in love.” I can hear the pain in her voice as she whispers through her tears.
My world flips like a carnival ride, all my preconceived notions falling out. It’s all I can do to stop myself from smiling.
Stella was Iris’s lover, not Cole. Stella was the one who had her glowing, humming in the shower, thinking of a brighter future. Not Cole. My mother had said she was in love with a movie star, and my ten-year-old brain had unthinkingly assumed it was Cole. It never even crossed my mind that it could be Stella. How stupid I was! It made so much sense. The money had dried up and the holes in Iris’s arms had healed, but she’d continued to go to Cole’s house—to see Stella. She was planning to make a family for us—with Stella, not Cole. It was Stella who was telling Cole she was leaving him, not the other way around. All this time I’ve been thinking Stella hated my mother, when in fact she loved her.
The Siren Page 29
