The Siren by KATHERINE JOHN (general ebook reader .txt) 📕

He closed his eyes, again inhaling through his nose and blowing it out slowly through his mouth. I bent to collect his script from the ground, hiding my smile. Perhaps he’d turn out to be one of the good ones after all.

I climbed into my director’s chair to watch as Jackson walked Felicity and Cole through the scene. Jackson obviously knew exactly what he wanted, but he had a natural way of guiding the actors to make the discoveries themselves so they felt empowered. Cole was so fooled he clearly thought he didn’t need any direction. After a minute, I noticed that Felicity wasn’t holding her sides in her hand as she ran through the lines and hit her marks without missing a beat. She had the script memorized.

Felicity

Thirteen Years Ago

Iris takes a swig of her Dr Pepper and lights another cigarette. “Fucking gorgeous day.” She stretches out on the plastic lounger with her arms above her head. “Finally.”

It is a gorgeous day, the first we’ve had after weeks of nonstop rain. I don’t understand why we’re the only ones enjoying it at the Super 8 pool, but we’re glad because it means we can do whatever we want. Iris sings along to Nelly Furtado, “Maneater” blaring out of the boom box between our chairs.

I practice some of the moves I’ve been learning in the hip-hop class I finally got to sign up for last month, the concrete hot under my bare feet.

Iris claps. “Whoo-hoo! Get it, girl!”

I dance harder. “I’m gonna be a dancer just like you when I grow up,” I shout over the music.

She laughs. “Don’t even think about it. You’re way smarter than me, girl. You’re going to college. You’re gonna have a real life with real money and never be anybody’s bitch.”

Hitch-kick! Shoulder isolation! I can feel my belly jiggle as I hop, but if I keep dancing like this I’ll be skinny as my mom in no time. “We’ll see.” I parrot her favorite thing to say when I ask for something she doesn’t want to give.

She sets her cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, and before I know it she’s tackled me and we’re both in the deep end sputtering water. “Gotcha!” She laughs.

I splash her, joining in her laughter.

She’s been a different person since the day I found the holes in her arm. Or I guess the person she had been before the drugs, only better. And not exactly since that day but a few days after. I’m not sure what happened, but the holes were gone and she was glowing, whistling in the shower, giggling every time she picked up her phone. I knew what it had to be.

“You’re in love,” I declared one evening when she kept checking her phone even though we were watching our favorite show together.

She looked at me wide-eyed and started to protest, then laughed. “You’re right. I think I am.”

“With who?” I asked, though I could guess. Cole was the only man she’d seen in months.

She smiled secretively. “I’m in love with a movie star,” she purred.

I grinned, my mind swirling with possibilities. “And is this mystery movie star in love with you?”

She nodded, her cheeks red. “I think so.”

“Are you actually blushing?” I teased. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush before. Iris and Cole sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes—”

“Stop it.” She whacked me with a pillow.

“So when do I get to meet him?” I prodded. “If he’s gonna be my dad, I have some questions for him.”

“All in good time,” she assured me. “It’s complicated right now.”

Then I remembered. He was married to Stella Rivers. They’d just married when my mom met him, and I hadn’t seen anything about them divorcing in the tabloids, so they must still be married. “He’s gotta get divorced first, huh?” I asked.

“Something like that,” she replied. “You don’t—you haven’t talked about this with any of your friends, have you?”

I shook my head. “No, of course not. You told me not to.”

“Good.” She nodded. “Don’t. It’s more important now than ever.”

“I promise.”

And I haven’t said a word to anybody. The thing I find weird though is that the big pile of money in the safe hasn’t been growing. In fact, it’s been shrinking. But I can’t ask her about it because I’m not supposed to know the code. I’ve decided it means that Cole is really in love with her. Maybe he’s even set up a bank account in her name or something. It’s the only explanation.

It’s late afternoon by the time we get home from the pool, and I can tell I’m going to be sunburned. I’m usually so brown I don’t get sunburned, but with all the rain, I haven’t seen the sun in weeks. “Shit,” Iris says, looking at her phone. “I didn’t realize how late it was. I gotta hop in the shower. Can you handle dinner for yourself?”

I nod. “I gotta go to the store for aloe anyway. I’m sunburned.”

I’m in line at the 7-Eleven with my frozen pizza, aloe, and Coke, when I see the front of Celebrity magazine. It’s a picture of Cole and Stella that looks like it’s been ripped in half, a jagged black line between them. The caption reads “OVER ALREADY? Cole and Stella reportedly headed for Splitsville.”

I grab the magazine and start thumbing through it, unable to hold back my grin. At the register I don’t have enough money for everything, so I choose the magazine over the aloe. Who cares about a sunburn. My mom’s gonna marry a movie star!

I run all the way home and throw open the front door, panting. “Mom! Guess what?” I tear into the bathroom, where she’s curling her hair, and slap the magazine in front of her, doing a victory dance.

But her response isn’t what I thought it would be. She frowns at the cover, sets her curling iron down, and lifts the magazine,