Sirens: Rare breed of woman

My friend, "Laura" was a great beauty: a six-foot blonde goddess, figure like Scarlett Johansson's, raucous, ready laugh. When I hear the term "siren" I think of her reflexively.

We met in the early 80s. She was a model, singer in a rock band, major domo for one of the world's most-recognized celebrities, proprietor of a specialty bookstore in a tourist mecca, and corporate headhunter- pretty much in that order. Married once, engaged countless times, rarely lacking company, usually lacking money.

The stories I could tell (but I hear she is writing a book)! The time she came to visit and on the bus en route from the airport, a man who was arriving for his wedding told her he'd call it off, if she would give him a chance.

When we went to a restaurant or club, there would be notes, drinks, entreaties; the band sat with us. I knew that if we agreed to meet anywhere in public I would have to peel a couple of men away before we could talk.

I have never seen anything like it before or since. If we were invited to a Saturday evening dinner party at my friends', she would say, "Well, I hope I don't get a phone call too early in the morning", because any man unattached (or sometimes not) would be certain to invite her to brunch on Sunday.

She did not spend time with married men except for one heartbreaking liaison early on, which turned her away from that route forever. She got into occasional scrapes. I'd get a call in the middle of my workday: "I need to come see you, is it OK?" She'd be on some yacht, but it was time to leave a demanding or unstable host.

When I visited her in California, we would either tour ex-lovers she considered amusing, or take the back roads to avoid new ones so we could talk.

Reminiscing about those siren years, she said, "Really, the only difference between you and me was, I always knew that with a little cleavage and the right attitude I could leave with any man in the place."

She was a firm believer in being blonde, showing some assets, silk and heels. She kept several dozen recipes in her memory, could whip them up on a moment's notice while chatting about the F1 racing team she'd managed. A geisha, she knew how to create a blissful environment that somehow ended up with men wanting to do everything for her.

At 60-plus, she was relieved, finally, at not having men respond first or often only to her looks. She also missed the reliable power that her beauty represented. Laura had many other qualities- humour, kindness, generosity- much more than a gorgeous face.

We have lost touch, though given her peripatetic ways, likely not forever. Such is the siren's path, to enter lives and drench them in an aura of glamour,
intrigue and romance, then flutter away with a smile.