Jennifer's Ship
One mild autumn day in early September, Jennifer Ann Williams was having lunch at the Chinese Lantern Restaurant with two of her friends from the office. The coworkers often went out to eat on Fridays, their customary payday. Just as the three women finished their combo special of General Tso's chicken, egg roll and pork fried rice, the waitress brought them the check along with a complimentary plate of fortune cookies.
"Put your money away. This is my treat," Jennifer insisted over the other women's objections and handed the waitress her debit card.
While she waited for the server to return with her bank card and receipt, she broke open her fortune cookie and read the message printed on the slip of paper inside.
"Typical fortune cookie cliché," she laughed, tossing the paper into her empty teacup. "How disappointing!"
"Let me guess," said Nancy Sweetman, the middle-aged office manager. "It says that you will meet a tall, dark stranger who will sweep you off your feet."
"Well, if you decide to take Mister Tall-Dark-and-Handsome, can I have Tommy?" asked Carly Broadwell, the newly hired bookkeeper and recent college graduate.
"Not on your life!" Jennifer jokingly replied. "Tommy Ryan is all mine, so stay away from him. Besides, my fortune has nothing to do with men: whether they be tall, dark and handsome or short, blond and ugly."
"What does it say, then?" Nancy asked, with mild curiosity.
"It says that soon my ship will come in. What a lousy fortune, huh? Why couldn't it say something fun and exciting like fame and fortune are headed my way or soon I will inherit great wealth?"
"Don't be so pessimistic," Carly advised. "Who knows? Maybe your ship is a luxury yacht or even a cruise ship to whisk you and Tommy off to some exotic island in the Caribbean."
"Just the same, I'd still rather have an engagement ring than a ship," Jennifer replied, more serious than joking.
Nancy then suggested with a mischievous wink, "Maybe the tall, dark and handsome stranger is a ship's captain!"
"And if you aren't interested, I'll take him," the currently unattached Carly quickly offered.
After the waitress came back to their table with the receipt and debit card, the three women returned to their office where, faced with a pile of work on her desk, Jennifer promptly forgot about the cliché that had been written on the tiny slip of paper inside her fortune cookie.
* * *
Two weeks after the luncheon at the Chinese Lantern, Jennifer was waiting in her small but comfortable studio apartment for the imminent arrival of her boyfriend, Tommy Ryan, a young man she had been seeing on a steady basis since their senior year in high school. Since the two of them planned on going out to dinner and then to a movie afterward, she picked up the local newspaper and scanned the movie schedule, hoping there was a decent film playing at the Cineplex.
Of the dozen pictures being shown, there were only two that Jennifer thought looked good: one starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (a combination she likened to a modern version of Paul Newman and Robert Redford), and the other was a new suspense film starring Mark Wahlberg—another Massachusetts-born actor. Since she found both movies equally appealing, she would let Tommy decide which of the two they would go see.
Still waiting for her date to arrive, Jennifer idly glanced down at the horoscopes below the movie listings. Although she did not actually believe that one's future could be decided by the alignment of the stars and planets, she did, from time to time, read her horoscope just for fun. It amused her to see that for her sign, Scorpio, the predictions were invariably related to career decisions and the workplace rather than to love and romance.
As she looked for Scorpio among the twelve zodiac signs, she expected to read something along the lines of "Now is a good time to pitch your new idea" or "If you work hard now, you will profit in the long run." Instead, the prediction for those born under the sign of Scorpio read simply "soon your ship will come in."
What a strange coincidence! she thought, remembering the message in the fortune cookie.
Still, an ordinary coincidence was all Jennifer thought it was at the time. After all, it was a pretty common saying. For all she knew, it could be one of the top ten lines most used by psychics and fortunetellers. She certainly did not think for one second that the old cliché had any bearing on her future. In fact, once Tommy finally arrived to pick her up, neither the cookie's fortune nor the newspaper's horoscope seemed important.
* * *
Soon December ushered in the holiday season, and Jennifer and Tommy spent Christmas Day with the Williams family at brother Dwight's Plymouth home. Shortly after the young couple arrived at the house, Dwight took Tommy down to the basement to show him his new power tools. From past experience, Jennifer knew the two men would start talking about electric drills and end up discussing Patriots football, and it would be some time before she saw either of them again.
Jennifer's parents had not arrived yet, and her sister-in-law, Suzanne, was busy in the small kitchen, preparing the turkey and fixings. Her offer to help with the cooking having been politely refused, Jennifer was left alone in the living room with her ten-year-old nephew, Michael.
"What did you get for Christmas this year, Mike?" she asked, glancing at the mountain of unwrapped presents beneath the tree.
The boy showed her, among other things, an assortment of video games, comic books, sports-themed T-shirts, music CDs, a new baseball glove and a pair of rollerblades.
"And look what my friend Justin gave me: an Ouija Board."
"I didn't know they still made those things."
"Come on, Aunt Jenny," Michael urged her, "let's talk to Captain Howdy."
"So, you've been watching The Exorcist, I see," Jennifer laughed, as the two of them sat down on either side of the coffee table and placed the board between them, their fingers lightly resting on the planchette.
"Aren't you afraid that if you talk to Captain Howdy what happened to Reagan might happen to you?"
Michael's eyes lit up with excitement.
"Do you think my head will spin around and I'll be able to float in the air above my bed?"
"I doubt it. But just in case you start throwing up pea soup, please lean that way. This dress has to be dry-cleaned."
Jennifer had decided to nudge the Ouija's pointer to spell out the message that the Boston Red Sox would win another world championship next season, a prediction that was sure to please young Michael; but try as she might, she could not get the planchette to respond to her touch. As though it had a will of its own, the plastic pointer spelled out a different message, one not intended for her ten-year-old nephew: S-O-O-N .. Y-O-U-R .. S-H-I-P .. W-I-L-L .. C-O-M-E .. I-N.
Jennifer quickly pulled her fingers off the planchette and looked at Michael, briefly wondering if he had provided the force that directed its movements, but the boy innocently looked back at her, unaware of the significance of the message. She realized it had been ridiculous for her to suspect for even a moment that he was playing a joke on her. There was no way he could have known about the previous two messages. She had not thought the two predictions important enough to mention them to anyone, not even to Tommy, but three such messages were a bit much to be a mere coincidence. Perhaps the predictions did have some meaning for her after all. But what could it be?
* * *
At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, Tommy asked Jennifer to marry him. Naturally, she said yes, ecstatic at the thought of becoming Mrs. Thomas Patrick Ryan.
I guess my ship has come in, she thought happily, assuming the predictions had been referring to her engagement.
The winter, spring and summer went by quickly. Jennifer was kept busy with wedding preparations and honeymoon plans. The autumn came again, and Tommy and Jennifer were married on the fourteenth of October. They had a small but elegant wedding and reception with only immediate family and close friends in attendance. After the festivities were over, the newly married Ryans boarded a plane at Logan Airport and flew to New Orleans for a three-week honeymoon.
While sightseeing in the French Quarter, Tommy and Jennifer came upon an old Cajun woman selling flowers from a pushcart.
"Would you like to buy your pretty girl a nice bouquet?" the old woman asked, smiling at Tommy and revealing several gold teeth. As Tommy handed her a five-dollar bill for the flowers, the old woman added, "For another five dollars, I will read your palm and tell you your fortune."
Tommy turned to Jennifer and playfully raised his eyebrow.
"What about it, Jenny? Want to know how many kids we're going to have?"
Jennifer laughed and shook her head.
"No, I'd prefer to wait and find out."
"Come on, honey, it might be fun to see what the future has in store for us."
Not waiting for an answer, Tommy took another five out of his wallet and handed it to the old woman, who quickly pocketed it in the folds of her long black skirt.
"Let me see your hands," the Cajun fortuneteller instructed.
She studied Tommy's palm first. As she did, the friendly smile faded from her face. She said nothing as she reached for Jennifer's hand and traced the lines of the young girl's palm with her gnarled, arthritic forefinger.
Finally, the old woman looked directly into Jennifer's inquisitive blue eyes and announced with an air of great sadness, "Soon your ship will come in, my dear."
Without a further word to either of the honeymooners, the fortunetelling flower seller turned back to her pushcart and slowly and silently hobbled away.
Tommy shook his head and stared at the retreating figure.
"Now, that was a pretty disappointing prediction, if ever I heard one!" he joked. "You'd think that for five bucks she could have come up with something a little more creative."
Jennifer, too, stared at the old woman, but she found nothing amusing in her palm reading.
Over dinner that night, the newlywed bride told Tommy of the similar prophecies she had received from the fortune cookie, the newspaper horoscope and Michael's Ouija Board.
"Come on, honey," he laughed. "You don't honestly believe all that nonsense, do you?"
"Normally, no. But three—no four—predictions that all say pretty much the same thing! I just don't think I can simply write it off as a coincidence any longer."
"Okay. Even on the extremely slim chance that these are all psychic messages of some kind, there's nothing for you to be worried about. It's not as if they were a prediction of doom," he reasoned. "That old saying about a ship coming in is supposed to portend good luck, not bad."
"I suppose you're right," she agreed, snuggling closer to him. "I've certainly been very lucky in marrying you."
When the couple returned from their New Orleans honeymoon, the Ryans moved into a condominium in the northeastern part of New Jersey, within commuting distance of Tommy's new job in New York where life as Mrs. Thomas Patrick Ryan proved to be everything Jennifer Williams had ever hoped or dreamed it would be. Tommy was a wonderful husband. She loved him dearly and looked forward to a long and happy life with him, one she was sure would be filled with love and happiness.
* * *
It was their six-month anniversary, and Tommy was going to take his wife out to dinner at one of the finest restaurants in Manhattan. Jennifer bought a new dress and had her hair professionally styled for the occasion. As she was applying her makeup, she heard the telephone ring.
"Hi, Honey," Tommy said. "Remember that exhibit that was scheduled to open tomorrow?"
"How could I forget? You've talked of nothing else for weeks."
"Everything was supposed to be ready by this afternoon, but one of the trucks didn't get here until late this morning."
Jennifer caught the hint of apology in her husband's voice.
"I guess that means our plans for tonight will have to be postponed."
She felt disappointment but not anger. Since Tommy was the head curator of the museum, he had to be there to oversee the delivery of all valuable artifacts.
"No, we don't have to cancel dinner, but I am running very late. Look, sweetheart, I really hate to ask you this because I know how much you hate to drive in the city, but do you think you could meet me here at the museum?"
"Sure. Want me to bring you a clean suit?"
"No, I'll wear the one I've got on."
"Okay, just let me finish getting ready first. Love you."
By the time Jennifer arrived at the museum, it was past closing time, but the guard at the main door let her in. Tommy was in his office and appeared to be in the middle of an important phone call. He signaled to her that he would be a few minutes longer.
"I'll be looking at the new exhibit," she whispered and pointed to the room where the artifacts were now on display.
As Jennifer walked around the room, examining the priceless items in the museum's climate-controlled cases, she felt a sudden, almost numbing chill.
Did someone leave a window or door open? she wondered.
Over the next several minutes, the temperature seemed to drop steadily, and she began to shiver. Jennifer pulled her jacket more tightly around her as she looked down at the old documents in the glass case.
"Okay, Jenny, let's get out of here quickly before something else comes up," Tommy called as he entered the exhibit room.
At first, the curator thought that what he saw was a mere illusion caused by the museum's overhead lights. It appeared to him that his wife's hair, face and clothes had been bleached white by the illumination.
Jennifer Ryan looked up from the display cabinet into the eyes of her husband.
"Tommy," she said weakly with a frosty breath before suddenly collapsing onto the floor.
The frightened husband ran to his spouse and scooped her up into his arms.
"Jenny, what's happened?" he cried.
His wife's body was wet and cold, and Tommy could see tiny crystals of ice clinging to her drenched hair and clothing.
"Jenny! Jenny!" he screamed in horror.
But Jennifer did not reply. Tommy reluctantly let go of her frozen body and tried to stand up. His heart broken, he leaned against the museum's display case, put his head in his hands and cried. Eventually, he opened his tear-stained eyes and stared unseeingly down at the papers that were on display in the glass case. His eyes suddenly focused on one document and were drawn to a particular name written on it: Jennifer Ann Ryan. Tommy's eyes then quickly shifted to the title of the document. Printed at the top of the page, it said, CASUALTY LIST: RMS TITANIC."
Tommy turned his head away and looked out the window where he saw the Statue of Liberty standing proudly in New York Harbor. It was then that the significance of the date struck him. It was April 14, the anniversary of the sinking of the doomed White Star liner.
As Tommy Ryan stood amidst the display cases containing some of the artifacts recovered from the sunken wreck of the Titanic, he realized with a sense of profound grief and irony that Jennifer's ship had, at last, come in.
I've been fascinated with the Titanic since I read A Night to Remember back in middle school. In August 2009 I saw the Titanic artifacts exhibit at the Discovery-Times Square Exposition in New York. It was fascinating to see so many items that were recovered from the wreckage. Then in 2015 I was lucky enough to go to Belfast and visit the Titanic Museum erected on the grounds of the Harland Wolff shipyard where the Titanic was built. It was amazing! Also in 2015 I went to Nova Scotia, Canada, where many of the victims retrieved from the ocean are buried. There are also artifacts in the Maritime Museum there.
Salem's ship has come in at last. It's from a Caribbean cruise line.
