LOVE BY CHANCE
Chapter Four
July 17, 2001
"Wow, Rose, this is a really nice place
you’ve got here," Jack commented as he stood in the middle of the foyer of
her house.
"Thanks. I do my best." She smiled
and walked towards him.
Jack took her into his arms. "Well, your
best is absolutely spectacular." He embraced and kissed her tenderly.
"Don’t start that now. I’ve got supper
on the stove. If it burns or boils over I know some handsome man who will be
scrubbing!"
Jack threw up his hands in surrender. "Touche!"
Rose looked at him, feigning puzzlement.
"What?"
"Touche. It’s a French term used
in fencing. It means ‘I give up’ or ‘You win’."
"Oh. When did you learn to speak
French?"
"A l’universitie ma cherie."
Rose raised an eyebrow as she looked at him.
"Interesting. Oh, and by the way," she said as she turned to saunter
into the kitchen. "Je puis parler Francais aussi."
"OK, I see how it is. Trying to pull a
fast one on me, eh?" he said as he gently grabbed her arm so that she
turned toward him, their faces mere inches apart.
"Not really," she breathed. Rose
lifted her head as Jack leaned his down. Just as their lips touched, a sizzle
from the kitchen met Rose’s ears and she groaned. Gently pushing Jack away she
darted toward the kitchen just in time to see her pot of noodles boiling over
and her sauce bubbling in an almost rolling boil. After managing to save their
supper, she turned to Jack. "I warned you!" she yelled, half angrily,
at Jack.
"I’m sorry, Rose. I promise I’ll do the
dishes."
Rose looked at him skeptically.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
*****
"What are you thinking about?" Jack
asked, coming up behind Rose, who was looking out the window, and wrapped his
arms around her.
"My mother. Who else, beside you of
course."
"Oh." Jack rested his head on her
shoulder. "What about her?"
"How can she be like this toward
me?"
Jack sighed. "Well, I think I was the
last person she expected to see walk off that plane with you. She never really
cared for me anyway, but we lost contact after awhile and your mother assumed I
ditched you. That’s not true, but she’s too stubborn to really accept that I
guess."
"She always was stubborn. Drives me
mad." Rose paused for a moment. "I remember for our high school prom,
remember that disgusting pink dress she made me wear?"
Jack nodded.
"She had bought it for me without my
knowing and when I came downstairs an hour before you were to come and pick me
up, she freaked when she saw me in a lavender colored dress. She shoved the
pink one at me and said if I didn’t show up downstairs in it in a half an hour
I couldn’t go to the prom because she wasn’t letting me out of the house
‘looking like that.’"
"I should have known," Jack said.
"I never thought you liked pink, and I was pretty sure you had told me
your dress was lavender."
"I went home and the dress was gone. I
figured she took it and gave it to the Salvation Army or something like
that." Rose sighed, letting out a little of her anger. "She’s so
shallow has to have her way."
Jack shrugged and nuzzled her neck some to
try and change her mood. "Forget her," he whispered, feeling shivers
run down her spine.
"With you?" Rose giggled. "Not
a problem." She spun them both around and they fell back on the couch.
*****
Ruth DeWitt-Bukater was absolutely steaming.
It wasn’t enough that she had had a bad day, but Rose still hadn’t called. She
was probably out carousing with that Jack. Her idea to go out to California and
break them up had fallen through. She couldn’t get time off from the office
because it was their peak season. She made a growling sort of noise and dropped
into the chair in front of her television. She clicked it on to the night’s
news to try and cool off. She’d get that Jack Dawson, if it were that last thing
she ever did.