A LIFE SO CHANGED
Chapter Ten

April 28, 2063--Later That Night

The big hydraulic jib swings one of the Mir subs out over the water. Lovett walks as he talks with Bobby Buell, the partner’s rep. They weave among deck cranes, launch crew, sub maintenance guys.

"The partners are pissed," said Buell.

"Bobby, buy me time. I need time."

"We're running thirty thousand a day, and we're six days over. I'm telling you what they're telling me. The hand is on the plug. It's starting to pull."

"Well you tell the hand I need another two days! Bobby, Bobby, Bobby...we're close! I smell it. I smell ice. She had the diamond on...now we just have to find out where it wound up. I just gotta work her a bit more. Okay?"

Brock turns and sees Lizzy standing behind him. She has overheard the past part of his dialogue with Buell. He goes to her and hustles her away from Buell, toward a quiet spot on the deck.

"Hey, Lizzy. I need to talk to you for a second."

"Don't you mean work me?" she asked angrily.

"Look, I'm running out of time. I need your help."

"I'm not going to help you browbeat my eighty-five-year-old Grandmother. I came down here to tell you to back off."

"Lizzy...you gotta understand something. I've bet it all to find the Heart of the Ocean. I've got all my dough tied up in this thing. My wife even divorced me over this hunt. I need what's locked inside your Grandma's memory." With undisguised desperation, then he holds out his hand. "You see this? Right here?"

She looks at his hand, palm up. Empty. Cupped, as if around an imaginary shape. "What?"

"That's the shape my hand's gonna be when I hold that thing. You understand? I'm not leaving here without it."

"Look, Brock, she's going to do this her way, in her own time. Don't forget, she contacted you. She's out here for her own reasons, God knows what they are."

"Maybe she wants to make peace with the past."

"What past? She has never once, not once, ever said a word about being on the Titanic until two days ago."

"Then we're all meeting your Grandmother for the first time."

"You think she was really there?" She looks at him hard.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm a believer. She was there."

*****

Bodine is starting the tape recorder. Rose is gazing at the screen seeing the live feed from the wreck. Snoop Dog is moving along the starboard side of the hull, heading aft. The rectangular windows of A deck (forward) march past on the right.

"The next day, Saturday, I remember thinking how the sunlight felt," said Rose.

Rose watched the screen more, seeing the match dissolve from the rusting hulk to the gleaming new Titanic in 1998, passing the end of the enclosed promenade.

July 13, 1998

Rose is walking towards the rail, and looking all over the ship around her. It was beautiful, and the sun was shining.

Rose: "As if I hadn't felt the sun in years."

Rose unlatches the gate to go down into third class. The steerage men on the deck stop what they're doing and stare at her. The social center of steerage life. It is stark by comparison to the opulence of first class, but is a loud, boisterous place. There are mothers with babies, kids running between the benches yelling in several languages and being scolded in several more.

There are old women yelling, men playing chess, girls playing with Barbie dolls and reading novels. There is even an upright piano and Tommy Ryan is noodling around it. Three boys, shrieking and shouting, are scrambling around chasing a rat under the benches, trying to whomp it with a shoe and causing general havoc.

Jack is playing with five-year old Cora, drawing funny faces together in his sketchbook. Fabrizio is struggling to get a conversation going with an attractive Norwegian girl, Helga Dahl, sitting with her family at a table across the room.

"No Italian? Some little English?"

"No, no. Norwegian only."

Helga’s eye is caught by something. Fabrizio looks, does a take...and Jack, curious, follows their gaze to see...Rose, coming towards them. The activity in the room stops...a hush falls. Rose feels suddenly self-conscious as the steerage passengers stare openly at this princess, some smiling, others with awe because of her dressing stunningly.

She spots Jack and gives a little smile, walking straight to him. Why is everybody staring at me? Just get Jack and get out of there. Jack rises to meet her, smiling.

"Hi," said Rose.

Jack turned to see Fabrizio and Tommy being floored. It’s like the slipper fitting Cinderella. Then Jack gave her a warm hug, Rose was shocked, just a little, then when she saw them floored, then she knew. That afternoon, where she saw Jack and them.

"Hi, you made it," said Jack.

"Yeah, I hope I’m not too early or late?"

"No, no, not at all. You’re just on time," he said with a smile. Rose smiled back.

"Can I talk to you in private?"

"Uh, yes. Of course. After you."

He motions her ahead and he glances over his shoulder to Fabrizio and Tommy.

"She’s next to me now," he said with eyebrow raised, as he walks out with her leaving a stunned silence.

*****

Jack and Rose walking side by side. They pass people reading and talking in steamer chairs, some of whom glance curiously at the mismatched couple. He feels out of place in his rough clothes. They are both awkward, for different reasons.

"Well, I’ve been on my own since I was seventeen, since my folks died. And I had no brothers and sisters or close kin in that part of the country so I lit on out of there and I haven’t been back there since. Just call me a tumbleweed blowing in the wind." They laughed. "Well, Rose...we’ve walked about a mile on this boat deck and chewed over how great the weather is and how I grew up, but I reckoned that’s not why you came to talk to me is it?"

Wow, he’s not that stupid right there, she thought. "Look...Jack, right?"

"Jack, yes."

"Jack, I want to thank you for what you did. Not just for...pulling me back, but for helping with that lie."

"You’re welcome."

"Look, I know what you must be thinking. Poor little religious girl. What does she know about misery?"

"No...no. That’s not what I was thinking. What I was thinking was...what could have happened to make this girl think she had no way out?"

Okay, here goes nothing. "Well, I...it was everything...my world and all my people in it. And my life plunging ahead and me powerless to stop it. I mean, I can’t do anything. My parents won’t let me dance, wear shorts, and pants, drink, smoke, go to a movie theater, I have to wear this," she showed her undergarment, "because if I don’t, it shows my hmm..."

"God! You would have gone straight to the bottom."

"Here we are, going to the Bahamas, not on vacation, going to mission there, and all the while I feel like standing there in the middle of the dining room screaming at the top my lungs and no one even looks up! My parents and I have been going to our church for over six years, and they have changed, and they are trying to change me, especially my Dad!"

Oh no. He gonna laugh at me. I just know it!

Jack’s face shows her nothing. He did not laugh.

"Do you love him?"

"Excuse me?" She was not quite sure what he asked.

"Do you love him?"

"You’re being very rude. You shouldn’t be asking me this."

"Well, it’s a simple question, do you love the guy or not?" he asked with a smirk.

"This is not a suitable conversation."

"Why can’t you answer the question?" he asked with a little laugh.

Rose being flustered. "This is stupid! You don’t know me and I don't know you, and we are not having this conversation at all! You are rude and presumptuous…" Jack is enjoying this. "…and I am leaving now…" she took his hand and shook it. "…Jack. Mr. Dawson. I sought you out to thank you and now I have thanked you..."

"And you insulted me." He was being amused.

"Well...you deserved it."

"Right."

"Right," she said, with a little laugh.

They continue to shake hands.

"I thought you were leaving," he said with a smile.

"I am!"

She begins to walk away. He’s so annoying! I’m going to tell him anyway! She turns to him, really taken back.

"You are so annoying!"

Jack laughed.

She turns to leave, but realized something.

"Wait a minute!" She turns back and went to him. "I don’t have to leave. This is my part of the ship. You leave!" She pointed her finger to the other direction.

"Oh, oh well, well, well! Now who’s being rude?"

Oh great! Now what? she thought. Not knowing what to say. Jack laughs. To ease her discomfort and change the subject she grabs his portfolio from his hands.

"What is this stupid thing you keep carrying around?"

She examines his drawings...interested reluctantly, moving away slightly, still trying to feign being indignant.

"What are you? An artist or something?" Jack nods. "Well, these are rather good. They’re very good actually."

Fascinated, she sits down on one of the deck chairs. Jack sits next to her. On Jack’s sketches...each one an expressive little bit of humanity: a woman feeding her baby, a woman's hands over a baby. The faces are luminous and alive. His book is a celebration of human condition.

"Jack, this is beautiful work!"

"Well, they didn’t think too much of ‘em in old Paree." Not looking in her in the eye.

"Paris?" Jack nods. "You do get around for a poor--" Looking at Jack, embarrassed. "Well, a person who can get by."

"It’s okay. You say it. A poor guy," he said, laughing. She laughs too, relieved that he wasn’t mad.

Suddenly some loose sketches fall out and are taken by the wind. Jack scrambles after them...catching two, but the rest are gone, over the rail.

"Oh no! Oh, I’m sorry!" She was ashamed of what happened.

"Well, they didn’t think too much of ‘em in Paree." He snaps his wrist, shaking his drawing hand in a flourish. "I just seem to spew ‘em out. Besides, they’re not worth a damn anyway." For emphasis he throws away the two he caught. They sail off. He turns to Rose and smiles.

"You’re deranged!" she said, laughing. Jack laughs too.

Rose goes back to the book, turning the page. Jack came back, and sat down. Rose has come upon a series of nudes. She is transfixed by the languid beauty he has created.

His nudes are soulful, real, with expressive hands and eyes. They feel more like portraits than studies of the human form...almost uncomfortably. Rose blushes.

"Well, well, well! And these were drawn from life?" She was trying to be very adult.

Rose raises the book to her as some strollers go by.

"Yup. That’s one of the great things about Paris. Lots of girls willing to take their clothes off," he said, snickering. Rose blushes even more.

She studies one drawing in particular. The girl posed on her back, her right arm is over her head, and she’s half-smiling. I want Jack to draw me like one of them, especially her. But I’m too shy, and I hate the way my body looks anyway. I’m too fat.

"You liked this woman. You used her several times."

"She had beautiful hands, you see." Showing her the drawing close up with his fingers.

"I think you must have a love affair with her." Smiling at him.

"No, no!" Laughing. "Just with her hands. She was a one legged prostitute." Rose looks at the picture in awe. "See?" Indicating another picture.

She chokes on the picture and then is morbidly interested. "Oh!"

Jack laughs, so did she.

"Ah, she had a great sense of humor though."

Rose looks at him in fascinate and wonder. Not believing that she is with him after what happen last night. She hoped everything goes well at dinner.

"Oh, and this woman." Indicating another picture. "She would come to this bar every night, wearing every piece of jewelry she owned, just waiting for her long lost love. I call her Madame Bijou. See how her clothes are moth-eaten?"

"Well," she said, looking up from the drawings. "You have a gift, Jack. You do. You see people."

"I see you." Making a straight face.

There it is. That piercing gaze again.

"And?" She drew herself up with a smile.

"You wouldn’t have jumped."

Her smile fades as she looks intently at him. Knowing that he was right.

*****

Ruth is having lunch with Mrs. Claire Parrish. Parrish’s wife. Claire is the secretary to Pastor Walker.

"I can’t believe Rose would lie to them, that he saved her," said Ruth.

"I think she is telling the truth after all, why would she lie?" asked Claire.

"What I can’t figure out is that if he did save her. Why did she scream?"

"Maybe she thought he was going to attack her, but realized he was just helping her, don’t you think?"

"I don’t know what to think. Especially Cal. Now he knows he did not save her."

They sip their tea. Claire sees someone coming across the room. It’s Molly.

"Hi. I was hoping I could catch you here." Smiling at them.

They got up from their table.

"Claire and I are just off to take the air on the boat deck."

"That sounds great. Let's go. I need to catch up on the gossip."

Ruth laughs as the three of them head for the Grand Staircase to go up. They pass Ismay and Captain Smith talking at another table.

"So, you’ve not yet lit the last four boilers then?" asked Ismay.

"No, I don’t see the need. We are making excellent time." With a smile.

"The press knows about the size of Titanic. Now I want them to marvel at her speed. We must give them something new to print. This maiden voyage of Titanic must make headlines!" Being impatiently.

"Mr. Ismay, I would prefer not to push the engines until they’ve been properly run in."

"Of course I’m just a passenger. I leave it to your good offices to decide what’s best, but what a glorious end to your last crossing if we get into the Bahamas Tuesday night and surprise them all. Make the morning papers." Slapping his hand on the table. "Retire with a bang, eh, E.J.?"

A beat. Then Captain Smith nods, stiffly.

"Good man!" Smiling.

Chapter Eleven
Stories