HERE AND NOW
Chapter Eight

Jack and Rose separated for dinner, Rose opting to dine in the more casual comedy restaurant, where stand-up comics entertained the diners while they ate, while Jack had to go to the a la carte restaurant. Tonight his family was dining with the Astors. Rose didn’t mind. She wanted to find Mandy anyway. She had a lot to tell her friend.

As Rose went to hang out in her stateroom for a while, Mandy came back from wherever she had been.

"Hey, Rose," she greeted. "Dinner in the café, yeah? I’m starving. Tommy’s been showing me around the ship all day. I ain’t hardly eaten a thing. This place is massive. What’ve you been up to?"

"Promise you won’t spread it around too much?" Rose asked with a smile.

"Sure, whatever," agreed Mandy as she began to get changed into an evening outfit, preparing to hit the club again later.

"All right." Rose took a breath. "I’ve started seeing Jack DeWitt-Bukater. We both decided we want to be more than friends. I know we’ve only known each other a couple of days, but it feels right."

"Well, good. I knew something was happening with you two. How did you get to like him anyway, though? One minute you thought he was scum, and the next you were dancing with him in Club White Star."

"You really mustn’t tell anyone, okay?" Rose waited for Mandy to nod in agreement before she continued. "I found him on deck the night we came aboard. He had a gun. He was going to commit suicide."

"Whoa!" Mandy gasped. "But you stopped him, obviously. Good thing it was you and not someone who’d run to the papers."

"Yes," agreed Rose. "Anyway, we’ve been seeing a lot of each other since then. I thought it was just a friendship. I mean, we were strangers, but then I kissed him and it’s getting more intense every time we see each other."

"Have you…?" Mandy grinned.

"I told you, Mandy. It’s been three days." Rose shook her head with an amused smile.

"So?" Mandy’s grin grew wider. "I only known Tommy the same amount of time and we’ve done it already. We’re gonna be pen pals when the ship lands. I never had a pen pal before."

"Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen with me and Jack. Especially once the ship docks, and especially given the fact that his father’s going to serve me with a lawsuit if he catches me socializing with his son on any level again."

"Mr. Bukater said that?" Mandy looked annoyed on her friend’s behalf.

"Told me himself. Threatened me, even. He’s such a bastard."

"Jeez." Mandy sighed. "So, what are you gonna do?"

"Well, I’ve seen Jack since then, and nothing’s happened. Besides, Jack’s contemplating getting away from his family, getting a life of his own."

"Oh, yeah? And you believe him, do you?" Mandy raised a skeptical eyebrow "Come on, Rose. He’s a rich kid. America’s prince and all that. He won’t really wanna stop living off his mummy and daddy."

"He does. He just needs to get up the courage to do it. I know he’s got it in him. He’s just scared. It’s understandable."

"Well, you’ve done a complete U-turn, haven’t you? Not a week ago, you thought all DeWitt-Bukaters were the scum of the earth, and now you’re practically dating one of them. Weird world."

"I could never have predicted it, either. But I’m glad it happened. You don’t know Jack the way I do. I don’t think anybody does…he’s a great person. He just doesn’t really realize it or believe in himself."

"So, Guardian Angel Rose is going to help him?" Mandy guessed with a knowing smile.

Rose smiled. Earlier, she’d thought that she’d been acting like an angel, and now Mandy had called her one. Bit of an overstatement, really. Rose hoped that she was just doing what most decent people would have done in saving Jack’s life. Okay, so falling for him had been totally unexpected, but how could she have turned her back on him?

"He has so much potential. Mandy, you have no idea how deep he is…the media make him look like such a moron, but he’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. And I know he likes me, too."

*****

Dinner, to Jack’s annoyance, lasted until after nine o’clock that evening. He hated these dinners. It didn’t matter who they dined with. It was always the same. The same old chatter, the same people…though he liked JJ Astor more than most of his parents’ friends. Astor, at least, acknowledged that Jack existed and seemed to show genuine interest in his opinions.

"Jack, I need to talk to you," Parker told him as everyone was leaving the dinner table. She added, with insistence, "Alone."

Jack allowed Parker to lead him back to her stateroom, where she closed the door behind them.

"It was Posey," Parker said, wasting no time. "She tipped off Dad. And she said she’ll do it again. She hates Rose and she’s determined to keep you away from her."

"Why? What’s it to her who I date?" Jack asked.

"I don’t know. It’s weird. She claims it’s about protecting the family image and fortune or some such bullshit, but I think it’s more than that. I think she’s jealous."

"Jealous? Why? I’m her brother, not her boyfriend…" Jack frowned. Girls were so complicated.

"I don’t understand it, either, but I wanted you to know. Be careful. If you’re going to keep hanging out with Rose, and I think you should because she obviously makes you happy, you need to watch your back," Parker told him.

"Thanks for the warning. I’m gonna find Rose. She needs to know, too," Jack said before leaving.

Finding Rose was easy, as they’d agreed to meet up in the library after dinner, and Rose was already there when Jack arrived.

"Jack." She smiled when he appeared, then looked concerned at how wound up Jack looked.

"It was Posey who tipped off Dad. Parker said that Posey’s determined to split us up," Jack said, cutting right to the chase.

"Well, we’ll just have to stay away from her, then, won’t we? A ship this size…it can’t be too difficult." Rose grinned mischievously, liking the challenge and the idea of a cat and mouse game, even if it was a little dangerous.

Jack couldn’t help liking the idea of turning it into a game, either, despite the fact that there would be consequences if they were caught. His eyes glistened. "Let’s go somewhere a bit more private. What do you say?"

He extended his hand, and then, with Jack leading the way, he and Rose tore down the corridors at a run.

*****

Rose hadn’t thought that the place Jack had been leading her to would turn out to be her own stateroom, but she didn’t mind.

After she let them in, Rose took her card key and locked the door so no one would be able to barge in on them. Mandy wasn’t around; Rose guessed she had gone off someplace with Tommy Ryan again. Since Mandy had met the lifeguard, Rose had hardly seen her, but that was okay, because she had Jack.

"So, what are we doing here?" asked Rose as they went into the living room area of the room. Rose sat down on the couch, tired from running through the halls of the ship.

"I’m bored of nights out," Jack confessed. "How about we just chill here…watch a little bit of TV, break into the mini-bar? What do you think?"

"Maybe we could go really crazy and actually eat the macadamia nuts." Rose grinned. She liked the idea of a night in. She’d partied hard every night since coming aboard; it was time for something different now. They could curl up on the couch, order a few movies from the Pay-Per-View, and pig out on junk, although after dinner she wasn’t too hungry, but the mini-bar did have a great selection of drinks.

*****

"…and then he threw up on my dress. The dress I’d worked so hard to afford, and in a second it was ruined beyond repair. I was so mad that I yelled at him that he was a moron, and then I threw my drink all over his rented tux," Rose said, laughing at the memory. It had been horrible at the time; she’d been so embarrassed. Prom night was supposed to be perfect. It wasn’t supposed to end with your own date being sick all over you and you storming off home to cry into your pillow.

"You really did that?" Jack laughed along with her. The two of them had gotten through several of the little bottles of drinks from the mini-bar and were both getting a bit tipsy. They were slouched on the couch, all sloppy and disheveled, and neither gave a damn. They’d talked about all sorts of things, and had somehow got onto the topic of embarrassing moments from their adolescent periods, both trying to see who could out-do each other for the most embarrassing moment of all time.

"Unfortunately for him, it was my time of the month, and my moods then aren’t all that stable." Rose chuckled, feeling a pang of sympathy for silly old David Hanson. He hadn’t been that bad a guy, really, just a bit immature. And apparently, stupid. She laughed. Surely only boys would spike the punch at a school event which was filled with teachers close by enough to punish them should they be caught. Not only that, but Hanson’s goal had been to get other people drunk so they’d look foolish, but instead he’d been the one that everyone had laughed out of the building that night. What was it with some boys? She shook her head nostalgically. To be seventeen again.

"Hey, Rose?" Jack asked, suddenly turning serious. "You know what? I’m gonna do it."

"Do what?"

"What we talked about. I’m not going to wait around for my dad to cut me off. I’m going to do it myself. When the ship docks, I don’t want to get off with him. I want to go somewhere he’d never guess and get myself a new life. A job, a place of my own…all without my family’s help. I think it can be done."

"Anything can be done if you believe in it enough," Rose replied, honestly believing that. She had her own American dream to chase, after all.

"There’s just one thing…I want to stay with you. Rose, you’ve taught me so much in just a few days. I don’t think I can start out on my own without you. You give me a strength that I’ve never had before…I don’t know what it is, but…"

"I know what you’re talking about. I’ve never felt like this about anybody before, not in such a short space of time. But you and me…it feels right. More right than anything else that’s happened in my life so far. Sorry. I don’t mean to get so slushy. But what I feel is true."

"You really want us to stick together?"

Rose smiled. "I do."

And then they were kissing again.

*****

Rose sighed as she lay trying to work out how she and Jack had gotten from the couch to her bed. They’d just had sex, and Rose’s mind was a whirlwind of blissful confusion. How was this happening to her? She’d never fallen in love for anybody so fast before, but with Jack, she just knew. And now that they’d made love, she was even more certain. Jack had become like a drug to her; she needed him. In the days since she’d met him, she felt happier than she had in all the years since her parents’ deaths. Finally, something good was happening for her, and she wasn’t about to let it slip away.

Rose smiled as she turned her head and looked at him. He was lying next to her, asleep. He looked so peaceful and happy, and Rose went to snuggle into him, but she’d barely moved when suddenly she felt the room shake violently.

"What the hell?" Rose asked herself aloud, sitting bolt upright with surprise. She wanted to go and investigate, but to do that, she needed to put some clothes on. However, had she gone out to her private promenade deck and looked onto the ocean, Rose would have seen a huge iceberg floating past.

Chapter Nine
Stories