THE SURFACE
Chapter One
1996
"Mom, I’m going shopping
with Sam. See ya!" Lexi Calvert rushed toward the door, making sure that
Freddy, the family Pomeranian, was not following her. To her surprise, he was watching
over her from the top of the staircase--just looking at her, the saddest
expression across his face. It made Lexi’s heart melt. He looked abandoned.
Quickly, she went into the kitchen, got his Louis Vuitton leash, and went to
get him.
"Come on, Freddy. Come
shopping with me and Sam!" Lexi exclaimed happily as she hooked the leash
to his collar. "You love being with Cody and it will cheer you up!"
She picked Freddy up and went back downstairs.
"Lexi, before you go--try to
be home around the time I asked. I really need you to be at Rose’s funeral.
Please, no friends either," Lizzy, her mother, said.
"I know, Mom. Love
you!" Lexi ran out the door and hopped into her small red convertible. She
took off out of the driveway towards Los Angeles, where she was meeting Sam to
shop for a few hours.
*****
"Easy now." Brock
looked up at the block of frozen ice that held a Titanic passenger. Lewis stood
next to him, skeptical, his arms folded across his chest in disbelief.
"Ya know, this might be who
we think it is." Brock now stood confidently, with his arms folded across
his chest also.
"Who? Thomas Andrews? The
captain?" Lewis smirked.
"Jack, the kid that Rose
fell in love with. Remember how she lost him?"
"Brock, she died. Remember,
yesterday morning we found that out?" Lewis reminded him.
Brock nodded, turning his
attention back to the frozen passenger who was being loaded onto another
research boat headed to New Jersey for identification and thawing.
*****
Katie watched as the machine
layered off the extra ice surrounding Jack Dawson.
"Icing complete. Dethawing
process to begin," the machine said aloud. Jack was put in a tub of warm,
red liquid and was thawed off in about fifteen minutes. He was taken out and
put in what seemed like a hospital room.
"Where am I? What
happened?" He looked out at the men. They were all dressed in white lab
coats and were writing on clipboards. Jack was confused. Had they found him?
Were was Rose? Where was she? Was she all right? Was she here? Suddenly, one of
the men came in.
"Hello, Mr. Dawson. How are
you?" the man asked.
Jack opened his mouth, which felt
really odd because he had not opened it since 1912. "What? Where am
I?"
"New Jersey. You must’ve had
a pretty rough eighty-four years underwater."
"Eighty-four?
Underwater?" Jack stuttered.
"Yes. My name is Tommy, by
the way. I’ll be in charge of you."
Jack nodded at Tommy. "It’s
not 1912, is it?"
"Nope. Today is April 8, 1996
actually."
"How old am I?"
"Same age you were in 1912.
You have not changed because you were frozen down there. Damn, you are lucky,
now, aren’t ya? I wish I could do that!"
Jack laughed. Suddenly, Rose came
to mind again.
"Do you know anything about
a woman named Rose DeWitt Bukater?"
Tommy shook his head. "No,
sorry. Was she on the Titanic?"
"Yeah," Jack replied.
Tommy nodded his head sadly. Jack
looked at him, confused again.
"Is she still alive?"
"I’m sorry. I really don’t
know. How old was she on the Titanic?"
Jack looked at the ceiling. He
never knew how old Rose was, except that she was very young and beautiful.
"You don’t know?" Tommy
asked, almost expecting a no.
Jack shook his head.
"That’s all right."
Tommy finished writing on his clipboard and looked at his watch. "Oh, time
for lunch. I’ll be right back with something for you to eat." Tommy walked
out. Jack looked around and found a remote control. He assumed it was for the
television and turned it on. It was on CNN, and there was a picture of one of
Titanic’s last survivors. The headline read Titanic’s Last Survivor Dies at
103.
Jack now knew he had a snowball’s
chance in hell of finding Rose alive. He buried his face in his hands and began
to cry.