TITANIC CONTINUED
Chapter Five
Rose disappeared out of the
darkness of Jack's cabin into the lighted hallway.
Jack was still awake, and already
missing Rose.
For several minutes, he lay there
with his hands crossed under his head, staring up at the bottom of the bunk
above him.
He thought about everything.
His mind drifted from the first
time he'd seen Rose to just now, as she'd left him laying there. Eventually,
his thoughts were on Cal.
He's definitely unpleasant, he thought. Who could blame Rose for not
wanting to marry him?
But he knew, of course, that Rose
had been raised differently. Her life wasn't full of her own choices, as his
was. Her mother still treated her like an incompetent child.
"What am I talking
about?" he asked aloud. "This Cal guy is rich...God knows how
rich...look at that necklace he gave her! I could never give Rose something
like that...she...she doesn't know the half about how hard it really is out
there."
The first doubts of a future for
he and Rose began to cloud his mind.
*****
The next morning, Rose woke up
and was dressed before her mother had even begun to stir. She left a note on
Ruth's pillow, telling her she was going for a walk.
Rose floated down the hallway.
She was more eager than ever to see Jack. Titanic would dock in two days.
She didn't know if Jack would be
up yet. He had been tired the previous night. So, she decided to check his
cabin.
While making her way to his
cabin, she met Fabrizio coming towards her.
"Rose, how are you?"
Fabrizio asked politely.
"Good, very good, and you?
Where's Jack?" she asked.
A confused look took over
Fabrizio's cheery face.
"What? You mean he was not
with you last night?"
Rose, surprised, answered,
"No, I left him here, barely awake, last night. Then I went back to my
stateroom and haven't seen him since. Are you saying you never saw him last
night?"