“Do you know what I was thinking?” Jack grinned at Rose as they sat in the shade of a large oak tree in Rushton Park.
“What were you thinking?” Rose swallowed the last of her ham sandwich, which she had purchased from a deli for lunch.
“How long I have known you, but I have never drawn you,” he pointed out. It was true.
She turned to him and laughed. “Why on earth would you want to draw me? You sketch things which are beautiful and inspiring.”
Jack opened his portfolio and pulled out a blank sheet of paper. “Well, that’s everything you are to me.”
Rose watched as he pulled out his selection of charcoal. He was serious about drawing her. “You are not serious. I have never been drawn in my life,” she confessed.
Jack touched her hand with his left hand and she lifted her head so that her eyes met his. “I am serious. You are so beautiful that I could fill up page after page with your face and never grow tired of drawing you.”
She knew that he meant his words. He always did. She felt a pang of excitement within her. Their new life in England was turning out to be just as great as she imagined it would be, but never in her life had she imagined that Jack would want to sketch her.
“Jack, I wouldn’t even know how to pose.” Rose remembered the way the girls at the brothel had posed—nude and seductively. That wasn’t her, and this was a public place. It wasn’t like she could pose in any provocative way.
“Sure you do. There’s nothing to it. Just sit there and be natural.” He pulled out a small knife and began to sharpen his charcoal.
“You’re going to do this here?” she asked, looking around at the park full of bustling people.
“Yeah. Now, I want you to sit still. Just look at me. Keep your eyes on me,” he told her, gesturing with his hands.
She nodded at his instructions. She shifted into a position where she faced Jack. She sat cross-legged with her hands in her lap. Her curls were pinned up and she wore a lavender day dress with lace cuffs and neck detail.
Jack thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did right in that moment. The sunlight shone down on her, making her eyes appear a deep green, and although he knew he could never capture that beauty he saw on paper, he would give it his best shot. He sighed heavily before beginning his creation. He drew a few lines to start with and looked up at her several times to make sure his vision was right before settling down to work again.
The charcoal scratching against the paper could be heard, but Rose’s eyes never left his face. He appeared so serious, like she had never seen him before. Line after line he created of her, just sitting in a simple position, but already her beauty began to shine through.
He still couldn’t believe that she was his. His strokes were languid, and as he continued to draw, one of the best drawings he had ever done emerged.
Rose couldn’t take her eyes from him. She was in awe of him and his talent, his profession. His artist’s eyes looked at her and transferred the image to the sheet of paper before him. Some of his hair fell into his eyes and he shook his head to brush it away, causing Rose to smile a little as she remembered how she had teased him for his overly long hair.
Upon finishing the drawing, Jack took a few seconds to smudge parts of the sketch before blowing the excess bits away. He took a final look at it before smiling. He was satisfied.
Rose craned her neck to see over the portfolio, but couldn’t. She was impatient to see it.
Scrawling JD, May 15, 1911, England at the bottom, Jack looked up at Rose.
“All right. It’s done.” He turned the portfolio around for her to see the drawing.
She took the leather folder from his hands and remained silent, stunned, for a few moments. She looked at Jack, obviously happy with it. “This is beautiful!” she gasped, her hand rising to her mouth. “You really don’t know how talented you are.”
“Thanks, but they didn’t make too much of them in Paris.” He raised his eyebrows, remembering the whole point of him and Fabrizio coming to Paris in the first place. Paris was the art capital of the world. His favorite artist, Monet, lived there, so when Jack arrived, he expected to be appreciated for his work, but instead he found the city obsessed with dottism and cubism, something he felt had no heart to it, whereas he drew from the heart and drew from life. “Art was the reason I decided to go there.”
Rose looked up from the drawing, sensing a little disappointment in his voice. “But Jack, they’re crazy. You have such pure talent.”
“Ah…well, I think back in California I was most appreciated. Some days I was paid a full dollar for my work. A full dollar, Rose. I felt rich.” He grinned, his boyishness shining through. He had been just sixteen when he had arrived in Los Angeles, several months after his parents died.
“You went to California?” Rose asked, realizing that there was so much that she didn’t know about him. Placing the drawing inside the portfolio, she carefully closed the book, handing it back to Jack.
“It’s going in my permanent collection,” he joked to her. “Yeah. I worked on a squid boat in Monterey, then went logging for a while, but that became too much, so I went down to the pier in Santa Monica and started doing portraits there for ten cents apiece.”
Shaking her head, she realized Jack had experienced so much more than she had. He had been places and really seen things. She had done very little in her life, and when she had traveled she had been stuck in hotel rooms, carriages, or at events she really didn’t want to be at, listening to the idle chitchat. Her smile faded, and Jack sensed some sort of sadness.
“I wish I could have been like you, Jack, just heading out for the horizon whenever I felt like it. I was smothered. I haven’t seen anything.”
“You will, Rose. I promise you that. Santa Monica is a swell place. They even have a roller coaster, and I intend on taking you there one day, Miss DeWitt Bukater.”
They laughed together, but she felt her stomach churn. That was one thing she would love to do—be with Jack in Santa Monica. It sounded like heaven.
“So, what came next, Mr. Wandering Jack?” she teased.
“When it got cold, I decided to go to Paris and see what the real artists were doing. I went to Italy first, though, and met Fabrizio. His mother is a widow and was raising five children alone.” Jack remembered Mrs. di Rossi. He hoped she was all right. Fabrizio hadn’t seen his mother in over a year.
“Aw…that’s terrible.”
“I know. Well, Fabrizio was the middle child, and when I lived with them for a while, I found a job down at the docks lugging in the coal. It brought more money than I needed, so I helped out around the house. Fabri and I became close after the two eldest sons left home. Alonzo was twenty-five and Giovanni was twenty-one, but it left a lot of room and made it easier for Mrs. di Rossi. But Fabri and I decided we wanted to light out on our own. There was a world out there and he was a guy just like me. He wanted to see things, so we left for Paris.”
Rose sensed the sadness in Jack, and she moved closer to him, taking his hand in hers and gently stroking it. “You miss Fabrizio, don’t you?” she asked, even though the answer was obvious. He simply nodded his head, and she somehow felt she was to blame.
“Every day. He was my best friend, the closest thing to a brother.”
Rose remained silent. The mood had turned a little sour, even though just minutes ago Jack had been happy to talk about his travels and adventures.
“I’m so sorry. I wish he had come with us.” She turned and looked around the park. Couples sat together, children playing, and an old couple sat on a park bench, eating fish and chips out of an old newspaper and holding hands. Rose smiled. They appeared to have been married for many years, but were still happy.
“It’s not your fault, Rose. He knew I had to be here with you. Besides, I couldn’t have lost you, Rose. That would have been a hell of a lot worse,” he confessed, squeezing her hand.
Rose felt exactly the same about Jack. She was beyond happy to have him with her. She loved hearing about his travels and adventures. She could picture him as a mischievous child.
“What about your parents?” she asked, realizing that in the three months she had known him he had never mentioned any sort of family.
Jack squinted his eyes, as if trying to remember something. He raised his eyebrows. It had been such a long time since he had thought about his parents, and it surprised him. He turned to Rose, having never told anyone about his parents other than Fabrizio and his family.
“Ma died when I was twelve, in childbirth with my brother Steven. They both died. Pa never really recovered, but we grew pretty close.” Sighing, he felt his stomach turn at the memory of his father’s death. “Pa took me ice fishing on my fifteenth birthday. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I was really happy that day. We packed some sandwiches and went down to the lake. Pa fell in and couldn’t get out. He was shouting and screaming. He couldn’t swim…” His father’s face came to him for the first time in a long time and he began to shake. “I ran to get some help and found a policeman. By the time we got back, he was dead.”
Rose shakily raised her hand to her face, feeling sick herself from the tragedy. “Oh, Jack…” was all she could manage, seeing his handsome face almost crumble.
“They dragged his body from the lake. He was blue. The policeman said he had died of hypothermia. I remember when I was a kid, and I fell in the water ice fishing. The water was so cold, I couldn’t breathe, but Pa pulled me out. I couldn’t do the same for him.”
“It was not your fault,” Rose told him firmly, not wanting him to blame himself in any way.
“I know that now, but at the time I didn’t. I didn’t even stay around for the funeral. I was an orphan with no one to turn to. So, that night, I decided to run and run and never look back. I never have.”
Gently, she stroked the back of his head. He put his arm around her shoulders. Rose thought about her own upbringing. Her mother had never shown her any love or affection, and her father had died when she had needed him the most.
“I wish my father was here. I would have loved for you to meet him.” Rose smiled, feeling tears well in her eyes, but she was determined to not break down in the middle of the park. Jack kissed her cheek gently and she felt loved by him. He was always there for her when she needed him.
“I would have loved to meet him, too.”
Jack comforted Rose the best he could, knowing that memories of her father’s death were still fresh for her. They were both cut from the same cloth. Neither of them had parents, and had run away from home at a young age, but they were lucky to have found each other when they did.
“Father hated Cal and his family. He would have never wanted to me marry into them. When he died, I was expected to marry Cal. I would have been married now if Mother had her way, but I didn’t want it. I felt too young to be married.”
She was still just sixteen. Jack knew she was young, but he knew in his heart that he wanted to marry her. There was no doubt about it. “Don’t you ever want to marry?” he asked her in a casual tone.
“Yes. I would love to, when the time is right, and…” Rose turned to Jack, hesitating to say her next words, contemplating actually speaking them. His face urged her to say them. ”…and now that I have found you.” She lowered her lashes and Jack smiled at her. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek just once before whispering to her.
“Good, because I want to marry you someday, Rose DeWitt Bukater…”