IF
Chapter Five
Maria followed Rose’s orders and
rushed to get Jack, who was talking with Robert.
"Jack! Jack! Something’s
wrong with Rose. She just froze up. I don’t know why," she said to him.
Jack stood up and followed Maria
to the kitchen. He crouched down next to his wife as Maria left the two alone.
"Rose. Rose, honey, what’s wrong?" he asked her, running his hand
through her hair. "Why are you acting like this?"
"It’s him; he’s sitting at the
bar. I can’t believe he found me," she said quietly.
"Who’s here? Rose, you
aren’t making any sense. What’s wrong?"
"It’s Cal! Cal is sitting at
the bar!" Rose announced. She couldn’t confront him; he thought that she
was dead.
Jack bit his bottom lip. "You’ve
had a long day. This is what I want you to do. I want you to take the night
off. Go upstairs and go to sleep. Keep Cora and Marly up there, too. He won’t
do anything with so many people around. I’ll talk to Charlie and Robert
quietly; they’ll help me if I need any. I’ll tell Cal that you really are dead.
That’ll keep him away from here." Jack kissed Rose’s forehead and helped
her up. She went up the backstairs in the kitchen. She suddenly felt exhausted.
Sighing, Jack went out to the bar
and asked Robert and Charlie to come back into the kitchen so he could talk to
them alone.
"I have a favor to ask the
both of you," he said. "Sitting out there at the bar is Rose’s
ex-fiancé. He thinks Rose is dead, and he thinks I am, too…I think. What I need
you to do is back me up if I say that Rose’s dead. The last thing we need is
Cal and Rose’s mother here trying to drag her away." Then, Jack proceeded
to tell his two friends about how he and Rose had met.
"So, you used to be a poor
artist and Rose was engaged to some stuck-up millionaire? Wow. How did you get
the money for Burt’s?" asked Robert.
"Another story. I guess I
should get back out front."
"You want anything?"
Jack asked Cal, standing in front of him.
Cal looked up and nearly fell
over when he saw Jack. "What the hell are you doing here?" he
demanded.
"I own this place, so be
nice to me or I can kick you out," replied Jack coldly.
"I see you got over Rose
pretty quickly. Listen, Jack, all I need is something strong, and then I’m
gone. That’s it."
Jack pulled out a small glass and
filled it with vodka. "Here. This should do. It’s strong, so I’m only
giving you this one."
"How do I know that it’s not
poisoned?"
Jack picked up the glass.
"Since you’re not all that thirsty, I’ll give it to someone who’ll drink
it."
Cal took back the drink and drank
it all. Jack felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around. There was Charles. He
wasn’t supposed to be behind the bar, but that had never stopped him in the
past.
"Do you mind if I go
upstairs quickly? I thought I heard something slam, and I want to make sure
everything’s all right, seeing as your hands are full." Jack nodded.
Charles loved Rose like a sister and was worried.
Rose was sitting on her bed when
Charles got upstairs. He sat down next to her and waited patiently for her to
talk.
"I guess Jack told you about
Cal. That’s the only reason you’d be up here," she said quietly.
"I’ve tried to be strong. For Cora and Marly. They don’t need to know that
their mother’s haunted by her past. Jack doesn’t even know."
Charles wrapped his arms around
her shoulders and she laid her head on his shoulder. "Why won’t you talk
to Jack? He loves you."
"I do talk to Jack, but I
don’t really think that he’d understand as much as I need him to. I was more
than happy to give up my life last year, but seeing Cal…seeing Cal brought back
the memory of what I was supposed to be. A well brought-up girl who didn’t get
pregnant, run off, elope, and all the while, I’m supposed to be dead! Did Jack
tell you that? Did he tell you that if you look up my real name, Rose DeWitt
Bukater, you’ll see that I died one year ago today when the Titanic sank?"
Rose smiled slightly and wiped away her tears. "Listen to me. I’m being
ridiculous. I have two children and a family now. I can’t act like this. I need
to be strong."
"You don’t need to be strong
all the time. You let me know if you need to talk. I’m here for you."
Rose pulled the blanket she had
around her shoulders closer to her body. "I’ll never forget two things
about that night. One was the cold. Jack was right. I tried to jump off the
back of the ship the first night, and he warned me about the cold. The second
thing was the pain. The pain of thinking that the only person that I’d ever
loved was dead. Jack made me promise that I would continue on with life after I
was saved, and I did, but I didn’t think that I could go on. There’s nothing
like thinking that someone you love is dead. Nothing."
"Then how do you think Cal
feels today?"
"I can’t let him know about
me, or else my mother will rush down here to try to get me to leave Jack, and I
can’t do that. I have two daughters now."
"Rose, if you don’t mind me
asking, can you tell me how old you are?"
"Why, I’m nineteen, but what
does that have to do with anything?"
"You’re a legal adult, so
your mother and Cal can’t do anything to you. They can’t force you into
anything. They can try to get you to listen to them, but they can’t drag you
out of here. Plus, wouldn’t your mother like to know that she has a granddaughter?"
"No. All she’ll do is say
that the child is illegitimate, and that I must leave Jack. I don’t want to go
through that nightmare. I’ve dropped off the face of the earth, and I like it
that way."
Charles gave Rose a quick hug
before he went back downstairs. He had never realized how much his friends had
been through in the past year. The way they acted towards each other, he had
thought that they had been childhood sweethearts, not that they had met less
than a year ago!