A SIMPLE KIND OF LIFE
Chapter Four

April 12, 1912

The sunlight streamed through the windows in the sitting room of Rose’s stateroom. She could feel the heat from the promenade deck. There was a gentle breeze and it was warm.

Rose had awakened late, at around ten, and missed breakfast. She would meet Jack today for lunch in the Palm Court at 12:30. It was something she was looking forward to.

She dressed in a yellow and white tea dress with a belt at the waist. Again, she pinned her hair back.

The night before, Rose had slept more soundly than she had in years. She felt like this was how she wanted her life to be. She wanted to socialize with amazing people, connect with them. She wanted to travel and see different cultures and ways of life. She wanted to buy her own house and decorate it with her own style of artwork. She wanted to live her life the way she wanted and she knew that while she was aboard this great ship, she could do that.

The night before had been entertaining. The dinner had changed immensely just from the presence of Jack Dawson. He seemed to like his life, to not care what people thought of him, and Rose wished she could live that way, too.

At 12:30, Rose entered the Palm Court restaurant. It was a beautiful place, very light and airy with revolving doors as the main entrance.

Scanning the small selection of people at the tables, Rose’s eyes found Jack sitting alone in a corner of the restaurant. The table he had reserved was the smallest of them all, seating only four people, but from the looks of things, she and Jack would be dining alone.

He smiled as he saw her entrance, like an angel. She, too, smiled, and he stood to greet her. He was dressed smartly in his suit, though his hair was overly long and a sandy blond. It flopped into his eyes boyishly. It was then that Rose realized that he couldn’t be anymore than twenty. His eyes were the most amazing blue she had ever seen. She could feel herself fall into them every time she saw him.

“Hello, Rose,” Jack greeted her and pulled himself away from the table. He kissed her cheek lightly. It was something she had not expected. They both felt their cheeks redden a little.

“Hello, Jack. What a wonderful day.”

“It is. The weather has been good. I didn’t see you at breakfast.”

“I woke late. I was a little lazy this morning.”

The pair sat and waited as a waiter approached their table to take orders.

“I’ll have the lamb.” Rose gave the waiter the menu before glancing at Jack as he was about to place his order.

“I will have the beef. Thank you.”

Jack handed the waiter the menu as they waited for lunch to be served. The air was slightly awkward and Rose didn’t quite know what to do or say.

“Last night was lovely.” Jack smiled. He, too, saw Rose’s face perk up a little when he mentioned the night before. “Mrs. Brown is quite a talker.”

“She is. She’s a wonderful lady. Madeleine, too, is a dear friend.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“She is a wonderful lady and will make a good mother. She and her husband are some of the only people aboard this ship I trust, even though I didn’t tell them about Mr. Hockley and I.”

Rose glanced at Jack, wondering what he would think about her. They hadn’t spoken of Cal since they had met. Her heart pounded and she felt sick when she thought of him.

“I hope he never finds me, Jack,” Rose said, almost to herself. She hoped with all her heart that she would never come face-to-face with him again.

Jack saw the fear in her beautiful face when she spoke those words. He wondered what had actually happened between the two of them to make her so worried about him finding her.

“I’m sure he won’t, Rose. If he does, he will have me to contend with.”

Rose smiled, just a little. He seemed to always know the right thing to say to make her feel better.

“So, are you engaged or married, Jack?” Rose asked just after lunch was brought to them.

“Oh, me? No. Actually, that doesn’t interest me.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to marry?” Rose asked.

“Oh, no. I do. I would love children one day, but for now, I just want to live out my dream, you know? I want to travel and see the world before having a wife or a child.”

Rose almost choked on her breadstick at his words. She, too, wanted to travel the world and live out her dreams before she thought of marriage.

She knew that she was too young now to be involved with Cal and to accept his proposal. Rose looked to changed the subject, to anything. His sketchbook caught her eye and she looked over the leather carefully. It looked expensive and in very good condition.

“You are a wonderful artist, Jack. That old couple--you really captured them.”

Jack glanced up from his lunch at his sketchpad and then at Rose. He thought that she hadn’t paid much attention to his drawing yesterday. He felt a wave of happiness come over him and he smiled.

“You really like them?”

“Yes. I think you’re talented.”

“Maybe I should sketch you one day, Rose. Put you in that picture.” Jack laughed and Rose smiled, wondering if he was actually serious.

“Maybe,” she teased a little.

Once lunch was through, they decided to take the air on the boat deck. It was a lovely day and there wasn’t a wisp of cloud in sight. Most couples walked together arm-in-arm. Jack offered his arm to Rose and she took it. She could feel something stir whenever she had just the smallest contact with him.

“I always loved the ocean. I love the sea air, the breeze. I could throw it all away to become a sea captain,” Jack joked.

“I always wanted to be a dancer. I had lessons when I was a little girl, but my mother sent me to finishing school, so I never had the chance to dance again.”

Rose took a short intake of breath and remembered that she hadn’t danced in years. She probably couldn’t even remember how to dance.

“We should go dancing, then, Rose. After dinner tonight. How about we have a little waltz?” Rose giggled and nodded.

“So, you can dance, huh?” Rose asked, wondering if he really could or not.

“I’m not bad. I have been known to do a little dancing when I’m merry.” Jack laughed and stopped to take a moment to gaze over the railing. “My love is art, though, you know? I love to just--I don’t know. I can get lost in paintings and portraits. I draw from the heart. I love to see and meet different people and put them onto paper. I mean, cameras are all good, but I think a sketch can really capture the moment on paper forever.”

Rose absorbed all of his words. He spoke with such a passion and she loved that. She was almost lost in his description of art. His eyes told a story of his love and when she gazed deep into his eyes, she could feel something she swore she had never felt before. Jack pointed over to two empty chairs and they sat together.

“I’d love to see your art, Jack.”

Jack smiled and picked up his portfolio. He placed it on her lap, and with slightly shaking fingers, she opened the leather book.

She opened it and came across a serious of drawings. Each one expressed a little bit of humanity--an old woman's hands, a sleeping man, a father and daughter at the railing. The faces were luminous and alive. His book was a celebration of the human condition.

“Jack, these really are something.” She was stunned to see how talented he actually was. The sketch yesterday was just a small amount of what his talent actually was. She could feel herself actually being drawn into each of the drawings.

“I’m glad you like them.”

Turning the page, she came upon a series of nudes. Rose was transfixed by the languid beauty he had created. His nudes were soulful, real, with expressive hands and eyes. They felt more like portraits than studies of the human form...almost uncomfortably intimate. Rose blushed, raising the book as some strollers went by.

“These were drawn from life?” Rose asked Jack, trying to sound a little bit more like an adult. She felt like a child. Jack blushed upon her finding his selection of nudes from Paris. Rose studied one drawing in particular, the girl posed half in sunlight, half in shadow. Her hands lay at her chin, one furled and one open like a flower, languid and graceful.

“You liked this woman. You used her several times.”

“Well, she had beautiful hands. You see?” Jack turned the page to show Rose the sketch of the model’s delicate hands. He, too, could feel his right hand on Rose’s as she held the book. He pulled his hand away a little and ran his hands through his shaggy hair to attempt to smooth it out in the late afternoon breeze.

“I think you must’ve had a love affair with her,” Rose teased a little.

“No. Just with her hands. She was a one-legged prostitute.” Jack placed his hands on Rose’s right hand once again and moved the page to show Rose the portrait of the woman. They both laughed a little. “Would you like to continue our little walk?” Jack asked as he stood and held out his arm once again for Rose. She smiled, nodded, and they continued their walk.

They stayed on deck and talked well into the afternoon. They spoke of their pasts and their dreams. She had the deepest conversations she had ever had in her life with this man who was pretty much a stranger. Jack, too, opened his heart to this beautiful girl. He spoke of his parents and how they died when he was very young. His mother had died of heart failure when he was just thirteen. His father had followed three months later. He’d fallen through some thin ice while ice fishing.

With no other close kin in that part of the country, Jack had been taken to Boston to live with his Uncle Eric, who was a millionaire. He owned a railroad. Eric had become like a second father to him and had taken him in as his own son. Eric had no children of his own and his wife had died years before Jack was even born, and Eric had never remarried, for he had loved his wife all of his heart.

In the spring of 1910, when Jack was just seventeen, Eric had gone to sleep one night and had never awakened, which had broken Jack’s heart. He had been scared and alone in the world, with no money until Eric’s attorney had read out Eric’s will. Jack had inherited all of his fortune. Jack knew of no more Dawsons living, so he had used the money to live out his lifelong dream to travel the world, which was what he had been doing ever since.

The deaths of the people closest to him had made him make sure he was living out his life to the fullest and never taking life for granted, because he could be dead the next day.

“I make each day count. I have to, knowing that this day could be my last.”

It was sunset and the sky was painted with orange light. Jack and Rose leaned on the A-Deck railing aft, shoulder to shoulder. The ship's lights came on. It seemed like a magical moment--perfect.

“I went to Santa Monica just after I left Boston. I lived there for a while. Things are so different there, Rose. People are free, no one to judge. There’s a roller coaster, too, you know?”

Jack spoke with great passion for the life he had there. Rose had never experienced that type of passion or love for something. She had never loved anything, really, with that much of passion.

“The pier is just amazing. I would just sit there and just stare out at sea, at the horizon, and watch the waves break on the shore.”

“I’ve never been there, Jack. But I sure would love to. I have never even been to a beach. I haven’t really done anything…” Rose drifted off, realizing just how much she had missed out on in her life compared to Jack. He wasn’t like other first class men. He was different. He cared. He showed his true colors. He had a life and he lived it to the fullest, not taking anything for granted.

“I’ll take you sometime to the pier, Rose. We should go there and just…be wild and free…” Jack trailed off and laughed.

Rose tore her eyes away from the sunset and glanced at Jack for a moment. She wasn’t even sure if he was serious or not, but something inside her was yearning to go there with him. Just give it all up. Whether it was the idea of paradise or Jack actually being there with her, she didn’t know.

“We should, Jack,” Rose replied, somewhat more seriously than Jack had expected. He had obviously been joking. He hadn’t even considered that her reply would be that serious. He wondered if she meant it. “I need to live, Jack. There’s something in me. I don’t know what it is--if I should be a artist or a sculptor or a dancer like Isadora Duncan--a wild, pagan spirit.”

“All right. We’re going. We'll drink cheap beer and go on the roller coaster until we throw up and we'll ride horses on the beach...right in the surf...but you have to ride like a cowboy, none of that sidesaddle stuff.”

“You mean, one leg on each side? Can you show me?”

“Sure, if you like.”

Rose turned to Jack and smiled a devilish smile. “I think I would.”

She turned and glanced back out to sea. The ocean seemed endless. Even the Titanic herself was just a small dot on a page compared to the sea. There was a big, wide world out there, and Rose needed to explore. She needed to free herself from the jar she felt confined in like a butterfly.

Rose turned back to Jack and saw that he was standing much closer to her than she remembered. Their fingertips were touching just the slightest, and even this was enough to send shivers through her body. This was something she wasn’t used to. She didn’t know what she was feeling or if she even liked it.

Something drew her to Jack like a moth to a flame. He was in such easy reach of her, but yet he seemed so far away.

They were from the same world, but led completely different lives.

After the ship docked, she wondered if she would even see his handsome face again. She hoped they would stay friends or at least write at Christmastime. She had found a friend in him like she never had before. He was the one person she trusted most in the world, and yet she had met him just yesterday.

The sunset was beautiful, a perfect setting for something in a romantic novel.

Jack pried his eyes away from Rose’s soft gaze and pulled out his pocket watch. 6:10 PM.

“Rose, we’d better dress for dinner. It’s almost time.”

Rose nodded a little and took Jack’s arm to shield her from the dusk chill. He walked her to her stateroom and agreed to meet her in an hour.

A knock sounded at the door at seven. Rose knew it was Jack and simply could not hide her enthusiasm as she opened the door to Jack dressed in his tuxedo.

He looked more handsome than she remembered from the night before at dinner.

Rose invited him into her sitting room for a moment. Jack’s heart raced in his chest. She looked undeniably stunning as usual. She always seemed to illuminate a room, not just with her glamour but with her beauty. Her eyes shone with happiness and it made him happy to just be with her at the moment.

She was a vision in red and black, her low-cut dress showing off her neck and shoulders, her arms sheathed in white gloves that came well above the elbows. He was hypnotized by her beauty.

“So, you care to escort a lady to dinner?” Rose teased a little.

“Sure. I’m lucky to escort a woman as stunning as you. I should take the chance while I have it.” Jack smiled, but he was also serious.

As they approached the reception area on B-Deck, Mrs. Brown took Jack’s arm and he escorted both ladies to dinner. She looked good in her beaded gown in her own busty and broad-shouldered way.

After dinner came the dancing. The small orchestra played beautiful tunes. Jack asked Molly Brown to dance, leaving Rose to waltz with Thomas Andrews while JJ danced with Madeleine.

“So, you know how to lead a girl, huh?” Molly teased Jack. “I thought you might have had two left feet.”

“Hey, I am a man of many talents.”

“Don’t underestimate the Dawsons, right?” Molly smiled at the young man, who was young enough to be her son. He was handsome, and she was sure he was sweet on young Rose DeWitt Bukater, and by the sickly sweet way she was glancing at the two of them dancing from her seat at the table, she was sweet on him, too.

“Why don’t you take Rose for a dance?” Molly suggested.

Jack glanced over at their table, noticing that Rose had finished her waltz with Mr. Andrews. He glanced down at Molly and noticed the small glint in her eye.

“Maybe I will, Mrs. Brown.”

Jack left Molly and strolled over to Rose. She saw him approach and smiled a little more. He held out his hand to her and she glanced at him, confused.

“Dance with me, Rose.” It wasn’t a question. It was almost an order. He wanted to dance with her. He wanted her body to be close to his as they glided wordlessly to the graceful music.

Rose stood, removed her gloves, and placed them on the table. Jack led her to the small dance floor. Rose suddenly felt a little self-conscious, as if all of the eyes in the room were on her.

Swallowing her nervousness, she and Jack faced each other. She could feel herself trembling as he took her right hand in his left and placed the other hand on the small of her back. It was an electrifying moment for them both.

They danced a little awkwardly at first, but they sank into it. The feeling of his hand at the small of her back was causing her to tremble slightly.

Jack gazed down at the angel in his arms, dancing together slowly as if they had been lovers for years.

Rose, too, gazed up at Jack and their eyes met. The gazes upon them were forgotten and they felt as though only the other existed in the room.

Molly gazed upon them and smiled a little. She knew of their mutual attraction, and Jack was a good catch. Gossips would talk, but when didn’t they? This was their moment only.

Jack pulled Rose slightly closer to him and thought he could feel her heartbeat pounding just like his. It was then that the music stopped and the sound of the other passengers applauding the orchestra brought Jack and Rose back to reality.

That night, Rose lay in bed awake, thinking, her thoughts mostly of Jack. He had affected her in a way she thought wasn’t possible. She had some sort of feelings which seemed impossible for her to feel. She wondered if she was slightly crazy, or whether everything was real.

He appealed so much to her. Whether she was just attracted to the life he led or attracted to him, she did not know.

When he had walked her to her stateroom, she had felt her heart beating heavily inside her chest.

Just spending the day with him had been enough for her. His presence was powerful. He had some sort of control over her just by looking at her. She felt he looked right through into her soul with one glance. Just the small dance they had shared together was filled with electricity she had never felt before, not with any man. Not even Cal, who was once the man she was to marry.

What was she feeling? Love? No, it wasn’t that, was it?

Sleep didn’t come well to either Jack or Rose that night. They held each other in their thoughts for most of the night.

Chapter Five
Stories