LIVES COLLIDE
Chapter Two
Six Months Later
"Miss Dawson, could you
please repeat your lines once more?" The director was starting to get
impatient.
"Certainly." Rose
cleared her throat. The director yelled for her to begin her lines.
"I told you already, Mr.
Thompson. I will not do anything that isn’t involved in my job description. I
am not your maid." She turned and flipped her hair at the male actor
playing Mr. Thompson.
"Susan, I beg you. Please.
Just for tonight. I know that this isn’t what you usually do, but my maid is
sick and I have an important dinner guest. Please. I’ll pay more than your
salary."
Rose turned. "I’m the nanny
of your children, not the housekeeper. No amount of money could change my
mind."
The man took initiative, grabbed
her arm, and pulled her into an embrace. "Not even this?" He kissed
her passionately. At least, he seemed to be on the stage it would play on.
"Okay. That’s it for today.
Nice dress rehearsal, everybody." Rose pulled away from him.
"Maybe we should try it
again later at my apartment, Rosie? What do you say?"
"Not in a million years,
Harry." She looked at the director. "Is that all for today?"
"Yes. You can go now. See
you bright and early tomorrow."
"No problem, Mr. Tate."
"Please, Miss Dawson. It’s
perfectly all right to call me Colin."
"Not until you call me
Rose." She smiled. "Good night, Mr. Tate." She opened the
theater door and headed to where her little dressing room was. It wasn’t really
a dressing room, just a closet that was converted to hold her costumes and her purse.
She stepped inside, changed into her normal clothes, and headed toward the
exit.
She had been working in this
theater for two months now, and although the pay wasn’t the best, she was happy
she had a job. She had been working bit parts, and this was the first leading
role she had gotten. She was hoping that next she’d try for a moving picture.
It was October thirtieth. She
could see the glee in the eyes of the children she passed. Somehow they all
looked like they could be her child...Jack’s and hers. Nobody knew she had been
on the Titanic. She didn’t want people to feel sorry for her.
She had seen her mother once. She
had shown up for one of the plays. She was thankful that she had only had a
small, two line part and she had worn a wig. She was sure her mother would have
recognized her. She also had seen Cal. He had a beautiful new fiancée, or so
she had read. She was this young little blonde thing that sat with her chin in
her hands as she watched the play. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen.
But not even her name in the program had gotten a rise out of them. She hadn’t
seen them since. New York was awfully far away from Philadelphia. Well, it was
to her mother.
She was thinking so deeply that
she didn’t even realize that she was headed straight into a head-on collision
with a man walking in front of her. She whacked into his shoulder and fell on
her backside. He tripped and dropped the portfolio he was holding.
"Are you okay, miss?"
he asked, without looked at her.
"I’m fine." She started
to get up, and the man offered his hand. She took it. "Thank you."
She couldn’t see his face underneath his hat. He simply tilted it a bit, picked
up his portfolio, and started to walk again. Rose started to shout after him,
but changed her mind, knowing that it had been just as much her fault as his.
She shrugged her shoulders and kept walking home.
*****
Jack was so busy thinking about
the one hundred dollars in his pocket that he didn’t even realize that he
wasn’t watching where he was going. He collided with her shoulder and sent her
to her bottom, and he tripped slightly, dropping his portfolio.
"Are you okay, miss?"
She started to rise. He didn’t even bother to look at her. She was probably
just like all the others. A stuck-up actress. He offered his hand. She took it
and got up.
"I’m fine, thank you."
He tipped his hat and left before she could ream him out for not watching where
he was going, picking up his folder in the process. He didn’t even look back.
They were all the same. They weren’t Rose.
His little apartment wasn’t much.
Just a little room. The latest drawing he had shown the man at the gallery had
been very impressive. He was offered a hundred bucks for it. That was almost
more money than Jack had ever seen. He had enough to keep him going for a
while. When he had first left the dock, he had thought that everything was
hopeless. Then he realized he was a hypocrite. He had spent the last time with
Rose telling her off for giving up; well, he was going to take his own advice.
The first thing he’d done was get a job at that dock, making a few bucks a week
unloading ships. He eventually learned of a room from a buddy, and it was
affordable. For a while he had been sleeping at the dock. The room had been
furnished with a bed, a desk, and a chair. He had eventually found a lamp in
the garbage and scrounged up enough money for new drawing supplies. He still
worked at the dock at night, and spent the days sleeping and trying to sell his
drawings.
This had been the first big
offer. His boss at the dock had offered him three bucks to do a portrait of his
daughter, and he had slept in the attic for the night afterward. The portrait
was great, and so was the attic, although he only had a thin blanket and a worn
pillow. After that, he had mentioned a little room for rent and offered to help
him out until he had the money to pay for it on his own.
Now he could pay him back for his
kindness. The man at the gallery said that if he could bring him more real life
drawings, he would pay him more than just a hundred dollars. He couldn’t
imagine actually making a good living off of doing something he loved so much.
He laid back on his bed and
thought about the last six months. How he missed Rose. No other girl could
compare, and never would.