ROSE GOES ON
Chapter Two

Within a few minutes, the small, ragged group had reached the hotel. Mary’s head drooped sleepily against Rose’s shoulder, and she continued to cough fretfully.

The small hotel looked like paradise in comparison with the cold, dark streets. It was brightly lit and warm, and Rose felt better the moment she stepped inside. It was nothing like the hotels she was accustomed to, but it was warm and dry, and that was all that mattered at the moment.

The desk clerk stared at the sodden people in their tattered clothes, frowning as the puppy waddled to the end of his leash and shook himself, spraying water everywhere.

"Ah...sir," he began, looking at John. "You aren’t allowed to bring dogs in here with you."

Rose eyed the thin, tired-looking man balefully. What did he expect John to do with the puppy? Leave it out in the rain? Take a long walk through the rain with two small, exhausted children to find another hotel? There hadn’t been any signs proclaiming whether pets were permitted or not, either outside or in the lobby.

"Oh, come now. How much is one tiny puppy going to hurt things?" She looked at the small animal, then at the shivering children.

The puppy waddled back over to John and lay down at his feet, falling asleep. John set Nadia down, watching as the little girl crouched down to pet the sleeping puppy.

The clerk eyed the ragged group. Rose eyed him back, wondering if he was going to turn them away. Mary was coughing again, and Nadia curled up on the floor, her head pillowed on Allegro.

"All right," he told them. "But that animal had better not make any noise, or leave a mess on the floor."

Rose nodded in relief. She hadn’t thought the man would send them back out on the streets, but she hadn’t been sure.

"How much for a room?" John asked the desk clerk.

"Two dollars," he replied, looking at them as though he wasn’t sure they had that much money.

"We’ll need two rooms," Rose told him, realizing how inappropriate it would be to share a room with a strange man, even if he did have two small children with him. She wasn’t entirely certain that she could trust John, anyway. He seemed decent enough, but she had only just met him some twenty minutes earlier.

"There’s only one available," the desk clerk told her, wondering why they needed two rooms. They looked to be a small, impoverished family. Maybe more was going on than met the eye.

Rose looked at John. She didn’t relish the thought of walking out on the streets again, but she couldn’t expect him to leave with the two little girls in need of shelter.

John leaned over to whisper to her. "How large are American hotel rooms?"

"I don’t know. I’ve only stayed in expensive hotels." She paused, thinking. "You take the room. The girls need a place to sleep."

"I can’t send you back out into the rain like that."

"There’s only one room available, and the children need it more than I do."

"The only other option I can think of is to share."

Rose looked at John, the shivering toddlers, and the sleeping puppy. He seemed harmless enough, and certainly there were adequate chaperones. Still, it had long been emphasized to her that a single woman did not share a room with a man, especially a strange man. She was ready to refuse, and then realized that she was continuing to think as she had been taught. What was wrong with sharing a room, if no questionable activities took place? She certainly wouldn’t try to seduce him, and she didn’t think he would attack her. She no longer had a reputation to protect. No one knew her, except for the man standing beside her with the two tiny girls.

"One of us would have to sleep on the floor," she told him, gauging his reaction. If he thought she would share a bed with him, she would leave immediately, children or no children.

"I will," he told her. The arrangement went against his ideas of propriety, but with the girls desperately in need of shelter, he had little choice.

Rose dug into her pocket, extracting one of the bills she had placed there, a twenty. Not surprising, she thought. Cal would never stuff his pockets with anything less.

"I will pay fifty cents," she told John, handing the bill to the clerk, who gaped at it, surprised that such an impoverished looking woman had so much money. "And you will pay a dollar fifty, since three members of the group are yours."

He nodded in agreement, reaching into the lining of his coat and extracting a bill. "What is this?"

Rose looked at him strangely. "It’s money."

He sighed, looking at her impatiently. "I know that. But how does it relate to one dollar and fifty cents?"

She looked at the bill he held out. "That’s a five dollar bill. You’ll get three dollars and fifty cents in change. There are one hundred cents in a dollar," she explained, at his confused look.

He nodded and handed the money to the desk clerk, who looked at them strangely, not understanding why they wanted to pay separately.

"We don’t allow any funny goings-on around here," he told them, pushing the money back to them.

"Don’t worry about it. Rose is--"

Rose smiled, interrupting him. "I’m his sister. We prefer to keep our bills separate."

She put on her brightest smile, trying to convince him that what she said was true, though there was no resemblance between herself and John.

Still looking a bit skeptical, the clerk took the money and made change, then gave them the key. John and Rose escorted the sleepy children and whining puppy up the stairs.

There was no question about the children sleeping in the bed; after their ordeal on the Titanic, they couldn’t be expected to sleep on the hard wood floor. The puppy tried desperately to jump up on the bed with them, whimpering in frustration until John picked him up and set him between the two girls.

"Are you going to sleep beside them, or shall I?" Rose asked him, looking at the sleeping children and dog. A soft, warm bed sounded good at the moment, but she was leery of sleeping beside two children barely out of infancy. She wondered if they were potty-trained yet.

John took an extra blanket from a closet shelf. "You can take the bed," he told her. "I can sleep on the floor."

Rose looked at him suspiciously. They’re your family. You should stay beside them."

"I’m more used to uncomfortable conditions than you are. You’ve probably never slept anywhere that wasn’t comfortable."

He was right, she conceded, but she still wasn’t sure she wanted to sleep next to a pair of two-year-olds. Then she shrugged mentally. She was already wet from the rain, and dirty from having worn the same clothes since the sinking, and sleeping beside the girls wouldn’t make much difference.

"All right." She shrugged off her coat and hung it on a hook in the closet, placing her ruined shoes beneath it. "I’ll take the bed."

Rose crawled beneath the covers, trying to find a comfortable position as far from the sleeping children as possible. She wished she could remove her cold, damp silk dress as well, but it wouldn’t be appropriate with John in the room, even if she kept her slip on. She pulled the covers up over herself and the children, shivering.

She was surprised at how tired she was, now that she had a chance to rest. Her walk through the streets had kept her alert, as had the cold, damp weather, but now she realized just how tired she truly was. Forgetting that she was sharing a bed with two toddlers, she closed her eyes and quickly fell asleep.

*****

Nadia’s whimpers awakened Rose at sunrise. Still curled up asleep beside her, the child was crying and calling out in an unfamiliar language.

Rose didn’t know who Nadia was calling for, but suspected that it was someone she had lost on the ship. She wasn’t sure about the Calvert family, but she didn’t think Nadia belonged to John. There was no resemblance between the two, and Mary was so close in age that she was certain that the children did not share a mother.

She shook the little girl gently, waking her. Nadia stared up at her, startled, as Allegro crawled over and placed his head in the toddler’s lap.

"Are you all right?" Rose whispered to Nadia, pulling her into her lap.

Nadia stared at her uncomprehendingly, her dark eyes still filled with tears, before curling up into a ball in Rose’s lap and hugging the dog to her.

Rose sighed, rocking the child, not knowing what to make of this situation she had found herself in.

*****

After rocking Nadia back to sleep, Rose slept for a few more hours herself, awakening to light shining in the dusty window. The toddlers were still asleep, though the dog sat up when she did, yawning and putting his head down to lick his belly.

She looked down at the floor as she heard John stirring, disentangling himself from the blanket. He didn’t look nearly so rested as she did, and she felt guilty for a moment that she had taken the bed and left him to sleep on the hard wood floor. Her worries about waking up in a wet bed had proven unfounded; both toddlers had stayed dry during the night.

She got out of bed, yawning, and looked with distaste at her wrinkled, tattered dress. It had once been an elegant evening gown, but now she doubted if it was good for much more than the trash heap. Still, it was all she had, and she would have to wear it until she find some more suitable clothing.

Slipping from the room, Rose left John to take care of the children, making her way down the hall to the bathroom. Looking at herself in the mirror, she grimaced. Her hair hung in snarls, and her dress was stained from her time in the ocean. At least she was drier than she had been the night before, and the rain had stopped, she thought. Pulling her hair back, she combed her fingers through it until most of the tangles were gone, and smoothed her dress as best she could. Satisfied at last, she went back to the hotel room.

John had wakened the girls and dressed them, their clothes now dry after hanging in the closet all night. Rose slipped on her still slightly damp shoes, and tossed the damp coat over her arm. The heavy wool would take a long time to dry out.

John was finishing getting Nadia ready for the day when Mary toddled up to Rose and tugged on her skirt. "Aunt Wosie? I hungy."

"You’re hungry, Mary?" She looked at John. "So am I. As soon as your daddy is finished taking care of Nadia, we’ll all go get some breakfast. Does that sound good?"

"Uh-huh." Mary examined Rose’s dress. "Pretty."

"Thank you, Mary." John had finished getting Nadia dressed. "Shall we find a place to eat?" she asked him.

"Yes. We’d better. The girls haven’t eaten since mid-afternoon yesterday."

The group checked out of the hotel, much to the relief of the desk clerk, who had feared they would stay until the manager returned and caught them with the dog. The made their way to a small, inexpensive restaurant two buildings down from the hotel.

Mary and Nadia ate hungrily, uncaring of what it was they ate. The restaurant did not serve child-sized portions, so John had ordered one breakfast and split it between the two. He and Rose each ate their own meals.

When he had finished eating, John left the girls in Rose’s care and slipped behind the building, untying Allegro from where he had been left out front. While he was digging through the garbage for scraps to feed the hungry puppy, Rose helped the girls finish eating.

Mary ate about a third of what was on her plate--the portions were generous even for an adult, and were far more than a two-year-old could consume, even when split with another child. Nadia ate less, but still made a sizable dent in the pile of food. Both little girls were hungry, though they ate slowly, Nadia examining some of the strange new foods, and Mary chattering to Rose and admiring her.

When they had finished eating, Rose requested a doggie bag and dumped the leftovers from the girls’ breakfasts as well as her own into it, then closed the bag and set it aside for the Calverts. She had counted the money in her pockets, and had enough to last her a while, but she had no idea how much money John had, and thought that they might have need of the leftover food.

John had already paid his bill, when he went outside to find food for the dog, so Rose quickly paid her bill and led the girls outside, stopping to buy a couple of pieces of penny candy for them first. The children sucked contentedly on the peppermint sticks, which she wasn’t sure was quite appropriate for breakfast, but they were enjoying themselves so much that she didn’t have the heart to tell them to wait until later.

John had just reached the front of the restaurant when Rose stepped out. "Here," she told him, handing him the bag of leftovers. "For later."

He nodded, taking the bag. It was more full than he expected from the toddlers’ leftovers, and he suspected that Rose had donated her own leftovers, but he didn’t object. The children needed to eat, and he wasn’t sure how long the money he had was going to last.

He sighed when he saw the candy sticks in the girls’ hands, but let the matter rest. Mary gave him a peppermint-stained grin, waving her sticky candy. He glanced at Rose, wondering what her plans were now.

"Where are you going now?" Rose asked him, handing the toddlers over to him.

"Ah...actually..." John showed Rose the twenty dollar bill that the note was written on. Rose couldn’t help but smile when she saw it. Only Miriam would have used money for note paper. "Would you happen to know where this is?"

She looked at the address. The area was familiar, one that she had visited a few times with her mother, but she wasn’t sure how to get there from where they were in New York City. This wasn’t a part of the city she had ever frequented before, and she wasn’t sure of the location of anything except for the pier she had left the night before and the hotel she had slept in.

"Um...first you need to find out where in the city you are."

"Don’t you know?"

"We’re a few blocks from Pier 54. That’s all I know. This isn’t the sort of place I’m used to frequenting."

"Well, where can we find out where we are?"

"Anywhere around, I suppose. Maybe we should ask in the restaurant. Someone working there might know what part of the city this is."

After John had stepped back inside and asked where they were, Rose was able to orient herself better. "You need to take the El east," she told him. "Ask which train will go closest to that neighborhood."

"Where is the El?"

"It’s about three blocks from here." She pointed the way. "I saw it last night when I was wandering the streets."

"Be careful about wandering the streets. You never who might be out there."

"I know. I’ll be careful."

"You can come with us, if you want."

Rose shook her head, thinking of the upper class neighborhood they were going to. The last thing she needed was to suddenly reappear in such a neighborhood, especially when some of her mother’s friends might see her.

"No. I have other things to do. I think my first step will be to find a job."

John nodded. "Well, thank you, Rose, for helping with the children and giving some idea of where I’m going." He bent down and picked up the toddlers. "Tell her thank you for the candy, you two," he told them.

"Thanks, Aunt Wosie," Mary told her, grinning widely. Nadia just looked at her in confusion.

"You’re welcome, Mary--and Nadia," she added, chucking the silent girl under the chin. "Maybe I’ll run across you sometime."

"Bye, Aunt Wosie."

"Good-bye, Mary, Nadia. Good-bye, John. It was no trouble helping with the girls. They’re very sweet."

That said, she turned and walked away, heading down the street, coat still slung over her arm. She glanced back once, to see John walking away down the street, the toddlers balanced on his hips. Sighing, she walked resolutely onward, scanning the businesses around her.

It was time to find a job.

Chapter Three
Stories