TITANIC: A STORY TOLD
Chapter Thirty-One
Rose and Jack strolled aft, past people
lounging on deck chairs in the slanting late-afternoon light. Stewards scurried
to serve tea or hot cocoa.
Rose chattered on, girlish and excited.
"You know, my dream has always been to just chuck it all and become an
artist...living in a garret, poor but free!"
Jack laughed. "You wouldn’t last two
days. There’s no hot water, and hardly ever any caviar."
In a flash, Rose was angry. "Listen
buster...I hate caviar! And I’m tired of people dismissing my dreams with a chuckle
and a pat on the head."
"I’m sorry. Really...I am."
"Well, all right. There’s something in
me Jack. I feel it. I don’t know what it is, whether I should be an artist, or,
I don’t know...a dancer. Like Isadora Duncan...a wild pagan spirit..."
She leapt forward, landed deftly and whirled
like a dervish. Then she saw something ahead and her face lit up.
"...or a moving picture actress!"
She took his hand and ran, pulling him along
the deck toward Daniel and Mary Marvin. Daniel was cranking the big wooden movie
camera as she posed stiffly at the rail.
"You’re sad. Sad, sad, sad. You’ve left
your lover on the shore. You may never see him again. Try to be sadder,
darling."
Suddenly Rose shot into the shot and struck a
theatrical pose at the rail next to Mary. Mary burst out laughing. Rose pulled
Jack into the picture and made him pose.
Marvin grinned and started yelling and
gesturing.
Rose posed tragically at the rail, the back
of her hand to her forehead.
Jack lay on a deck chair, pretending to be a
Pasha, the two girls pantomiming fanning him like slave girls.
Jack, on his knees, pleaded with his hands
clasped while Rose, standing, turned her head in bored disdain.
Rose cranked the camera, while Daniel and
Jack had a western shoot-out. Jack won and leered into the lens, twirling an
air mustache like Snidely Whiplash.