"It's been 84 years..."
"Just tell us what you can-"
Camila held up her hand, silencing the room. "It's been 84 years... And I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in."
She closed her eyes as she remembered seeing The Titanic for the first time.
"Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams. And it was. It really was..."
Camila looked up at the ship, taking it in with cool appraisal. "I don't see what all the fuss is about. It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania."
"You can be blase about some things, Camila, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than Mauretania, and far more luxurious. It has squash courts, a Parisian cafe... even Turkish baths." Shawn turned towards Sinu as she is helped out of the car. "Your daughter is much too hard to impress, Sinu."
Sinu ignored him as she gazed up at the ship. "So this is the ship they say is unsinkable."
"It is unsinkable. God himself couldn't sink this ship." Shawn spoke with pride.
Camila tried not to roll her eyes as her two maids stumbled out of the car.
A man dressed in white star line uniform scurried towards them, "Sir, you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way-"
Shawn nonchalantly handed the man a fiver. "I put my faith in you, good sir."
"Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir."
"These trunks here, and 12 more in the Daimler. We'll have all this lot up in the rooms."
The white star man looks stricken when he sees the enormous pile of steamer trunks and suitcases loading down the second car, including wooden crates and the steel safe. He whistles frantically for some cargo-handlers nearby who come running.
Shawn breezes on, leaving the minions to scramble. He quickly checks his pocket watch. "We'd better hurry. This way, ladies." He indicates the way toward the first class gangway.
They pass a line of steerage passengers in their coarse wool and tweeds, queued up inside movable barriers like cattle in a chute.
Shawn gets jostled by two yelling steerage boys who shove past him. And he is bumped again a second later by the boys' father. "Watch it!!"
"Sorry." The Cockney father pushes on, after his kids, shouting.
"Steerage swine. Apparently missed his annual bath."
"Honestly, Shawn, if you weren't forever booking everything at the last instant, we could have gone through the terminal instead of running along the dock like some squalid immigrant family." Sinu spoke up, shaking her head in disbelief.
"All part of my charm, Sinu. At any rate, it was my darling fiancee's beauty rituals which made us late."
Camila looked up. "You told me to change."
"I couldn't let you wear black on sailing day, sweetpea. It's bad luck."
"I felt like black." Camila mumbled under her breath.
Shawn guided them towards the ship. "Here I've pulled every string I could to book us on the grandest ship in history, in her most luxurious suites... and you act as if you're going to your execution."
Camila looked up once again, staring at the great iron wall that was The Titanic. Shawn motioned her forward, and she walked through the gangway to the D Deck doors with a sense of overwhelming dread.
Shawn's hand closed possessively over her arm as he escorted her up the gangway and into The Titanic.
Across from the ship, in a small bar sat Lauren Jauregui and Dinah Jane, playing a serious game of poker.
Lauren and Dinah exchanged glances at the other two men as they argued in Swedish.
"Din dumma idiot. Jag kan inte tro att du satsar på våra biljetter." (You stupid idiot. I can't believe you bet our tickets.)
"Du förlorade våra pengar. Jag försöker bara få tillbaka det. Stäng av och ta ett kort." (You lost our money. I'm just trying to get it back. Now shut up and take a card.)
"Hit me again, Sven." Lauren took the card and slipped it into her hand.
The sound of The Titanic's whistle blows again. The sound of their final warning.
"The moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change."
Dinah puts her cards down. So do the Swedes. Lauren holds her close.
"Let's see... Dinah's got niente. Olaf, you've got squat. Sven, uh oh... two pair... mmm." She turned to Dinah, "sorry Dinah."
"Sorry? Bit-"
"Sorry, you're not gonna see England for a long time..." she slaps a full house down on the table. "Cause we're going back to America!! Full house boys!"
The table explodes into shouting as Lauren rakes in the money and the tickets. "Sorry boys. Three of a kind and a pair."
Lauren kisses the the tickets as Olaf balls up his fist, punching Sven. "We're going home, Dinah! On the Titanic! We're riding in style now! We're going to America!"
"No, mate. Titanic is going to America. In five minutes." The man behind the bar says, pointing at the ship.
"Shit! Come on, Dinah!" Lauren shouts, grabbing their stuff as they run out of the door.
Lauren and Dinah sprint towards the pier, carrying everything they own. They tear through the crowds next to the terminal. They burst out onto the pier and Lauren comes to a dead stop... staring at the cast wall of the ship's hull, towering seven stories above the wharf and over an eighth of a mile long. The Titanic is monstrous.
Dinah runs back and grabs Lauren, and they sprint towards the third class gangway aft, at E deck. They reach the bottom of the ramp just as a worker detaches it at the top. It starts to swing down from the gangway doors.
"Wait!! We're passengers!" Lauren pants, waving the tickets.
"Have you been through the inspection queue?"
"Of course! Anyway, we don't have lice, we're Americans." Lauren lies cheerfully.
"Right, come aboard."
They quickly jump aboard, handing the worker their tickets. He hands the tickets back, eyeing them both suspiciously.
Lauren gently grabbed Dinah's arm, "come on, Sven." They both grin as they run across the deck and up the steel stairs to the poop deck. They get to the rail and Lauren starts to yell and wave to the crowd on the dock. "We are the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!"
"Do you know any of them?"
"Of course not. That's not the point."
"Goodbye! I will never forget you!!" Dinah joins in, punching Lauren's shoulder.
A room service waiter poured champagne into a tulip glass of orange juice and handed the Bucks Fizz to Camila as she looked through her new paintings.
"Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money." Shawn spoke.
"You're wrong. They're fascinating. Like in a dream... there's truth without logic. What's his name again?" Camila thinks, "Picasso."
"He'll never amount to a thing, trust me. At least they were cheap."
Camila sighed to herself as a porter wheeled in Shawn's private safe.
"Put that in the wardrobe."
Camila stood up and walks towards the dresser. Ally is already in there, hanging up some of her clothes.
"It smells so brand new. Like they built it all just for us. I mean... just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, I'll be the first-" Ally stops as Shawn stands in the doorway.
"And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I'll still be the first."
Ally blushes at Shawn's words. "Excuse me, Miss." She edges around Shawn and makes a quick exit. Shawn comes up behind Camila and puts his hands on her shoulders. An act of possession, not intimacy.
"The first and only. Forever."
Camila's expression showed how bleak a prospect this was for her, now.
Meanwhile Lauren and Dinah stood at the bow of the ship, gripping the railings. Lauren can't help but lean over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water.
Dinah looked out into the Atlantic Ocean. "I can see the Statue of Liberty already." She grinned at Lauren. "Very small... of course."
///
"She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all history..." Ismay spoke with confidence. "And our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up."
Camila could see that Mr. Andrews disliked the attention.
"Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is..."
"Why're ships always being called 'she'? Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?" Molly Brown questioned making everyone around the table laugh.
The waiter arrived to take their orders. While no one was paying her any attention, Camila lit a cigarette.
Sinu watched her daughter, a disapproving look on her face. "You know I don't like that, Camila."
"She knows." Shawn spoke, taking the cigarette from her and stubbing it out. "We'll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce." He said to the waiter.
Camila rolled her eyes as Shawn looked at her.
"You like lamb, don't you sweetpea?"
Molly watched the dynamic between Camila and Shawn. "So, you gonna cut her meat for her too there, Shawn?" She turned to Ismay. "Hey, who came up with the name Titanic? You, Bruce?"
"Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury... and safety-"
"Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay." Camila sarcastically spoke.
She smiles to herself as Mr. Andrews chockes on his breadstick, suppressing laughter.
Sinu looked shocked. "My God, Camila, what's gotten into-"
"Excuse me." Camila cut her mother off, walking away from the table.
Lauren sat on a bench, her knees supporting her leather bound sketching pad, her only valuable possession. With her conte crayon, she drew.
Dinah looked over Lauren's shoulder, somewhat amazed at Lauren's talent.
Normani scowled as a crewmember came by, walking three small dogs around the deck. "That's typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit."
Lauren looked up from her sketch. "That's so we know where we rank in the scheme of things."
"Like we could forget."
Lauren glanced across the well deck, looking up at the aft railing of B deck promenade stood the most gorgeous woman she had ever seen, dressed in a long yellow dress and white gloves.
Lauren was unable to take her eyes off of her. She watches as the woman stares down at the water, removing her hat and tossing it overboard.
Dinah taps Normani and they both look at Lauren staring at the mystery woman. They grin at each other.
The woman turns suddenly and looks right at Lauren. She is caught staring, but she doesn't look away. The woman does, but then looks back. Their eyes meet across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds.
Lauren sees a man come up behind her and take her arm. She jerks her arm away. And they argue. The woman storms away, and he goes after her, disappearing along the A-deck promenade. Lauren still stares after her.
"Forget it, girl. You'd be more likely to have angels fly out of your ass then to get next to the likes of her."
That night Camila sat staring at her plate, barely listening to the inconsequential babble around her. She stood up, walking out out of the room and along the corridor. A steward coming the other way greets her, and she nods with a slight smile. She is perfectly composed.
She walks into her room. Staring at her reflection in the large vanity mirror. She just stands there, then with a cry she claws at her throat, ripping off her pearl necklace, which explodes across the room. In a frenzy she tears at herself, her clothes, her hair... then attacks the room. She flings everything off the dresser and it flies clattering against the wall. She hurls a handmirror against the vanity, cracking it.
Not being able to stay in that room any longer she runs out of the room and along the B deck promenade.
She is crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. But she's not sad, she's angry, furious, and shaking with emotions she doesn't understand... hatred, self-hatred, desperation.
A strolling couple watch her pass. Shocked at the emotional display in public.
Lauren was laid back on one of the benches gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead, smoking a cigarette.
Vaguely hearing something, she turns as the woman from earlier runs up the stairs. She doesn't see Lauren in the shadows, she runs straight past her.
Camila's breath hitches in an occasional sob, which she suppresses. She slams against the
base of the stern flagpole and clings there, panting. She just stares out at the black water.
Having enough, she climbs over the railing. She turns her body and gets her heels on the white-painted gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out toward blackness. 60 feet below her, the massive propellers are leaving ghostly wake trails off toward the horizon.
Camila leans out, her arms straightening... looking down hypnotized, into the vortex below her.
Lauren slowly walks towards her. "Don't do it."
Camila's head whips around at the sound of her voice. It takes a second for her eyes to focus. "Stay back! Don't come any closer!"
Lauren can see the tear tracks on her cheeks in the faint glow from the stern running lights. "Take my hand. I'll pull you back over."
"No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I'll let go."
"No you won't."
"What do you mean no I won't? Don't presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don't know me."
"You would have done it already. Now come on, take my hand."
Camila was confused. She couldn't see the woman very well through the tears, so she wipes them with one hand, almost losing her balance.
"You're distracting me. Go away."
"I can't. I'm involved now. If you let go I have to jump in after you."
"Don't be stupid. You'll be killed."
Lauren takes off her jacket. "I'm a good swimmer." She unlaces her left shoe.
"The fall alone would kill you."
"It would hurt. I'm not saying it wouldn't. To be honest I'm a lot more concerned about the water being so cold."
Camila looked down. The reality of what she was doing sinking in. "How cold?"
Lauren takes off her left shoe. "Freezing. Maybe a couple degrees over." She starts unlacing her right shoe. "Ever been to Wisconsin?"
"No."
"Well they have some of the coldest winters around, and I grew up there, near Chippewa Falls. Once when I was a kid me and my father were ice fishing out on Lake Wissota... ice fishing's where you chop a hole in the-"
"I know what ice fishing is!"
"Sorry. Just, you look like kind of an indoor girl. Anyway, I went through some thin ice and I'm telling you, water that cold... like that right down there, it hits you like a thousand knives all over your body. You can't breath, you can't think, least not about anything but the pain."
She takes off her other shoe. "Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you. But like I said, I don't see a choice. I guess I'm kinda hoping you'll come back over the rail and get me off the hook here."
"You're crazy."
"That's what everybody says. But with all due respect, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship." She steps closer. "Come on. You don't want to do this. Give me your hand."
Camila stares at her, looking into her eyes, somehow they suddenly seem to fill her universes. "Alright."
She lets go of the rail with one hand and reaches it around toward Lauren. She reaches out to take it, firmly.
"I'm Lauren Jauregui."
Camila's voice quivered. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Jauregui."
Camila starts to turn. Now that she has decided to live, the height is terrifying. She is overcome by vertigo as she shifts her footing, turning to face the ship. As she starts to climb, her dress gets in the way, and one foot slips off the edge of the deck.
She plunges, letting out a piercing SHRIEK. Lauren, gripping her hand, is jerked toward the rail. Camila is barely able to grab the lower rail with her free hand.
"HELP! HELP!!" Camila screams.
"I've got you. I won't let go." Lauren holds her hand with all her strength, bracing herself on the railing with her other hand.
Camila tries to get some kind of foothold on the smooth hull. Lauren tries to lift her over the railing. But Camila can't get any footing in her dress and evening shoes, and she slips back. She screams again.
Lauren, awkwardly clutching Camila by whatever she can get a grip on as she flails, gets her over the railing. They fall together onto the deck in a tangled heap, spinning in such a way that Lauren winds up slightly on top of her.
Rowe slides down the ladder from the docking bridge like it's a fire drill and sprints across the fantail. "Here, what's all this?!"
Rowe runs up and pulls Lauren off of Camila, revealing her dishevelled and sobbing on the deck. Her dress is torn, and the hem is pushing up above her knees, showing one ripped stocking. He looks at Lauren, and the first class lady clearly in distress, and starts drawing conclusions. Two seamen chug across the deck to join them.
He looks at Lauren. "Here you, stand back! Don't move an inch!"
A few minutes later. Lauren is being detained by the burly master at arms, the closest thing to a cop on board. He handcuffs her.
Shawn is right in front of Lauren, and furious. He had just rushed out here with Matthew and another man, and none of them have coats over their black tie evening dress. Matthew offers his brandy snifter to Camila, who is hunched over crying on a bench nearby, but she waves it away. Shawn is more concerned with Lauren. He grabs her by the shirt.
"What made you think you could put your hands on my fiancee?! Look at me, you freak! What did you think you were doing?!"
"Shawn, stop! It was an accident." Camila steps in.
"An accident?!"
"It was... stupid really. I was leaning over and I slipped." Camila looks at Lauren, getting eye contact. "I was leaning way over, to see the ah... propellers. And I slipped and I would have gone overboard, and Miss Jauregui here saved me and she almost went over herself.
"You wanted to see the propellers?" Shawn asked, shaking his head at Matthew. "Women and machinery do not mix."
The master at arms looks at Lauren. "Was that the way of it?"
Camila silently pleads to her, begging her with her eyes not to say what really happened.
"Uh huh. That was pretty much it." She looks at Camila a moment longer. Now they have a secret together.
"Well! The girls's a hero then. Good for you, well done!"
Lauren is uncuffed. Shawn steps past Lauren and gets Camila to her feet and moving. "Let's get you in. You're freezing." He rubs her arms.
Shawn is about to leave without a second thought for Lauren.
"Ah... perhaps a little something for the girl?" Matthew speaks low.
"Oh, right. Mr. Hussey. A twenty should do it."
Camila stares at Shawn in shock. "Is that the going rate for saving the woman you love?"
"Camila is displeased. Mmm... what to do?" Shawn turns back to Lauren. "I know. Perhaps you could join us for dinner tomorrow, to retell our group with your heroic tale?"
Lauren looks straight at Camila. "Sure. Count me in."
"Good. Settled then." Shawn turns to go, putting a protective arm around Camila and they walk away.
"Can I bum a cigarette?" Lauren asks Matthew as he walks past her.
He smoothly draws a silver cigarette case from his jacket and snaps it open. Lauren takes a cigarette, then another, popping it behind her ear for later. Matthew lights Lauren's cigarette for her. "You'll want to tie those."
Lauren looks down at her shoes.
"Interesting that the young lady slipped so mighty all of a sudden and you, a woman with a hidden appendage still had time to take of your jacket and shoes. Mmmm?"
Matthew's expression was bland, but his eyes cold. He turns away to join his group.
As she undresses for bed Camila sees Shawn standing in her doorway, reflected in the cracked mirror of her vanity. He comes toward her.
"I know you've been melancholy, and I don't pretent to know why." He speaks, unexpectedly tender. From behind his back he hands her a large black velvet jewel case. She takes it, numbly. "I intended to save this till the engagement party next week. But I thought tonight, perhaps a reminder of my feeling for you..."
Camila slowly opened the box. Seeing a expensive looking necklace in all its glory. It is huge... a malevolent blue stone glittering with an infinity of scalpel-like inner reflections.
"My God... Shawn. Is it a-"
"Diamond. Yes it is. 56 carats." He takes the necklace and places it around her throat. He turns her to the mirror, staring behind her. "It was once worn by Louis the Sixteenth. They call it Le Coeur de la Mer, the-"
"The Heart of the Ocean. Shawn, it's... it's overwhelming."
He gazes at the image of the two of them in the mirror. "It's for royalty. And we are royalty." His fingers caress her neck and throat. "There's nothing I couldn't give you. There's nothing I'd deny you if you would deny me. Open your heart to me, Camila."