Wednesday, April 10, 1912
Alex Vause changes her life with two Kings (hearts, spades) and three nines (everything but clubs).
They're playing with her own deck of cards this round: worn at the edges, a cigarette burn over the King of Hearts in her hand. There is a pile in the center of the splintered table, and in it sits everything of value she owns, short of two packs of cigarettes and her art supplies.
If she loses this hand, she'll have to smoke instead of eat for the next few days, but she lives precariously close to that possibility even on best days, so it is not much to lose. The sunlight catches and glints on a gold necklace lying among the money; it had been a gift from one of her Parisian women, never worn by Alex. It's inclusion in the bet is the reason for the steerage ticket on the RMS Titanic, a counter show of bravado from her opponent, one of several Swedish men she'd started drinking and playing poker with an hour ago.
The bar is right by the docks, the ship they call unsinkable looming luxurious through the window as though to remind her of the potential prize. Alex had come to the area specifically to catch a glimpse of the ship before its maiden voyage, but without giving a thought to its destination.
Yet as soon as Sven recklessly added his own ticket to America, Alex had begun, somewhat shockingly, to want something.
But Sven is so blustering and confident, flecks of condescension still stuck in his eyes when he looks at her, as though he cannot believe a woman, even a woman like her, could possibly beat him when it really counts.
His smug little smile when he reveals a straight makes her momentarily forget everything but the victory, the spiteful pleasure of proving him wrong, and so Alex spreads out her full house with an understated smirk of her own.
Only when horror fills the arrogant man's face with the realization of what he's lost does Alex remember what she's won.
Her smile stretches, dizzy and genuine now, and her hand makes a grab to the pile, snatching only the ticket, as though Sven might take it back.
Alex is one week shy of her twenty-first birthday; maybe enough time has passed. Maybe it's time for her to see home again - at least, the closest she has to one.
She does remember the rest, of course, sweeping the money and necklace into her rucksack, gleefully thinking to herself how fortunate it is, in moments like this, that she always carries the entirety of her belongings.
Sven grabs her arm on the table, tight, aggressive. She purses her lips and sneers at him, "You such a poor loser you'd hit a lady?"
He says something derisive in a language Alex doesn't understand, but she doesn't have to know the words. It has the cadence of a comment she's heard countless times: she's no lady, not with her cigarettes or her cursing or the trousers she's long preferred over dresses.
Or the tough, heavy boots she's wearing, the ones that make it possible for her to drive the toe hard into the back of Sven's heel, right at the sensitive spot. Howling, he buckles at the knee and his grip on her loosens. Quickly scooping up the rest of the money littering the table, Alex slings her bag over her shoulder and turns to go, flashing her sweetest smile over her shoulder.. "I'll wave to you from the deck."
A mad run through the crowd and a quick lie to the officer - yes, of course she's gone through inspection - and just like that Alex is on board to leave the continent where she's lived for nearly three years. This is the freedom of her life; there is no one to inform, no one to say goodbye to.
The RMS Titanic is being hailed as the grandest ship in the world, but Piper Chapman is far beyond being impressed by mere luxury.
Perhaps that's an unfavorable character trait, only emphasizing what is enviable and spoiling about her upbringing, but it can't be helped. Her life is and has always been a parade of opulence, and by virtue of this, the grand has become the mundane. She is ready for this voyage to be over only so she can stop hearing the fuss about this unsinkable boat. It bores her.
But then, almost everything bores her, these days.
Larry - that's Lawrence Jonathan Bloom III to most people - was raised in common grandeur, as well, and yet somehow he's never unimpressed, already beaming in wonder at the ship as he helps her from the touring car. As usual, it makes her feel inadequate. Everyone else is so easily pleased and consistently satisfied; she seems to be the only one who isn't capable. As if she's missing a piece somewhere.
Her mother and father follow behind them, Carol Chapman murmuring her own approving observations while Bill Chapman ignores it to call orders to the valets and maids, currently assisting cargo handlers with their embarrassing amount of luggage.
Piper sighs and crooks her arm habitually through Larry's elbow, grateful once again that his own parents hadn't joined them on this trip. The combination of Bill Chapman and Lawrence Bloom, Jr. is often too much to take.
"Must say, it doesn't bode well for me that you're so difficult to impress, darling." Larry says to her. He's likely teasing, but Piper bristles anyway.
"I haven't said a single word."
"You don't have to. It's evident from your face."
"Oh, so you read my mind now?"
"Surely at this stage you can offer me some credit for knowing you, Piper."
She feels like refusing, but there would be no real credence to an argument. He has, in fact, known her for the entirety of her life, and after seventeen years Piper has only two secrets to her name.
She doesn't remember ever deciding to marry Larry, or even to love him. She suspects she was born with the expectation of that precise future draped over her shoulders; she has no memory of what it was like to live without the weight. Over the past year, however, the union has gone from expected to essential for her parents: unbeknownst to the Bloom family, Bill Chapman has made some individual poor investments - and, Piper heavily suspects, poor gambling decisions. Their name is still good, but jeopardizing her father's potential partnership with Larry and his father would not be an option.
That's the first secret.
The second is that Piper is often desperately, fatally unhappy, and she's often terrified she's not capable of anything else.
Alex finds her spot in Third Class Berthing, a tiny cubicle with two sets of bunk beds, exposed pipes on the walls, and three Swedish men who gape at her with dumbfounded expressions when she enters.
She doesn't relish this, sleeping with strange men close by, but it's something she's used to. She spins a pocket knife idly between her fingers and merely nods shortly at them while she tosses her bag on the open top bunk.
Privately, Piper finds the name "Millionaire Suite" somewhat ostentatious, but of course her family has snagged both of them. She is to share one with her parents - there are two bedrooms, in addition to a sitting room, wardrobe room, and private promenade deck - but Larry is lingering in their sitting room as she, along with her maid Catherine, unpacks the paintings she'd bought in Europe, the best part about this trip, and eyes the walls thoughtfully, fully engaged in something for the first time all day.
"You do realize we're only at sea for a week," Larry tells her in this new voice he's picked up recently, both amused and condescending. It's the way her father talks to her mother - on his good days - and Piper doesn't care for it at all.
"Philistine," she mutters between her teeth, a frequently repeated insult. "Just because you have no appreciation for art doesn't mean I have to lower my own. If you all insist we need all this - " She waves an impatient hand at the luxury of the room. "- for only a week's journey, I doubt my decorating is the most irrational aspect."
Larry looks put out. He scowls at her like a petulant little boy. "If an appreciation for art means staring at mud puddles all day - "
"At least they were cheap," Bill interrupts, swapping a knowing look with his future son-in-law. "Count your blessings there, my boy; it won't be the end of expensive indulgences."
Her father's voice neatly squashes Piper's rising desire to argue, and she begins searching the pile of trunks for the one with her books.
"Need help finding something?" Larry asks, coming up behind her.
"My books. They were in the red trunk…"
"I put it in your bedroom," he tells her, and before she can thank him he adds, "Unless you want to organize them on shelves for the week?"
She throws him a look. "I didn't bring enough for it to be worth it. That's what I'm most looking forward to about getting home…back to the library again."
His eyebrows go up. "That's what you're most looking forward to?"
Her parents look over at the same time, and Piper instantly realizes her mistake. She knows to save it, to tilt a teasing smile. "Why? Is there something else exciting happening? Anything I should be counting down to?"
Larry smiles back, too delighted by the rare playfulness. "I feel like there's some sort of party…something at a church…?"
Pulling a face of exaggerated confusion, Piper shrugs. "I'm still not sure. Hopefully I remember in time."
He laughs, gratified, and her parents return to their own tasks.
The wedding. Only a week after their return to the States, the invitations already in the hands of anybody who's anybody in Connecticut high society. Her dress, waiting at the seamstress's, is beautiful. Everything is beautiful.
The failing is not in the wedding, or in Larry - kind, dutiful Larry, her lifelong friend. The family's savior.
Anyone but Piper would be thrilled.
Now, Larry offers his arm again, sweetening his smile. "Care to take a stroll out to the deck? See if we can find a view the might impress you?"
Piper takes his arm and agrees with a smile, because she truly doesn't want to be like this. She wishes she could find beauty outside of canvases, feel deeply about something that doesn't exist in a world between book covers.
But she knows the exact course her life is set to run, and in all that certainty, it's hard to imagine anything changing.
Alex is settled on a bench on the lowest deck, her leather bound sketching pad resting against her knees, black conte crayon dusting her fingers black as she draws. The sun is warm, the constant rush of water an almost soothing hum. There's nothing in the world to complain about, short of the breeze keeping the corners of her pages fluttering as she works, but Alex is a largely outdoor artist, so she's more than accustomed to the condition.
With rapid, confident strokes she sketches her fellow third class passengers, delighted by the plethora of subjects in her surroundings who seem perfectly content to stay in one place, obviously preferring the open air of the deck to the cramped third class sleeping quarters or the dimly lit general room.
She finishes a quick rendering of a man holding his young daughter up on the lower run of the ship's railing, pointing out seagulls while the little girl grins delightedly. Alex pulls out a blank sheet, scanning her surroundings for another subject.
Her eyes drift and somehow aim themselves up to the railing of the higher deck promenade; she can only see a few clusters of first class passengers, but her eyes land on a girl in a blue dress and an absolutely absurd hat, leaning very slightly against the rail.
And staring right at Alex.
Their eyes meet, and the first class girl's dart away in an instant, but Alex keeps her gaze where it is, oddly and quickly riveted. She's beautiful, even at a distance, the kind of beauty Alex's fingers itch to capture, but it's more than that. She looks like a figure in a romantic novel. Gorgeous. Sad. Isolated.
She looks back at Alex. This time, her eyes hold on.
Before Alex even realizes what she's doing, she's half risen from the bench, as though it isn't impossible for her to simply walk up to this girl and speak to her, say anything, really -
But then a man comes up behind her, and the girl turns to face him, smiling in a way that makes her look like everyone else. Alex lowers her weight again, feeling silly. She resumes her search for someone to sketch, restricting her gaze to the lowest deck where it belongs.
Predictably, Piper's stroll with Larry doesn't last very long before they bump into gentlemen who recognize him, thus apparently obligating him to join them in a circle of remarks about the ship's beauty. It's all just a way of congratulating themselves on this luxury they can afford, and Piper excuses herself quickly and paces away from the conversation, standing near the railing to study the more bustling activity of the deck below.
Her eyes land on someone sitting on a bench against the railing, bent over a sketching pad, drawing. At first, Piper thinks it's a man with appallingly long hair - her father had said, distastefully, that third class would be full of emigrants, so who knew what their standards might be - but then the artist's lifts her head to check her subjects and Piper sees she's clearly a woman.
Albeit, a woman in slacks, a rumpled white shirt, and suspenders. Piper's mother would be scandalized. She's wearing thin round eyeglasses, and as Piper watches she sweeps long black hair away from her face and continues drawing.
Piper keeps watching her, strangely captivated; she's obviously drawing the father with his little girl, about ten feet away from her bench, and it's with surprising fervency that Piper finds herself wishing she could see the page from here.
Then the woman looks up, right at Piper, and she jerks her eyes away, cheeks flaming with embarrassment at being caught. She pretends to scan the crowd idly, like she's simply taking in the entire area, but when she finally allows herself to look back and check, the woman is still staring.
This time, Piper can't look away.
Until, that is, Larry's hand lands lightly on her back and Pipershe turns to find his apologizing grin. "Sorry, didn't mean to get caught up."
She feels strangely guilty, for some reason, so Piper smiles at him and quickly answers, "It's fine. No need to apologize.
Larry leans against the railing beside her, drawing in a deep, content breath of ocean air. "Lovely, isn't it?"
"It is," she echoes absently, checking on the drawing woman again, empty disappointment thudding hollow in Piper's chest when she's no longer paying attention.
"We should head back," Larry says. "I promised the gents your father and I would meet for cigars before dinner."
Throwing him a sardonic look, Piper intones, "I assume that won't take the place of after dinner cigars."
"You're welcome to join us in the cloud of smoke," he jokes, not meaning it at all - she wouldn't be welcome, in fact, but they both know she has no interest anyway.
"I'll leave you to it. But you go ahead, I may stay out for a bit."
"Shouldn't you dress for dinner soon?"
"I will. Soon. Not now."
Larry shrugs, agreeable, and leaves with promises to see her at dinner. Piper returns her attention to the lower deck; the woman's head is bent low again, her hand sweeping across a page. As she watches, Piper reaches up and unpins her hat; the sun is lower on the horizon. Soon there won't be enough light for the artist to draw.
Telling herself that if everyone is so determinedly obsessed with the size of this ship, it's perfectly natural to want to explore its entirety, Piper unlatches the gate that leads into second and third classes, intending to get a look from closer to the water.
Maybe half an hour after she first noticed her, Alex looks up at the two boys she's drawing - about nine or ten years old, on their knees on the deck with an unsteady game of jacks - and sees the first class girl edging along the railing.
A few steerage men who pass by stop and stare at her, she's so blatantly out of place. She's toying with that ridiculous hat nervously in her hands, and her cheeks are pink, though that could be the wind.
And she keeps darting glances at Alex.
Ducking her head to hide a smile, Alex continues with her sketching, looking up for reference a bit more often than is necessary, but only keeping the girl in her peripheral vision, never letting on that she's watching. The blonde, on the other hand, is woefully unskilled at subtly, her attention to Alex somehow all the more obvious because of how much she's trying to hide it.
It's not that Alex isn't used to stares from girls like this. She is rough and unladylike, and usually alone, with often provokes a sort of horrified fascination. But whatever Alex thought she saw in the girl's face earlier, in the moments before the man approached and a mask slipped back into place, has her curious about this one.
A woman calls out in Italian and the little boys go running, taking their game with them. Alex could finish the drawing without the visual, but the light is poor and the deck is starting to clear out.
On a risky whim, she closes her sketching pad and sets it on the bench beside her, then lights a cigarette and takes a few drags. It's just for show, a way to kill a few moments before she can realistically stand up and wander away, deliberately leaving her sketches behind.
She doesn't have to get far before she's proven right; she glances over her shoulder just before rounding a corner out of sight, and the girl is standing over the bench, the book in her hand.
To Piper's disappointment it doesn't matter how close she manages to sidle: with the pad on her knees, facing the water, Piper can't get an angle to see the drawing.
Then the woman sets the pad aside and lights a cigarette - no holder, unsurprisingly. The crowd around them is starting to thin, and it makes Piper feel too conspicuous. She really should go dress for dinner, but there's something entrancing about this woman, with her men's clothing and charcoal stained fingers. Piper's never seen anything quite like her.
She stands up to leave, and again Piper feels a dull drumming of disappointment that's quickly quashed when she realizes the sketching pad is still sitting on the bench.
Piper hurriedly approaches, intending on calling out to the woman and handing it back, but she's positively tingling with curiosity, and as she tucks her hat under her arm and picks up the book she has the horrible thought that she could simply track the woman down and give it to her later, no need to explain when exactly she found it -
"You gonna steal that?"
Startled, Piper looks up to see the woman smirking at her. In spite of the words, she doesn't seem angry; just amused.
"Of course not," she stammers, extending the book like it's something lethal.
The woman doesn't take it. Her lips curve into a slow, easy grin. "Good. I was gonna say, come down from first class just to steal from us low lives? That's almost appallingly greedy."
Piper's face is hot. Up close, the woman is younger than she thought; she can't be much more than twenty. And there's something frazzling and intense about her gaze behind those glasses; her eyes are never still, roaming across Piper's face like she's something to sketch. "I was just going to check for a name," she blurts out, which seems like an intelligent excuse for all of two seconds.
"Ah," the woman nods. "Got it. S'pose you didn't notice me the whole time I was sitting there. Or that I was still in shouting distance. Or maybe shouting's not proper? If that's true, never mind, not your fault."
"Here," Piper takes a step forward, her arm straight out with the sketching pad, insistent. She isn't looking the woman in the eye.
"No hurry," the woman says, sounding cheerful and genuine. "You can look if you want."
But all Piper wants to get out of there, away from her own embarrassment. She sets the book down the bench and does a panicked little half-curtsy, half-nod, muttering, "My apologies," even as she hurries away, back to the safety of the first class deck.
The girl had looked so genuinely humiliated that Alex almost regrets setting the trap. At the same time, it's been awhile since she got a pretty girl so flustered. And it's not as though Alex could have really approached her without excuse.
She's itching to draw her, so she skips dinner to return to her bunk, fairly certain she'll find it empty of the others, a requirement if she's going to linger than.
The girl's face is so vivid in her head it's a little miraculous, and when Alex is satisfied with her work she leaves the sketching pad tucked beneath her mattress and returns to the deck, stretching out on another bench toward the stern of the sip, blowing into the sky and reveling in the first moments of quiet the day has offered.
The stars are gorgeous, freckling the infinite sky above infinite ocean, and it makes her think again of where they're going. Docking in New York City, in less than a week; shouldn't be difficult from there for her to make her way home.
If she still wants to. Not that there's any hurry.
She's wondering if there will be anything there for her to recognize when a blur of a person runs past her bench, startling her out of the troubling question.
Piper shakes the encounter with the artist woman off fairly quickly, focusing on the - according to her mother - monumentally important task of dressing for their first dinner aboard the Titanic.
"Your father says we've been invited to join Bruce Ismay and Thomas Andrews at their table. Of course you realize what an honor that is, everyone will be green with envy..."
Larry and her father return to the suites to collect them, and they join a dinner table that does in fact include the ship's builder and the White Star Line manager, as well as many of the other richest passengers, which she's certain disappoints her mother. The meal passes pleasantly enough, though the ship itself is still dominating discussion.
When the men depart again for more cigars and likely some brandy to go along with it, Larry trailing after her father like an obedient puppy, the wives - and, in some cases, mistresses - stay behind, and Carol smoothly steers the conversation to Piper's wedding.
It's not a conversation Piper needs to be present for, her mother rattling off details and mentioning Piper's choices as though she's not even in the room. She's been listening to her mother obsess over every fine point of the wedding for months now, and is usually adept at tuning it out. But now, there's something different.
It suddenly sounds so immediate.
"Next week will be an absolute nightmare, I'm sure," her mother says in a voice that suggests nightmares are something she relishes. "In fact we very nearly took a voyage on an earlier ship, just to be certain there would be time for all the final touches - but Bill was insistent on holding out for Titanic. Entirely worth it, of course, but will leave us almost no time for rest...Piper's got a final fitting the day we arrive..."
Her corset feels too tight, all of a sudden. No, it feels like it's actually tightening, right now, like an invisible pair of hands is yanking at the lacing on her back, so hard she can feel her ribs sagging to make room, bones crushed against lungs.
Her eyes fall on the ring on her left hand and the diamond's shine makes her dizzy. Piper bolts abruptly to her feet, the floor feels tilted beneath her, no one else seems to notice how hard the ocean is rocking them, surely a ship of this size shouldn't tilt...
Or no, it must be the air here, the suffocating air of a brand new dining saloon, she can't breathe in it, can barely muster the air required to mutter an, "If you'll excuse me," before she leaves.
She sucks in a breath as soon as she steps out into night air, but it only seems to make it as far as her throat. There are people out and about, admiring the view of stars above ocean, but slowly they turn to stare at Piper. Her whole body is trembling; she feels boxed in.
Then, for no real reason, she starts to run, hiking her dress up in shaking hands, perhaps not the best course of action when she's struggling to breathe, but something is wrong, and her body seems to think it can run away from it.
Irrationally, she's thinking no one should see her like this, and everywhere there are stares, so she runs to the stairs for the stern deck, seemingly deserted. As soon as she low enough to be out of sight, Piper hits her knees on the deck, swallowing big gulps of salty air.
Oh, God, she's made such a mistake, there's obviously something really wrong with her, she feels like she might actually die, and no one will find her here, but then -
"Hey, easy..." It's a low, quiet voice, and it's close. Her vision is blurry when she opens her eyes, but Piper can still make out the pants and suspenders, the curtain of black hair. The artist kneels down in front of her, a few feet away. "Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?"
Piper shakes her head fervently, so hard a few pieces of her hair fall loose. "I can't...I don't...I...I..." The words slip out in breathless whimpers. Her chest is starting to ache.
"Whoa, okay...it's okay...you just need to breathe, alright? In and out, here..." The woman actually touches her, bare fingers on Piper's cheek. Her hands are warm. "Breathe for me. Nice and slow, c'mon...In...out..."
Somehow Piper can hear the deliberate rhythm of the woman's breathing, and with great effort, she manages to match it.
"There you go, that's it..." Her voice is unfailingly patient. Her hands are still cupping Piper's face. "You're okay."
When Piper starts to feel a little calmer, she realizes there are tears on her face. "I'm sorry." Her voice stumbles, still weak. "I don't know what got into me..."
"Get caught stealing again?" The woman asks, warm and somehow gentle even in the teasing. "By someone less merciful than me, maybe?"
Against all odds, Piper hears herself laughing. It eases the pressure on her chest, a little. She realizes she's still sitting on the deck, and quickly gets to her feet. The woman stands at the same time, offering a hand; Piper lets her help without thinking about it.
"I seem to be intent on humiliating myself in front of you."
"Better me than someone up your way, right?" The woman says, tilting a lopsided grin at her. "I'll just write it off as rich people are nuts."
"You wouldn't be wrong," Piper blurts out, unthinking, and it makes the woman laugh.
It surprises her. And she likes it.
"Honestly, are you alright?" The woman is peering at her the same way she had earlier: intense, artist eyes, like she's memorizing her face, but searching for something beyond it, too.
"Fine," Piper insists, slowly trying to gather her dignity. "Just felt a bit...overwhelmed. Temporarily."
The woman just nods. "Alright."
Piper feels the awkwardness of the moment, how alone they are. "I should be getting back. I appreciate, your, um...your assistance, Miss...?"
She trails off, a question in her voice, and this seems to make the woman smile again. "Vause," she provides.
"Miss Vause - "
"Alex is fine."
Piper doesn't correct herself, just nods once, flustered by the interruption. "Goodnight. And thank you, again."
But as she walks away, the woman's first name rounds in her throat, like it wants to be said, and Piper mouths it silently to herself only when she's back on the B deck.
Alex.
Fitting, she thinks. A man's name, to go along with men's clothes.
But so pretty.
With soft, careful hands. Feminine hands, artist's hands, capable of scooping Piper's panic up with their palms.