Anton Mercer, Managing Director of White Star Line, was speaking at a table. "...And our master shipbuilder, Mr. Mercer's here, designed her from the keel plates up."
He indicated Cam Watanabe, a handsome 39 year old chinese gentlemen to his right, who was of Harland and Wolf Shipbuilders.
There was a group assembled for lunch the next day. Mercer was seated with Jayden, Mia, Isabella, Dana Grayson and Cam Watanabe in the Palm Court, a beautiful sunny spot enclosed by high arched windows. Slash seemed to dislike the attention.
"Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Mercer'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..." He slapped the table, "Willed into solid reality."
"Why're ships always bein' called she?" Dana asked, "Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?" They all laughed. "Just another example of the men settin' the rules their way."
The waiter arrived to take orders. Already bored with the small talk, Mia took out a cigarette. Isabella glanced at Mia, shooting her a warning look. "You know I don't like that, Mia."
Mia didn't pay attention to it, though and blew out smoke.
"She knows," Jayden frowned, snatching the cigarette from her and stubbing it out. He never understood why she smoked and found it rather dull if anything. The waiter hurried over to take their order. "We'll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce. You like lamb, don't you sweetpea?"
Mia grimaced but suppressed it and nodded. If there ever was a chance to question her womanhood, now would be the time. Dana was watching the dynamic between Mia, Jayden, and Isabella. "So, you gonna cut her meat for her too there, Jayden?" She joked, who immediately continued conversation to avoid Jayden's hazardous gaze. "Hey, who thought of the name Titanic? Was it you, Anton?"
Mr. Anton Mercer grinned smugly, taking as much credit as possible. "Yes, actually. I wanted to covey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury...and safety-"
"Do you know of Dr. Cranston? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Mercer," Mia stated, not caring that she broke character.
Cam chocked on his breadstick, suppressing laughter.
"My God, Mia, what's gotten into-"
"Excuse me," Mia got up and stalked away from the dining room.
Isabella was mortified, "I do apologize."
"She's a pistol, Jayden. You sure you can handle her?" Dana joked again.
Jayden grew tense, but he feigned unconcerned, "Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on, won't I, Mrs. Grayson?"
"Cranston? Who is he? Is he a passenger?"
Out on the poop deck, Kevin sat on a bench in the sun. Titanic's wake spread out behind him to the horizon. He had his knees pulled up, supporting a leather bound sketching pad, his only valuable possession. With conte crayon he drew rapidly, using sure strokes. An emigrant from Manchester named Cole Evans had his 3 year old daughter Alysia standing on the lower rung of the rail. She was leaned back against his beer barrel of a stomach, watching the seagulls.
The sketch captured them perfectly, with a great sense of humanity of the moment. Kevin was good. Really good. Mile looked over Kevin's shoulder. He nodded appreciatively.
Antonio Grazia, a scowling young hispanoc emigrant, watched as a crewmember came by, walking three small dogs around the deck. One of them, a black French Bulldog, was among the ugliest creatures on the planet.
"That's typical. First class dogs come down here to take a shit."
Leo looked up from his sketch. "That's so we know where we rank in the scheme of things."
"Like we could forget," Antonio muttered and offered his hand. "I'm Antonio Grazia."
"Kevin Douglas," Kevin said as they shook hands.
"Mike."
"Do you make any money with your drawings?" Antonio asked Kevin.
Kevin glanced across the well deck. At the aft railing of B deck promenade stood Mia, in a long yellow dress and white gloves.
Kevin was unable to take his eyes off the woman who looked more like an angel. They were across from each other, about 60 feet apart, with the well deck like a valley between them. She on her promontory, he on his much lower one. She stared down at the water. Her magnificent black hair was tied up in a bun, her Asian skin shone brilliantly in the light like a thousand illuminated pearls. She was beautiful, like a rose amongst daises.
He watched her unpin her elaborate hat and take it off. She looked at the frilly absurd thing, then tossed it over the rail. It sailed far down to the water and was carried away, astern. A spot of yellow in the vast ocean. She was fed up with the charade that was her life. He was riveted by her. She looked like a figure in a romance novel.
Mike tapped Antonio and they both looked at Kevin gazing at Mia. Mike and Antonio grinned at each other.
He stared at her, not wanting to blink in case she disappeared. She was taking in the breeze of the ocean, and she looked sad, and lost. She looked back towards the poop deck and locked eyes with him. He was caught staring, but he didn't look away. She did, but then looked back. Their eyes met across the space of the well deck, across the gulf between worlds.
Kevin saw a man (Jayden) who came up behind her and took her arm. She jerked her arm away. They argued in pantomime. She stormed away and he went after her, disappearing along the A deck promenade. Kevin still stared after her, even though she was gone.
"Forget it, bro. You'd as like have angels fly out o' yer arse as get next to the likes o' her," Antonio commented.
With Mia, she sat with the others in the First Class Dining Saloon, flanked by people in heated conversation. Jayden and Isabella were laughing together, while on the other side Lady Duff-Gordon was holding forth animatedly. Amy was staring at her plate, barely listening to the inconsequential babble around her.
Present
Mia looks back at Tyler, Chase, and Shelby who were fixed on her every word. "I saw my whole life as if I'd already lived it...an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches...always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. I felt like I was standing at a great precipice, with no one to pull me back, no one who cared...or even noticed."
Mia Watanabe, a girl of seventeen, was considering ending her life. Dinner had just about sent her over the edge, all of the people talking about money as If it meant more than oxygen. She didn't really matter to them, or to anyone. She felt more and more insignificant as she ran along the B deck promenade. She was disheveled, her hair flying. She was crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. But also angry, furious! Shaking with emotions she doesn't understand...hatred, self-hatred, desperation. A strolling couple watched her pass, shocked at the emotional display in public.
Kevin was kicked back on one of the benches, gazing at the stars blazing gloriously overhead. He was thinking art thoughts and smoking a cigarette, something he hadn't done in a while. The silence was disturbed by the fast clicking of heels on the deck above him. In the shadows, a sobbing woman ran past him at the speed of an unstoppable train. When the moonlight illuminated the mystery woman, Kevin saw who it was. The woman he saw on the third class deck at lunch. They're the only two on the stern deck, except for Quartermaster Murakami, twenty feet above them on the docking bridge catwalk.
She didn't see Kevin in the shadows, but she looked different. Concerned, he sat upright and followed the sound of her noisy shoes.
Mia ran across the deserted fantail. Her breath hitched in an occasional sob, which she suppressed. Mia slammed against the base of the stern flagpole and clung there, panting. She stared out at the black water.
Then she started to climb over the railing. She had to hitch her long dress way up, and climbing was clumsy. Moving methodically, she turned her body and got her heels on the white-painted gunwale, her back to the railing, facing out towards blackness. 60 feet below her, the massive propellers were churning the Atlantic into white foam, and a ghostly wake trailed off toward the horizon.
Mia stood like a figurehead in reverse. Below her were the huge letters of the name 'Titanic.'
She leaned out, her arms straightening...looking down hypnotized, into the vortex below her. Her dress and hair were lifted by the wind of the ship's movement. The only sound, above the rush of water below, was the flutter and snap of the big Union, Kevin right above her. He quietly sighed in relief, but knew that she had to be stopped.
"Don't do it," Kevin said cautiously.
She whipped her head around at the sound of his voice. It took a second for her eyes to focus, but he saw the pain in her eyes and the tracks of tears that stained her cheeks.
"Stay back! Don't come any closer!" She replied, trying to force a voice of authority.
"Take my hand. I'll pull you in."
"No! Stay where you are! I'll mean it, I'll let go!"
"No you won't," Kevin answered confidently.
"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!" She cried angrily.
"You would have done it already," Kevin said, hoping to make this woman reconsider. "Now come on, take my hand."
She couldn't reason with him, confused now. She couldn't see him very well through the tears, so she wiped 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."
She shot him a simpleton look. "Don't be absurd. You'll be killed."
Kevin took off his jacket. "I'm a good swimmer." He started unlacing his left shoe.
"The fall along would kill you," she retaliated, finding every excuse not to listen to this stranger.
"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."
She looked down, the reality factor of what she was doing sinking in. "How cold?"
Kevin took off his left shoe. "Freezing. Maybe a couple of degrees over." He started unlacing his right shoe.
"Ever been to Wisconsin?" He questioned.
She gave a perplexed look. "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!" She snapped.
"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. And I'm cold blooded," Kevin took off his right shoe. "Which is why I'm not looking forward to jumping in after you," he hoped his voice didn't show insincerity. "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."
She considered this, not for one moment taking her eyes off of this turtle. He studied her expression; her poker face did not reveal any clues as to what her next move would be.
"You're crazy," she murmured.
"That's what everybody says. But with all due respect, I'm not the one hanging off the back of a ship."
He slid one step closer, like moving up on a spooked horse. "Come on, you don't want to do this. Give me your hand," he reached out his hand, praying in his head that she would see sense.
She stared at him for a long time, looking into his eyes. They somehow suddenly started to fill her universe. "Alright." She unfastened one hand from the rail, reaching it out towards him. He reached out to take it, firmly.
"I'm Kevin Douglas."
"Mia Watanabe," she replied.
"I'm gonna have to get you to write that one down," he said honestly. She gave a small laugh and held onto his hand tightly. Now that she decided to live, the height was terrifying. She was overcome with vertigo as she started shifting her foot, turning to face the ship. Whilst climbing the rail, her dress got in the way, one foot slipping off the edge. She plunged, letting out a piercing shriek. Kevin, gripping her hand, was jerked towards the rail. Mia barely grabbed a lower rail with her free hand.
Quartermaster Sky, up on the docking bridge, heard the scream and headed for the ladder.
"HELP! HELP!" She shot him a bewildered look, trying to predict his next move.
"I've got you. I won't let go," Kevin promised. He held her hand with all his strength, bracing himself on the railing with his other hand. Mia tried to get some kind of foothold on the smooth hull. Kevin tried to lift her bodily over the railing. She couldn't get any footing in her dress and evening shoes, and she slipped back. She screamed again.
Kevin, awkwardly clutching Mia by whatever he can get a grip on as she flails, got her over the railing. They fell together onto the deck in a tangled heap, spinning in such a way that Kevin winded up slightly on top of her. The shock had obviously set in as she struggled for breath.
Sky slid down the ladder from the docking bridge like it's a fire drill and sprinted across the fantail.
"Here, what's all this?!"