It was a lazy and dull afternoon in Columbus. The usual patrons came and went. I was left to do the sad task of cleaning up the Christmas tree. It was not the kind of Christmas tree I was used to. It was a cactus decorated with old jewelry and popcorn, but we had eaten the popcorn by then. Plus it was early February and it was time. Still, I would miss it.
I took it outside and dumped it in the back. Things were quiet in the house. Bookie had been seeing a local girl named Jesse and was out with her, Sammy was taking a bath, Manny was outside taking a nap on the back porch, and I had no idea where Maria was. I thought of poking around the beat up model-T Bookie had just bought. It cost next to nothing because it wouldn't even run. He spent most of his leisure time thinking up schemes to get money for parts.
I snuck back inside careful not to wake Manny. Out of boredom I went back inside in search of Maria.
"MANUEL!!!" Maria. Manny fell off the hammock.
"What the hell?!" He staggered to his feet.
Maria poked her head out of her bedroom window. "Have you seen the washboard?"
"No!"
"Nevermind."
I ran outside. "I really hate her sometimes." He moaned. I sighed and helped him up.
"Rose? Rose? Alo Rosa?" Maria was calling for me now.
"What?" I looked up at the window searching for her. She popped her head out. "Have you seen the washboard?"
"No. Could you yell a little louder? I don't think they heard you in Europe." She had become an amateur political analyst and was obsessing and pondering over the war.
"Arg!" She threw her hands up and walked out of sight.
Manny and I flopped back down on the hammock to take a nap. Several moments later there was a loud and desperate banging on the front door. We let Maria get it.
Maria hurried downstairs and completely forgot any business with the washboard. She opened the door to reveal and disheveled young woman in a wedding dress.
Mary McBride came from a large Irish-Catholic family in New York. She was the youngest of nine: Timmy, Tommy, Mickey, Bobby, Johnny, Billy, Jimmy, Danny, and then there was little Mary. Her parents, Minnie and Walt, were immigrants and they owned and lived above a small grocery store in Manhattan.
She was only eighteen when we found her, but she was quite mature and always a voice of reason and logic.
Due to their poverty the McBrides set up their only daughter with a distant relative of Minnie's, another immigrant whose father had managed to make it big in the hotel business in Santa Fe. It was not an arranged marriage in a manner of speaking; Mary did agree to it of her own free will. She grew to like her fiancé Jake Clancy, but could never quite picture him as a husband. He was in his late thirties, a little too old for a girl of eighteen by Mary's practical standards. But at least she had found someone respectable.
Less than a month after being engaged to Jake she fell in love with someone else: a young police inspector that went by the name George Calvert. She was to leave for Santa Fe in only a few weeks when the family store was robbed. It was not devastating to business; mostly broken glass and missing bags of rice and flour. They never found the culprits, but Inspector Calvert did made a few visits to the store before the case was dismissed.
Mary came by the station one day to thank him. She didn't intend to go back anymore, but Emily, her best friend, convinced her to go back. Mary always complained of her friend's ability to "read people like open books." So on Emily's orders and her pleasure she came by to visit George everyday. Emily knew that Mary was smitten over George and she disliked Jake in the first place. Jake was going take Mary away and he disapproved of Emily's awful mouth. At the tender age of fifteen, she talked like an old whore. Emily was persistent that Mary leave Jake for George. She had grown to like George as an older brother figure and knew well enough that logic had very little to do with love. She wanted to see her friends happy.
Emily made one last plea on the morning Mary was to leave for Santa Fe with Jake. She wasn't going to let this happen and she full well intended to keep Mary in New York. Many times they had skipped up and down dirty Manhattan streets linking arms and bouncing in unison, but today was not one of those days. In truth, those days were as good as over. The streets seemed oddly quiet and dreary.
"Em, I marrying Jake."
"The man has an awful birth defect."
"No he doesn't."
"Yes he does. Born without a personality."
"You just don't like him because he doesn't like you."
"One, you know love George and he loves you, two, and three, what did I ever do to him?"
"Maybe watching a little girl use the word 'fuck' three times in one sentence because the Giants lost might shock someone."
"And four, he doesn't like baseball. And I'm not a little girl."
"You're fifteen."
"Sixteen in July."
"You're impossible. Why can't you just let it go?"
"He won't even marry you in front of your family. You never even met the man who's giving you away. Remember how you used to say we'd be each other's maids of honor? Now you'll let his stupid stepsister take my place?"
"So it's all about you then."
"If you were marrying someone like George you wouldn't be so cranky."
"You're making me cranky. Besides, George is a cynic."
"George has a sarcastic sense of humor. Thank God he has one. And you know what? You're right Mare, you're not cranky. You're bitchy. Have a nice life sourpuss!" She kicked the ground and started to walk off.
"Emily!"
Emily spun around. "And he's more than twice your age. He'll die when you're only in your forties and you'll be one of those embittered old widows with cats. Lots of cats. Here's your wedding present from me to the happy couple." She shoved a crumpled up piece of paper in Mary's hand.
Mary unfolded the drawing. It was an unpleasant cartoonish portrayal of Jake. Emily often used her artistic talent for evil rather than good. Although it was a silly caricature, something about it screamed Jake Clancy. It made him out to be a silly, content looking fool, but she had captured something about his person. The little personality Jake possessed was brought to life in that picture, even if it was a little distorted.
"What the hell is this?"
"I told you. It's present, Cat Lady."
"Well, thank you, I'll be sure to hang it in my new home."
"You're diggin' your own grave McBride, diggin' your own grave."
"And I like cats!" She shouted to her friend who was now walking in the opposite direction.
She tried not to be too critical with Emily, she had just lost her mother the past summer and she had been separated from her family before. She was obsessive about not losing people and keeping in touch. But she was right. She did love George and Jake was boring and would make her tired and frustrated.
Her last night in New York she went to see George again. He had been working late and was still in his crammed little office. She told him she was leaving for New Mexico and would not be back for a long time. After hours of talking about nothing she finally realized the time.
"Damn!"
"What Emily?" George teased.
"Very funny."
"What is it?"
"It's midnight. I'll have to sneak back in."
"You're eighteen years-old and almost a married woman. I don't think you have worrying about sneaking past mom and dad anymore."
"You're twenty-five and you're always worried about what your parents think."
"But I don't have to sneak in through the back window."
"You have a place of your own…I'll never have a place of my own."
George paused for a moment. He wasn't sure how to respond to that last comment. "How come you're so unhappy? Don't you want to get married?" He got up from his desk and walked over to Mary.
"Yes…no…I don't know. No, not to Jake."
"Then don't. You're legally an adult and it is the twentieth century." He leaned against the desk with his arms folded, copying her.
"He's not just some inanimate object I can take or leave."
"I'm not sure. I'm starting to agree with Em."
"Everyone's a human being and you know it."
"You're unhappy."
"I have an obligation to fulfill and I can't just drop it because it's not perfect or because I don't want to leave."
"An obligation that's going to result in two very miserable people and possibly more."
"Who is 'more'?"
"What?…oh, you know, children, your family, your friends."
"You're making this very hard."
"I'm simplifying it."
Mary exhaled hard and slouched back down. George dropped to her level. "You know, Emily's actually right. Crazy as she might seem."
"I know, and I know her better than you do. She picks up on things people think know one can see." *You know you love George and he loves you.* "But she uses this intuition, or whatever you want to call it, without any discretion. It's driving me mad."
"The kid's blunt, but she knows what she's talking about."
"You're making this hard again."
"I'm making it very clear."
"No you're not you're--" George couldn't help himself any longer. He kissed her. Mary kissed back as if there no tomorrow, and there wouldn't be: not for New York, not for her family, her friends, Emily, or George…
After what seemed like forever she broke the kiss, but forever was still not enough. For once in her life she was infinitely sure of something. Something she couldn't have. It would only hurt the both of them more if they dragged it out any longer.
"Stay." She wanted to. She almost said nothing and just obeyed, but she took the route of 'good sense.'
"I'm so sorry George." She pressed their foreheads together and stroked the back of head, playing with his hair. "You know I can't." She pulled away and disappeared behind the door without another word.
The next day she left on a train with Jake and headed for Santa Fe. Her family could not afford more than one train ticket and Jake claimed that business was slow and he could not afford the tickets or board for her parents or any others. Mary guessed he was just cheap, as Emily had suggested earlier.
She left on the train not talking to her fiancé, but only thinking of that one sweet kiss with George as she drifted off to sleep.
Mary was a New Yorker to the core. Santa Fe did not impress her in the least. But it was going to be her home. *Stay.*
Everything came full circle on the morning of her wedding. Jake had taken care of everything and was nothing but kind to her. It would be wrong to leave him. The piano started up as she walked down the aisle of the church. She went through intervals of tightening her face and then relaxing it. When she reached the alter she had made her decision. She looked at her groom and he smiled: delighted and pink with pleasure. He would now have a wife. She didn't want to shatter this simple man's outlook on life, but…
*Look at him. He has no personality. Oh George Emily was right. Oh God I have to admit to Em she was right. Oh well. Take and a deep breath and kiss Santa Fe goodbye. Sorry Jake.*
She realized she had been lost in thought for sometime when she was jolted back to reality.
"Do you Mary Margaret Virginia St. Clare McBride take this man, Jacob Clancy to be your lawful wedded husband?" *Cats. Lots of cats.*
"I can't!" She clapped her mouth shut at the abruptness of her answer. "I'm sorry Jake." *You can think of something better than that Mare!* "We're just not meant to be. I'm much too young for you in both age and mind. I can't do this. I'm not ready." *Liar.* She turned towards the witnesses. "Sorry everyone."
She crossed herself and turned on her heel and threw her bouquet over head behind her. The priest caught it.
Mary Margaret Virginia St. Clare McBride burst through the doors and out into the streets.
She ran three blocks to Jake's hotel and would-be home and grabbed her suitcase and quickly packed it. She had no money of her own and she had no right taking his money since she had just rejected him. *Poor simple fool.*
Mary decided she would hitchhike to California. George's brother Richard was movie photographer in Los Angeles. She had heard nothing but wonderful things about him. It was worth a shot. She still felt guilty over seeking charity from anyone right now.
She rode all day and night with several faceless wanderers on the back of trucks and wagons until they stopped in a small border town. Columbus. What a dull place for bone fide Manhattanite to find herself in.
But it was somewhere, at least for the time being. She arrived at the front porch of the Saloon. The sign in the window read 'Help Wanted. Room and Board.' It was worth a try.
Maria examined the strange young bride. Her pale cheeks flushed from running, her sweet girlish face strained, her fair blond hair matted against her face, and her clear blue eyes pleading. Her white dress was dirty and ragged. The only thing in place was her gold cross around her neck.
"…Can I help you?"
"I'm here for the job. Whatever that is."
"You're hired." Maria said without thinking twice.
She thought for a moment, stunned. "Really?"
"Would you be happier if I turned you away?"
"Ummm…no?"
"Alright then. Would you come in please?"
Mary stuck out her hand to shake Maria's. "Mary McBride."
"Maria Sanchez."
Later we were all properly acquainted with the young Ms. McBride. Now another loner and outcast in her own right, was apart of our group, even if she wasn't intent on staying very long. She moved in with Maria and gladly handled the craziness of the weekend nights. "Like the City again. Loud and wonderful."
Everyone grew to love her quickly. She charmed us with her tale of the wedding disaster and other funny New York stories about her family, George, the neighborhood and the awful-mouthed Emily. She was soon a part of the family.
"But it didn't make any sense. It was crazy what I did." She felt she didn't deserve our kindness.
I felt as if she was speaking directly to me. As if she needed the justification and absolution that only I could give her. "You were in an unhappy situation and you took yourself out of that. The only illogical part about is that you waited until the last minute to do it. It wasn't crazy, only extreme. Besides life is crazy." *This is crazy.* *I know. It doesn't make any sense…that's why I trust it.* It made perfect sense.
I knew what it had been like to be in her shoes. I wished sometimes I could have had shared my pain with her. I had known her brother Danny back in the day and was glad to hear he and his friend Isaac were well, and I had met her sweetheart once years before, but I chose not to mention him. As much as I would have liked to share the story about him with her I was still afraid. But alas, she already knew. After her first Saturday night she approached me after clean up. We were in the back. Everyone else was in the dining area.
"Rose, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"I think George knows you. Rose Dawson. He called you 'The Body.' What told me is that he discovered this girl in the streets and…"
"Yes, it was me."
"Oh. He said he wasn't sure if you really existed."
"Funny. Well I'm here and I'm pretty sure I do exist. I don't really remember much of our first meeting. I had a fainting spell and was ill. I was feverish, they had to sedate me. But your George did manage fill me in on what I had said. I must have been really out of it."
"He said your eyes were so dilated the color was just this then band around your pupils."
I laughed. "He did save my life. When you see him again tell him Max says thank you."
"I will." She said in her girlish chuckle. "Oh he said you gave a lot different names. Who was Max?"
"My dog that died when I was seven."
"Crazy. Why did you give the name of a Titanic victim?"
Did she know? "Huh?"
"He said when you were coming out of it you told him you were Rose DeWitt Bukater. She died a month earlier on the Titanic. He looked it up after you left, but he didn't have any reason for researching it so he left it alone. It was weird though. They said there was no reason she would not have gotten on a lifeboat because her mother and husband or whatever both survived and said she had been missing all night. At least that's what I read. Emily said people suspected she killed herself before the iceberg even hit or that she had been having a scandalous affair for months. Whatever is was, if there was anything they kept it pretty well covered. Oh I don't want judge anybody else. It was just a few articles that popped up every once and a while. I guess it's all just some vague myth." She paused again. She stopped. She must have suspected I was she.
"Really." It had been nearly three years now. I would have no obligation to anyone now even if it were known that I was alive. Oh but would she have just shut up about it. It hurt. *Should I tell someone?* Dear friends of mine had thought they had known me inside and out. I knew enough about their pasts. Manuel had been hinting at *our* life and not just mine and his. He might be my husband one day. How could I never tell him? As painful as it was, it was a part of me. "I don't know. I must have seen the newspaper before I went out that day. I guess I saw her name somewhere. Who knows?"
"He could never be sure. He never had a photograph and didn't want to pry the family on what might be false pretenses. A good choice I guess, since you're not her."
"I suppose." I pulled my glasses off and rubbed my eyes.
"Are you alright? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but ever since I met you I've been dying to know."
"Oh it's fine. I'm just tired. I better be off to bed." *Yes I'll wash up, undress, and have a nervous breakdown, and then I'll retire for the night.* "Night Mary. See you tomorrow." She paused thinking. "Wherever she is or whatever happened to her, it's not something we have to dwell on."
"You're right. Sorry. I just think about things like that sometimes. Like I should be able to do something or at least not gossip about it."
"Well, I'm sure the DeWitt Bukater girl whole-heartedly forgives you."
"It's not just that. A lot of things. Like Maggie dying, Em's mom. She was a good friend of mine too. She had an awful ear infection. I always thought if my parents paid her more she would have had a better doctor or who knows, but I just stood back and watched her die. And I know that there are so many other people who have nobody to feel for them in any way shape or form. So I say a prayer for them every night before I go to bed, but it never seems like it's enough."
"I know. I get that too."
"Sorry, I just had to ask."
"It's alright. Well, I'm off to bed." I took my vague mythical rear upstairs and went to sleep, or at least I tried. I sat up thinking and reminding myself that I was not living a lie. THIS was who I was.
"I'm going to go blind the end of the day." Maria noted. The three of us, Maria, Mary, and I were sprawled on the roof out towards the sun.
"Then stop staring at the sun." Mary had a towel over her eyes.
"What else is there to stare at?"
"Ah, it doesn't matter it feels nice." I stretched out my arms and yawned.
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and we were taking a break while the boys got everything out for lunch. But our little girls' meeting was soon interrupted.
"A blonde, a red-head, and brunette are sleeping on the roof…" Bookie.
"Hello Gabriel." I said. He hated being called Gabriel for some reason or another. He didn't mind Gabe so much, but he still preferred to be called Bookie.
"Don't call me that."
"If you've got such a nice name like Gabe, why do you insist on being called Bookie?" Mary had only been with us a month and hadn't yet figured out the inner workings of Bookie's sad little mind. In actuality, none of us had, but Mary was still determined.
"I like Bookie."
"Bookie's a silly name."
"I'm a silly man."
"You mean silly *little* man." Maria always teased him for being short.
"Quiet you." He paused. "And what are you crazy women doing up here anyway?"
"Being teenage girls."
"Well, you're not." He pointed to me.
"I am until the twenty-fourth, technically."
"Twenty's still a kid."
"So if you're a thirty-one year man what are doing up here? This is girls only."
"I've no place else to go."
"Mariaaaaaaaaa!" Sammy summoned her downstairs.
"I'll be right back." She climbed down out of sight. "Bye Gabriel!"
He grumbled.
Mary sighed "I can't believe it's February. It should be cold."
"I know what you mean. I've been here for two years and it still confuses me."
"Yes, there was no snow on Christmas. It wasn't even cold."
"Home sweet desert." Bookie laughed.
"I think I'll miss snow. I don't think I can go back to New York for a while."
"You should go back sometime." I warned her remembering my own situation.
"I know I will. It's not my home. It's New York City. It's the greatest city in the world."
"What about London?"
"Philadelphia."
"I've never been to any other big city. This was my first time out of New York."
"How do you like it?" Bookie asked.
"'It's one a hell of an experience' as Emily would say."
Maria came back up. "What is this? The white people's committee meeting? Bookie go back down and help the boys."
"You three better be down soon too."
"Whatever you say Gabriel." She saluted him as he hopped down.
It was May and appallingly hot. I needed to change out of my sweaty dress. It was the pale green church dress I wore every Sunday when I lived with Alice. Oh how I missed her! She was the sweet mother I never had. That reminded me that I needed to reply to my last letters from Sally, Isaac, and Iris and Alan.
Anyway, it was the only clean dress I had left that week, save for my old sash dress. I hadn't worn it in three years. I almost put it on that morning. I didn't want to mess my good Sunday dress. My old dress may have been finer and still intact over the years, but Alice made me that dress. Well, I managed not to spill anything on my dress.
After the usuals left (well, we really only had usuals) I was still over energized that night. So while Bookie fiddled with the piano I climbed up on the bar and started dancing. Maria and Mary joined me a minute later. Eventually it turned into a little party. Each one of us who could play took turns while the others danced. We sang and danced and cavorted around for an hour in celebration of absolutely nothing.
After we tired ourselves out we decided to pack it in for the night. Sammy pulled out the day's paper, which went untouched on the front porch all day until Sam pulled it in. "Nobody read this yet. How did no one else mention this to us?"
Maria sighed. "Barely anybody reads the news in this God forsaken town."
"How could no one say anything?"
"We only had twelve people come in here today." Manny seemed to be unconcerned.
"Well what the hell is it? Were we invaded?" Maria was now on the edge of her.
"In a manner of speaking. Attacked is more like it. Fucking hell." Maria slouched back. Unlike the rest of us sorry lot, Sammy was always polite. "Lusitania torpedoed by German U-boat off the coast of Ireland. 1200 suspected dead, including over one hundred Americans." He looked directly at Maria. "I think you'll get your war now, Maria."
"Oh my God. I never thought this would hit so close to home." Mary, the blasé New Yorker, was shocked.
"Bloody hell." Bookie hadn't talked about the war except to joke every once and a while to say that he stayed in the States to avoid the draft. But he usually kept quiet, he didn't like to here of the troubles hitting his homeland.
"But isn't that a passenger ship? Why would they sink it?" Manny was surely concerned now. "Why did they kill civilians?"
Sammy read on. "It says here that it sank in less than twenty minutes, but only one torpedo hit it."
"Maybe it had weapons on board. Explosives. Maybe it put a bigger hole in it." Maria pondered.
"It also says they knew of the warnings sent by the Germans saying they would attack if they went into the blockade zone, but they didn't believe it. Wilson wouldn't accept limiting on neutral shipping. So they put out a little travel at your own risk warning and then ignored it."
"They knew?" I asked calmly at first. *Maintain your composure Rose.* I could hear Mother nagging.
"About the German threat?" Sammy glanced at the paper once more. "Yes, according to this."
"Are you telling me that they knew there was a danger, but they just ignored it like it wasn't there?" My voice cracked. *Another ice warning. This one's from the Nordic.*
"Yes, that seems to be the case, but they didn't just hit the torpedo like that terrible Titanic disaster a few years ago. Someone hunted them down and came after them. It was an attack on innocent civilians, but then again I guess that's what's going on overseas for years now. Now us Americans are just getting a little taste of it."
"THEY KNEW." *Oh not to worry Miss.* "THEY FUCKING KNEW AND THEY WENT ANYWAY!!" I smashed my beer glass against the wall. The others ducked away from the flying glass. Everything spun around me in a blur. Faces disappeared. "Lives were in danger and they just went so they wouldn't have to deal with the inconvenience of canceling their trip. Bad for fucking business!!! Fucking idiot bastards!" I couldn't breathe, the walls were closing in on me. I ran through the back room out and fell over the stairs landed on my face, knocking over a bucket full of water. It spilled out making the sand surrounding into rays of mud. *This is bad.*
"FUCK!! FUCK!!!" I screamed. I ripped my hair down and covered my ears to keep out the voices of screaming victims. I scrambled to feet as if I was going to run away the pain. Manny tried to grab me and I fell forward again.
"Rose!"
"Oh God. Oh God. No no no. No." It happened before, and not long before, people just let it happen again. History had repeated itself. More people had been destined to suffer that kind of fate. Did they never learn?!
He stroked my hair and held me up in his lap, but I fell limp. "It's alright. It's over now. It happened far away."
"No," I said, "It's always with you. Even when you're warm in your bed sleeping. It never goes away. It IS here. Don't you see? Even if it's not happening to you. They died, all those people for no reason and it could have been prevented. Do people never learn?! Fucking bastards. I hate them. They as good as killed just as much as the Germans did. God damn them to hell!" My throat hurt so horribly it was choking me and I could barely speak. I tried to look on him through the tears. The whole house had joined us outside now. Someone a few buildings down yelled at us to keep quiet.
"Rosie, will you be all right?"
"Of course I will. We always will be. Everyone will always be all right eventually." After the explosion of emotion minutes earlier I had nothing left now. I had successfully drained myself.
"Are you ready to go inside?"
"Yes." I whispered to him barely audible.
He led me inside past our friends who stared concerned, and not appalled by my outburst. He led me up upstairs to put me to bed. For whatever the reasons they suspected they would let me rest first before they questioned me, if they even intended to do that.
We were about to turn into our room when I broke away from him and darted into the washroom. It was our only special luxury. The washroom had a bath and toilet. It became rather useful at the moment for everything I had eaten in my entire life came out of me that night.
I spent the next hour or so vomiting in the toilet. Manuel held my hair back and cleaned my face every few minutes. When I was done he helped my clean my mouth out with baking soda. Mary and Maria helped me undress and get into bed.
I lay there mesmerized, it was too frightful to believe. That all that horror could happen again and that I allowed myself to curl up in clean clothes under warm, clean sheets. I am reminded of John B. Thayer's quote I heard years later:
"The whole event passes before me now nineteen hundred and forty, as vividly and with the same clarity, as twenty-eight years ago in nineteen hundred and twelve.
These were ordinary days, and into them had only gradually the telephone, the talking machine, the automobile. The airplane due to have so soon such a stimulating yet devastating effect on civilization, was only a few years old, and the radio known as today, was still in a scientific laboratory. These days were peaceful and ruled by economic theory and practice built up over years of slow and hardly perceptible change. There was peace, and the world had an even tenor to it's ways.
True enough, from time to time there were events-catastrophes-like the Johnstown Flood, the San Francisco Earthquake, or floods in China-which stirred the sleeping world, but not enough to keep it from resuming it's slumber. It seems to me that the disaster about to occur was the event, which not only made the world rub it's eyes and awake, bit woke it with a start, keeping it moving at a rapidly accelerating pace ever since, with less and less peace, satisfaction, and happiness.
Today the individual has to be contented with rapidity of motion, nervous emotion, and economic insecurity. To my mind the world of today awoke April 15, 1912."
I took it outside and dumped it in the back. Things were quiet in the house. Bookie had been seeing a local girl named Jesse and was out with her, Sammy was taking a bath, Manny was outside taking a nap on the back porch, and I had no idea where Maria was. I thought of poking around the beat up model-T Bookie had just bought. It cost next to nothing because it wouldn't even run. He spent most of his leisure time thinking up schemes to get money for parts.
I snuck back inside careful not to wake Manny. Out of boredom I went back inside in search of Maria.
"MANUEL!!!" Maria. Manny fell off the hammock.
"What the hell?!" He staggered to his feet.
Maria poked her head out of her bedroom window. "Have you seen the washboard?"
"No!"
"Nevermind."
I ran outside. "I really hate her sometimes." He moaned. I sighed and helped him up.
"Rose? Rose? Alo Rosa?" Maria was calling for me now.
"What?" I looked up at the window searching for her. She popped her head out. "Have you seen the washboard?"
"No. Could you yell a little louder? I don't think they heard you in Europe." She had become an amateur political analyst and was obsessing and pondering over the war.
"Arg!" She threw her hands up and walked out of sight.
Manny and I flopped back down on the hammock to take a nap. Several moments later there was a loud and desperate banging on the front door. We let Maria get it.
Maria hurried downstairs and completely forgot any business with the washboard. She opened the door to reveal and disheveled young woman in a wedding dress.
Mary McBride came from a large Irish-Catholic family in New York. She was the youngest of nine: Timmy, Tommy, Mickey, Bobby, Johnny, Billy, Jimmy, Danny, and then there was little Mary. Her parents, Minnie and Walt, were immigrants and they owned and lived above a small grocery store in Manhattan.
She was only eighteen when we found her, but she was quite mature and always a voice of reason and logic.
Due to their poverty the McBrides set up their only daughter with a distant relative of Minnie's, another immigrant whose father had managed to make it big in the hotel business in Santa Fe. It was not an arranged marriage in a manner of speaking; Mary did agree to it of her own free will. She grew to like her fiancé Jake Clancy, but could never quite picture him as a husband. He was in his late thirties, a little too old for a girl of eighteen by Mary's practical standards. But at least she had found someone respectable.
Less than a month after being engaged to Jake she fell in love with someone else: a young police inspector that went by the name George Calvert. She was to leave for Santa Fe in only a few weeks when the family store was robbed. It was not devastating to business; mostly broken glass and missing bags of rice and flour. They never found the culprits, but Inspector Calvert did made a few visits to the store before the case was dismissed.
Mary came by the station one day to thank him. She didn't intend to go back anymore, but Emily, her best friend, convinced her to go back. Mary always complained of her friend's ability to "read people like open books." So on Emily's orders and her pleasure she came by to visit George everyday. Emily knew that Mary was smitten over George and she disliked Jake in the first place. Jake was going take Mary away and he disapproved of Emily's awful mouth. At the tender age of fifteen, she talked like an old whore. Emily was persistent that Mary leave Jake for George. She had grown to like George as an older brother figure and knew well enough that logic had very little to do with love. She wanted to see her friends happy.
Emily made one last plea on the morning Mary was to leave for Santa Fe with Jake. She wasn't going to let this happen and she full well intended to keep Mary in New York. Many times they had skipped up and down dirty Manhattan streets linking arms and bouncing in unison, but today was not one of those days. In truth, those days were as good as over. The streets seemed oddly quiet and dreary.
"Em, I marrying Jake."
"The man has an awful birth defect."
"No he doesn't."
"Yes he does. Born without a personality."
"You just don't like him because he doesn't like you."
"One, you know love George and he loves you, two, and three, what did I ever do to him?"
"Maybe watching a little girl use the word 'fuck' three times in one sentence because the Giants lost might shock someone."
"And four, he doesn't like baseball. And I'm not a little girl."
"You're fifteen."
"Sixteen in July."
"You're impossible. Why can't you just let it go?"
"He won't even marry you in front of your family. You never even met the man who's giving you away. Remember how you used to say we'd be each other's maids of honor? Now you'll let his stupid stepsister take my place?"
"So it's all about you then."
"If you were marrying someone like George you wouldn't be so cranky."
"You're making me cranky. Besides, George is a cynic."
"George has a sarcastic sense of humor. Thank God he has one. And you know what? You're right Mare, you're not cranky. You're bitchy. Have a nice life sourpuss!" She kicked the ground and started to walk off.
"Emily!"
Emily spun around. "And he's more than twice your age. He'll die when you're only in your forties and you'll be one of those embittered old widows with cats. Lots of cats. Here's your wedding present from me to the happy couple." She shoved a crumpled up piece of paper in Mary's hand.
Mary unfolded the drawing. It was an unpleasant cartoonish portrayal of Jake. Emily often used her artistic talent for evil rather than good. Although it was a silly caricature, something about it screamed Jake Clancy. It made him out to be a silly, content looking fool, but she had captured something about his person. The little personality Jake possessed was brought to life in that picture, even if it was a little distorted.
"What the hell is this?"
"I told you. It's present, Cat Lady."
"Well, thank you, I'll be sure to hang it in my new home."
"You're diggin' your own grave McBride, diggin' your own grave."
"And I like cats!" She shouted to her friend who was now walking in the opposite direction.
She tried not to be too critical with Emily, she had just lost her mother the past summer and she had been separated from her family before. She was obsessive about not losing people and keeping in touch. But she was right. She did love George and Jake was boring and would make her tired and frustrated.
Her last night in New York she went to see George again. He had been working late and was still in his crammed little office. She told him she was leaving for New Mexico and would not be back for a long time. After hours of talking about nothing she finally realized the time.
"Damn!"
"What Emily?" George teased.
"Very funny."
"What is it?"
"It's midnight. I'll have to sneak back in."
"You're eighteen years-old and almost a married woman. I don't think you have worrying about sneaking past mom and dad anymore."
"You're twenty-five and you're always worried about what your parents think."
"But I don't have to sneak in through the back window."
"You have a place of your own…I'll never have a place of my own."
George paused for a moment. He wasn't sure how to respond to that last comment. "How come you're so unhappy? Don't you want to get married?" He got up from his desk and walked over to Mary.
"Yes…no…I don't know. No, not to Jake."
"Then don't. You're legally an adult and it is the twentieth century." He leaned against the desk with his arms folded, copying her.
"He's not just some inanimate object I can take or leave."
"I'm not sure. I'm starting to agree with Em."
"Everyone's a human being and you know it."
"You're unhappy."
"I have an obligation to fulfill and I can't just drop it because it's not perfect or because I don't want to leave."
"An obligation that's going to result in two very miserable people and possibly more."
"Who is 'more'?"
"What?…oh, you know, children, your family, your friends."
"You're making this very hard."
"I'm simplifying it."
Mary exhaled hard and slouched back down. George dropped to her level. "You know, Emily's actually right. Crazy as she might seem."
"I know, and I know her better than you do. She picks up on things people think know one can see." *You know you love George and he loves you.* "But she uses this intuition, or whatever you want to call it, without any discretion. It's driving me mad."
"The kid's blunt, but she knows what she's talking about."
"You're making this hard again."
"I'm making it very clear."
"No you're not you're--" George couldn't help himself any longer. He kissed her. Mary kissed back as if there no tomorrow, and there wouldn't be: not for New York, not for her family, her friends, Emily, or George…
After what seemed like forever she broke the kiss, but forever was still not enough. For once in her life she was infinitely sure of something. Something she couldn't have. It would only hurt the both of them more if they dragged it out any longer.
"Stay." She wanted to. She almost said nothing and just obeyed, but she took the route of 'good sense.'
"I'm so sorry George." She pressed their foreheads together and stroked the back of head, playing with his hair. "You know I can't." She pulled away and disappeared behind the door without another word.
The next day she left on a train with Jake and headed for Santa Fe. Her family could not afford more than one train ticket and Jake claimed that business was slow and he could not afford the tickets or board for her parents or any others. Mary guessed he was just cheap, as Emily had suggested earlier.
She left on the train not talking to her fiancé, but only thinking of that one sweet kiss with George as she drifted off to sleep.
Mary was a New Yorker to the core. Santa Fe did not impress her in the least. But it was going to be her home. *Stay.*
Everything came full circle on the morning of her wedding. Jake had taken care of everything and was nothing but kind to her. It would be wrong to leave him. The piano started up as she walked down the aisle of the church. She went through intervals of tightening her face and then relaxing it. When she reached the alter she had made her decision. She looked at her groom and he smiled: delighted and pink with pleasure. He would now have a wife. She didn't want to shatter this simple man's outlook on life, but…
*Look at him. He has no personality. Oh George Emily was right. Oh God I have to admit to Em she was right. Oh well. Take and a deep breath and kiss Santa Fe goodbye. Sorry Jake.*
She realized she had been lost in thought for sometime when she was jolted back to reality.
"Do you Mary Margaret Virginia St. Clare McBride take this man, Jacob Clancy to be your lawful wedded husband?" *Cats. Lots of cats.*
"I can't!" She clapped her mouth shut at the abruptness of her answer. "I'm sorry Jake." *You can think of something better than that Mare!* "We're just not meant to be. I'm much too young for you in both age and mind. I can't do this. I'm not ready." *Liar.* She turned towards the witnesses. "Sorry everyone."
She crossed herself and turned on her heel and threw her bouquet over head behind her. The priest caught it.
Mary Margaret Virginia St. Clare McBride burst through the doors and out into the streets.
She ran three blocks to Jake's hotel and would-be home and grabbed her suitcase and quickly packed it. She had no money of her own and she had no right taking his money since she had just rejected him. *Poor simple fool.*
Mary decided she would hitchhike to California. George's brother Richard was movie photographer in Los Angeles. She had heard nothing but wonderful things about him. It was worth a shot. She still felt guilty over seeking charity from anyone right now.
She rode all day and night with several faceless wanderers on the back of trucks and wagons until they stopped in a small border town. Columbus. What a dull place for bone fide Manhattanite to find herself in.
But it was somewhere, at least for the time being. She arrived at the front porch of the Saloon. The sign in the window read 'Help Wanted. Room and Board.' It was worth a try.
Maria examined the strange young bride. Her pale cheeks flushed from running, her sweet girlish face strained, her fair blond hair matted against her face, and her clear blue eyes pleading. Her white dress was dirty and ragged. The only thing in place was her gold cross around her neck.
"…Can I help you?"
"I'm here for the job. Whatever that is."
"You're hired." Maria said without thinking twice.
She thought for a moment, stunned. "Really?"
"Would you be happier if I turned you away?"
"Ummm…no?"
"Alright then. Would you come in please?"
Mary stuck out her hand to shake Maria's. "Mary McBride."
"Maria Sanchez."
Later we were all properly acquainted with the young Ms. McBride. Now another loner and outcast in her own right, was apart of our group, even if she wasn't intent on staying very long. She moved in with Maria and gladly handled the craziness of the weekend nights. "Like the City again. Loud and wonderful."
Everyone grew to love her quickly. She charmed us with her tale of the wedding disaster and other funny New York stories about her family, George, the neighborhood and the awful-mouthed Emily. She was soon a part of the family.
"But it didn't make any sense. It was crazy what I did." She felt she didn't deserve our kindness.
I felt as if she was speaking directly to me. As if she needed the justification and absolution that only I could give her. "You were in an unhappy situation and you took yourself out of that. The only illogical part about is that you waited until the last minute to do it. It wasn't crazy, only extreme. Besides life is crazy." *This is crazy.* *I know. It doesn't make any sense…that's why I trust it.* It made perfect sense.
I knew what it had been like to be in her shoes. I wished sometimes I could have had shared my pain with her. I had known her brother Danny back in the day and was glad to hear he and his friend Isaac were well, and I had met her sweetheart once years before, but I chose not to mention him. As much as I would have liked to share the story about him with her I was still afraid. But alas, she already knew. After her first Saturday night she approached me after clean up. We were in the back. Everyone else was in the dining area.
"Rose, may I ask you a question?"
"Of course."
"I think George knows you. Rose Dawson. He called you 'The Body.' What told me is that he discovered this girl in the streets and…"
"Yes, it was me."
"Oh. He said he wasn't sure if you really existed."
"Funny. Well I'm here and I'm pretty sure I do exist. I don't really remember much of our first meeting. I had a fainting spell and was ill. I was feverish, they had to sedate me. But your George did manage fill me in on what I had said. I must have been really out of it."
"He said your eyes were so dilated the color was just this then band around your pupils."
I laughed. "He did save my life. When you see him again tell him Max says thank you."
"I will." She said in her girlish chuckle. "Oh he said you gave a lot different names. Who was Max?"
"My dog that died when I was seven."
"Crazy. Why did you give the name of a Titanic victim?"
Did she know? "Huh?"
"He said when you were coming out of it you told him you were Rose DeWitt Bukater. She died a month earlier on the Titanic. He looked it up after you left, but he didn't have any reason for researching it so he left it alone. It was weird though. They said there was no reason she would not have gotten on a lifeboat because her mother and husband or whatever both survived and said she had been missing all night. At least that's what I read. Emily said people suspected she killed herself before the iceberg even hit or that she had been having a scandalous affair for months. Whatever is was, if there was anything they kept it pretty well covered. Oh I don't want judge anybody else. It was just a few articles that popped up every once and a while. I guess it's all just some vague myth." She paused again. She stopped. She must have suspected I was she.
"Really." It had been nearly three years now. I would have no obligation to anyone now even if it were known that I was alive. Oh but would she have just shut up about it. It hurt. *Should I tell someone?* Dear friends of mine had thought they had known me inside and out. I knew enough about their pasts. Manuel had been hinting at *our* life and not just mine and his. He might be my husband one day. How could I never tell him? As painful as it was, it was a part of me. "I don't know. I must have seen the newspaper before I went out that day. I guess I saw her name somewhere. Who knows?"
"He could never be sure. He never had a photograph and didn't want to pry the family on what might be false pretenses. A good choice I guess, since you're not her."
"I suppose." I pulled my glasses off and rubbed my eyes.
"Are you alright? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but ever since I met you I've been dying to know."
"Oh it's fine. I'm just tired. I better be off to bed." *Yes I'll wash up, undress, and have a nervous breakdown, and then I'll retire for the night.* "Night Mary. See you tomorrow." She paused thinking. "Wherever she is or whatever happened to her, it's not something we have to dwell on."
"You're right. Sorry. I just think about things like that sometimes. Like I should be able to do something or at least not gossip about it."
"Well, I'm sure the DeWitt Bukater girl whole-heartedly forgives you."
"It's not just that. A lot of things. Like Maggie dying, Em's mom. She was a good friend of mine too. She had an awful ear infection. I always thought if my parents paid her more she would have had a better doctor or who knows, but I just stood back and watched her die. And I know that there are so many other people who have nobody to feel for them in any way shape or form. So I say a prayer for them every night before I go to bed, but it never seems like it's enough."
"I know. I get that too."
"Sorry, I just had to ask."
"It's alright. Well, I'm off to bed." I took my vague mythical rear upstairs and went to sleep, or at least I tried. I sat up thinking and reminding myself that I was not living a lie. THIS was who I was.
"I'm going to go blind the end of the day." Maria noted. The three of us, Maria, Mary, and I were sprawled on the roof out towards the sun.
"Then stop staring at the sun." Mary had a towel over her eyes.
"What else is there to stare at?"
"Ah, it doesn't matter it feels nice." I stretched out my arms and yawned.
It was a lazy Sunday afternoon and we were taking a break while the boys got everything out for lunch. But our little girls' meeting was soon interrupted.
"A blonde, a red-head, and brunette are sleeping on the roof…" Bookie.
"Hello Gabriel." I said. He hated being called Gabriel for some reason or another. He didn't mind Gabe so much, but he still preferred to be called Bookie.
"Don't call me that."
"If you've got such a nice name like Gabe, why do you insist on being called Bookie?" Mary had only been with us a month and hadn't yet figured out the inner workings of Bookie's sad little mind. In actuality, none of us had, but Mary was still determined.
"I like Bookie."
"Bookie's a silly name."
"I'm a silly man."
"You mean silly *little* man." Maria always teased him for being short.
"Quiet you." He paused. "And what are you crazy women doing up here anyway?"
"Being teenage girls."
"Well, you're not." He pointed to me.
"I am until the twenty-fourth, technically."
"Twenty's still a kid."
"So if you're a thirty-one year man what are doing up here? This is girls only."
"I've no place else to go."
"Mariaaaaaaaaa!" Sammy summoned her downstairs.
"I'll be right back." She climbed down out of sight. "Bye Gabriel!"
He grumbled.
Mary sighed "I can't believe it's February. It should be cold."
"I know what you mean. I've been here for two years and it still confuses me."
"Yes, there was no snow on Christmas. It wasn't even cold."
"Home sweet desert." Bookie laughed.
"I think I'll miss snow. I don't think I can go back to New York for a while."
"You should go back sometime." I warned her remembering my own situation.
"I know I will. It's not my home. It's New York City. It's the greatest city in the world."
"What about London?"
"Philadelphia."
"I've never been to any other big city. This was my first time out of New York."
"How do you like it?" Bookie asked.
"'It's one a hell of an experience' as Emily would say."
Maria came back up. "What is this? The white people's committee meeting? Bookie go back down and help the boys."
"You three better be down soon too."
"Whatever you say Gabriel." She saluted him as he hopped down.
It was May and appallingly hot. I needed to change out of my sweaty dress. It was the pale green church dress I wore every Sunday when I lived with Alice. Oh how I missed her! She was the sweet mother I never had. That reminded me that I needed to reply to my last letters from Sally, Isaac, and Iris and Alan.
Anyway, it was the only clean dress I had left that week, save for my old sash dress. I hadn't worn it in three years. I almost put it on that morning. I didn't want to mess my good Sunday dress. My old dress may have been finer and still intact over the years, but Alice made me that dress. Well, I managed not to spill anything on my dress.
After the usuals left (well, we really only had usuals) I was still over energized that night. So while Bookie fiddled with the piano I climbed up on the bar and started dancing. Maria and Mary joined me a minute later. Eventually it turned into a little party. Each one of us who could play took turns while the others danced. We sang and danced and cavorted around for an hour in celebration of absolutely nothing.
After we tired ourselves out we decided to pack it in for the night. Sammy pulled out the day's paper, which went untouched on the front porch all day until Sam pulled it in. "Nobody read this yet. How did no one else mention this to us?"
Maria sighed. "Barely anybody reads the news in this God forsaken town."
"How could no one say anything?"
"We only had twelve people come in here today." Manny seemed to be unconcerned.
"Well what the hell is it? Were we invaded?" Maria was now on the edge of her.
"In a manner of speaking. Attacked is more like it. Fucking hell." Maria slouched back. Unlike the rest of us sorry lot, Sammy was always polite. "Lusitania torpedoed by German U-boat off the coast of Ireland. 1200 suspected dead, including over one hundred Americans." He looked directly at Maria. "I think you'll get your war now, Maria."
"Oh my God. I never thought this would hit so close to home." Mary, the blasé New Yorker, was shocked.
"Bloody hell." Bookie hadn't talked about the war except to joke every once and a while to say that he stayed in the States to avoid the draft. But he usually kept quiet, he didn't like to here of the troubles hitting his homeland.
"But isn't that a passenger ship? Why would they sink it?" Manny was surely concerned now. "Why did they kill civilians?"
Sammy read on. "It says here that it sank in less than twenty minutes, but only one torpedo hit it."
"Maybe it had weapons on board. Explosives. Maybe it put a bigger hole in it." Maria pondered.
"It also says they knew of the warnings sent by the Germans saying they would attack if they went into the blockade zone, but they didn't believe it. Wilson wouldn't accept limiting on neutral shipping. So they put out a little travel at your own risk warning and then ignored it."
"They knew?" I asked calmly at first. *Maintain your composure Rose.* I could hear Mother nagging.
"About the German threat?" Sammy glanced at the paper once more. "Yes, according to this."
"Are you telling me that they knew there was a danger, but they just ignored it like it wasn't there?" My voice cracked. *Another ice warning. This one's from the Nordic.*
"Yes, that seems to be the case, but they didn't just hit the torpedo like that terrible Titanic disaster a few years ago. Someone hunted them down and came after them. It was an attack on innocent civilians, but then again I guess that's what's going on overseas for years now. Now us Americans are just getting a little taste of it."
"THEY KNEW." *Oh not to worry Miss.* "THEY FUCKING KNEW AND THEY WENT ANYWAY!!" I smashed my beer glass against the wall. The others ducked away from the flying glass. Everything spun around me in a blur. Faces disappeared. "Lives were in danger and they just went so they wouldn't have to deal with the inconvenience of canceling their trip. Bad for fucking business!!! Fucking idiot bastards!" I couldn't breathe, the walls were closing in on me. I ran through the back room out and fell over the stairs landed on my face, knocking over a bucket full of water. It spilled out making the sand surrounding into rays of mud. *This is bad.*
"FUCK!! FUCK!!!" I screamed. I ripped my hair down and covered my ears to keep out the voices of screaming victims. I scrambled to feet as if I was going to run away the pain. Manny tried to grab me and I fell forward again.
"Rose!"
"Oh God. Oh God. No no no. No." It happened before, and not long before, people just let it happen again. History had repeated itself. More people had been destined to suffer that kind of fate. Did they never learn?!
He stroked my hair and held me up in his lap, but I fell limp. "It's alright. It's over now. It happened far away."
"No," I said, "It's always with you. Even when you're warm in your bed sleeping. It never goes away. It IS here. Don't you see? Even if it's not happening to you. They died, all those people for no reason and it could have been prevented. Do people never learn?! Fucking bastards. I hate them. They as good as killed just as much as the Germans did. God damn them to hell!" My throat hurt so horribly it was choking me and I could barely speak. I tried to look on him through the tears. The whole house had joined us outside now. Someone a few buildings down yelled at us to keep quiet.
"Rosie, will you be all right?"
"Of course I will. We always will be. Everyone will always be all right eventually." After the explosion of emotion minutes earlier I had nothing left now. I had successfully drained myself.
"Are you ready to go inside?"
"Yes." I whispered to him barely audible.
He led me inside past our friends who stared concerned, and not appalled by my outburst. He led me up upstairs to put me to bed. For whatever the reasons they suspected they would let me rest first before they questioned me, if they even intended to do that.
We were about to turn into our room when I broke away from him and darted into the washroom. It was our only special luxury. The washroom had a bath and toilet. It became rather useful at the moment for everything I had eaten in my entire life came out of me that night.
I spent the next hour or so vomiting in the toilet. Manuel held my hair back and cleaned my face every few minutes. When I was done he helped my clean my mouth out with baking soda. Mary and Maria helped me undress and get into bed.
I lay there mesmerized, it was too frightful to believe. That all that horror could happen again and that I allowed myself to curl up in clean clothes under warm, clean sheets. I am reminded of John B. Thayer's quote I heard years later:
"The whole event passes before me now nineteen hundred and forty, as vividly and with the same clarity, as twenty-eight years ago in nineteen hundred and twelve.
These were ordinary days, and into them had only gradually the telephone, the talking machine, the automobile. The airplane due to have so soon such a stimulating yet devastating effect on civilization, was only a few years old, and the radio known as today, was still in a scientific laboratory. These days were peaceful and ruled by economic theory and practice built up over years of slow and hardly perceptible change. There was peace, and the world had an even tenor to it's ways.
True enough, from time to time there were events-catastrophes-like the Johnstown Flood, the San Francisco Earthquake, or floods in China-which stirred the sleeping world, but not enough to keep it from resuming it's slumber. It seems to me that the disaster about to occur was the event, which not only made the world rub it's eyes and awake, bit woke it with a start, keeping it moving at a rapidly accelerating pace ever since, with less and less peace, satisfaction, and happiness.
Today the individual has to be contented with rapidity of motion, nervous emotion, and economic insecurity. To my mind the world of today awoke April 15, 1912."