I tried to forget about the awkward scene with George earlier that day and
danced with Emily on the floor of Joe's. I can't remember what the song
was but it was something wild and sweet that Milton and his band played.
Most of what I remember is the intoxication of the crowd (both literal and
figurative) the sweat of bodies, and how Emily's charisma filled the whole
room even though her slender body took up little room in crowd as it
bounced and whirled along with mine. Her cheap, risque dress sparkled and
attacked my eyes with every violent flash of light it reflected, like big,
red fireworks on the Fourth of July. Like fire.
"I need water," I tapped Emily's bouncing body, then clicked my heels to Milton's sax as I made my way to the bar. I hopped over and went in to the kitchen for some ice and some quiet–or something a little closer to quiet. I saw George walk in as I pushed opened the swinging doors to the kitchen, but I pretended not to notice him. He would most likely act like nothing happened, well, nothing really did happen. We didn't fight, and I didn't get stupid and kiss him, but I still felt sickeningly awkward.
In the dim light, I sipped ice water in the back and then lit up a cigarette to calm the nerves that dancing didn't help. Putting the glass to my sweaty brow, I could see George's distorted figure through the water glass.
"Hey there," he said.
"Hi," I croaked, then took another sip of water to clear my throat.
He pulled around the chair next to me and sat down with it backwards, resting his forearms and elbows on the back.
"Wanna job tomorrow?"
"Depends on the job."
"Spy stuff. Very dangerous."
"It doesn't sound very dangerous from your tone," I needed to keep this conversation as casual and playful as possible to kill the days awkwardness, at least for me. I could have adopted a very business-like tone but I hated that, I was good at it and I did it a lot, but I hated that.
"It isn't. It's ridiculously routine."
"Take my innocent-looking self and take the sinister-looking package or take the sinister-looking briefcase and deliver it to the creepy man I have never seen."
"Who says he's exactly creepy?"
"He's an underground big city crime boss. That is, Mr. Calvert, creepy. You've met him?"
"Of course not. But you never know what he's actually like in person–"
"Ha!" I cut him off, "nobody's actually seen him in person!"
"Are you doing it or not?"
"Of course I am. Does it look like I have anything else to do?"
"The 'delivery' guy comes in here at noon. The liquor you put in the back room behind the kitchen. Whatever the hell else he gives you, take it to the same place as last time."
I cupped my cheek in my hand and sighed as I leaned against a box full of flour bags.
"Anything else?"
George paused awkwardly, I asked it in such a way that I was getting him to leave. Though Freud might argue, I didn't mean it to come out that way.
"I gotta go," he said without emotion, "I'm tired." And he left without saying goodbye.
I intended to wait a few minutes so as not to seem like I was following him, but fell asleep and woke up lazily stretched over the flour bags. I lifted my wrist with some effort and I looked at my watch. I had been asleep for nearly an hour. Not that Emily would care terribly but I was still disappointed in myself for falling asleep on the job. I started cleaning up the kitchen, then came out into the bar, asking Emily if she wanted help closing.
"We're not closing for another half hour. Where were you?" she asked.
"In the kitchen..." I wondered if I should admit to my dozing. It didn't matter anyway, she went over to help the night's drunken leftovers out the door.
Somewhere close to two we finally left Joe's and headed home. It was a bloody hot night out for early June but the city was sweltering in the dark. I put on my favorite blue linen nightgown and flopped on the bed, ignoring the sheets. I didn't bother to close the door as I usually did, too sleepy I suppose. I saw Emily wandering by in a white night gown covered by the dark plaid bathrobe she always wore around the apartment. I couldn't understand how she didn't sweat to death, she always wore that damn thing, whether she needed it or not.
It was obvious she couldn't sleep; she kept pacing back and forth. Jack Dawson's ghost seemed to following her every step, her every sigh.
I slowly drifted off into a sleep more peaceful than the one I had taken in the kitchen of Joe's earlier that night. But I could not have been asleep more than an hour or so when I woke to Emily shaking me.
"Wha-what?"
"I heard something from the basement?"
"From here?" I asked, rubbing my head; we were on the third floor.
"I was walkin' around outside for a bit. It sounds funny."
"Tell the landlord in the morning." I rolled over.
"Rose!" she shook me.
"Em, I'm tired! Go away! You're a big girl, go see yourself."
"Something ain't right."
"Your English," I mumbled.
"For that, you get up!" She ripped the covers from below, almost making me roll off the bed. "It's makin' sounds very not good in there!"
"Like what?" I was annoyed but awake enough to realize that she wasn't playing around. There was an urgency in her voice.
"Air or water, something rushing. No one's down there, just please look at it with me. I'll make it up to you, Rip Van Winkle."
I groaned, she knew Miss Perfect had fallen asleep on the job. In her defense, Miss Perfect was having a bad day before now, before she even got to Joe's.
I didn't bother to put on my slippers and followed Em out the door and down two flights of stairs, around the corner to the back and stopped at the basement door. I put my ear to the door. I knew that sound. Rushing water.
"Told you so," Em folded her arms as she opened the door, (which Mr. Watson, the landlord never locked) and grabbed the flashlight off the hook at the top of the stairs. She took one step down, and shone the light about the dark corner of the basement. Black water rushed around the floor, it must have been at least three feet deep at that point. Em tried to close the door over just slightly, so as not to wake anyone but it kept creaking open so she pulled it shut.
"What is it, the water main?"
Emily took some more steps down the stairs until she was at the waterline; I started to follow her but stopped a few steps behind. She shone the light to the far end of the basement on the gushing pipe hanging from the ceiling.
"We got a leak, chief." "Come on, lets wake Mr. Watson."
"Just a moment," Em said and forged a bit into the water.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. There wasn't much she could do and watching Dawsons wade around in swirling pools of water was not on the top of my list.
"Cooling off. It's really God damn hot."
"Noooooo," I said sardonically.
"Since when did you turn into Calvert?" Emily turned around as she waded further in.
"Em, come back here! That's a...bad idea!"
"Think of it this way...I'm an African grazing mammal and I'm cooling off at the water hole...overheat, silly human."
"You're odd...and you were also the one wearing that ratty old bathrobe around when it's so hot."
"What? I like it. Never let go of a good thing I always say." Just then she tossed the flashlight at me so she could float on her back. I caught it just before it rammed my nose.
"Hey, watch it!"
"You're no fun tonight." She went under for a second and my heart skipped a beat. I took another step down and placed the flashlight on the step above me and angled it–with some difficulty–letting in shine into the flooding room.
"I'm tired, very tired. Quit wasting time. You're hair going to become very big and unattractive, Curly Head." Emily and I shared the same texture hair. I know what happens to certain types of curly hair after it gets wet–it can develop a wingspan.
"So will yours!" she splashed me.
"Stop it! Act your age!" I argued, nearly laughing, the cool water felt good in the stuffy heat. She splashed me again. I hopped in after her (with my night gown pulled up so it would not get wet) but didn't venture out any further than the bottom of the stairs.
Em tried to move forward but stopped short. I just laughed at her for a moment, then she jerked again. "Ow!" she yelped and sucked in a breath of air.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I...I think it's that damn metal roping Watson uses to bolt the workbenches to the floor. My foot's caught."
"Can you get loose?"
"I'm tryin.' Give me a minute I think I can get it."
Just then the leaky pipe burst and the middle dislodged, sending the metal tube soaring across the dark room.
"Look out!" I screeched as we each ducked and dove under the water.
"You alright?!" Em's head popped out just a second after mine.
"Fine! You?!"
Emily was still struggling with her foot.
"Yeah!" I dove under and felt out her. I couldn't see a damned thing but I could feel the metal wire and accidentally felt where it had sliced her ankle and with a sudden jerk of Emily's foot I lost it again. After that I grabbed her leg and carefully lifted Emily little foot out of the roping, freeing her ankle.
"Let's go!" I ordered and we struggled up the stairs with our wet nighties weighing us down.
"It's not budging, Rose!" Emily was trying to rip the door open but it was futile, she was practically beating on it.
"Help! Help! Let us out!" we shouted and pounded on the door but there was no help.
"Fifty people live in this building! Why is no one coming?!" I cried.
"Welcome to New York!" Emily shouted as she scrambled down the stairs. The water was climbing higher. "Come on! I'm gonna try the windows!"
I followed her instinctively no longer slogging through the murky water but we were nearly swimming now.
"I think I got it!" Emily pushed and pulled on the window. I swam around the other side and pulled with her. "Almost! Come on!"
"Harder, Em!" We were swallowing now as we shouted.
"Okay, all our might on three! One, two, three!" And on three we not only pulled the window not open but off!
"Beautiful!" Em shouted as I pushed her backside up toward the open window.
"You first! We know you fit!"
Emily latched onto the frame with both hands and pulled up as I gave her a push from below. After Em I pulled myself up reaching my arm up into the dry night air, well, humid air but drier than the basement most obviously. Emily grabbed my offering hand and yanked me, painfully dragging my stomach across ground as she pulled me to safety.
After a few minutes and panting in the alley, Emily looked at me and said, "You know, I never thought I'd drown in a basement."
"Well, you can keep that thought now."
"What's all the God damn racket about?" Mr. Watson the landlord came out in his robe and slippers.
"Fix. The. Pipes." Emily breathed and walked past him.
"Call the fire department, too," I added.
An hour later we still outside as the fire department stopped the leak and cleaned up what they could, the police asked questions about the disturbance, and the other tenants and neighbors came to see about the commotion.
"Sorry, ladies, I'm looking for two drowned rats that came along this way."
"No but there's a really big Jewish one wandering around...I thought you didn't work the 'crap jobs with the bum squad.'" Emily asked George now standing over us on the street.
Another cop walked by and gave him a dirty look. He had heard Emily.
"Yes, but I answer the call of duty like the model civil servant I am...someone knocked on my door to let me know. I came down to make sure you were alright what I didn't expect was to find you two swimming around in the basement. You could have been hurt. Didn't they give you blankets? Smokes? Anything?" He looked around annoyed.
I got up. "It's alright, George, it's too hot out for blankets."
"Lemonade?" He half-heartedly finished his line of questioning. "You two can stay with me until we know the building's safe."
"Thanks, Calvert! You're the best!" Emily hugged him and tugged my arm. "Let's get our stuff, it's a big old party tonight!" The "big old party" turned out to be nothing but quiet night. As soon as we put our things down, Emily flopped on George's bed, George on the old cot that was too small for him, and I on the couch.
The other two seemed perfectly unconscious but I couldn't sleep, despite all the excitement from earlier that night. Dawn was approaching and I turned over toward the window to see the weak blue light creeping into George's modest, somewhat disorganized apartment. I groaned inwardly, not looking forward to doing the job tomorrow on no sleep. I wished I had been a girl again.
"Mother, I think I'm sick. I'm so distressed. May I stay in, please? Please!" I would moan pathetically.
"Alright, darling, you do look pale. I'll have Louisa fix you some tea. My poor, poor little girl, feel better." My mother would rub my head and brush my hair out of my face.
I wasn't even directly thinking about Titanic, considering I had nearly drowned just hours earlier but I was trying...I just couldn't remember. Only flashes were coming back to me as I was lying there on George's couch–and that was only after a long time. At first there was nothing. For someone living with trauma I could recount the events quite well, quite calmly in my mind. But then I couldn't remember, I tried but when I finally could see something...water rushing, Jack, my mother...I thought I was choking. I got up and made my way to the bathroom...I couldn't remember where that was either and I had been to George's place at least once a week since I came to New York that year!
Once I found it, I scrabbled to the toilet and stuck my head in it. After the violent bout of sickness I sat back on the cool wall, resting my head on the pipe. My chest hurt, my throat hurt, and my stomach was still turning. I closed my eyes and remembered nothing, not even what happened in my building's basement.
"Hey, Red," a voice said softly from the door. I opened my eyes to George's figure standing over me.
"Hi...I'm sorry...I got sick," I murmured like a child.
"It's alright..." he crouched down next to me and rubbed my shoulder. "Do you want your toothbrush?"
"That would be nice," I said weakly. He got up and looked at the alien affects gracing his bathroom sink.
"Is this one yours?" he asked. I squinted, my eyes hurt, too.
"No, that's Emily's," I pointed and waved vaguely, "the other one's mine." He put Em's toothbrush away and bent down to me again, toothbrush in hand.
"May I?" he asked. I nodded. He wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me up, and held me up and I brushed the awfulness out of my mouth.
"I got it," I said so he would move out of the way to let me spit and rinse. "Alright," I said, placing the toothbrush on the sink and wiping my mouth, "I, uh, think I'm a...I think I'm fine now–" I lost my footing, weak from the calamity that night and all the memories it brought. George caught me on the way down, losing his own balance for a moment. When he regained it, he slid down on the wall, so we were resting on the floor again.
He slowly moved my hair, which was an awful mess from the water, out of my face.
"I don't think I feel very well," I chuckled weakly.
"Well, it's not good to go flailing around like that on a full stomach, young lady." I groaned but I smiled, too. "You know, my house, where I grew up in New Jersey...our basement never floods, not when it rains out..."
"Uh huh..." I said listening carefully and pressing one side of my face to his chest, right under his chin. He pulled me further onto his lap.
"You see we live in Pascack Valley...well, uh, technically, but we're really on the hills around it...so it never floods, ever. It's a great house. Big but not too big. Big yard with a brook running just along the edge...lots of big maples and pines and oaks...my cousin is a builder. He and all his guys built it when I was a kid."
"Do you miss it?"
"Yeah...but I'm glad my parents are still there. It's a small comfort I've always been afforded."
"George, my mother isn't dead."
"What?" he said pulling away.
"I lied. My mother never died. My father's dead, but she's still alive. I just haven't spoken to her in eight years. She thinks I'm dead. God, George," I looked at him, almost pleading, "do you know how much I've lied about? How many secrets I've made for myself?"
I should have been telling Emily, but I was about to tell George. I vowed silence and I never meant to breathe a word to anyone but those with the last name Dawson...but I couldn't help telling him.
"George..." I grabbed his shoulder, he grabbed my waist, no longer in control of myself I–
Well, I might have done something had there not been a loud rap on the door.
"Calvert!" shouted Jake Phelps, another undercover officer involved with Martin, "delivery's off. Martin don't suspect nothin' but he thinks the cops are catchin' up with him. It's working brilliantly. We could nail him in by the end of the summer." George shook his head, as if in a drunken state. "Sorry, Calvert. Did I wake you?"
"Uh, I...no. Yeah. Yes, you did wake me. But it's alright."
"I guess not everyone's up at 5:30. Sorry...well, call off your girls. This is perfect! Almost in our hands...oh, sorry, Calvert...you like sleep."
"I like sleep." George waved and quietly shut the door.
I had gotten on my feet by then, woozy from the nearly physical interaction moments earlier and disappointed that it was killed before consummation.
"'Your girls'...I'm two years older than him."
"Phelps is a jerk, but he's not a bad guy."
"I'm nobody's woman, let alone 'girl,'" I said, letting my pride unintentionally crush the night's remaining potential.
"Susan B. Anthony was very unfortunate not to have you as a publicity agent." He put his hand (a little awkwardly) on my shoulder.
"I don't think she'd be caught dead wearing these." I picked up Emily's red, sequined dress and my black dancing dress that were draped over George large blue chair.
"Yes, but luckily for us, she is very dead...and," he took Emily's dress from my hand, "she wears only the highest end designer clothing."
"Actually, George, those are cheap knock-offs."
"Ah, the Dawson girls...ever giving fashion the finger."
I smiled. For a moment the old George that I had known so briefly had come back out of the blue. The funny Jersey Boy who always had a line, a comment, a joke. A little rude, but ever-endearing. Where did he come from?
He smiled at me. His hand hadn't moved from my shoulder
"Rose, Come home with me next week. We'll bring Emily, convince her to stay with my parents. Raise her up a nice Jewish girl."
"Go home with you?" He sounded like I did earlier that day. "Yeah, just a little out of the city and into Bergen County. New Jersey...practical joke of the Northeast corridor...." he said, grinning. "But really...it's nice there. North Jersey is great, really."
"I know. I've been around there before and you just told me in the bathroom when–"
"Yeah. So you feeling better, Red?"
"Uh, yes. Fine. Hundred percent."
"Good, good. So, Jersey?"
"I leave for California next week." I stepped back and George removed his hand.
"What?"
"I leave for California next week," I repeated. "I've got a contract. Film contract. It could mean my career–but I'll come back for as long as I can...as soon as I'm free."
"California?"
"It's a state, George."
"I know. But...L.A.? Why?"
"I live there."
"I know. It was more of a verbal sigh than anything else."
I half-frowned and half-smiled.
"I'll be back in September...for as long as I can. I promise!"
"You swear to come back."
"I swear." I raised my right hand. "Scout's honor."
"You better, Rose. You should come to Rosh Hashanah. If you don't I'll make you starve with me on Yom Kippur."
"George, you eat on Yom Kippur."
"Yes, but we're not telling my mother that. Are you coming back?"
"Let's make an arrangement. We've got a good couple hours left to sleep. So if you let me sleep now, I'll do anything you ask or order me to do." "Deal. Have your grotesquely red self back here in September and you can sleep the whole weekend if you like." We shook hands and he felt my forehead. "Just making sure you're not coming down with anything..."
The next week I was at Penn Station fumbling with my many pieces of luggage. I've never been able to mange going anywhere without half my material life. It was when I dropped one of my suitcases I realized I left the Heart of Ocean in a box under my bed. I had also left my completed Titanic letter to Emily in that same box.
All for the best, I thought. I could a few months with them out of my site. But I still felt oddly panicked.
"Hey, Rose!" I heard a familiar voice calling. It was George. He ran over and helped me my pick up my bags. "I got it, I got it," he said.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Just came to make sure your hair was still obscenely red."
I held out a handful of strands in front of me. "Yes. All is well, Mr. Calvert."
"Emily couldn't come. Had to stay at Joe's. But she sends her regards."
"That's alright." Just then I could see my train coming. "Well," I shrugged, "that's me."
"That's you."
"I'm going now." I started walking backwards, behaving not unlike I did when I liked Stephen Wellington all through elementary school. I was devastated when my parents shipped me off to an all girls boarding school after the sixth grade.
"Goodbye, Rose," George said quickly and pushed his face into mine, meaning to kiss me on the cheek. He missed.
I leaned in kissed him back, firmly on the mouth. He brushed my hair, of which he was always a fan, out of my face.
Then dropped my suitcase again and gathered up my things, laughing nervously. I ran onto the train, for fear of missing it. Once on I squeezed my way, almost in a panic, to an empty seat and a window.
"George!" I called from the open window. "Over here!" He rushed over, unconsciously grabbing my hands.
"Sorry about that...I missed!" George Calvert, age thirty, blurted out with his face growing red.
I pulled him up by his shirt collar and kissed him again.
"Apology accepted."
He kissed me one more time as the whistle blew and the train began to move.
"Write!" His hands began to slip from mine but we did not let go until the last second.
"I will!" I shouted.
When he was out of sight I curled up in my seat, still glowing. I had to admit, my timing was impeccable.
September 16, 1920
I had just gotten home that morning. I had been writing to George and Emily as often as I could but the letters on each side were rushed and impersonal. But by the end of August I had received a couple from Emily that were disturbingly spare and a couple from George, worried. Asking me to come back as soon as possible, but nothing to suggest that that kiss in the station had ever even happened. I felt my heart sinking. Foolish anyway. Involve myself with George? Falling in love with me was dangerous. Bad things always happened. Bad things that couldn't happened to my great friend George.
The cab dropped me off in front of my building. I had a slight cough that week so I pulled out my handkerchief as my throat was feeling scratchy and wiped my nose a bit too. There was a little blood on it. I tapped my nose with my finger. I'd had a bad cold that winter and my nose bled once. Oh, this is gross. Damn cold. I hoped I wasn't coming down with anything that would prove terribly inconvenient.
When I got home with all my things–which no one helped me carry no one was home. My bedroom was disorderly. It had been in perfect order when I left. Some one had been tampering. And the picture of me outside Joe's had been stolen from my dresser but all the others left as they were. I was already annoyed at the two of them, George and Emily for their bad, uncaring letters. Now this? Going through my things? Stealing?
But it was worse. Far worse.
Under my bed, my secret box had been opened and the letter and the diamond were missing. There was a note inside replacing.
Found your note. Nice story. -ESD
What? Had Em gone mad? I ran out into the living room, across to Emily's bedroom. It had been torn apart. My heart began to race. What happened? Did Emily do this? Did someone else?
I ran downstairs to the phone and called George. It was lunchtime by then. He should be at his desk...I hoped.
I got George, hearing his voice for the first time in months, my heart ached, it cried. George told me a broken, rushed story. He was almost on his way out when I called, he was nearly panicking. There had been an explosion on Wall Street and Emily might be there, he had said. I began to panic. I began sweat. But it was the bits of back story I got that reduced me to the floor, whimpering like a wounded dog.
I screamed once, dropped the phone, scrambled to my feet and ran outside. There was no time to cry. No time to vomit as usual. There was only time to react. Nothing to do but get to the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street.
How? Why?
I couldn't think about what I'd heard. I could only run.
"I need water," I tapped Emily's bouncing body, then clicked my heels to Milton's sax as I made my way to the bar. I hopped over and went in to the kitchen for some ice and some quiet–or something a little closer to quiet. I saw George walk in as I pushed opened the swinging doors to the kitchen, but I pretended not to notice him. He would most likely act like nothing happened, well, nothing really did happen. We didn't fight, and I didn't get stupid and kiss him, but I still felt sickeningly awkward.
In the dim light, I sipped ice water in the back and then lit up a cigarette to calm the nerves that dancing didn't help. Putting the glass to my sweaty brow, I could see George's distorted figure through the water glass.
"Hey there," he said.
"Hi," I croaked, then took another sip of water to clear my throat.
He pulled around the chair next to me and sat down with it backwards, resting his forearms and elbows on the back.
"Wanna job tomorrow?"
"Depends on the job."
"Spy stuff. Very dangerous."
"It doesn't sound very dangerous from your tone," I needed to keep this conversation as casual and playful as possible to kill the days awkwardness, at least for me. I could have adopted a very business-like tone but I hated that, I was good at it and I did it a lot, but I hated that.
"It isn't. It's ridiculously routine."
"Take my innocent-looking self and take the sinister-looking package or take the sinister-looking briefcase and deliver it to the creepy man I have never seen."
"Who says he's exactly creepy?"
"He's an underground big city crime boss. That is, Mr. Calvert, creepy. You've met him?"
"Of course not. But you never know what he's actually like in person–"
"Ha!" I cut him off, "nobody's actually seen him in person!"
"Are you doing it or not?"
"Of course I am. Does it look like I have anything else to do?"
"The 'delivery' guy comes in here at noon. The liquor you put in the back room behind the kitchen. Whatever the hell else he gives you, take it to the same place as last time."
I cupped my cheek in my hand and sighed as I leaned against a box full of flour bags.
"Anything else?"
George paused awkwardly, I asked it in such a way that I was getting him to leave. Though Freud might argue, I didn't mean it to come out that way.
"I gotta go," he said without emotion, "I'm tired." And he left without saying goodbye.
I intended to wait a few minutes so as not to seem like I was following him, but fell asleep and woke up lazily stretched over the flour bags. I lifted my wrist with some effort and I looked at my watch. I had been asleep for nearly an hour. Not that Emily would care terribly but I was still disappointed in myself for falling asleep on the job. I started cleaning up the kitchen, then came out into the bar, asking Emily if she wanted help closing.
"We're not closing for another half hour. Where were you?" she asked.
"In the kitchen..." I wondered if I should admit to my dozing. It didn't matter anyway, she went over to help the night's drunken leftovers out the door.
Somewhere close to two we finally left Joe's and headed home. It was a bloody hot night out for early June but the city was sweltering in the dark. I put on my favorite blue linen nightgown and flopped on the bed, ignoring the sheets. I didn't bother to close the door as I usually did, too sleepy I suppose. I saw Emily wandering by in a white night gown covered by the dark plaid bathrobe she always wore around the apartment. I couldn't understand how she didn't sweat to death, she always wore that damn thing, whether she needed it or not.
It was obvious she couldn't sleep; she kept pacing back and forth. Jack Dawson's ghost seemed to following her every step, her every sigh.
I slowly drifted off into a sleep more peaceful than the one I had taken in the kitchen of Joe's earlier that night. But I could not have been asleep more than an hour or so when I woke to Emily shaking me.
"Wha-what?"
"I heard something from the basement?"
"From here?" I asked, rubbing my head; we were on the third floor.
"I was walkin' around outside for a bit. It sounds funny."
"Tell the landlord in the morning." I rolled over.
"Rose!" she shook me.
"Em, I'm tired! Go away! You're a big girl, go see yourself."
"Something ain't right."
"Your English," I mumbled.
"For that, you get up!" She ripped the covers from below, almost making me roll off the bed. "It's makin' sounds very not good in there!"
"Like what?" I was annoyed but awake enough to realize that she wasn't playing around. There was an urgency in her voice.
"Air or water, something rushing. No one's down there, just please look at it with me. I'll make it up to you, Rip Van Winkle."
I groaned, she knew Miss Perfect had fallen asleep on the job. In her defense, Miss Perfect was having a bad day before now, before she even got to Joe's.
I didn't bother to put on my slippers and followed Em out the door and down two flights of stairs, around the corner to the back and stopped at the basement door. I put my ear to the door. I knew that sound. Rushing water.
"Told you so," Em folded her arms as she opened the door, (which Mr. Watson, the landlord never locked) and grabbed the flashlight off the hook at the top of the stairs. She took one step down, and shone the light about the dark corner of the basement. Black water rushed around the floor, it must have been at least three feet deep at that point. Em tried to close the door over just slightly, so as not to wake anyone but it kept creaking open so she pulled it shut.
"What is it, the water main?"
Emily took some more steps down the stairs until she was at the waterline; I started to follow her but stopped a few steps behind. She shone the light to the far end of the basement on the gushing pipe hanging from the ceiling.
"We got a leak, chief." "Come on, lets wake Mr. Watson."
"Just a moment," Em said and forged a bit into the water.
"What are you doing?" I demanded. There wasn't much she could do and watching Dawsons wade around in swirling pools of water was not on the top of my list.
"Cooling off. It's really God damn hot."
"Noooooo," I said sardonically.
"Since when did you turn into Calvert?" Emily turned around as she waded further in.
"Em, come back here! That's a...bad idea!"
"Think of it this way...I'm an African grazing mammal and I'm cooling off at the water hole...overheat, silly human."
"You're odd...and you were also the one wearing that ratty old bathrobe around when it's so hot."
"What? I like it. Never let go of a good thing I always say." Just then she tossed the flashlight at me so she could float on her back. I caught it just before it rammed my nose.
"Hey, watch it!"
"You're no fun tonight." She went under for a second and my heart skipped a beat. I took another step down and placed the flashlight on the step above me and angled it–with some difficulty–letting in shine into the flooding room.
"I'm tired, very tired. Quit wasting time. You're hair going to become very big and unattractive, Curly Head." Emily and I shared the same texture hair. I know what happens to certain types of curly hair after it gets wet–it can develop a wingspan.
"So will yours!" she splashed me.
"Stop it! Act your age!" I argued, nearly laughing, the cool water felt good in the stuffy heat. She splashed me again. I hopped in after her (with my night gown pulled up so it would not get wet) but didn't venture out any further than the bottom of the stairs.
Em tried to move forward but stopped short. I just laughed at her for a moment, then she jerked again. "Ow!" she yelped and sucked in a breath of air.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I...I think it's that damn metal roping Watson uses to bolt the workbenches to the floor. My foot's caught."
"Can you get loose?"
"I'm tryin.' Give me a minute I think I can get it."
Just then the leaky pipe burst and the middle dislodged, sending the metal tube soaring across the dark room.
"Look out!" I screeched as we each ducked and dove under the water.
"You alright?!" Em's head popped out just a second after mine.
"Fine! You?!"
Emily was still struggling with her foot.
"Yeah!" I dove under and felt out her. I couldn't see a damned thing but I could feel the metal wire and accidentally felt where it had sliced her ankle and with a sudden jerk of Emily's foot I lost it again. After that I grabbed her leg and carefully lifted Emily little foot out of the roping, freeing her ankle.
"Let's go!" I ordered and we struggled up the stairs with our wet nighties weighing us down.
"It's not budging, Rose!" Emily was trying to rip the door open but it was futile, she was practically beating on it.
"Help! Help! Let us out!" we shouted and pounded on the door but there was no help.
"Fifty people live in this building! Why is no one coming?!" I cried.
"Welcome to New York!" Emily shouted as she scrambled down the stairs. The water was climbing higher. "Come on! I'm gonna try the windows!"
I followed her instinctively no longer slogging through the murky water but we were nearly swimming now.
"I think I got it!" Emily pushed and pulled on the window. I swam around the other side and pulled with her. "Almost! Come on!"
"Harder, Em!" We were swallowing now as we shouted.
"Okay, all our might on three! One, two, three!" And on three we not only pulled the window not open but off!
"Beautiful!" Em shouted as I pushed her backside up toward the open window.
"You first! We know you fit!"
Emily latched onto the frame with both hands and pulled up as I gave her a push from below. After Em I pulled myself up reaching my arm up into the dry night air, well, humid air but drier than the basement most obviously. Emily grabbed my offering hand and yanked me, painfully dragging my stomach across ground as she pulled me to safety.
After a few minutes and panting in the alley, Emily looked at me and said, "You know, I never thought I'd drown in a basement."
"Well, you can keep that thought now."
"What's all the God damn racket about?" Mr. Watson the landlord came out in his robe and slippers.
"Fix. The. Pipes." Emily breathed and walked past him.
"Call the fire department, too," I added.
An hour later we still outside as the fire department stopped the leak and cleaned up what they could, the police asked questions about the disturbance, and the other tenants and neighbors came to see about the commotion.
"Sorry, ladies, I'm looking for two drowned rats that came along this way."
"No but there's a really big Jewish one wandering around...I thought you didn't work the 'crap jobs with the bum squad.'" Emily asked George now standing over us on the street.
Another cop walked by and gave him a dirty look. He had heard Emily.
"Yes, but I answer the call of duty like the model civil servant I am...someone knocked on my door to let me know. I came down to make sure you were alright what I didn't expect was to find you two swimming around in the basement. You could have been hurt. Didn't they give you blankets? Smokes? Anything?" He looked around annoyed.
I got up. "It's alright, George, it's too hot out for blankets."
"Lemonade?" He half-heartedly finished his line of questioning. "You two can stay with me until we know the building's safe."
"Thanks, Calvert! You're the best!" Emily hugged him and tugged my arm. "Let's get our stuff, it's a big old party tonight!" The "big old party" turned out to be nothing but quiet night. As soon as we put our things down, Emily flopped on George's bed, George on the old cot that was too small for him, and I on the couch.
The other two seemed perfectly unconscious but I couldn't sleep, despite all the excitement from earlier that night. Dawn was approaching and I turned over toward the window to see the weak blue light creeping into George's modest, somewhat disorganized apartment. I groaned inwardly, not looking forward to doing the job tomorrow on no sleep. I wished I had been a girl again.
"Mother, I think I'm sick. I'm so distressed. May I stay in, please? Please!" I would moan pathetically.
"Alright, darling, you do look pale. I'll have Louisa fix you some tea. My poor, poor little girl, feel better." My mother would rub my head and brush my hair out of my face.
I wasn't even directly thinking about Titanic, considering I had nearly drowned just hours earlier but I was trying...I just couldn't remember. Only flashes were coming back to me as I was lying there on George's couch–and that was only after a long time. At first there was nothing. For someone living with trauma I could recount the events quite well, quite calmly in my mind. But then I couldn't remember, I tried but when I finally could see something...water rushing, Jack, my mother...I thought I was choking. I got up and made my way to the bathroom...I couldn't remember where that was either and I had been to George's place at least once a week since I came to New York that year!
Once I found it, I scrabbled to the toilet and stuck my head in it. After the violent bout of sickness I sat back on the cool wall, resting my head on the pipe. My chest hurt, my throat hurt, and my stomach was still turning. I closed my eyes and remembered nothing, not even what happened in my building's basement.
"Hey, Red," a voice said softly from the door. I opened my eyes to George's figure standing over me.
"Hi...I'm sorry...I got sick," I murmured like a child.
"It's alright..." he crouched down next to me and rubbed my shoulder. "Do you want your toothbrush?"
"That would be nice," I said weakly. He got up and looked at the alien affects gracing his bathroom sink.
"Is this one yours?" he asked. I squinted, my eyes hurt, too.
"No, that's Emily's," I pointed and waved vaguely, "the other one's mine." He put Em's toothbrush away and bent down to me again, toothbrush in hand.
"May I?" he asked. I nodded. He wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me up, and held me up and I brushed the awfulness out of my mouth.
"I got it," I said so he would move out of the way to let me spit and rinse. "Alright," I said, placing the toothbrush on the sink and wiping my mouth, "I, uh, think I'm a...I think I'm fine now–" I lost my footing, weak from the calamity that night and all the memories it brought. George caught me on the way down, losing his own balance for a moment. When he regained it, he slid down on the wall, so we were resting on the floor again.
He slowly moved my hair, which was an awful mess from the water, out of my face.
"I don't think I feel very well," I chuckled weakly.
"Well, it's not good to go flailing around like that on a full stomach, young lady." I groaned but I smiled, too. "You know, my house, where I grew up in New Jersey...our basement never floods, not when it rains out..."
"Uh huh..." I said listening carefully and pressing one side of my face to his chest, right under his chin. He pulled me further onto his lap.
"You see we live in Pascack Valley...well, uh, technically, but we're really on the hills around it...so it never floods, ever. It's a great house. Big but not too big. Big yard with a brook running just along the edge...lots of big maples and pines and oaks...my cousin is a builder. He and all his guys built it when I was a kid."
"Do you miss it?"
"Yeah...but I'm glad my parents are still there. It's a small comfort I've always been afforded."
"George, my mother isn't dead."
"What?" he said pulling away.
"I lied. My mother never died. My father's dead, but she's still alive. I just haven't spoken to her in eight years. She thinks I'm dead. God, George," I looked at him, almost pleading, "do you know how much I've lied about? How many secrets I've made for myself?"
I should have been telling Emily, but I was about to tell George. I vowed silence and I never meant to breathe a word to anyone but those with the last name Dawson...but I couldn't help telling him.
"George..." I grabbed his shoulder, he grabbed my waist, no longer in control of myself I–
Well, I might have done something had there not been a loud rap on the door.
"Calvert!" shouted Jake Phelps, another undercover officer involved with Martin, "delivery's off. Martin don't suspect nothin' but he thinks the cops are catchin' up with him. It's working brilliantly. We could nail him in by the end of the summer." George shook his head, as if in a drunken state. "Sorry, Calvert. Did I wake you?"
"Uh, I...no. Yeah. Yes, you did wake me. But it's alright."
"I guess not everyone's up at 5:30. Sorry...well, call off your girls. This is perfect! Almost in our hands...oh, sorry, Calvert...you like sleep."
"I like sleep." George waved and quietly shut the door.
I had gotten on my feet by then, woozy from the nearly physical interaction moments earlier and disappointed that it was killed before consummation.
"'Your girls'...I'm two years older than him."
"Phelps is a jerk, but he's not a bad guy."
"I'm nobody's woman, let alone 'girl,'" I said, letting my pride unintentionally crush the night's remaining potential.
"Susan B. Anthony was very unfortunate not to have you as a publicity agent." He put his hand (a little awkwardly) on my shoulder.
"I don't think she'd be caught dead wearing these." I picked up Emily's red, sequined dress and my black dancing dress that were draped over George large blue chair.
"Yes, but luckily for us, she is very dead...and," he took Emily's dress from my hand, "she wears only the highest end designer clothing."
"Actually, George, those are cheap knock-offs."
"Ah, the Dawson girls...ever giving fashion the finger."
I smiled. For a moment the old George that I had known so briefly had come back out of the blue. The funny Jersey Boy who always had a line, a comment, a joke. A little rude, but ever-endearing. Where did he come from?
He smiled at me. His hand hadn't moved from my shoulder
"Rose, Come home with me next week. We'll bring Emily, convince her to stay with my parents. Raise her up a nice Jewish girl."
"Go home with you?" He sounded like I did earlier that day. "Yeah, just a little out of the city and into Bergen County. New Jersey...practical joke of the Northeast corridor...." he said, grinning. "But really...it's nice there. North Jersey is great, really."
"I know. I've been around there before and you just told me in the bathroom when–"
"Yeah. So you feeling better, Red?"
"Uh, yes. Fine. Hundred percent."
"Good, good. So, Jersey?"
"I leave for California next week." I stepped back and George removed his hand.
"What?"
"I leave for California next week," I repeated. "I've got a contract. Film contract. It could mean my career–but I'll come back for as long as I can...as soon as I'm free."
"California?"
"It's a state, George."
"I know. But...L.A.? Why?"
"I live there."
"I know. It was more of a verbal sigh than anything else."
I half-frowned and half-smiled.
"I'll be back in September...for as long as I can. I promise!"
"You swear to come back."
"I swear." I raised my right hand. "Scout's honor."
"You better, Rose. You should come to Rosh Hashanah. If you don't I'll make you starve with me on Yom Kippur."
"George, you eat on Yom Kippur."
"Yes, but we're not telling my mother that. Are you coming back?"
"Let's make an arrangement. We've got a good couple hours left to sleep. So if you let me sleep now, I'll do anything you ask or order me to do." "Deal. Have your grotesquely red self back here in September and you can sleep the whole weekend if you like." We shook hands and he felt my forehead. "Just making sure you're not coming down with anything..."
The next week I was at Penn Station fumbling with my many pieces of luggage. I've never been able to mange going anywhere without half my material life. It was when I dropped one of my suitcases I realized I left the Heart of Ocean in a box under my bed. I had also left my completed Titanic letter to Emily in that same box.
All for the best, I thought. I could a few months with them out of my site. But I still felt oddly panicked.
"Hey, Rose!" I heard a familiar voice calling. It was George. He ran over and helped me my pick up my bags. "I got it, I got it," he said.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Just came to make sure your hair was still obscenely red."
I held out a handful of strands in front of me. "Yes. All is well, Mr. Calvert."
"Emily couldn't come. Had to stay at Joe's. But she sends her regards."
"That's alright." Just then I could see my train coming. "Well," I shrugged, "that's me."
"That's you."
"I'm going now." I started walking backwards, behaving not unlike I did when I liked Stephen Wellington all through elementary school. I was devastated when my parents shipped me off to an all girls boarding school after the sixth grade.
"Goodbye, Rose," George said quickly and pushed his face into mine, meaning to kiss me on the cheek. He missed.
I leaned in kissed him back, firmly on the mouth. He brushed my hair, of which he was always a fan, out of my face.
Then dropped my suitcase again and gathered up my things, laughing nervously. I ran onto the train, for fear of missing it. Once on I squeezed my way, almost in a panic, to an empty seat and a window.
"George!" I called from the open window. "Over here!" He rushed over, unconsciously grabbing my hands.
"Sorry about that...I missed!" George Calvert, age thirty, blurted out with his face growing red.
I pulled him up by his shirt collar and kissed him again.
"Apology accepted."
He kissed me one more time as the whistle blew and the train began to move.
"Write!" His hands began to slip from mine but we did not let go until the last second.
"I will!" I shouted.
When he was out of sight I curled up in my seat, still glowing. I had to admit, my timing was impeccable.
September 16, 1920
I had just gotten home that morning. I had been writing to George and Emily as often as I could but the letters on each side were rushed and impersonal. But by the end of August I had received a couple from Emily that were disturbingly spare and a couple from George, worried. Asking me to come back as soon as possible, but nothing to suggest that that kiss in the station had ever even happened. I felt my heart sinking. Foolish anyway. Involve myself with George? Falling in love with me was dangerous. Bad things always happened. Bad things that couldn't happened to my great friend George.
The cab dropped me off in front of my building. I had a slight cough that week so I pulled out my handkerchief as my throat was feeling scratchy and wiped my nose a bit too. There was a little blood on it. I tapped my nose with my finger. I'd had a bad cold that winter and my nose bled once. Oh, this is gross. Damn cold. I hoped I wasn't coming down with anything that would prove terribly inconvenient.
When I got home with all my things–which no one helped me carry no one was home. My bedroom was disorderly. It had been in perfect order when I left. Some one had been tampering. And the picture of me outside Joe's had been stolen from my dresser but all the others left as they were. I was already annoyed at the two of them, George and Emily for their bad, uncaring letters. Now this? Going through my things? Stealing?
But it was worse. Far worse.
Under my bed, my secret box had been opened and the letter and the diamond were missing. There was a note inside replacing.
Found your note. Nice story. -ESD
What? Had Em gone mad? I ran out into the living room, across to Emily's bedroom. It had been torn apart. My heart began to race. What happened? Did Emily do this? Did someone else?
I ran downstairs to the phone and called George. It was lunchtime by then. He should be at his desk...I hoped.
I got George, hearing his voice for the first time in months, my heart ached, it cried. George told me a broken, rushed story. He was almost on his way out when I called, he was nearly panicking. There had been an explosion on Wall Street and Emily might be there, he had said. I began to panic. I began sweat. But it was the bits of back story I got that reduced me to the floor, whimpering like a wounded dog.
I screamed once, dropped the phone, scrambled to my feet and ran outside. There was no time to cry. No time to vomit as usual. There was only time to react. Nothing to do but get to the corner of Wall Street and Broad Street.
How? Why?
I couldn't think about what I'd heard. I could only run.