The day James Paul Moody discovered what it was to be a monied man was also the day he discovered that he was still very much a poor one.
It all began within the spirit of modern economics, on his mission to find Miss Amberflaw a gallon of milk, as the lady had requested of him, in a place modern Americans liked to call their "Costco".
Famished, was he, since breakfast that he stood awestruck before the numbered aisles of a vast supermarket-and by vast, he meant "an absurdly massive berth with room enough to back up the Mauretania with no trouble at all!"-packed with shelves and shelves of food that could feed the queen's royal navy.
So plentiful was this refreshment Elysium, that at the lead of nearly every aisle was a sweet old lady in wrapping-paper-gloves giving out all sorts of deliciously-smelling goodies unimaginable. His face lighting up whenever he heard one of them offer him, "Would you like to try a sample?"
"Pardon me, madam," he'd say to one such woman, trying to ignore all the little treat cups calling to his grumbling stomach from her tray. "I know that by now I've missed the milkman on his run, but my lady wishes for a gallon. I thought I might be lucky enough to catch him with some milk left before he carted away until morning."
"Milk, eggs, and creamer are all in the milk cave, dear. It's down by all the paper towels and toilet paper, right behind the pet food," she pointed rather unparticularly in one direction over his shoulder. "It's a nice little walk, so here's a sample to take with you. We got some fresh baked bread with butter here. These are plain, this one is topped with provolone, and this one has cranberry and walnuts in it. Some comfort food for you and all this rainy weather. Enjoy, sweetheart!"
And James liked all three so well, that he gladly took one loaf of each in the crooks of his elbows as he nodded a many thanks to her.
Realizing shortly after he'd gone that he hadn't even the slightest what paper towels or pet food were, nor how to reference them among the towering shelves of numbered aisles around him.
"Excuse me, sir, kindly would you tell me where I might find the pet food, so that I may speak to a man about a gallon of milk for my Miss?" a bread-full James stopped by another sample cart, that smelt irresistibly of roasted turkey sliced in pesto sauce. Next to which the man in the wrapping-paper-gloves was slicing adorably petite pieces of pumpkin pie.
And as James watched in awe as the man used some sort of whipcream-pistol to top each slice with a heavenly cloud of cream, the officer wondered if he'd ever been living until now.
"Milk is done aisle 34. Care for some sun-dried tomatoes on an olive oil cracker, sir?"
"Very well then."
And with the jar of sun-dried tomatoes and box of olive oil crackers in each of his hands, James stacked the cranberry-walnut bread on top, with the other loaves pinned between each elbow and his chest, as he inquired to another, with hair like flamingo feathers, "I beg your pardon, miss, would you mind tellin' me where I might find aisle 34?"
"Dude, I love your accent! Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Er-um-Yorkshire, love," James answered, deciding it was probably best that he left off theYorkshire of 1912 part, for the time being.
"Yorkshire? Shut up! I love Aussie men," the flamingo girl said excitedly. "Like 3 of my exes online were from Australia. Met them all on Fortnite. You do any gaming?"
"I've done the occasional shooting party here and there," James admitted with a bashful shrug, feeling his cheeks go a little hot at being the center of such attentions from a lady with rose-pink hair. Making him only wish he really was one Australian man. At any rate, he didn't bother disappointing her to say he was actually very much English.
"I'm also a novelist," he went on milking the cow of her fascination. "You may hear some call me the very soul of William Wordsworth."
"Hm, the artsy type. Got'ch ya," flamingo girl croaked into a smile at him. "Anyway, aisle 34 is back that way, babe."
She cocked her rosy head in the opposite direction from where James had just walked over.
"By the toilet paper and dog food. But here's a pick-me-up while you go," she said, picking up a white sample cup and taking a pen from her apron. Writing a 7-digit number across the front with her name Sophie underneath it, she passed it to James. "Vanilla ice cream blended with Bailey's Irish cream...and maybe a little poetry later."
She winked at him.
"Any caramel sauce or nuts with that?" she offered him a to-go baggie with miniature peanuts.
And then when she realized James couldn't possibly hold anymore of anything in either of his arms, she giggled again, "My bad, you wanna basket first?"
And once James had found himself a trolley, there was plenty more room for the spinach mozzarella ravioli, spiraled ham on a sweet roll, and Belgium dark chocolate salted caramels with Macadamia Nut Clusters.
And still plenty of space for the offerings of every sample-clerk James purposefully went on a hunt for throughout the entirety of the store. His cart spilling with all sorts of hams, cheeses, wines, chocolates, crackers, cakes, and all else one should expect living the good life when one is so rich in coin and spirit.
Until at last, James came to the queue for the cashier of register 14, with the gallon of milk he'd originally come in for balancing atop his cart like the star of a Christmas tree next to Captain Wentworth's pet carrier. Nodding a cheerful "Good day to you, madam" to an elderly woman queued up at register 16, who raised a questioning brow at his dress shoes and pajama pants.
But if the chipper Edwardian man felt any remorse, going on a shopping spree in his pajama trousers was the last lingering regret on his mind.
It was Miss Millie he couldn't help thinking of as he waited in line.
How stuffed he felt now after taking pleasure in all the samples Costco had to offer, when Miss Millie must feel so hungry working so hard near mid-day now, after he'd sorely failed her at breakfast.
He wanted so ardently to redeem himself to her and return her many favors, after foolishly offering her a morning's dreary meal and even drearier conversation. For as her new cat-butler, he couldn't sit well with continuing to see the lady eating that Stouffer's TV Dinner rubbish.
His mind swam dreamily with ideas and surprises for Emily to delight in something special to come home to. A true hot and hearty meal of his day to thank her for all her kindnesses. And with her generous container of pennies safely kept between the ham and honey in his cart, the possibilities of what he could buy that might impress Miss Millie were endless.
Why not soup coupled with sherry, or fish served with white wine?
Or a hot turkey sandwich with fresh fruit or deviled eggs with a broiled guinea hen?
Why not all of it?
For a man with deeper pockets than an Astor in 2022, he could spare to spoil his hostess a little, couldn't he?
Surely, for all the grief she had gone through for him, she deserved to have it all.
"Can you believe this idiot?" the white-haired older lady in front of James shook her head as she showed her fellow shopping companion a Yahoo news article she was reading on her phone. "Unidentified man shot after elaborate plot to steal historic Hope Diamond from the Smithsonian Institution. What exactly did the idiot think was gonna happen?"
James froze, just as he had started to bite down on another olive oil cracker.
"Beg your pardon, ma'am, but did you say the Hope Diamond?" he couldn't help asking her.
"Says it right here," the lady said, showing him the article. "This is the dumbass right here they caught on camera."
James took a gander at the man in the grainy grayish CCTV photo. His pale eyes crowned by a strong dark brow and pointed nose with high cheekbones. His chin and jaw handsomely chiseled above a neat black collared dress shirt. His eyes appearing not much like a remorseless thief's, but a man burdened and weary with desperation against the world's misfortune. His dark hair combed neatly in a side part over his pale prominent forehead and gelled down around his sharp ears, where a faint scar blemished his nearly perfect porcelain complexion.
James's brow furrowed as he studied the man's face closely.
Almost as if he could imagine this very man as real as his own hands standing in front of him. Though it wasn't a pale grainy image on the woman's phone, but a figure as clear as the night James turned away from Lifeboat 14, and looked into the terrified sea-green eyes of a first-class gentleman still dressed for dinner on Titanic's starboard deck.
'Please tell me I'm not too late, that she can still be saved. Tell me I haven't murdered my own sister. My God, James, I beg you to help me.'
And as James matched the man in the photo to the uncanny resemblance of the Titanic passenger he remembered, Miss Amberflaw's worried voice on the phone from her bathroom suddenly came back to him.
I'm calling about my brother, Paxton Amberflaw. He's been missing, and I'm worried something might've happened to him...The last time I saw him was around Christmas. He said he had to run an important errand, but he never came back.
"Must've been Houdini," the elderly lady joked. "They shot the guy at least 16 times, watched him drop dead, and when they got the clear to investigate the body, he wasn't there anymore. I'm guessing at some point he got up and ran for it...But after being shot 16 times?"
"Maybe he had a bulletproof vest on?" her shopping companion shrugged a guess.
"Well, if the idiot was smart enough to think of that, you'd think he'd be smart enough to not walk into the Smithsonian and steal the Hope Diamond. I don't understand how he thought he was gonna get away with it?...Almost like he had a death wish."
A death wish.
James's head began going around in circles about the idea, thinking again of the strange circumstances surrounding his own "death" on Titanic.
Wouldn't it be something if...there was some possibility that...the connection between his dying so hopelessly and the allegedly "cursed" Heart of the Ocean was that one must-
"I can help the next customer on 16!" the adjoining cashier called over from her register.
"You go to that one, dear," the elderly lady in front of James said. "I'll stay with this line."
"No, madam, it's ladies first," James insisted to her. "I am not at all opposed to waiting longer for my turn."
"No, it's fine. You get in that line, and I'll stay with this one," she insisted, nodding over at register 16. "My stuff is already on this counter anyway. Go ahead now, hurry up, dear, before someone else gets your seat-I mean, spot."
The 6th Officer stood still and pale with his cart, his mind still rowing on.
You'll take that boat abaft, if I am to go in this one.
How was it he could never stop being haunted by those last words of Lowe's, even in the most trivial of places like this?
Was it all just some poor taste of coincidence, or pieces of a greater story unconnected?
The elderly lady going on about him switching lines. The man in the photograph who he swore he'd seen before on Titanic. Miss Millie's desperation to find her lost brother.
Every moment James found himself arrested by adoration, every instance he caught Emily's gaze.
What exactly was this bizarre version of reality trying to tell him?
"Next at 16, please!" the cashier drawled again sassily.
Slowly, James pushed his cart along, and absently began dropping each of his selections on the counter. So lost in thought, that he half noticed the counter was moving each one toward the cashier on a little conveyer belt, so that she could scan the items.
'Should a man decide to imagine it that way,' he thought to himself. 'Paxton and Patrick do have a striking ring with each other, don't they?...I can't be entirely sure, but I might swear my second life on it...that man in that photograph was none other than Patrick Crawley.'
"That'll be $367.92," the cashier announced, breaking James from the tension of his thoughts after scanning the last of his items. "Will you be paying with cash or card?"
"Uh, pennies," James answered numbly, still only half-listening as he passed her the container of Foldgers. "You'll find that it's all there."
The cashier rolled her eyes, muttering under her breath, "Seriously?"
But James went on musing to himself as she snatched open the Folgers lid.
''If, theoretically speaking, Patrick Crawley were actually Paxton Amberflaw, why on earth would he ever do something so rash, knowing he's left a sister behind to search after him? It seems carelessly reckless, even for a rascal like Patrick. Though...his resemblance is unmistakable."
And after counting each penny and coming to the last one, the cashier rolled her eyes up at James again. "I have here $11.94."
"Hm?" James muttered, confused. "I've not given you enough?"
"Nope," cashier stated. "Not enough by about $355.98."
"Impossible."
"You can't make this stuff up," she shook her head. "How would you like to pay the remaining balance? Cash or card?"
"Now, you're pulling one over me," the puzzled Edwardian man of simple economy insisted. "Surely, it must be plenty enough."
"Your total was 367 dollars," the cashier repeated dryly, showing him her monitor. "And ninety-two cents."
"4 American dollars," James breathed in disbelief as he read the list of prices on the monitor. "For this milk only? That's daylight robbery, that is. It couldn't be more than 6 pennies for the bread, and 35 more for the milk, and with all the rest priced accordingly, you mean to say it still isn't enough?"
"I mean to say you're welcome to put something back," she sassed on.
"Four dollars," James went on questioning it, as if it were her idea of a bad joke. "And sixty cents?"
"Hey, man, if you don't like it, go back where you came from," the rather large hunpty dunpty man behind James blurted out. "In case you didn't notice, there's a line back here."
"Do you really pay 4 dollars for milk, sir?" James inquired of him. "Will all of you stand for this?"
"If you can't afford a few dollars for milk, son, you need to get yourself a real job."
"I am honestly employed, thank you, sir," James defended his honorable reputation as a hardworking man and sailor. "As it so happens, I myself am a bloody officer of–"
He hesitated.
Remembering that he wasn't supposed to talk about such things outside of Miss Amberflaw's flat.
And though it was probably no better, he decided he'd better say it otherwise-
"Of cats," he finished the heroic declaration to his fellow shoppers.
"Excuse me?" Hunpty Dunpty raised a puzzled graying blonde brow. "Did you say cats?"
"Of course, sir. I am, in fact, a cat nanny," James announced proudly. "Albeit, not a paid one, but a good one nonetheless."
"A cat nanny?" The woman dressed in a man's business trousers behind humpty dumpy perked up.
"You babysit cats?" another lass peeked around the news and candy stand, from the next register over. "Do you have any openings?"
"How much do you charge?" business trouser woman spoke up quickly, in a race to outbid the other hopefuls closing in on James. "My sister's been looking for someone, and it's ridiculous how much these kennels charge. You take Zelle, right?"
"If you got the room, I'll pay you double today!" news stand woman shouted out her bid to James next.
James turned back to his cashier with a more assured smile.
"It seems my luck has changed, miss. I'll be on my way then and back for the rest tomorrow," he told her. "Though, what can I take home with the money I've given you already?"
"Ahem," The cashier cleared her throat, performing a rather snooty promenade to the beverage cooler at the closed register behind her. From which she retrieved a small 8 ounce carton of milk no larger than James's palm, and slapped his half finished olive oil cracker box on the pay counter with it.
"Thank you and have a nice day," she mumbled to him. "Next on 16!"