The company’s stay in Denver brought another unexpected, but this time far more welcome, visitor for Rose. The troupe had been performing in Denver since September sixth, and was scheduled to move on to San Francisco on October twelfth.
Rose had grown more and more relaxed as they traveled farther west, away from her old world and her old acquaintances. Her relationship with Richard had begun to stagnate, and she had caught him looking speculatively at other women, but for some reason she really didn’t mind. She was beginning to grow bored with the relationship herself, and there had never been much between them in the first place.
Early in October, a week before they were scheduled to leave, Melanie came rushing into Rose’s dressing room shortly after the performance ended.
Rose jumped, startled; Melanie had forgotten to knock. The hairdresser didn’t notice; she was too excited over Rose’s latest visitor.
"There’s someone here to see you, Rose," she told her, almost dancing with excitement.
Rose sighed. There was usually someone there to visit her after the show. She welcomed her visitors, but she didn’t get excited over them. Melanie usually didn’t, either.
"Who is it?" she asked, wiping the makeup off her face.
Melanie paused, suddenly flustered. "I forgot her name," she told Rose, "but she’s a rich lady who says she knows you."
A rich lady who knew her? Rose looked up, suddenly alarmed. The last visitor she’d had who knew her had tried to drag her back to Cal. Of course, the chances of Cal being in Denver now were slim, but still...
"What did she look like?" Rose asked, wondering who in Denver would know her, especially since she’d changed her name.
"She’s kind of heavy-set, with brown hair. And she has a strange accent, too. Not cultured like most rich people. She talks more like a regular person."
Rose frowned, thinking. The only person she knew of who matched that description was Molly Brown, and she didn’t know her that well. Her mother had held a rather low opinion of Molly, since she was new money, and Rose had only spoken to her a few times on the Titanic. Still, Rose knew that Molly’s husband had made his fortune in the west, so it was possible that she was in Denver.
"Tell her I’ll be out in a few minutes," Rose told Melanie, standing and reaching for her dress. Melanie nodded, and, after hanging up Rose’s costume, hurried out.
Rose slipped into her dress, hoping that she wasn’t making a mistake in agreeing to greet this visitor. She was fairly certain that if her visitor was indeed Molly, she wouldn’t report Rose’s whereabouts to Cal; she hadn’t seemed to have had a terribly high opinion of Cal in the first place. But if it was someone else...
Rose tried to put her concerns out of her mind. The troupe was moving on in another week, heading for California. Rose was looking forward to that—she had never been to California, and Jack’s descriptions had made her want to see it. True, they were going to San Francisco, not Los Angeles, but Rose still looked forward to the move. In addition to wanting to see California, it would be even farther from her old life.
Rose took one last look at herself in the mirror, hoping that she looked presentable, before leaving the dressing room to greet her guest.
Several people were waiting for her—two young male admirers, an eight-year-old girl who wanted her autograph, the girl’s father, and Rose’s wealthy guest, who was indeed Molly Brown.
Rose talked to the other visitors first, autographing the girl’s play program and politely rebuffing the young men before turning to Molly.
"Well, Rose," Molly spoke to her. "I see you’ve been making quite a name for yourself."
Rose nodded, still a bit uncomfortable. She was still trying to break with her old life, and the appearance of old acquaintances didn’t make that any easier.
Molly noticed Rose’s discomfort. "You got someplace we can sit down and chat, darlin’? I ain’t seen you since the Titanic sank."
Rose nodded. "There’s a couple of chairs in my dressing room."
"Your own dressing room. You are doing well," Molly commented as they walked backstage.
Rose was relieved to find that Melanie had already left. She got along well enough with her, but Melanie was a bit of a gossip, and Rose didn’t want her hanging around.
As Rose and Molly made themselves comfortable, Molly asked Rose, "So, what have you been up to since you got off the Carpathia? Besides leaving Cal at the altar and becoming an actress, that is."
"How did you know I left Cal?"
"It was in the society columns of newspapers all over the country. You were famous until the scandal wore off."
Alice had been right; Cal could have found Rose anywhere, from the amount of publicity. "He wasn’t very happy," Rose replied.
"I’d imagine. He didn’t strike me as the sort who took rejection well."
Especially not in front of five hundred members of Philadelphia society, Rose thought. To say that he was unhappy with her was an understatement.
"How did you know that I was here?"
"I saw your picture in a theater review in the newspaper. I’d seen some notices before, but your new name threw me off. There was no mistaking that picture, though."
"Just so long as Cal stays away, I’m happy."
"I don’t think you two were exactly a match made in heaven," Molly agreed. "That one day on the Titanic, at lunch, you were trying to bedevil him, weren’t you?"
Rose remembered well. "He didn’t like my reading material, or my smoking."
"Do you still smoke?" Rose didn’t smell of cigarettes like most smokers did.
"No. I mainly did that to annoy him and Mother. If they hadn’t made such a fuss, I probably wouldn’t have done it."
"It’s sounds like you’ve had an interesting time since the Titanic. What have you been up to?"
Rose hesitated; there were a lot of things she wasn’t willing to talk about. She had never told anyone about how Cal had abused her, or about her miscarriage, or about Cal’s attempt to murder her in the alley in New York, and she wasn’t going to start now. Instead, she gave Molly an abbreviated version of what she had done since fleeing her wedding. She didn’t say anything about why she left Cal, only that she ran off in the middle of her wedding and took the first train to New York City. Molly roared with laughter at Rose’s description of spending the night in a house of assignation, and her story about learning to buy food and cook for herself. Rose had been as bad a cook as Robert when she first started. Rose told Molly about her friends in New York City, leaving out the part about Alice’s troubles, and how she had auditioned for the Shakespeare troupe and become a leading lady, even without much acting experience. She spoke about traveling with the theater troupe, leaving out the fact that the reason she’d left was because Cal had tried to kill her. She also left out her affair with Richard, which was nearly over anyway.
Molly was impressed with Rose’s story and the way she had created a life for herself, but she still had one question. "What happened to Jack?"
Rose winced. She hadn’t wanted to talk about Jack; despite her efforts to move on, she still missed him. She wondered, sometimes, how she could still feel so strongly about someone she had only known for three days, but they had had something special. She had said a silent good-bye to him the previous April, but he still lingered in her mind.
"He’s dead, Molly. He died on the Titanic."
Molly’s face showed her sympathy. Rose went on, talking about what had happened for the first time.
"Cal put me into a lifeboat, but I jumped back out to be with Jack. Cal was furious, and tried to shoot us, but we escaped unharmed. We almost drowned in a flooded portion of the ship before we finally escaped. As we were running through the ship, trying to find our way out, Mr. Andrews gave me his lifebelt. Later, just before the ship split in half, Jack and I were clinging to the stern railing, where we first met." Rose didn’t mention that their first meeting had been as a result of her suicide attempt. "When the ship split in half, I hoped for a minute that we were saved, but then it started to tilt up again. Jack pulled me over the railing, and we held onto it until the ship went down." Rose was speaking faster and faster as the memories flew through her mind. "We were separated in the water, and I was swimming around trying to find him when someone pushed me under. I screamed for Jack, and after a minute he was there. He got me away from the man, who almost drowned me, and we found a piece of wood, but there was only enough space for one of us. I climbed up on the piece of wood, and Jack stayed in the water. He made me promise to survive, and I thought he would be all right, but when the boat came back, and I tried to wake him up, he didn’t respond. He’d frozen to death. I let him go, and watched him sink into the water for a moment before I got off the piece of wood and got a whistle that had belonged to a dead officer. I was rescued, and the next thing I knew, the Carpathia was there to rescue the survivors. I stayed in steerage for about two hours before Cal found me and brought me back to first class."
"Slow down, darlin’. Take a deep breath."
Rose nodded and did as she said. "Before I knew it, it was my wedding day. I got about two-thirds of the way down the aisle before I turned and ran away. I’ve only been back to Philadelphia once since, and that was to appear on stage."
"And you still miss Jack, don’t you?"
Rose nodded. "Yes. It seems strange, because I only knew him three days, but..."
"But he became an important part of your life in that time."
"Exactly." Molly was the first one who had comprehended what Jack had meant to her. "I don’t think I’ll ever forget him."
"I’m sure you won’t, but you do seem to have gone on with life. You don’t seem unhappy."
Rose half-smiled. It was true, she liked her new life, liked traveling and appearing on stage and being admired. She had a number of good friends, and she was doing many of the things she had dreamed of. She wanted more out of life eventually, of course, but for now she enjoyed being an actress, enjoyed being in the company of friends and seeing parts of the country that members of her old social class would have turned up their noses at. And, except for when the memories came on and overwhelmed her, she was content.
"Have you had dinner yet, darlin’?" Molly asked her, startling her out of her reverie.
"Actually, no."
"I know a nice little place not far from here that won’t object to bein’ patronized by an actress. How about dinner?"
Rose thought for a moment, then agreed. "Sure. I’d like that."
"Great. And you can tell me more about the life of an actress."
Rose smiled and followed Molly out to her car.