PERMANENT - Leonardo DiCaprio

Chapter 10 - Titanic

Saturday 8.10am

4 sharp knocks came upon my door, and I jolted awake, disoriented for a second as to where I was. Another 4 knocks came, and I scampered out of my bed, "Just a minute," I shouted, looking for anything to throw over the top of my tiny red silk pyjama set of shorts and a cropped cami (it had been a very hot summer in California this year), only to realise I had left my bags still packed in the hallway.

"Shit," I cursed, and went to the door, accepting defeat. The door opened to Leo leaning against the door frame, grinning. I sighed "Hey asshat," His eyes immediately went to the clothing on my body (or rather, lack of it), and he raised his eyebrows "Well well Nel, what, you hiding someone back there huh? Jake?!" he said, sticking his head into my apartment and looking around behind me. "No, NO I'm not thank you very much," I said, pushing his head back out of my room. "What's with the wakeup call?"

"Jim wants us to leave in 20 minutes to go to set." My eyes widened. "20 minutes? I haven't even had breakfast, why didn't you tell me?" I groaned, hitting him on the arm. "Well I'm here now aren't I?" I sighed and went to my bags, leaving the door open for him to come in. "Ow...do you have no self-control?" he muttered rubbing his arm, probably more to make a remark than ask a genuine question.

"Urgh it's a nightmare trying to find anything in this damn bag, fuck!" I groaned. He watched me for a couple of seconds before speaking up again, "I'll bring breakfast to you then yeah?" I looked up "Really?"

"Yeah, and then you can take it with you if there's no time." I grinned and stood up, going over to hug him, and placed a kiss on his cheek. "This is why you're my favourite."

I turned back around to go back to my bags. "Alright, I'll be back," he proclaimed, heading for the door, but not before pinching my butt on his way out. "Leo!" I shrieked, throwing the travel pillow I had been holding at his head. He looked back with that cheeky smile and headed out of the door, leaving it open.

I shook my head to myself, continuing to unpack, when my phone started ringing.

'Jake calling'

"Hey Jake," I said, carrying my toiletries to the en suite bathroom. "Good morning. You alright babe?" he drawled. "Mhm. You wouldn't believe how beautiful it is here." "How was your flight?"

"It wasn't too bad. I was exhausted when we landed though. God I just- I - I can't describe what it's like. My apartment's right on the beach. And the best part is that it's all paid for. For however long we need to shoot. All paid. Not that I'll see much of it....and I have to leave to go to set in like 15 minutes so I'm trying to get myself together."

"You're gonna smash it babe, I know it." I knew he was smiling from the tone of his voice. "I miss you." I said, already longing to see him. "Soon, okay? " "Soon," I agreed. "Well I'll leave you to it, don't want you to be late." he said. "Bye J."

After hanging up, I got dressed and devoured my breakfast, and me and Leo headed out to the cars with everyone else.

//

We pulled up to the plot of land that Twentieth Century Fox had bought (40 acres of oceanfront property to be exact), and where the construction of the ship was taking place. It wasn't completely finished yet, but it was breath-taking. I had always had a fascination with Titanic from a young age, one of my most distinct memories from my school days being the time that I campaigned for the school to run more classes on the tragic ship (we had only covered it over 2 classes), at the age of 11.

I was the first one out of the car, never taking my eyes off of the ship as I exited the car. In the distance I could see Jim talking to one of the construction workers, and I whistled loudly to make him aware of our arrival. He glanced toward us and then turned to the worker to say one last thing before waving him off, and started heading our way.

"She's a beauty Jim," I jested as he was close enough to hear, referring to the ship. "Love her like my own child," he laughed. "I'm gonna take you to your trailers, where you can relax in between takes. This way,"

Once I had settled into my trailer, I heard several knocks at the door. "Come in!" I yelled. In walked a very composed, very focused Jim. "Comfortable?" "Yes, very." I grinned.

"Alright, we're gonna start shooting today so that we use our time here effectively okay?" I probably looked in a state of shock now – I didn't expect to actually shoot so soon, but I guess that's why we were here.

"We were actually planning on doing some of the 'poop deck' scenes, but since construction was delayed, they're not finished, so we had to find some indoor scenes for us to do. Do you have your script?" I looked around and spotted the script I had been looking at a couple of minutes ago.

"Okay good, so we're gonna take it from the very bottom of page 83," he explained, pointing at my script with his finger "Up to the very top of page 86, and then that bottom part of page 86 after Old Rose and Bodine's brief little conversation, okay?"

I scanned the pages, "But that's the nude scene, right? We're doing that today?" Jim chuckled to himself "You were gonna have to do it eventually. Get it over and done with, but get it done well, that's what we came here to do." With that, he was out of the door, before sticking his head back in. "Oh and we'll film in about an hour, so if you get yourself down to hair and make-up and then get your costume on, you'll still have time to rehearse."

I stood up and exited my trailer shortly after Jim, and made my way to hair and make-up, where Dan greeted me with a hug and started working on my face, gossiping away.