If Tomorrow Never Comes

A Lucky Hand

April 10, 1912

The entire reputation of the new ship was overdone, Miranda had decided. Her burgundy Renault Touring Car pulled onto the docks and through the sea of people, wavers and passengers alike trying to get through. The atmosphere itself was one of excitment and general giddiness.

Miranda, in her stunning white and purple outfit and silvery white hair hidden under a big feathered hat, let herself out of the car to take in the such praised ship. She looked at it with cool appriasal.

It was a mountain of buff colored funnels standing against the sky like the pillars of a great temple. Crewmen moved across the deck, white starline officials barked orders to people and cars.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about," she said. "It doesn't look any bigger than the Mauretania."

The door to a following car opened and out stepped another man, older, and much shorter than Miranda herself, who went by the name of Irv Ravitz, the chairman for Elias-Clarke publishing company.

"You can be blase about some things, Miranda, but not about Titanic. It's over a hundred feet longer than the Mauretania, and far more luxurious."

He turned to the rest of their group, which included Miranda's eleven year old twin daughters, her ladies maid, Emily, Christian Thompson, acting in as Irv's Valet, and the fashion director for Runway magazine, Nigel Kipling.

"Your boss is far too difficult to impress, Nigel," Mr. Ravitz chuckled, and Nigel laughed appropriately.

"So this is the ship they say is unsinkable?" Nigel asked, looking at the iron leviathan.

"It is unsinkable!" Mr. Ravitz spouted. "God himself could not sink this ship."

From behind them, a white star line porter scurried towards them, harried by last minute loading.

"Sir, you'll have to check your baggage through the main terminal, round that way--"

Irv Ravitz nonchantly slipped the man a fiver. The porter's eyes dilated, for five pounds was a monster tip.

"I put my faith in you good sir, now kindly see my man," he gestured to Christian.

"Right, all the trunks from this car here, twelve from here, and the safe, all to go to the parlor suite, rooms B-52, 54, and 56," Christian ordered.

"We'd better hurry, everyone. This way ladies," Irv directed Miranda and her daughters towards the first class gangway. Miranda led, followed by Emily, who carried several bags of Miranda's all too delicate to be handled by baggage handlers.

They passed several people waving tearful goodbyes. They weaved between vehicles and handcarts, hurrying passengers mostly of second class and steerage. Most of the first class passengers avoided the smelly press of the dockside crowed and used an elevated boarding bridge twenty feet above where they stood.

Miranda looked up to the hull as Titanic loomed over them, a great iron wall. They entered and the were swallowed up.

...

Caroline had only begun her mother's story. "It was the ship of dreams, to my sister and I, and everyone else. To my mother, it was a slave ship, taking her back to America in chains. Outwardly, she was everything a proper upperclass lady should be. Inside, she was screaming."

...

Inside a nearby pub, the steamer's whistle echoed so loud, it might as well have breezed across all of Southampton. A young woman, Andrea Sachs, sat inside the pub accompanied by a good friend by the name of Lily. They were playing a risky game of poker, as their opponents had bet their tickets to the luxurious liner outside.

Lily sat nervously, the other woman didn't even seem shaken up.

"Hit me again, Sven," she nodded to the Swedish man. She took the card, slipped into her hand. Her eyes gave nothing away. Lily shook her head and licked her lips nervously, denying a card.

The final whistle from Titanic blows again, one last warning.

"Moment of truth boys. Somebody's life's about to change, Lily?" she asks.

Lily throws her cards down, so do the Swedes. She had nothing, the best was two pair from one of the Swedes. Andy held her cards close, then turned to Lily.

"I'm sorry Lil," she said.

"What, sorry? What you got? Andy you lost all our money!"

"Sorry, Lily, you're not gonna see your mama again for a long time," she paused, an evil smirk across her lips. She slapped her cards against the table excitedly.

"'Cause you're goin' to American!! Full house boys!" Andy cheered.

Lily stood up abruptly, grabbing the money and kissing it before helping Andy rake it into a mail sack along with the tickets.

"We're going to America! We're going home!" they chorused together and danced around.

"No, mate," the pubkeeper interrupted them. "Titanic go to America, in five minutes."

"Oh shit, come on, Lil," Andy yanked her friend by the arm and they high taled it out of there.

"We're ridin' high style now! We're practically goddamned royalty!" Andy laughed as they booked it through the crowd and across the length of the dock to the right boarding area.

"You're crazy!" Lily huffed. "But I told you, I'm goin' to American to be a millionaire!"

They sprinted to the terminal, coming to a dead stop at the cast wall of the ship's hull, towering seven stories above where they stood. It was monstrous.

They approached the gangway at E deck just as one of the officers is detaching it from the top. It hovered in front of the door.

"Wait!" Andy called. "We're passengers!"

Frantically, flushed and panting, she waved the tickets at him.

"Have you been through the inspection cue?" he asked the pair.

"Of course," Andy answered. "Anyway, we don't have any lice, we're Americans. Both of us."

The officer seemed testy, but let them in just as the door shut behind them, locking everyone on board until they reached New York.

Andy gripped Lily's arm tightly as they crashed through the hallways with pure joy, grinning from ear to ear and whooping with victory.

"We're the luckiest sons of bitches in the world!" Andy shouted.

They reached the top deck just as the mooring lines were dropped in the water. A cheer went up in the pier as seven tug boats pulled Titanic away from the quay.

Both Andy and Lily began waving frantically to the crowd on the dock.

"You know somebody?" Lily asked.

"Of course not. That's not the point." Andy kept going, kept waving. She was unable to stop grinning, feeling the exhilaration of the moment. The entire thing was unbelievable.

Once they had pulled away from the docks in Southampton, and the waving and cheering had ceased, Andy and Lily retreated back down to the third class decks to find their room.

The corridors were narrow, and almost looked like something out of a college dorm. They passed several emigrants studying signs over doors and looking up words in their phrase books. Eventually though, they did find their berth. It was a modest cubicle, painted enamel white, with four bunks and exposed pipes overhead. It would do.

The other two passengers were already there, two men, no doubt relatives of the swedish poker players in the pub.

Andy threw her bag down on one of the open bunks, Lily took the other.

The two Swedish passengers turned to each other.

"Where is Sven?"