If Tomorrow Never Comes

You jump, I jump

"My mother seemed as if she had already lived her entire life, and was now just watching it. As a young thing, I remember the blurs of social gatherings. It was an endless parade of parties and cotillions, yachts and polo matches. Always the same narrow people, the same mindless chatter. They never chattered about anything other than the expansion of the magazine. I imagine my mother felt trapped. They were replacing her, it was inevitable, and Irv thought she didn't know. But knowing didn't make a difference. It's like they forced her back to the edge of a great precipice, with no one to pull her back. No one who cared, or even noticed."

...

The Dragon Lady sprinted across the B deck promenade. It was chilly outside, but she didn't care. She couldn't seem to care about anything. She was clearly disheveled, hair flying.

Miranda wanted to cry, she wanted to break, but something wouldn't let her. She wasn't upset, just angry, so angry. And emotions were flying through her body that she didn't understand. Hatred, desperation. Everything she felt now displayed on her face, and she couldn't care at the fact that she was putting on a display in public. It was cold, there were few out tonight on deck.

She kept running, as fast as her heels and dress would let her until she reached the stern.

She paused at the flagpole, nearly clinging to it, before slowly approaching the railing, staring out at the black water beyond. All thoughts beyond the emotions she was currently feeling faded, everything ceased to exist except the want to get out. No, the need to get out.

Miranda's chest ached. It would be simple, so simple to disappear. There was nothing left, not in the magazine, not in anything.

She began to climb over the railing, having to hitch her long dress way up. The climbing was clumsy. Moving methodically she turned her body and stepped with her heels onto the white painted gunwale, her back to the railing, and facing toward the blackness.

Sixty feet below her, the massive propellers churned the Atlantic into white foam, and a ghostly wake trailed off as far as you could see.

Beneath her feet were the huge bold letters of the name 'Titanic'.

It was all so easy to do this, really. But the girls, it was so unfair to the girls. Miranda gripped the railing tighter. They were on the ship, with her, and they were the only constant, the only thing Miranda could bare to look at on this godforsaken vessel. It wasn't as easy or simple as she would have liked.

Miranda's breath hitched, and she leaned out, her arms straightening. She looked down hypnotized into the vortex below her. The wind from the ship's movement lifted her hair and dress. The only sound she could really focus on was the rush of the water below and the snap of the big Union Jack right above her.

"Don't do it," came a strong, feminine voice from behind, startling the editor. Her head whipped around and it took a second for her eyes to focus. It was a woman alright, a lot younger, and clearly poorer.

"Stay back! Don't come any closer!" Miranda huffed.

"Take my hand. I'll pull you back in," the younger woman offered, extending her arm.

"No! Stay where you are. I mean it. I'll let go."

The younger of the two held up her cigarette butt and gestured to the ocean, asking permission of sorts to throw it over. Really, it was an excuse to get closer. She stuffed her hands in her coat pockets afterward.

"No you won't," she accused casually. Miranda was taken aback.

"What do you mean no I won't? Don't presume to tell me what I will and will not do. You don't know me."