Ride the Titanic! (11 page)

‘Shall we gentlemen?’ Xia motions to Joe and me to join her as we strap into airline-style seats installed along the back wall. She adds, ‘Just in case we do some high performance dives.’

Robbie grins. ‘Of that you can be sure.’

Thanks to multi-layered sound insulation, I have no sensation of the powerful diesel-hybrid engines that must be powering the
Miss Fortune
as we cruise slowly out of the harbor and into open sea. The full moon in the cloudless sky turns the night into a magical, silver and grey-toned ‘day.’ Its reflection on the water’s like a hammered silver path that paces us as the
Miss Fortune
performs a series of full-power turns, emergency reverses, and flank-speed surface runs.

Robin monitors the carefully orchestrated events from a jump seat temporarily installed between the captain and helmsman. With his arms casually draped over the backs of the other chairs to create the illusion they’re the best of friends, he is, in fact, the stern headmaster holding a cane over a student’s head, daring him to screw up.

I say to Xia, ‘Where did you two meet?’

She keeps her eyes on the video console, analyzing something. ‘Robbie found me at the
Yacht World
show in Dubai.’

‘No kidding? I worked over there on
Dubailand.
Ever hear of it?’

‘A misbegotten venture as I recall.’

‘Not at first.’

‘The trouble with trouble is that it starts out as fun.’

‘Did they want your family’s hotels to get involved?’

‘Everybody wants us to ‘get involved’ as you say. We have the Midas touch – or so they believe.’

‘Sounds like you do.’

She shrugs and says nothing.

I nudge her a bit. ‘So you met Robin at the show, and. . .’

This brings her back from some inner reverie. ‘Yes, and like you, he brought a working model of his underwater dream ship.’ She idly waves a manicured hand to encompass the high-tech bridge. ‘In his case the dream came true.’

‘Why did you want it?’

‘If you’re thinking it’s just one more trinket, you’re wrong.’

‘You’re not the trinket type.’

She stares at me, and I realize her eyes aren’t brown, but a delicate shade of hazel. For a moment I get that stupid feeling again, whenever a beautiful woman stares at me. I bite my tongue to keep from babbling. Good thing, because she continues, ‘I enjoy my privacy. The idea of being underwater and away from everybody and everything appeals to me.’

‘Except fish,’ I blab.

‘Yes, excepting the fish, I am alone. Free from people, free from entanglements. Free to be me.’

‘Sounds nice.’

‘It will be.’

A pulsing bank of red lights dance across the view screen. Simultaneously, the captain says, ‘Prepare to dive.’

Good thing we’re buckled in, because for the next thirty minutes what we previously did on the surface, we now do so submerged; performing an insane series of twisting, turning maneuvers at varying depths, starting at one hundred feet all the way down to our maximum safe depth of fifteen hundred feet. Plenty deep for me but still way above crush depth.

While hovering at fifteen hundred feet, crewmembers elsewhere on the yacht perform a series of leak-checks. Other than a small one discovered in the now-quiet engine room – we’re moving on lithium batteries – the vessel’s watertight integrity is perfect.

‘Mr. Wright builds great submarines,’ I say.

‘Yes, but can he build the one you wish to sink in the sand?’

‘It’ll be in water that’s in a hole in the sand,’ I say peevishly then regret it. ‘Robbie understands the nutty world I live in, but he knows how to fit it into the world he lives in.’

‘Which world is that?’

‘The real one. Mine’s pretend. Make-believe. Poof, the ride’s over, and you’re back where you started.’

‘Tell me about this world you want to build in Las Vegas.’

I stall for time. My head’s pounding, mouth dry, my shoulders sore. ‘You mean right now? Just start?’

‘Yes.’ She lifts a finger to halt my ramblings. ‘Almost.’

‘But like I said, we were planning on doing it at the hotel. Everything’s all set and waiting.’

‘If I don’t see the fire in your eyes and hear the passion in your voice tonight, don’t think for an instant I will look at your toy models and fancy videos tomorrow.’

Joe has been listening and leans over and smiles. ‘Don’t forget my paintings. I did some beauties for you.’

Xia smiles. ‘I understand from Robbie that you were quite the artist at Disney.’

‘Still am,’ Joe says. ‘Just don’t wear mouse ears anymore.’

‘Talent resides between one’s ears, not those of mice.’

Joe accepts her compliment with a shy smile.

Robbie claps the captain on the back, turns and announced with a happy grin, ‘A clean slate, other than a few tweaks.’

‘Very well,’ Xia says.

‘One final event on the dance card. Everybody ready?’

Xia nods.

‘Fasten your seatbelts then.’ Robbie turns to the captain. ‘Commence emergency surface.’

At the captain’s command, the helmsman pulls back on his joystick, and with an exploding hiss of ballast tanks blowing, the submarine transitions sharply to an up-angle as steep as a roller coaster. The forward-looking LCD view shifts from dark violet to deep blue, and then lighter and lighter as we rise faster and faster.

Over the years Joe told me horror stories about sinking submarines, and I’ve seen YouTube videos of Navy subs performing the majestic, whale-like emergency surfacing maneuver, where to save itself from a dangerous flooding situation, the sub blows all its ballast tanks, shoots toward the surface, and the forward third of the sub explodes onto the air in maelstrom of white water and hissing bubbles.

I‘m not prepared for how
Miss Fortune
does it, because our rate of ascent is so furiously fast that the entire craft momentarily goes completely airborne in an exhilarating half-corkscrew maneuver, lurching first left then right as her bow searches for home, finds it, and finally steadies as we once again become a surface vessel calmly underway on a moonlit sea.

‘Hell of ride!’ Joe shouts.

When the yacht finally stabilizes, Xia unbuckles her seatbelt, stands and shakes Robbie’s hand. ‘Congratulations, you’ve outdone yourself.’

‘She’s a grand vessel. One of a kind.’ He gallantly bows and kisses her hand. ‘As are you.’

Xia accepts the gesture like a Ming Dynasty empress. ‘Carry on, Captain. I’m going topside with Mr. Sullivan, who claims to have an idea that’s one of a kind too.’

The only evidence of our undersea adventure is a thin sheet of water coating
Miss Fortune
’s teak deck. The rest of Xia’s submersible yacht is in perfect order, including the deck chairs and tables that, with a push of a button, re-emerge from their storage compartment, slide along their hidden tracks and rotate back into place like Disney’s
Teacup Ride.

My mysterious Chinese inquisitor reclines on a lounge directly in front of me, glass of Laphroag in one hand, the other tucked beneath her chin, fingers folded, hiding blood-red fingernails like so many switchblades ready to slash me to ribbons if my pitch goes south.

I don’t dare look at my watch. If I discover how late it is I will curl up on the deck and die from exhaustion.

Instead, I clear my throat, take a deep breath, pray to that friendly, understanding God who knows I believe in Him only when desperate and say, ‘Tonight is June 9th, the air is warm out here on the ocean, the night is peaceful; just the moon and the sky and us. Here’s to the good life.’

I raise my glass. As Xia returns the gesture, I continue. ‘But it’s a far different story on April 14th, 1912. Out here on the open Atlantic the air’s as cold as ice. No moon, just stars in the cold night sky. But as a first class passenger on the
RMS
Titanic,
you’re bundled up in a nice fur coat covering your evening gown, instead that stylish outfit you’re wearing.’

Xia reflexively fingers the fabric of her suit. ‘And?’

‘And you’re listening to your heartbeat as you recline upon your deck chair on the promenade deck of this beautiful, unsinkable ocean liner. Hear its beat? Slow, regular, relaxed. Just like the beat of the bronze propellers driving you closer and closer to landfall in New York City. And won’t it be grand to be the first person down the gangplank on the very first voyage of this elegant ship? But then again, why not? Being first in line is something you’ve quite grown used to. Fact is, you wouldn’t know how to react if – God forbid – life should prove to be otherwise.’

She sips her drink. ‘And?’

‘And all is perfectly well tonight, and all the money in the world can’t buy this kind of peace of mind, body and soul. That’s because this feeling comes from the power you believe you have over the sweet, smooth, unruffled course of your life.’

A smile teases her lips but she tucks it back in. ‘Power?’

‘And a place to wield it. In the boardroom back in London, or with your servants in your mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York, or down below in the First Class Dining Room, from where you’ve just finished dining at the Captain’s table. Again.

‘Power radiates from you in a regal way as you move through a crowd, and we part for you like we would for Buddha, Jesus or Mohammed on their way to glory. We who are powerless move aside at your presence. We allow you to exert your will over us. We, the forgotten ones, the steerage ones, the carpet beneath your well-shod feet to walk upon ones. Come unto us, we beseech thee. Lead us from our third class darkness, you, oh mighty one, into the light of free-market capitalism.’

I open my hands in a beseeching gesture and kneel on one knee. ‘Your wish is more than our command; it is our duty to obey!’

Xia laughs at my antics.

‘But then, in the middle of paradise, the iceberg strikes.’

I fumble beneath the deck chair beside me for the silver ice bucket I hid earlier and toss its slushy contents of crushed ice and water on Xia, making sure it lands square on her beautiful face and soaks her clothes. She shoots out of the lounge chair as if electrocuted, sputtering and swiping away the ice chunks, and glaring at me with a mixture of shock, rage and surprise.

‘Hold that thought,’ I calmly say. ‘And welcome to
Ride the Titanic
.’

She starts to speak but I raise my hand like a traffic cop. ‘Of course, the ride will create only the
feelings
your having right now; shock, dismay, the beginnings of fear – not real ice on your dress or the soaking hair part – although that’s something I never really thought about until now. Hmmmm.’

I lift a cardboard container also filled with ice and water. ‘Time for steerage to join the party too.’

I slowly dump the contents over my head, trying not to shiver as the water soaks my shirt and ice chunks slide down my back.

‘We’re all in the same boat now, Ms. Zhu. Princess and pauper alike on a sinking ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of the night, and, in case you’re interested, it’s going down fast.’

I unfold a bath towel and hand it to her. ‘Let’s get the hell out if we can, okay?’

She wipes her face and dries her hair in silence while I count the stars and shiver. In my haste to get everything in place for this command performance I grabbed only one towel. And since the
Miss Fortune
is cruising at about 15 knots with no drying wind to speak of, I’ll stay soaked and cold until we get back to Freeport.

‘A word of advice,’ Xia finally says tightly. ‘Don’t throw ice on potential investors.’

‘Got your attention, didn’t I? Icebergs have a way of doing that, no matter who you are.’

She says nothing. So. . .having nothing left to lose, I take the plunge.

‘
Ride the Titanic’s
going to grab you by the scruff of your neck and hold you up to the looking glass so close that you’ll think you’re on the other side. You’ll actually feel you’re there. Not somewhere safe and sound and watching a movie about what happened. But somebody who’s really there. Somebody who thinks they’re going to die, but at the very last instant, gets out alive to tell the tale.’

‘The tale?’ she says.

‘To their friends back home.’ I smile. ‘And they’ll want to ride the
Titanic
too, again and again.’

More silence. She examines her nails. I can’t stand it any longer. ‘You said you wanted to see the fire in my eyes. Well, I’m on fire about this ride, and I’m sorry about the ice. I had to think of something dramatic to get your attention.’

‘It worked.’

‘Good.’

‘Except. . .’ She keeps drying herself. ‘I saw no fire in your eyes.’

My heart sinks. All of this for nothing.

A quick smile. ‘But that’s only because you threw ice water in mine.’ She wipes her face with the towel. ‘I look forward to your full presentation. Tomorrow at eleven.’ She tosses me the towel. ‘That should give us both time to dry off.’

Two hours of sleep does nothing but make me want twelve more. I check my watch again and my heart skips. Xia is due to arrive any minute and things are getting tense. Robbie helps me position the black drapes around the ship model’s base to mask its sinking mechanism. Joe’s wearing what he calls his ‘funeral suit’ for the occasion, and his somber face matches its original purpose. Me? I can barely breathe, trying to suck my stomach inside suit pants I haven’t worn in years. By contrast, Robbie is decked out in a crisp white linen suit and looks fully prepared to play the role of 007 should the need arise.