Journal Entry #1
April 10, 1912
How could I possibly detail the full events of the day in just one journal entry? For some might argue that an entire journal alone should be dedicated to writing about the Titanic. Therefore, I will try my best to be concise and speak on the part that I recall most - meeting her. For her presence, during the short time I was in it today, was somehow even bigger than this majestic ship taking us across the Atlantic.
I remember thinking that the reception hall was nicer than any room I’d ever been in. Even as I stood there anxiously adjusting my mask for what felt like the umpteenth time. Around us, the guests donned elaborate disguises of the same Venetian flair while nursing a glass of Moscato in their hands.
“Tally, relax a bit,” Raelle says over the rim of her glass. “You’re drawing more attention to yourself by looking like a frightened animal. They all think we belong here.”
“It’s hard for me to relax when I feel like my head is on fire.” I reach up to adjust my black wig again. “Did I really have to wear this thing?”
“Yes.” She deposits her empty glass on a passing waiter’s tray and smiles. “It’s a part of the entire outfit.”
“What if the original owners come to the masquerade ball tonight and spot us? I don’t want to be thrown off the ship, Raelle.”
“These rich people don’t think about their clothes the same way we do, Tally. I bet they didn’t even notice it was missing.”
I run my hands down my yellow dress, feeling the soft material against my skin.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Raelle quirks a brow at me. “I think it’s genuine silk.”
Our masks and dresses were won in a poker game with one of the stewards of the ship, I was told. Raelle’s guess was that the steward had stolen it from one of the first class suites they were assigned to clean. I knew that my dress was expensive, even for someone who hadn’t bought any new clothes in over five years.
From what we were told, the ball was only open to first class passengers. But even if only a third of them attended, that was already more than a hundred people. The math was on our side at going unnoticed, I had concluded.
Naturally, Raelle’s attention was drawn away by food, the main reason we were there. We’d only ever heard of caviar and filet mignon before tonight and wanted the first class experience.
“You know I’m right. So let’s try to enjoy all the free first class food we can tonight before we go back to our tiny little cabin down in third.” Raelle’s eyes scan the reception room, immediately lighting up when she spots a waiter with a tray of deviled eggs. “Hang tight for a second. I’ll be back.”
“Wait—,” I call out to her, but she’s already weaving her way through the crowd. “Great, just leave me here to fend for myself.”
The contrast between our two worlds could not have been more obvious to me then, as I watched the first class passengers move around the waiters like they were nothing more than roadblocks inconveniencing them while Raelle chased down the food. Everyone who was anyone was in attendance. And somehow, there I was, rubbing elbows with them when I didn’t have as much as a savings account to my name. My dress and mask were won in a game of poker. My ill-fitted shoes borrowed from one of the eight girls we shared a cabin with.
Yet, fate would have it that our paths crossed. She carried an intriguing scent with her when she slid up next to me. I remember that it was floral, but not exactly pretty. More like earthy. Expensive, for sure.
“That’s quite a mask. There’s an interesting story to it, did you know? A high-ranking general’s daughter donned that same mask to run away in the middle of the Carnival of Venice. It was said that she was in a bad family situation. The mask has since been called La libertà, which translates to ‘Her freedom.’”
“I didn’t know that it carried so much history,” I say dumbly to this woman who seems exceptionally knowledgeable about my mask. But Raelle had been more insistent about me dressing the part than knowing the part.
The woman taps a finger to her own mask. “The mask I’m wearing has a history too. Though not as interesting as yours. It’s said a young woman once wore a mask like this to a ball to meet her prince charming.”
“Wow, that’s interesting,” I say. “But I think I like my mask’s backstory more than yours, overall.”
“Really?” She inclines her head. “One would think a young woman like yourself would be intrigued by the romance.”
I offer her a half smile. “Freedom allows one to seek out their heart’s desire. Even romance, if it is their choice.”
She stares at me for a few seconds, all strong jaw and blue eyes. Eyes that remind me of–
“I’ve yet to formally introduce myself. My name is Sarah Alder.”
I dip my head slightly. “I’m Tally Craven.”
“Tally Craven, huh? Well it is nice to meet you.”
She had hummed my name when we exchanged introductions. I didn’t think she intended for it to sound quite so melodic, but it did to my ears. Almost like it could have blended in with the notes the cellist was playing.
She didn’t ask me to elaborate on my flimsy answer about where my family did business, but I wondered if it was because her curiosity was fully satisfied or if she was still trying to figure me out. I got my answer when she walked out to the dance floor, smile sly and hand outstretched, challenging me to accept.
I didn’t know if this was customary behavior for the wealthy. To ask random strangers to dance this way. But no one seemed particularly interested in our conversation or the fact that this woman was asking for my hand. Raelle was also nowhere in sight.
I don’t know what came over me in that moment. My nervousness was still there, but there was also this newborn exhilaration that I just couldn’t tamp down. I’d danced before but never at a ball. Never this kind of ballroom dancing and in a pretty dress. And never with someone quite so…alluring.
I had let her lead.
I’m unable to describe the feeling she elicited in me. It was new. It was… peculiar. And it made me want to do something absurd like… stick my tongue in her pretty pink mouth. How mortifying. But that all came crashing down hard and fast.
You’re doing spectacular,” she says after a few beats. “One, two, three. One, two, three. Just follow me.”
“Is it that obvious that I don’t know how to dance?” I ask shyly.
“No. It’s just that you’ve spent the entire time looking down at our feet.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Try to hold your gaze straight and ahead. Look at my mask, if you will.”
“Your mask?” I stare up at her. But instead of focusing on the gold accents of her mask, I look straight into her eyes. And something blossoms in my chest.
“I’m going to spin you now,” she suddenly says.
I draw my eyes away from her mouth. “Huh?”
The rest of the room disappears in a blur. And then I’m brought back to her body just as quickly. She leans in close, her breath tickling my ear. “So how did you manage to get into my suite to steal my clothes?”
Crap. The blood drains from my face.
“The mask and dress you’re wearing are part of an outfit I put together myself.” She doesn’t miss a beat as she spells out what’s likely going to be my doom.
I accidentally step on her foot. “Sorry, I—“ I disentangle myself from her embrace. “I have to go,” I say, heart racing. A bead of sweat starts to form on my brow.
“Wait,” she calls out to me.
Dancers move about us to the tune of the song. I zigzag around them, feeling my right shoe begin to slip now that I’m not paying more attention to keeping it in place.
“Wait!”
“Sorry. I’m so sorry.” I push my way past several people, interrupting their dance. They murmur their displeasure at my clumsiness.
“Hey, what’s the matter with you!”
I bump into a rather large man and ricochet back a few steps before losing the ill-fitted shoe that’s been causing me such grief all night.
It immediately gets swept away by the tide of dancing couples. When I look back to the center of the dance floor, I see Sarah Alder bending down to pick it up.
How was I that unlucky? That the one person I danced with at the ball turned out to be the person whose dress and mask I’d been wearing. And to lose my shoe after all that?
I wasn’t sure how I found Raelle after I decided to abandon the shoe. I might have done so by picking out the waiters in the room, but I remembered her being startled by my flushed appearance when she saw me.
“Hey, you okay?”
“I-no-“ I struggle to catch my breath as I point in the vague direction of where I think the exit is. “We have to go. Now.”
“What? Why? We just got here.”
“I—I met her.” I place a hand over my chest, hoping it’ll slow down the erratic thumping there.
“You met who?”
I point to my mask and then my dress. There’s not enough air in this room. “The owner of the outfit the steward stole.”
“Holy—“
I don’t know why I didn't get rid of the other shoe. Instead, I ran down four floors of the ship, through tile, wood, and then carpet, feeling short-legged on my right side. Perhaps I thought coming back with one shoe was better than none and would ease some of the pain for the cabin mate I’d borrowed them from.
“Are you girls alright?” Eloise slips down from her top bunk, shawl wrapped around her shoulders. “You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I begin pacing our cabin.
“Worse,” Raelle says as she drops back against our closed cabin door, chest heaving. “But I think we are fine now.”
I stop pacing. “Well….”
Raelle’s eyes widen. “Well what Tally?”
“I—“ Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tell her. “I might have given her my name.”
“What!?”
I don’t recall a time when I have changed out of my clothes faster. But Raelle had quickly hatched up a plan to dispose of the “evidence” by throwing it overboard in case Sarah Alder came looking for us. And come looking for us she did.
“Okay, we’ve got the masks, dresses, and your wig here. Anything else?”
I look into the bag. “I think that’s it.” Then I feel the weirdness in my right foot again. “Oh, there’s this shoe but I—“
A knock comes at our door.
“Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.” It’d been, what? Half an hour? Who was this Sarah Alder person?
I stand behind Raelle, who bravely answers the door. “Hello, how can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Tally Craven.” The woman standing there is tall and intimidating. And a piece of her left eyebrow is missing, like she’d lost it in scuffle.
“I’m Tally Craven,” Raelle says.
I grip Raelle’s arm. No.
“That’s untrue.” Sarah Alder steps out from behind the tall woman, still in her masquerade outfit. Her eyes move from Raelle’s face to mine. Studying me intently. “I believe you’re actually Tally Craven.”
Sarah had said she wanted a word alone with me. Though I was anxious, I knew it was the right thing to do. My cabin mates didn’t need to be pulled into my mess anymore than they already had been. I remember seeing the Big Dipper float above us when I followed her up to the deck.
“We are alone now. So answer my question.”
I shake my head, confused. “Your question?”
“From earlier, before you ran away.” She holds up my missing shoe in her hand.
We both look down at my feet. My right sock is bared and dirty from running through the ship. I never did get the chance to change shoes.
“I didn’t steal it from your suite, I swear.” I look away from her. “It was… won in a game of poker.”
“Theft and gambling,” she hums.
I shrug. “Sure.”
The sound of soft ocean waves swirl around us.
“Sit,” she finally says.
I look back at her, and she points to a nearby bench.
I remember feeling clumsy and cold sitting there on the deck. But the moment Sarah leaned down with my shoe in her hand…
“May I?”
I bob my head.
Carefully, she lifts my right foot and slips the shoe on.
I swallow.
“Unbelievable,” she mutters as her finger fills the gap between my heel and the back of the shoe. “Are you wearing anything that actually belongs to you?”
I believe I giggled at the absurdity of my Cinderella shoe not fitting. Something had blossomed in my chest again, but it was different from the feeling in the reception hall while we were dancing. This feeling was… heady. It made me want to float and sink at the same time.
“You should wear shoes that fit you the next time.”
Before she can stand, I reach out for her mask. She lets me.
The color of the ocean was what I thought of when I peeled away her mask. We’d sailed through some waters that seemed just as blue and bright. That was what I was reminded of. And now I know what the rest of Sarah Alder’s face looks like.