Love's Not A Competion

Why Was I Worried?

After we dropped the bags off we ended up having brunch and drinks at a little cafe on the Southbank, near the London Eye.

"Juliette worked down the road for a few months." Ricky told his parents. "She did the prosthetics on Frankenstein at The National."

"Really?" Mr Wilson asked, impressed. "That's amazing!"

"He's completely over selling it, Mr Wilson!" I dismissed.

"Call me Alan." he told me. "Mr Wilson's my father!"

I nodded. "Ricky always over sells my work. All I did was stick stuff on and dab on some greasepaint. Someone else designed and made the prosthetics."

"But you could make and design them?" Alan asked.

"Yeah, in the right job I could." I nodded.

"I hope you get a job like that soon." Ricky's mum, who'd also insisted I call her by her first name, told me. "I can tell you love what you do."

The four of us chatted as we walked around central London for a few hours seeing the sights. We were so lucky to have good weather.

Soon enough it was time to take the Wilson family on their tour of the theatre. We started at the stage door where they were given lanyards with visitor tags on them. My friend Sarah blushed when she greeted Ricky and apologised for nearly hitting him with a baseball bat last time they met. He laughed it off and gave her a hug.

I started with the stage, I was hardly ever on it and only even when the auditorium was empty of audience.

"May I have this dance my lady?" Ricky bowed to me and held out a hand.

I took his hand and got pulled into his arms where he swayed and bobbed around dancing something like a jive. I laughed as he spun me around and picked me up, humming some made up tune. When we finished we stopped and took a bow to our invisible audience. His parents clapped, cheered and laughed.

"Well, that was crazy!" I laughed, wiping away a few tears of laughter. "On a completely coincidental note I'll take you to what we call the Tunnel Of Love next. Not much love happens there anymore."

"I'm sure we can change that!" Ricky laughed.

"Not in front of your parents!" I swatted him.

I led them through a curved tunnel under the audience seating explaining that it had originally got it's name when about a century before a married woman had been caught in an embrace with her lover in the tunnel by her husband. The jealous husband had pulled out a weapon and slain his wife's lover. It all sounded rather like a Shakespeare tragedy to me and seemed very fitting for a theatre.

From there we headed upstairs to the various technical departments. We stopped in each one where I introduced them to the appropriate teams. A few people asked Ricky for photos and autographs. I chatted with his mum and dad while this happened.

I saved my department for the last. I opened the door and lead them in to find everyone on the team grinning at us like Cheshire cats.

"Well, you lot all finally get to meet my man." I sighed. "Everyone, this is Ricky and his parents."

They were greeted with cheerful chatter and everyone wished Ricky a happy belated birthday.

"I thought you'd want to be back on prosthetics today." Carol, my boss, told me. "You can show off what you do best."

"Thanks." I grinned at her.

I lead the Wilson family back downstairs to the stage door where we'd started.