Leopold looked around. Everyone was rehearsed, in place and looking athim with eager (if slightly nervous) smiles."Check out sleeping beauty," Annette...said, grinning, nodding over towhere Jordan was fast asleep on the chaise."Is she really sleeping?" Leopold asked, delighted. "Now *that's* methodacting!"* * *The play was titled: "The princess without a mother! (who was morebeautiful than any other)" and it was all about a young girl (Isabella)who went on a quest to find a mother. Isabella was. He and I ... well you know”“Yes; I thought you were a well-made couple”“Nice of you, after you and I split. Except he got to Bristol and I didn’t get my grades. He didn’t let me get in his way. He’s doing medicine”“I can guess what he’ll specialise in. Cheer up, he’ll be struck off as soon as he qualifies”“Dave! You are awful.But you’re right. We did let that all get distracting. Well I did. He just got his end away and went back to work. I had to ... never mind”“I get the picture. Boys are. I shook it off kind of quickly, and the only lasting result of my temporary blues was that I lost some weight, which meant that I could buy some new clothes, two sizes smaller than before. And honestly – retail therapy really does work! My new, thinner, slightly more cynical, but still infinitely romantic self continued going to work and continued meeting my closest friends every Thursday. My friends could see that I struggled somewhat with my new world order, but except for some darkly cynical. Okay, they’d been alone on numerous occasions but nearly all those times were were back in the confines of Bright Sparks. He also wanted to get his hands on her body out in public where he could expose her as much as he dare.To that end he’d told her to wear her PE skirt which she had often said made her feel like she was wearing nothing below her waist, and one of 3 old men’s vests that he’d found with the hand-me-down clothes that he’d inherited from the old couple that ran the place before.