6 Chapter 6: Date at the Theatre

Wednesday evening came faster than Sagitar had planned. With all the business concerning the Celestial's arrival, he found himself drifting off from his usual schedules. Work had slowed down and getting Celeste adjusted to earthly qualms had taken over his free time. Regardless, the night wouldn't be missed. The man that had come to impress the woman of his interest, just as he had planned, had found himself standing outside the Bristol Hippodrome ready to enter the theatre just as soon as Alma arrived. Having only got there five minutes prior, he took a quick glance at his wrist watch. The time to get checked in was counting down.

19:17. Where is Alma? He muttered.

Sagitar was groomed well and it showed. The awed looks he received from not only the opposite sex but jealous males alike showed that he had dressed the part. He wore a smart white shirt with a well enticed suit vest and black trousers.

Standing around was starting to become a bother. Planning to make an impression, Sagitar had rushed out in advance thinking he was going to arrive late. He did not want to keep Alma waiting. It turns out that he unpredictably got there ironically earlier. As the play was yet to start, despite mentioning the arrival time as a must, he realized that if Alma took the outing seriously then she would show up earlier before the starting time as they still had to check in. Just as he was about to lose faith, coming to the conclusion that Alma would not show up, his eyes caught a beautiful woman in a red dress walking towards him. She was enchanting. Immediately, he recognized the sight of allure—it was Alma. She crossed the road ahead and walked towards the theatre with graceful strides. Seeing her brightened up his evening. However, he tried hiding his excitement behind a weird smile. For anyone who knew the charmer well, this was Sagitar's first real date with a woman. Although he was a handsome man who received a reasonable amount of attention, he had never really tried to get into a relationship since his mid-teens.

"So you arrived at the end of the play," Sagitar teased.

"I'm not late am I?" replied Alma.

"No, I just wasn't sure whether you'd turn up," Sagitar responded.

"Come on, let's go in. You've got the tickets, haven't you?" Alma asked, not wasting time, as she walked onwards in front of him.

"Yeah, they are right here," Sagitar assured her, pulling both tickets out of his pocket.

On getting inside the Hippodrome, Sagitar and Alma met a queue. From the way people trooped into the main interior, Alma figured that there was going to be a struggle for space on the queue. She didn't want to waste any time, so she walked in quickly with Sagitar behind her. They took their place immediately as other people arrived behind them. One person at a time, people began to show their tickets at the check-in desk and were given access into the theatre ahead.

"So, are you going to tell me how good I look or what?" Alma asked, as she spun around to give him a good look of what she was wearing.

"Nope. What's the point in telling you how great you look, when you already know you look good in that dress," Sagitar replied.

"Pretty lame line to use on a honey." Alma shot him a look to show that she was displeased.

Sagitar laughed quietly. He did not want Alma to really read the true feelings of his heart—because really, he was in awe of what she was wearing—so he turned backwards temporarily, only for his eyes to collide with a surprise.

What!? Lloyd Reynolds? Sagitar was in awe.

From a distance, three people spaced away was a person who appeared to look like the celebrity and famous musician, Lloyd Reynolds, who seemed to be on a date too.

"No way!" Sagitar said loudly. Initially he was unsure if it was Lloyd Reynolds. However, he was no longer in any doubt.

"What?" Alma wondered.

"Just take a look, four people behind you…its Lloyd Reynolds," Sagitar whispered.

Alma turned around to take a peek. "Oh…I've seen him before. I recognise the face from a magazine." She turned around, puzzled. "That who you mean, Lloyd Reynolds? What of his fame?"

"He's a celebrity. A popular musician!" Sagitar replied, astonished that she did not seem to know of him.

"Oh! So that's what everyone's talking about." Alma closed off a tut.

She had noticed people at the back of the queue praising and gossiping about the man of fame even to the extent of pointing him out.

After seeing Sagitar and Alma look back, the people just behind Alma started to notice the musician as well.

"Mint, this day has gone from good to great," Sagitar commented. It turns out, Sagitar was a great fan of Lloyd's music. The joy and excitement on his face was quite palpable.

As more people began to acknowledge the presence of Lloyd, the queue began to get less. Then some actually left their spots to go get an autograph and take pictures with the music star. Sagitar figured that this could be his chance to get a photo of himself and Lloyd Reynolds together, which he could then upload to the internet on a social network site for his friends to see. In that moment, Sagitar thought about doing so to mainly impress his oldest friend, Roland. However, the man with a date to focus on decided it was a minor importance for the night planned.

He thought about it again but he didn't see any point bothering the musician, considering the fact that he was already being thronged by avid fans. Besides, it was now time for Sagitar to show his tickets at the check-in desk. He passed them over to the old woman seated at the desk. What was returned was a nod of acknowledgement, after scratching off a label on the ticket. She then passed it back to Sagitar who afterwards proceeded through the doors into the showroom with Alma right next to him.

Alma could hear people talking left, right and centre. One of the conversations she heard left her puzzled in wonder if she was in the right theatre to watch the right play.

She heard a comment "Apparently this revamped fictional work is quite the comical masterpiece," Alma claimed.

"Really? And I thought it was a serious play," Sagitar secretly replied, slightly unhappy about it.

Alma overhearing his hidden rhetorical answer wanted to chime in.

"Disappointed?" She wondered.

"Nope, it's all good," Sagitar said, wiping off the look of discontent from his face.

The two of them took their seats around the middle row. After sitting down for only two minutes, Lloyd Reynolds arrived at the showroom as well, making his way to the front row which had been reserved for special guests only.

"He finally escaped from the fans then," Sagitar chuckled, nudging Alma.

"Huh?" Alma murmured, noticing Lloyd take a seat by the front row of the theatre. Apart from how people in the reserved seats were seated closer to the stage, Alma wondered what the difference was between the reserved section of the showroom and the rest of the theatre. "So what's the difference between being seated down there apart from the fact that they are closer to the stage?" Alma asked Sagitar.

"Well its closer…like you said, but they also serve them unlimited refreshments. And yeah, there's a meal that comes with that as well," Sagitar explained.

"A meal! I haven't eaten all day. We should definitely go and sit there," says Alma.

Sagitar raised a flush, his face made awkward staring back at his date. "It is restricted for a reason. I didn't pay for the seats there you know," he replied.

"Come on, Sagitar get up," Alma instructed. "Remember the other day when I got the bartender to give us free drinks?" she questioned.

"That was weird as hell. What about it?" Sagitar wondered.

"Well, I'll just use the same magic trick to get us those seats," Alma replied.

"Ok, if you say so…I just hope we don't get into any trouble," Sagitar sighed.

He got up and followed Alma. In his mind, he had envisioned how it was going to end, We'll probably eventually get thrown out. It can't be helped. Reminds me of the cinema when me and Roland were teens but this time it's with a chick.

With Alma in the lead, they both squeeze past the people sitting along their row and proceed to the rows in front of the stage which was the reserved section of the showroom. The reserved rows were organised in such a way that every seat had a table before it. Boldly, Alma walked straight to an empty seat beside Lloyd as they arrived at the front row. As Alma approached the musician, his date turned around and looked at her with unease.

"Mind if we sit with you?" Alma asked.

"Yeah sure," Lloyd replied. He looked at Alma's attractive figure and found himself flushed.

The woman who was seated with Lloyd looked mad, nudging him. From what Alma could see, the lady seated next to him was probably his relationship partner, this justified the slap on the leg she gave him as he drifted to awe. An action dealt when they were initially comfortably holding hands.

Alma signalled Sagitar to sit right next to the musician. He squeezed past and took a seat where Alma told him to. After Sagitar had sat down, Alma picked the seat that was next to him. Everything seemed to go as smoothly as Alma wanted it to.

A few minutes would pass by. The audience had practically all settled in and as a crowd had become completely quiet, ready for the play that was about to start.

Time passed on. The play turned out to be a magnificent masterpiece, contrary to the preconceived notion that Alma and Sagitar had about it. During the play, Sagitar constantly looked at Alma to see her reactions to every part of it. While Alma spent most of the time watching the play, Sagitar spent most of the time watching her. There were many funny moments in the play that left Sagitar and Alma amused. During a quiet moment, the lights on the stage went off. Everything was completely dark. Sagitar looked at Alma thinking about planting a kiss on her lips. All night, he had been battling with the thought of putting his arms around her but the best moment was yet to arrive. Just as he finally saw his moment and was about to go through with it, the food arrived.

"Oh good! The food is here. I'm starving," says Alma, excitedly rubbing her hands together.

Sagitar however looked anxious. He was worried that the catering assistant serving the food was going to notice that he and Alma were not supposed to be seated there. The catering assistant looked at him sharply. He could deduce that Sagitar and Alma were breaking the rules because he had earlier noticed them move from the higher row, to the seats they were currently in.

The catering assistant decided to give them an opportunity to right their wrong. "You guys look out of place," he said. "Are you sure you are seated where you are supposed to be," he added.

"Who you talking to by the way?" Alma questioned to a yell.

"You and your friend next to you," the catering assistant replied.

"We are seated where we are supposed to be," Alma responded with a straight face, cutting into the conversation before Sagitar could apologize. She pinched him by the side of his arm—a sign for him to keep quiet. She had figured out the persona of the man who had her in sights.

"Then I'll serve you your meal. I apologize," the catering assistant delivered. He served them steak with a plate of chips and some salad.

Sagitar could not believe that Alma's method worked. Although, he was aware that it was possible to bend the rules of any system, only if the way the system was run was understood. This conflicted with Alma's style of rebel behavior that totally neglected that rule. Sagitar's mind travelled back in time, recalling how he and Roland, his oldest friend, used to watch films at the cinema. Then at the end of the film they came to watch, they sneaked into the other showrooms to watch the next film that was being shown, when no one was monitoring. To Sagitar, it felt like they were doing just that all over again, but this time, with a different accomplice.

Undeniably, the food tasted spectacular and every bit of it was mouth watering. It was a worthy complement of the masterpiece that was being shown. Throughout, Sagitar and Alma had enjoyed every part of the play. The night was going well despite the rule breaking—and with the rules broken, probably better than Sagitar envisioned. Finally the play came to the end, which was the point that was assumed to be the final scene where Juliet takes her own life and dies with Romeo who had just met his end. Surprisingly, this masterpiece had an added scene, where the two characters met in the afterlife, in a modern city, in a similar but comically peculiar way to show that Romeo and Juliet were truly soul mates, destined to meet each other again and again even when reincarnated.

To finish off the play, the actors and the actresses came on stage, gave a bow, exited it and the lights went off. Sagitar looked to the rows behind him and noticed one man, amidst many people, who was actually crying. Sagitar took a moment to reflect on the show. After thinking about the whole scenario, Sagitar was almost moved to tears himself with his left eye, an eye more sensitive than his right almost becoming clogged with water. The same man who was moved by the zeal got up and started clapping his hands, a chain reaction followed. More so, the rest of the audience imitated him in his footsteps and the whole room burst into a loud applause.

"Marvellous work, don't you think?" Alma said clapping graciously.

"It sure was," Sagitar replied with a tear dropping from his left eye.

Quickly, he wiped it off.

Alma, however, saw what happened but looked at him, pretending not to notice.

Shortly after, the celebrity, Lloyd Reynolds, with the woman he came with, left the row, following the audience ahead. Sagitar gave a weak smile as Lloyd faded into the crowd leaving through the exit door. Sagitar felt that the play was truly inspiring; however, getting a picture with Lloyd would have made the night perfect. The plan he set out was initially of the making until Lloyd was out of bounds.

Alma looked in the direction of the exit door as Lloyd stepped out, then looked at Sagitar. Then, Alma bit the right part of her lip with her two front teeth. She was unhappy that Sagitar failed to communicate with the celebrity when he had the chance. And more so, considering she put effort into dragging them both to sit by him.

"Come on. Let's go," says Sagitar.

With Alma following behind, Sagitar headed towards the exit doors of the showroom proceeding up the stairs. There were just four people behind them as they headed through. As soon as Sagitar got past the door, he could see two of the security staff waiting by the check-in desk. One of them was a small overweight woman; and the other, a large built man. Sagitar got an empty feeling in his stomach, making him uneasy. He was sure that they wanted to question him and Alma about why they sat in the wrong seats. So he avoided making eye contact with them and tried to carry on as if there was nothing wrong.