For the Better

Staring down at the necklace your daughter had hanging from her neck, you find yourself smiling to yourself at the stories behind it. The small dangling heart, a British flag spreading across the gold. It had been a token of love, one that you wore everyday of your life- sometimes forgetting it altogether often enough.

It counted as old, borrowed, and blue.

Your darling little Lucy walks down the aisle later that afternoon, the small pendant shining in the light. Tom squeezes your hand, knowing you'll be in tears soon.

"She's beautiful," he whispers in your ear, and all you can do is nod.

It makes you think back to all those years ago, how in the smallest trailer on a set of hundreds of people, you'd bumped into this man. That he'd led you here, to your daughter's wedding.

So, so long ago that you barely remember a time when you’d never heard the name Tom Hiddleston.

~~

Sometimes you’re afraid that your life is like The Truman Show. Like you’re being watched all the time. It scares you- even when you remind yourself that you’ve been traveling around the entire world, and you have yet to see nothing but a big blue wall with fake clouds painted on it. So that fact keeps you mostly sane.

It’s just odd. At one point in time you started thinking that you were on your own reality television show with everyone sitting around seeing what stupid thing you’d do next. Some weird guy in a bathtub watchingyour life. Women working in a coffee shop that was themed around your life. Men and women taking bets on who you’d marry, what your kids would be like, when you’d figure out that people were watching your life.

It slowly drifted into the back of your mind when you went into college. Everything was hectic, rushed, and finished with a pot of coffee and a sleep-deprived mind. You didn’t even party. You were just tired.

Exhausted to the point of just coming back to the tiny dorm you shared and collapsing onto the bed and not even caring what time it was. More often than not your roommate had to wake you up for half of your classes. It was something that you appreciated- and you always managed to get her a fabulous Christmas present.

You figured that life would get easier once you graduated from the University of Chicago. Thought that all those silly problems would magically disappear once you stepped onto that first movie set.

Well that was not meant to be. It was difficult to even get a Theatre job. Graduating fifth in your class had perks, but it didn’t help much out in the real world. Until the day that you grabbed an application for a Broadway rendition of Wicked. The job only entailed sparkles and glitter and large, boisterous, loud makeup. And the hair.  Massive curls and up-do’s. Something you were very good at, even though it wasn’t what you liked doing.

You took the job.

                

Feeling like being watched re-surfaced after you’d finished your trek through the Theatre scene. It had only lasted a year- you’d had enough with people screaming for makeup to hurry up and get finished because“Holy crap we start in five minutes! Places please!”

You left with all the best wishes for everyone; your leaving upset no one. You had high hopes, large dreams, and glitter under your belt. There were a few independent films that you assisted with that required you to be crafty with the makeup they had, and regardless of the script or the actors- they looked fabulous.

Working independently like that allowed your mind to slow; seeing what everyone thought, what they said. How they watched.

You knew you were good, but didn’t allow yourself to get cocky. You were doing this for effect- someone had to get the people prepped for camera. People that would impact others who saw them. A chain reaction that you helped take part in and it was very serious.

So you thought that cameras were pointed back to you.

You’re sure your slightly insane- but hey? Who isn’t?

You moved to California.

There were bigger, brighter things on the horizon; you could feel it. So close that is was tangible and in your absolute grasp. It was hard at first. An apartment in L.A. was not cheap, and gas from a town just outside was too high to even consider. But you managed… and landed a job working as a makeup artist on the movie “Jane Eyre.”

Your actual working list in L.A. is small, but getting that one, important job got you into a whole world of possibilities. From there it was nothing but movies, movies, movies. Once in a while you’d volunteer to help with a commercial, and you slowly climbed that ladder.

Then you were approached.

And when you found out what they wanted, you couldn’t have said yes fast enough.

You had only heard of Tom Hiddleston from your cousin Cora; had seen him in Thor. She’d try to force you to watch anything and everything he’d ever done in his thirty-year life, but you always managed to cleverly avoid the subject.

You didn’t want to get to know your kid cousins silly crush on a man that was fifteen years older than her (a few years older than yourself.)

After you heard what was required, who you’d be working with, where everything was going to happen, you suddenly wished you had watched all of that stuff with Cora. Because now you’d just have to do it alone.

It would’ve been more fun to sit with your little cousin and laugh and giggle about a man that you would never have hoped to have met than sit alone and watch him by yourself. Maybe you’d be able to go home for that purpose. The movie didn’t start filming for another month, why not head home and do some homework on Tom Hiddleston?

~~

I want to thank everyone for reading this story. Thank you for reading and commenting and loving the characters. Thank you for crying and laughing and having fun with me as I try to write Tom Hiddleston the best way I know how.

I love you all so much, and so- what did you think, lovelies?