Jack of all Trades

Chapter 1

Impatient fingers connected with the wine glass at a steady rhythm, while her eyes roamed the busy bar from the corner she had taken up residence. The rings on her fingers pleased her ears and gave herself a sense to concentrate on instead of the overwhelming nature of the loud drinkers surrounding her.

Rachael tutted at herself, for expecting her always unpunctual friend to actual be able to meet her for the time they'd arranged. It had baffled her for the 10 years they had known each other but wasn't worth time deliberating reasons why or trying to change the hectic woman. Polar opposites did indeed seem to attract, as could be clearly seen from the first 5 seconds of Heather being sat across from Rachael.

"Sorry, sorry. You alright?" Heather breathlessly spoke half heartedly after getting to their corner and shaking off her drenched coat. It must have started raining since she had gotten there, Rachael noted with a disapproving manner the inconvenient nature of the weather.

"How are you?" Enquired Rachael, ignoring the apology as neither of them had actually expected her to get there on time. Once settled, Heather reached for the glass of wine already on the table between them, thankful for the refreshing taste that settled on her tongue.

"Not too bad, school has been a bit chaotic this week" she stated as if this was an unusual occurrence and not the constant reality of being a primary school teacher. To which Rachael rolled her eyes and gave the woman time to expand her response.

"Well, the children seem to be picking up the material well. We had a bit of a struggle with the start of fractions but as soon as I brought in food that seemed to connect to their brains." Heather smirked at her own teaching methods before bringing up the weeks drama with her colleagues and the headteacher's new weekly aim.

"You already know my solution to that problem, so if you expect me to give you another one, I'm not playing". Rachael smirked before continuing to sip her wine before glancing up and noticing eyes on her. Sat two tables down, a tall man with curly hair was sat reading the newspaper, but had obviously been distracted by Rachael. His dark eyes hidden by the lighting of the room were directly on her. Rachael caught herself and focused back on her friend who was still chuckling and shaking her head.

"I know, I know, but I honestly don't know if I'm ready to be a headteacher. I'd miss working with the children too much and I've only being teaching for 8 years. It just feels too early." Heather rebutted easily, highlighting just how many times she'd had this discussion with herself, family and friends.

"Sometimes life doesn't care if you're ready. Life doesn't run on your timetable. That school needs you to step up, take control and give them one vision to focus on and drive them to actually improve. Instead of their attention constantly being redirected from whatever new craze has caught the attention of that headteacher each week." Heather nodded to herself, eyes cast down while continuing to weigh up Rachael's accurate words. With these thoughts still clearly whirling around her head, she sat back and looked back up to Rachael and her composed self.

"So, how's the house hunting going? Got any prospective contenders I can see?" Heather asked, attempting a change of conversation.

Rachael nodded while swallowing her last slip, finishing off her wine and savouring the taste. That was already her second due to waiting for Heather for so long, and so it would be the last for the night.

"Yeah, I've visited two last week and then this week I'm going to visit the third. The first one was a bit glam for me, and looking at the structure, I think it'll crumble after a few years. They just don't make anything substantial anymore." Rachael sighed with a tired tone and a slightly exasperated mindset.

Heather nodded along, "oh, don't I know it, me and Harry were talking about re-doing the kitchen and wanted to tear down the wall separating the living room, but the constructor said we'd have to put in a support beam. So what started as a few new cupboards, looks like a lot bigger job than what we had originally planned. But isn't that just life." She giggled, and Rachael nodding completely agreeing with the statement. It was so true. What had started just as feeling like a new place to rest her head, had turned into a 2 month research project that she couldn't make her mind up on. The unusualness of her indecisiveness was unnerving her slightly.