The Education Chapter Seven

As cars began to file up the drive at regular intervals and parents went to collect their children, a thoroughly exhausted Bette Porter wiped her brow. It had been five hours since Tina had come to check up on her progress and at that point she had hardly got anything done.

It was now four in the afternoon, and the kids were heading home. The mommies passed Bette on their way into the day care, intrigued as to who the good-looking well-dressed lady was wearing a somewhat out of place tool belt. Bette however was focussed enough on the task at hand.

Or so it seemed. Bette breathed heavily. Her sigh emanating out of her mouth. It was to be a long day.

***

An hour r so later, Tina and Alice emerged from the day care, their bags in tow. They stared across the expanse of their garden and saw jungle gym pieces lying everywhere

“Bette you can clear up now, we’ll see you at 9 am sharp tomorrow morning,” Tina informed her.

Alice looked on with empathy.

“Sure, I’ll wrap it up in a couple of minutes,” Bette replied with little emotion.

And before she knew it Alice was pushed quickly into the last remaining car, and they were gone. Bette was left alone to clear up the mess she had made, and the failure that was her jungle gym.

***
An hour or so later, the sky was darkening. A large van pulled up in a drive. Three beefy men stepped out of the van, followed by a driver a smartly dressed young man on a mission. He had a Chinese take away in hand and was ready to deal with whatever he was soon to see.

“Bette!?” He called out, “Where are you Bette?”

The exhausted brunette, stumbled up from the step on which she had been taking a cat nap and moved towards the sounds of her favourite man in the world: James. And of course she could smell her favourite: chow mein.
She moved briskly, almost stalking her prey, and in the most un-Bette like manner, she ignored the proffered food and instead dragged James into a mighty large bear hug.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you James. I am so glad you’re here.”

“Jeese Bette, give it a rest,” he chuckled and then moved closer to whisper in her ear, “I’ve been telling these guys what a awfully evil bitchy goddess you can be, don’t ruin your own image.”

At the thought, Bette immediately transformed.

“Right you lot, get on with it, build this damn thing, you’ve got an hour.”

And with that she stormed off James in tow, to the van, where they sat with small smirks and chuckles, while the trio fixed Bette’s failure.

***

The morning drew near, and the brunette woke early. It was five am and she hoped to impress the intriguing, but angry blonde on her arrival to work this morning. She rolled over and picked up her phone, there had been 5 missed calls last night and 17 messages, mainly from girls wondering if she had any time to spare. Did she ever? Okay, maybe she did, but only when she felt up to it, not them. They would fit in with her, as they always did.

She deleted them all and rolled over, in attempt at catching another hour of sleep before she got up to get ready for work.

She was eternally grateful to James for what he had done and although he was startled by her physical expression of that gratitude in the form of a hug, she hoped he understood. This day-car work, was making her soft, she remarked to herself, and its only been one day.

This was not looking promising for her lothario careless emotionless but supremely magnificent gallery owner image. No it wasn’t not at all.

And the fact that she hadn’t even wooed Tina AT ALL during the first day, was not a good feeling that her now bruised ego carried around.

Her alarm rang at half six and she realised she hadn’t even gotten back to sleep. She showered, spent over an hour dressing and preparing herself and finally grabbed a coffee and fruit bucket in Starbucks, before she headed towards the day care at half eight.