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Barbara closed her eyes in despair. Honestly, couldn’t Sheila gather the plates without clattering them so annoyingly? She was otherwise a perfectly adequate waitress but obviously had no feeling for others’ sensitive hearing, let alone maintaining the ambience of the rather exclusive café hidden away behind the university’s art gallery. Still, the spring sunshine and the delicate scent of roses wafting through a discreetly open window was calming for the nerves.
And Barbara was a little nervous. She hadn’t seen Helen since before the Covid lockdowns and she had something momentous to tell her. She wasn’t sure how Helen, who judged most people by the company they kept (and the amount they had in the bank and in shares), would react.
She remembered their last conversation. As usual, Helen had begun by raving on about her daughter and the absolutely fabulous wedding event they had pulled off for her. Even though Helen had delightedly rattled off all the “best people” she had managed to inveigle into attending, Barbara had interpreted it as a bone-crushing, ear-shattering bore.
Not for her the upwardly mobile climb to the top via social connections. No, Barbara had studied and continued to study, achieving her own heights through hard work, research and a flair for discovering hidden facts. Her position at the university was coming to an end, though, and she had been considering for some time what retirement would mean.
She had known she would need people her own age for company and mental stimulation. She smiled a little at her success in making certain new friends and keeping up with all her old ones, even Helen. They’d been desk mates at Kew Girls Grammar for twelve years. Many wondered at the disparity in their characters and ambitions, but Barbara knew it was based on a rock-solid foundation of one-upmanship, or should that be one-upwoman…?
