Brave Hart: One Woman's Search for that Most Elusive of Things, a Happy Ending

Prologue

I’ve spent the last thirty-five minutes rehearsing in front of the mirror. My introduction needs to be professional and glorious, especially in a corporate environment where first impressions matter.

Hi. Nice to meet you is a good line but maybe I should sound a bit more influential.

Hi. Stella Hart. How do you do? Well, I’m not having tea with the Queen.

Hi. Stella Hart. It’s a pleasure. Not bad, I guess. Maybe lose the Hi.

Stella Hart. It’s a pleasure.

Yes, that sounds exactly like a professional woman ready to undertake a new position in a demanding financial centre like Canary Wharf. That is, of course, if I’m hired.

It’s supposed to be my life’s biggest opportunity, or maybe my mother’s biggest thrill.

‘My daughter is the new head of the risk department at D.C Group! Yes, yes indeed, I am very proud of her!’ I can see her rubbing that in Mrs. Dinkleberry’s face. Mrs Angela Dinkleberry, my mother’s toff colleague whose daughter is a teacher at Cambridge and whose name sounds like it was made up by six year olds.

Ever since I started working, my mother has wanted to act as my publicist. She would force me to accept new offers so she had something to brag about at gatherings. But how could I refuse? I would rather take jobs I sometimes wasn’t interested in, than experience another true-life episode of Mothers who make their daughters feel guilty for no reason.

Now she’s acting really nice. It is a high level position. I’d started thinking she was maybe more interested in my happiness than how much money I’d make. Then again, this is the woman who told me that Santa died a horrible death when I was nine, because she couldn’t afford the pretty bike I asked for. She didn’t even bother with the traditional ‘Santa doesn’t exist’. Instead, I had to feel guilty for the next three years that I was responsible for Santa’s sleigh accident that Christmas eve, while he was on his way to our cosy two-bedroom flat on Tooley Street. Apparently Rudolph had a few too many.

To be honest, I should have known Santa was in fact my perpetually liquored-up auntie Gladys: a scary, deep-voiced middle-aged woman, regularly mistaken for a man, even without the beard. She always seemed to know what Santa brought me before I unwrapped the gift, and she definitely couldn’t come down the chimney unless she was fifty stone lighter.

Putting on my new pair of Christian Louboutin heels, I stop for a second and stare at this girl in the mirror.

‘Look at you!’ I say to my reflection and smirk. It feels exciting to acknowledge how great my life has turned out. Ever since I was a little girl, I remember setting goals. I was a small girl with big dreams. Dreams, which I can proudly say I have accomplished. Great job, money, friends, trips. I have everything!

Well…

..almost everything.

It’s a mystery to me how everyone else around me can have a successful love life. I mean, I’m funny and fashionable, and I can be charismatic sometimes. I have all sorts of interesting qualities and a decent lifestyle, but apparently I am missing something. Am I doing something wrong? If not, maybe I just don’t understand men?

I look at myself in the mirror once more and start asking new questions:

‘Who am I?’

Thirty-two, not the slimmest, pretty, and in an intimate relationship with two of my fingers. I earned a Master’s degree from LSE and have a career at one of the nation’s biggest financial companies. I’ve been working at D.C. Group for a while now and by the end of next week, I might be promoted to head of department as well. I own a beautiful penthouse flat on the seventh floor of a building in Canary Wharf with a breathtaking view and a cleaning lady, who always arrives just as I finish cleaning.