Tuesday. It’s early morning, dawn is creeping in under the curtains. Mabel is lost in thought as she’s drying her short blond hair with a towel. Today will be a very important day; in her head, she’s going over all the counter-arguments to her presentation. It has to be absolutely water-tight. She dresses with care, not too sexy, but feminine, not too severe, but not too frivolous either. Conservative white blouse and a cashmere sweater, well-cut pants, her beautiful cream-coloured velvet shoes. “All you have to do is take their fear away,” she reminds herself. “Fear is the number one inhibitor when it comes to taking risk.”

 As she picks up her gleaming earrings from her dresser she pauses and looks at herself in the mirror. Earnest. “What a long way I have come…,” she smiles to herself, as she adjusts the precious Akoya pearls surrounded by a splash purple-green-gold in her ears. She is powerful. And this is armour, like read lipstick or clickety-clack heels to some, or boots and piercings to others. She is capable, she is strong, she is beautiful, and more than anything else, she is liberated from anything anyone might say about her. She is enough.