i. 1990. After a nasty break-up and a fight with her sister and her mother over Christmas, Ada decides it’s time for a little self-reinventing and buys herself an all access pass to the gym near her townhouse. When she asks which class she ought to try, a cheerful Dimity Drill informs her that her kickboxing cardio class is just the thing she needs. Gym co-owner and personal trainer, Hecate Hardbroom, doesn’t usually participate in the classes in her own facility, but Dimity’s kickboxing class is top-notch and it’s worth the ribbing she usually gets from Dimity when she attends. She’s captivated by Ada, far more so than is appropriate, and spends the month trying to avoid her feelings before Ada shyly asks if she might be willing to take her on a personal training client.
ii. 1950, New York City. Ada Cackle owns and operates an illegal sex chat phone line from her posh Manhattan apartment. Running away from her past in Venezuela, Hecate lands in New York alone, friendless, and struggling to speak English. Ada takes her in, gives her work managing what is a growing business and teaches her the basics. Hecate spends hours listening to Ada’s conversations with clients, under the guise of improving her English, until it becomes clear the only person they wish to talk to is each other.
iii. 1867, Yorkshire. Lady Ada Cackle is a woman ahead of her time. Extraordinarily wealthy and stubbornly single, her reign over the Cackles Estate is not exactly traditional. But there are some formalities that must be attended too in order to belong in high society and a house full of servants is one of them. She takes on a ladies maid, a mysterious and guarded Hecate Hardbroom, with whom she shares her confidences and her dreams of women’s liberation. When Ada decides to take a year to go to Italy at her mother’s insistence, she takes Hecate with her as a travelling companion, and the lines of class and friendship begin to blur.
iv. 2006, Ada Cackles new business, a flower shop is set to open in two weeks when a terrible fire overnight destroys everything - two days before her insurance was to take effect. Furious and devastated, Ada seeks out the women foolish enough to leave her oven on overnight in a shared building and is met by a contrite Hecate Hardbroom who’s careless actions have ruined her business. Desperate to make it up, Hecate approaches Ada with an offer of constructing a new shop for her on the empty lot and reluctantly Ada agrees. Accidental or not, Hecate’s error is difficult to forgive, made more difficult by the fact that she does not feel she deserve forgiveness. It’s not until the new flower shop is finished, and Hecate and Ada are close friends, that Ada learns the truth about what really happened the night of the fire.
v. 2018. After ten years working in finance, Hecate Hardbroom has had enough of balance sheets and stock projections. She quits her well paying job in the city and moves to a small university town where she enrols in Fine Art. There she meets Ada, a cheerful and brilliant music teacher, who has volunteered as a nude model for Hecate’s weekly drawing class. Ada is confident, vivacious and Hecate is utterly confounded when they run into each other outside of class and Ada flirts with her. Ada’s easy manner makes Hecate brave and Ada quickly becomes the subject of her masterwork.
(for the record, iii is actually in development, because I have no chill. Bonus points to @cassiopeiasara for putting Dimity Drill, kickboxing instructor into my head.)
