Sheba Hart

Grew Up… from a privileged background in “bourgeois bohemia,” as her co-worker Barbara Covett disdainfully describes it. Sheba wanted to become a teacher in order to help young, underprivileged children “overcome the poverty of their backgrounds.”

Living… in suburban North London with her husband and two children. Alas, family life is not living up to her expectations. As she explains, “It’s just the difference between life as you dream it and… life as it is.”

Profession… art teacher. Sheba, who just started working at a new school, is making fast friends with an elder staff member, Barbara Covett, and a young student, Steven Connolly. Each relationship could be quite complicated, though for very different reasons.

Relationship Status… married, though Sheba admits that she’s lacking excitement in her life. After she begins a sexual relationship with her 15-year-old student, Steven, she begins to feel revived… though all pleasures come at a price.

Challenge… keeping her affair a secret or risk losing her family. Sheba’s co-worker, Barbara, has discovered her illicit relationship. Now, the painfully lonely Barbara is blackmailing Sheba into a strange friendship.

Personality… intelligent, but overly idealistic. Sheba seems to have a wild past, and perhaps she’s not quite ready to settle down and be a tame wife and mother just yet. She tricks herself into believing that she deserves a bit of fun: “You know, I’ve been good all my adult life. I’ve been a decent wife, a dutiful mother coping with Ben. This voice inside me kept saying ‘why shouldn’t you be bad, why shouldn’t you transgress? I mean, you’ve earned the right.’”