Chapter 24

 

 

Across the city, in Morewood Heights, where the yards were so manicured they looked like tv show sets, and the streets clean enough to eat off of, Thomas Cook sat at his usual morning spot on the veranda overlooking his million-dollar neighborhood, sipping his rich espresso, and picked up today’s copy of the Pittsburgh Post. Within five minutes of opening the paper to page one, he jumped up from his seat, spat out his drink, and threw the paper down on the wicker table.

“Guadalupe!” he screamed to the closed front doors, where the lion’s-head knocker glared back at him.

Moments later, attuned to Thomas’s voice even through brick walls and closed doors, Guadalupe rushed to his side, still clutching the July 1970 copy of Women’s House Magazine she had been reading over sangria. If only Dr. Cook understood real problems, like the one she had been reading about Worrywart Wanda and the discrimination she was experiencing. Men like Thomas Cook were above such trite snags in life.

Her summer sky blue maid’s uniform rode dangerously high. Why men insisted a woman wear a miniskirt to handle housekeeping work was beyond her, for instead of bending over to pick up something, she had to cumbersomely lower herself to avoid showing the entire house staff her bloomers. And instead of having the free mobility to reach up to grab something off a high shelf, lest she once again expose her rear, she had to waste precious minutes retrieving a stepstool upon which to carefully step up on. It was ridiculous that even a maid could be sexualized, as if she needed to be debased any more than she already was.

“Yes, sir?” she asked, fingering the peter pan collar of her dress.

Then she glanced at the spatter of coffee on the patio floor, the newspaper thrown down, and the red blotches across her boss’s cheeks.

Thomas had just read today’s front-page headline:

 

Cook Pharmaceuticals: Safe or Scandalous?

 

And for some reason he had beckoned her for what? To clean up his mess? To threaten the paper’s editor-in-chief? To break the journalist’s kneecaps? Some days she felt like his subservient, and others she felt like his mother, God rest her soul.

“Can you believe this?” He gestured to the paper, which Guadalupe picked up.

Below the headline was a photograph of his ledger displaying all the evidence they needed to shut Cook Pharmaceuticals down. At least temporarily, until Cook’s lawyers paid off the right people.

“I’m sure you can fight this,” Guadalupe consoled, knowing nothing about the situation, or if it was even fightable. Though she knew quite a bit about personal injury law, her breadth didn’t extend to corporate law.

“You wouldn’t understand the ramifications of this. You’re just a simple-minded, illegal Mexican—”

“Actually, I’m not Mexican. And I’m legally here,” Guadalupe corrected. Not that it mattered to Thomas, if the labor was cheap enough. “I’m named after my Spanish ancestors who immigrated to the Caribbean island of—”

But Thomas was too busy plotting how to deal with the woman he once loved—but now hated—to hear a thing Guadalupe said.

“If I’m being honest,” Thomas rambled over her, “it’s not her exposing the ledger that I’m most upset about. It’s about losing the woman who broke my heart.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not following. What does the ledger have to do with a… love interest?” Certainly no woman was behind the hugest story to hit newspaper stands since the Apollo 13 explosion. And since when did Thomas Cook have a heart?

“Samantha Stanton, the one who got away,” he lamented.

Guadalupe almost detected a tear in his eye before his face went stoic and his jaw clenched. The name rang a bell, but it was too distant and faint to grab hold of.

“She did this. She rejected me after she made me fall in love with her.” Then he turned to Guadalupe with earnest, gripping her hand. “Where did I go wrong with Samantha? What can I do to win her back?”

“I can’t imagine you did anything wrong.” Guadalupe could easily imagine a dozen offensive things he had done. “Perhaps some nice jewelry would work?”

Diamonds were indeed the best friends of the women Thomas usually went for, but Guadalupe doubted it would work on this one that got away… and hopefully stayed away.

Then Thomas did something he had never done before. He hugged Guadalupe. Like a son hugged a mother… if the son was a grown man who treated his mother like a housekeeper. Which was pretty much most men.

Her hand moved up and down in a clumsy pat, reiterating her role as makeshift mother when it came to Thomas Cook’s love life.

“I am sure she will want you back,” she continued, fairly confident the young lady would not, “but whether or not Ms. Stanton reciprocated the feelings, there are plenty of gold-digging women who would do anything for your affection.”

“But I don’t want them. I want Samantha. I’ve never met a woman with a mind like hers. She was like a man wrapped in a woman’s body.”

Guadalupe wasn’t sure exactly how to interpret that, but she continued to soothe him nonetheless. “What was so special about her?”

“She saved my life. And she was just… different. She knew a lot about medicine, for starters. And had talent as a writer.” He exhaled against her shoulder, remembering Sam’s mediocre poem in response to his much better one. “A little feminist for my tastes, but I could stifle that eventually.”

Knowledgeable about medicine? A writer? And a feminist? Certainly it couldn’t be… Guadalupe glanced at the latest Samantha Says column and suddenly realized it had to be her. The woman who had shown up on this same doorstep where she awkwardly held Dr. Cook.

Thomas stiffened and let go of Guadalupe. “But now she’s dead to me.”

If truth be told, their love had been doomed from the beginning. It was no surprise that when Thomas proposed the incredibly generous offer to be exclusive to Sam—as far as she would ever know—even he had his doubts. First, he wasn’t the exclusive type. Second, Samantha wasn’t even that pretty. What would people think when they saw them together in public? But third, and most important, Sam worked for the very magazine he already had plans to shut down.

Thomas Cook wasn’t just a pharmaceutical mogul. He also dabbled in publishing. And Cook Media had taken ownership of the dying rag with the intention of dismembering it and shifting gears to something more national—like a hunting or fishing magazine. Everyone liked hunting and fishing! And more than actually hunting and fishing, people liked reading about others hunting and fishing. Thomas believed he was tapping into a goldmine.

He had kept this secret to himself while he whittled away at Sam’s resolve not to date him. But now all bets were off. Not just because Sam stole his ledger, or because she went public with it, and definitely not because she betrayed his heart. Bottom line, she was a powerless woman who needed to be put in her place. He no longer loved Samantha Stanton. She was plain looking, overly opinionated, and worst of all had terrible taste in men.

What better way was there to control a woman than taking everything she loved? After he made sure Sam’s writing career ended in a train wreck, he’d next go after her reputation. But women like her didn’t mind a little public judgement. So the final attack would hit her where it hurt: siphon any lingering passion from her un-Thomas-loving heart.

He couldn’t wait to give her a taste of her own medicine.