The Taming of Samantha Roe

By Pringle McCloy

Samantha Roe has it all – beauty, brains and a bad attitude. A natural cynic she uses her intrepid intellect to condescend to others, even her boss. Does she have it all? One might think so. But approaching forty and single, Samantha is dealing with a void in her life and not until her nephew comes to live with her does she actually put someone else first. It’s the beginning of a bond that could last a lifetime if not for one little glitch. Globe-trotting Alexia, Samantha’s sister, wants to snatch her son away and put him in boarding school, much to his dismay. Will feisty Sam fight for a boy’s happiness? Absolutely. Stay tuned for war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pringle McCloy
• Release date: Aug 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463777930

Pringle McCloy

English major. Teacher. Tutor. My interest in mysteries began early in life after discovering a pile of Mickey Spillane novels in my dad’s library. I was taken with tough-guy detective, Mike Hammer, who then led me to Raymond Chandler’s PI, Philip Marlow, and so on. Chandler’s Marlowe and my Charlie Hampton have a lot in common but you’ll have to read THE JACK IN A BOX to see the similarity. Both are tough guys who take their whiskey straight and women tall. THE JACK IN A BOX was written while I was living and working in coastal Vancouver and is the setting for the novel. In the sequel, RETURN OF THE JACK, Jack is the same old shady, underworld figure, off to Beijing for more trouble with the Triad. Third in the series, POSSIBLY JACK AGAIN, is set in Santa Ana, California, where Jack follows Charlie to hopefully help find his own grandson who may have met with foul play. Fourth in the series, JACK THE KEEPER is posted now. Enjoy! J. Pringle contributes too with WOMAN COMING SOON and A MONTH IN THE COLONIES, the sequel. THE TAMING OF SAMANTHA ROE is now posted. All three chick lit novels are a lot of fun.

Book preview

Prologue

At a garden party on my fifth birthday I was bitten by a rat. Not a mature rat, I’m told, but a feisty adolescent with jagged incisors and the jaws of a steel trap. Only after my father smacked the poor fellow with a garden spade did he release his grip and attempt to stagger away, to no avail. Smacked dead. My dad, you see, owned the controlling shares of a steel mill and was a take-charge kind of guy. He therefore ordered up a health inspector to collect the diseased and me to emergency for the first of several painful shots. The justifiable homicide made the evening news.

Needless to say, the Roe family was pretty much famous after that. Headlines in The Toronto Star screamed: Poor Little Rabies Girl! Neighbors Pray for her Survival. And although several weeks later when I appeared to have no ill-effects from the rodent’s assault the publicity refused to subside. The Sun declared me dead and produced a picture of an alien girl living at my house, playing with my toys. That hurt. Being called a Martian and getting laughed off the block by praying neighbors also hurt. Even after Bob next-door backed a dump truck over his wife – several lethal times – I wasn’t dethroned as the neighborhood enigma. Silly Sally Samantha Roe had been bitten by a rat.

The name became a curse, a weapon used against me by nasty nannies, cruel teachers, and kids unable to climb the social ladder at school. Jimmy Ross, for instance. In first grade Jimmy decided to become my antagonist, self-appointed, and he seemingly thrived on tormenting me as only mean kids can do. The first day of school he bribed a poor kid with gum and candy so he could sit in front of me and administer his peculiar form of torture. Ho. Ho. Ho, he’d whisper in a raspy voice. "There sits silly Sally Samantha Roe. He’d hover there, crouching like a tiger, his buggy eyes bulging from behind his Coke-bottle glasses. Ho. Ho. Ho! he’d taunt. There sits skinny Sally Samantha Roe. And then came the crushing blow. Skinny silly Sally Samantha Roe got bitten by a rat."

So I beat him up. Regularly, in fact, until about the sixth grade when I grew tired of pulverizing Jimmy on the playground and taking flak for it. He wasn’t worth the trouble. In the seventh grade I turned to wearing long shaggy sweaters and biker boots and achieving grades bordering one hundred percent. Around that same time silly Sally Samantha Roe disappeared. She’d been swallowed up by a girl who was just plain weird.

It didn’t help that I’d grown up in the shadow a glamorous half-sister, eight years my senior. According to family stories, Alexia had welcomed her newborn sister home from the hospital with a pillow, which she placed over my face. So much for the baby sister she was supposed to love. Pinching was what she decided on and it bloody well hurt. Now forty-eight years old, Alexia was born in the Year of the Rat and to her credit possessed many of the good traits. She was charming, elegant, intelligent and beautiful, with glossy dark hair and glassy brown eyes. On the downside, Alexia could be controlling, obstinate, resentful, cruel, vengeful and critical, all at once. The good news? She left for New York to model at age seventeen and shortly thereafter married an artesian oil well whom I called Ali Baba behind his back. They attended Dad’s funeral with their monstrous little boy in 2013 and I hadn’t seen her since.

Journal Entry:

2020, The Year of the Rat, is fast approaching. Can you smell one?

How could I have known when I wrote the above that both Alexia and Jimmy Ross would come back to bite me?

Chapter One

On the short drive downtown from my home in The Beaches I’d routinely practiced positive visualization. I pictured myself sitting at a desk, happy, and feeling lucky to have a job. It never worked. Still today I can recall the exact moment it happened, down to the second hand on the Rolex watch I inherited from my dad. The message zapped me like an electrical charge, electrodes exploding in my brain. When a working woman starts to envy street people, who get to lie down, it’s time to push off. My problem, it seemed, was that I couldn’t decide where to push to, what I’d do when I got there, or even why I wanted to go. Obviously, I had work to do on myself.

Twenty-seven jobs in total without exaggeration? That would be me. My resume read like a roadmap of Texas and I didn’t even care. I was on a list to inherit serious money, one day down the road, and I didn’t care about that either. When I got my inheritance and was filthy rich I’d help the street people, I knew. I’d shower them with blankets, pillows and booze. A lot of booze. After I bought the shoes, that was. I deserved a new pair of designer shoes to add to the collection spilling from my closet and snaking down the hall. I didn’t smoke, you see, so the shoes were bought with cigarette money. I could pretty much justify anything if I tried.

In mid-June last year I was thinking such thoughts on my way downtown to begin yet another dead-end job. Well, I’d already bought the Jimmy Choo shoes so I was stuck, essentially. I’d get myself fired when the shoes were paid for so all would be peachy in the end. So what if I basically worked for shoes? Aside from the substantial trust fund from my dad, I was broke.

It was about Horace. Horace was the nice CFO who’d initially talked me into the job by dangling company shares under my nose. I was suspicious of Horace, who was in the process of packing up his office when I arrived to sign up. Suspicious Horace was saying,

Jake is a psycho. And I can’t take it anymore. Books went flying everywhere, some even landing in boxes. I can’t get out of here fast enough.

Horace was a pleasant looking man, about a hundred, with a whack of white hair and sad grey eyes. He was doing the right thing, retiring, rather than exiting in one of his boxes.

I straightened in my chair. And your message? Well, it had to come straight from Horace’s mouth

Run! Run until you fall down and can’t get up. Even then he’s likely to find you.

But I bought the shoes! I complained. It’s a commitment.

He produced a roll of packing tape and started to finish the job. Don’t say I didn’t warn you then. And don’t come crying to me. Jake’s last assistant tore out of here, screaming all the way to the elevator, and was never heard from again. Left everything behind. Even her coat.

I nodded. I have coats to spare.

He tossed me the exasperated look. You looking for trouble, miss?

No. But it seems to find me nevertheless.

On my drive home later in the day, after deciding to keep the shoes for no reason, I thought about psycho bosses and my penchant for collecting them. Before Jake there’d been Sara, the queen of psychos. Sara was so obsessed with herself she made Narcissus look needy. She had a penchant for scary false lashes and I made the mistake of calling her Minnie Mouse. I didn’t mean to. It just slipped out. That’s why I was starting my new job with Jake the following day. Hopefully he’d have a better sense of humor.

Day one and not a sign of warmth from the little man, not a complete surprise, given the heads-up by Horace. As I went twirling in my new cheap chair Jake barked me into his office to state the rules.

You will order my coffee from Starbucks so you don’t have to make it. I’m doing you a favor.

I nodded.

Small. Triple, triple. I take it at 7:15. Write that down too.

I nodded.

You are never to come into this office when I’m not here. Write that down.

I smiled. Jake was too little to be growling such big orders. But he was cute. He looked like a GI Joe doll with his dark hair springing fully from the sides and growing a bit sparse on top. His bright blue eyes peered through a set of wire-rimmed glasses which rested near the tip of his nose.

You will have access to my email and text messages. I’ll expect you to sort out what is relevant and what is not immediately. But if it takes you that long I’ll likely think you’re stupid. He sat back, tossed a pencil in the air, and caught it. What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?

I shrugged. Do I need to write that down?

His mouth fell open. Aren’t you the mouthy one!

Is there anything else?

He sat back in his cushy leather chair to think. Yes, as a matter of fact, there is. I’m confused. Your CV says that you’re very well educated. Too educated for this job. You should likely be in my position, I think. What’s the catch?

Oh, oh. My face turns all red when I’m about to tell a lie. Well… Your CFO, Horace, said that I’d like it here. A lot. And job satisfaction is important to me. I could feel my face blistering. Horace said that you were a great guy to work for.

His face twisted into a knot. Horace said that? I’m surprised.

I cleared my throat. Is there anything else?

He eyeballed me. Yes. There is. You’re not a very good liar, Ms. Roe. And you’d better be smart because that mouth of yours is talking a very fine line.

He wasn’t finished with me yet. Not even close. Later in the day he called me into his office for test number two. After a lengthy stretching of the neck he pointed to a picture on his desk. That’s Angie. My fiancée. We’re getting married in November. She’s a model.

She’s lovely, I said honestly. A Cindy Crawford type, Angie had the dark sweeping hair look, round brown eyes, and very white teeth.

My ex-wife is a bleached blond like you.

Ouch. That hurt. Especially because my hair was naturally strawberry blond and I had the pubic hair to prove it. Some of us just have to try harder, I said on my way to the door.

Ms. Roe?

I halted. Yes?

You’d better to smart. You’d better be bloody well smart.

Later in the day I accidently sent Jake’s dry-cleaning to his ex-wife’s house. Well, it used to be his. I wondered if she thought he was coming home.

On my way to the parking lot after work I checked my reflection in The Concourse windows. I still had it. Although some may think me strange, and I am, like the Europeans I don’t were summer clothes unless I’m at a resort. I never wear pink or powder blue and mint green makes me nauseous. I wear black, white or grey, and shades thereof. I don’t mind stripes, hounds tooth or paisley, and big jeweled belts. Sometimes I wear a hunk of white lace at the neck and chunky stones on a rope. And just to escape the boredom, in winter I sometimes wear red. I wear designer clothes mostly by Simon Chang and Alfred Sung although both have asked me to stop.

I wear my straight, strawberry-blond hair past my shoulder blades and thick bushy bangs cut straight above my hazel eyes. I prefer red lipstick and have my teeth professionally whitened four times a year. I have gel nails, bi-monthly pedicures, and I don’t have a life. Or, didn’t, I should say. All of that was about to drastically change.

Chapter Two

Journal entry: I now think I’m the boss’s pet. One week down and still no bruises. Not so for two junior male executives who get dragged into Jake’s office to hear words like idiot, moron, and loser cutting the air like a chainsaw. These words are overused in my opinion. I made a note to Sally Samantha. S.S. Email your boss a note on how to use MS Word thesaurus. And stay under the radar. I’m getting the hang of the system and of why Horace left.

On day eight Angie breezed into the office looking spectacular in a floral sundress with little cap sleeves and a flowing skirt that trailed behind her like a peacock’s tail, swishing on her boots. She was a beauty and knew it. She hovered at my desk waiting for approval.

I complied. ‘Your left shoulder is drooping. You should get a sling for that rock."

Her white teeth smiled. Let’s have lunch one day. I like you. With that she levitated into Jake’s office to snatch him up for lunch. They were a