Mind and will power that is! Love didn’t enter into Thia’s mind unless, one deserved to be loved because of one’s excellent ways.
Well, as things developed just about that time, right before Thia took off for Vegas, Mr. Coo’s wife died and Thia was exhorted to go and give to Mr. Coo her condolences.
Mr. Coo was Thia’s former employer. (Coo is not his legal name but Coo he was called from childhood on up and everybody in the business called him Coo or Mr. Coo.)
Now, Mr. Coo has always been a well-liked and respectable senior citizen with a heart of gold. And, of course, everybody knew how ill his wife had been for the past year or so, and it was common knowledge how much Mr. Coo loved his wife, how devoted he was to her and how well he took care of her.
Thia, personally, admired Mr. Coo greatly for that reason, and Thia longed, in many occasions, to have a husband like him.
Nevertheless, it never occurred to Thia to make any advances to Mr. Coo. Besides, Mr. Coo was so preoccupied with his wife that, for a while, when Thia had started working at his place only a few months back, Mr. Coo did not even know that Thia was working for him.
For Thia was hired by one of Mr. Coo’s regular workers who didn’t feel like working for a while and who didn’t want to disturb Mr. Coo with her resignation.
Then, when Mr. Coo realized that Thia was working for him, he was outwardly spiteful to Thia.
Also, to top Mr. Coo’s spitefulness, Thia was only working for him for a pittance in comparison with what she needed to earn.
So, when Thia decided to attempt to make enough money to meet the mortgage payments, she went to work for somebody else.
In fact, at the time of his wife’s death, Thia was still working for one of Mr. Coo’s competitors and she had no intentions to go and offer any condolences to Mr. Coo at all.
But a common friend of Thia and Mr. Coo insisted that Thia should go, and Thia went. Because, at that time Thia was intoxicated most of the time, and Thia did things just to keep her from doing nothing.
Shortly after Mr. Coo’s wife was buried Thia had quit all her jobs, the one at Mr. Coo’s competitor and the one at the fabric store. And since she felt rejected by the Real Estate industry, she was on her way to Vegas—to the land of shattered fortunes and dreams.
