Amanita: Poison Shot

Chapter 75: Ovaries

Soft but nervous whispers surrounded me.

That Mirela woman was a queen bee, some sort of goddess of conceit, whereas Layla seemed to be too wounded to reply. Her eyes were cast down. It felt weird to me. A manager who falls silent and lets a fellow employee hurt her like that? I frowned.

Kono's fists were clenched. Everybody was too scared to say anything. Mirela smirked at Layla, then.

"You know that's not true, Mirela," Layla dared to reply, but it was obvious that Mirela had struck a sensitive nerve. "I do my job well."

"I know why you're saying such nonsense, Mirela!" Kono exclaimed, unable to hold back her anger anymore. "You believe you do Layla's job only because you're a control freak, and you know it."

Many members of the audience gasped. Mirela just sighed, completely unaffected.

"Mrs Nevermore must conceive Oyster as an NGO, then," she replied as if she was bored.

"What are you hinting at?" Layla asked. "I hope you're not trying to badmouth the brand with this comment."

"Oh, no. Geez, Layla. It's only constructive criticism." Constructive criticism, my ass! That woman was insufferable, but she was stronger than anyone there at that moment. She was a lioness and made the most of it. "Towards you, Layla. It's not my problem that you cannot read it as such. You need to do better, or else Mrs Nevermore shall fire you. Such a shame, you know."

"The only shameful thing around here is your attitude," Kono answered, but Mirela was still unimpressed. She was acting as if Kono didn't exist, actually – and it drove her nuts.

"Layla, look," Mirela replied after a sigh and using a warmer voice then. "I shall make an exception today. I'll postpone today's work only to solve the issues you've mentioned. I will fix them, just like you want, OK? In fact, I shall need to do some extra hours today to account for it, which I expect to be paid in full -either with money or in vacation days- of course. But I'm not accepting a cut on my salary to accommodate Kono's pathetic attempt at pleasing a customer."

Layla seemed frozen before Mirela's conceit.

"But from now on, this is over," Mirela went on. "You cannot take my generosity for granted, Layla. My time here at Oyster is gold. I'm the top designer around here. I shouldn't be wasting my time doing such mundane chores. Anyway, Nausicaa and Kono shall help me."

I took a brief glimpse around me, and I spotted a sheepish girl whose pupils shrank with surprise and fear. That must've been Nausicaa, then.

"No, I can't help you," Kono replied immediately in a foul and defiant mood while Mirela took a paper from Layla's hands in a hurry. "Got work to do now. I'm due to..."

She couldn't finish speaking. Mirela didn't allow her.

"Kono, you need to check the labels," she said in a dictator-like mood while reading. "Cut the wrong ones out, and then print and put the right ones where they belong. I see in this list that the uniform skirts for the girls' boarding school around the corner are the affected items. Great, there are over a hundred of them. Nice," she commented with sarcasm. "OK, Nausicaa, the sleeve length of the blouses is wrong. Remeasure them, cut the extra fabric, and redo the seams. Thank Apollo there are only twenty-four blouses to mend."

Not even a single 'please'. Now, I realised why everybody was in such a foul mood. Mirela was an inconsiderate asshole.

"I need this done in an hour," she said in the end. "I'll speak to the client myself, and I'll try to buy you some time. I'll be mending Mrs Mannequin's dress in the meantime. But I'll check on your progress every five minutes. I want you to work your arses off. Is that understood? Hurry."