My Four Miraculous Treasures

As soon as the doors of the lift closed, all the women began chattering:

"Breaking news! Yesterday, Edith Price made a move on Jasper Hughes... but got rejected!"

"Really?! But she's so talented, and so pretty... and she's always doing her best for Mr. Hughes! If even she wasn't good enough... what hope do the rest of us have?"

"We've got good jobs here, with Hughes Corporation... we might catch sight of Mr. Hughes, once in a while... it's enough. Don't ask for any more," one of the other women said, before taking a long sip of her coffee.

"Perhaps being a woman is the problem, here... I've heard that he might prefer guys!" said another, her eyes sparkling.

Hearing this, Willow spat out a whole mouthful of her soy milk, and then spent a long moment choking horribly.

The woman in front of her was sprayed with that soy milk. Snatching up a piece of tissue, Willow wiped at her blouse while apologizing non-stop: "Sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to do that!"

"It's alright. Here, I'll do it myself." Tamara took the tissue from her and wiped at herself. She was the one who'd suggested that Jasper might be gay.

"Don't be so shocked. There's a grain of truth in this rumor..." Tamara figured that was why Willow had choked on her drink.

"Have you heard?" she went on, "The reason Mr. Hughes rejected Ms. Price was because, apparently, he sees her as a guy. Ms. Price is so pretty, with such a sexy figure, always wearing the hottest fashions... other guys are drooling all over her, and yet Mr. Hughes isn't the tiniest bit interested? He sees her as a guy? This definitely proves that he's only interested in men, not women."

This powerful, logical argument left Willow speechless.

First of all, how could anyone know what Jasper had said to Edith, in a situation like that? What should be a personal secret was instead spreading around as public news!

"...And get this! In order to cover up his true sexual orientation, Mr. Hughes put on a big show with one of the cleaning ladies in front of Ms. Price, hoping to throw her off his trail! The maid in question was just ugly and lame, absolutely no contest against Ms. Price... but can you believe Mr. Hughes said, that was his idea of a real woman?! Why would he attack Ms. Price like that?!"

Tamara told Willow all this with a big, excited grin.

Willow realized she was supposed to be the 'ugly and lame' woman in her story.

"Who's to say?" Willow answered, with a little laugh, "Different strokes for different folks, you know? What's the point in comparing between people, anyway?"

Tamara blinked. Then she laughed, too. "I guess you're right! There's really no point in comparing a simple cleaning lady to someone like Ms. Price!"

With a chime, the lift announced its arrival at the Janitorial Department, on the tenth floor.

Willow gave Tamara one last smile in parting, and then exited the lift.

It took Tamara a while before she understood something: "Oh, gosh! Was that the cleaning lady Mr. Hughes felt up, in front of Ms. Price?!" After all, the cleaning staff were based on the tenth floor, here.noveldrama

"Took you long enough!" the other women jeered. "Sharing your gossip with someone who was there to see it happen... amazing!"

Tamara tapped herself on the forehead. Of course! It was so obvious, now...

The moment Willow appeared, Mr Fawcett started shouting: "What's the matter with you, Willow?! Don't wanna get paid anymore?!" Willow straightened up, and flushed red. "Mr Fawcett, I can explain..."

It wasn't as though she'd meant to seduce Jasper! He'd only been using her as a human shield, in order to turndown Ms. Price! It wasn't Willow's fault!

"Explain?! Do you have any idea what sort of evidence I've got against you?! What in the world do you think you could possibly say, now?!" Sean Fawcett's expression was full of stern accusation.