3: 3
3
Virginia immediately adopted a lecturing tone.
"It's a new era. We should have abandoned that vulgar relic of engagement gifts long ago. My family has never profited off its daughter, and we'd never use money to hold love hostage or turn marriage into a transaction."
"As for my mother's illness, that's my own burden to carry, and I should carry it alone. I would never guilt my boyfriend into it, never make him pay for my family's troubles and derail his life and his future."
The room broke into applause at the noble speech.
I watched Virginia bask in the flattery, unable to pull herself out of it.
I picked up my bag, turned, and walked out of the company without another glance at her.
The next day was the official start of the billion-dollar project.
Apart from bathroom breaks, Virginia never once left her desk.
Morning, noon, and night, she got by on three plain rolls.
When the others saw it, they sighed in admiration.
"Virginia really is so dedicated. She doesn't even have time to eat, all for the project."
"Isn't that the truth? In all my years here, I've never seen anyone work as hard as Virginia. She treats money like dirt and only cares about sharpening her own skills."
"Do you think Mr. Pruitt's lost his mind? The East Coast Director's chair should go to Virginia. How did Flora, who's only been here six years, luck into such a windfall?"
At that, Virginia's back, slumped a little from hunger, snapped straight in an instant.
She lifted her water cup, washed down a bite of roll, and said thickly around it,
"You really don't need to feel wronged on my behalf. As long as it creates value for the company, I have no complaints, whether it's a core role or grunt work at the bottom, rotating shifts, standing watch. I'll follow whatever they assign me, wholeheartedly."
"I can't help feeling something, though. Mr. Pruitt has always cherished talent, so this time he's probably deliberately grooming a newcomer. He's willing to gamble the East Coast Region's whole performance just to break the rules and put Flora, so junior, so thin on experience, coasting on nothing but her looks, in the Director's chair. That's real favoritism."
The moment she said it, every eye in the room changed.
The murmuring pricked at my ears like needles.
"I knew it. How else would Flora be so capable? Turns out she climbed her way up in bed."
"Too bad the rest of us are old and past our prime. We want to 'give it our all' for the company but just can't manage it anymore!"
I stood in the hallway, fists clenched tight,
then shoved the door open and aimed my phone at the little cluster inside.
"What was that you just said? I didn't catch it. Go on, say it again, straight to the camera!"
The gossiping coworkers whipped their heads around, stunned,
and scrambled to throw up their hands and hide their faces from the lens.
Virginia set down her roll and looked up at me, the pride in her eyes impossible to hide.
"Flora, we're colleagues. We're supposed to give each other some slack. It was just a harmless little joke. There's no need to cling to it and keep pushing, bearing down on people, tearing apart the team's good atmosphere."
"A joke?" I turned the camera on Virginia and said, word by word,
"Virginia, the section of that billion-dollar deal that was yours, the last three days when you were home with a fever, who pulled three all-nighters to finish running the data for you?"
The smile at the corner of her mouth froze. She stammered,
"It was... it was Carina."
"Don't. I never touched your data."
Carina called out from several desks away, and Virginia's face went scarlet.
I let out a cold laugh and raised my voice, making sure everyone there could hear.
"It was me. I'm the one who pulled three all-nighters re-running the data and landed the client."
The coworkers who'd just been spreading filth about me alongside Virginia finally came around.
"What? The hardest part of the billion-dollar deal was actually landed by Flora?"
"And Virginia just took the credit for someone else's work like it was hers? And still had the nerve to suggest cutting Flora out of the bonus? That's burning the bridge after you've crossed it!"
"No wonder she said she only wanted to build up experience and didn't care about money. So she just wasn't capable of the job at all! And a person like that thinks she deserves East Coast Director?"
Virginia's face went from green to white, and for a moment no words would come.
She just dropped her head and bit hard into the last half of her roll.
That night, after everyone else had left,
the only light still on in the whole building was over Virginia's desk.
Before, plenty of coworkers would have snapped a photo for the group chat and sighed over how dutiful she was.
But today, not one of them did.
Three days later, the company chat posted the official notice of my promotion to East Coast Director.
Virginia congratulated me with two dark circles under her eyes,
letting slip, as if by accident, that she'd pulled three all-nighters on the project.
The coworkers who'd mocked her before couldn't help feeling a little sorry for her.
"Then again, sure, Director Flora finished the back half of the billion-dollar deal, but Virginia was sick with a fever then. That's understandable, isn't it?"
"Right. She pulled three all-nighters just to get that billion-dollar project off the ground. I heard she went three straight days eating nothing but three plain rolls. She really does drive herself hard."
"What? Three days straight on nothing but rolls? Can Virginia's body even hold up?"
