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For the next few hours, I’m lost in a call frenzy, the requests ranging from totally legit and understandably infuriating to absolutely minor and irrational. At some point, I swear I can feel something akin to a drill against my back. When I slowly swivel my chair, I see Wanda standing a bit further back, supervising the minions. I can’t zone her out completely, but am able to shrug internally and continue working.

It’s only after the longer break that I’m faced with my nemesis. I send her a lukewarm smile and am ready to move to my post, but apparently, I won’t get off the hook so easily.

‘My office. Now.’ Her angry voice belies her saccharine smile.

I follow Wanda to her glass-walled office, where she steps aside for me to get in, then closes the door. I’m surprised there’s only a soft click, as opposed to the clank of barricade chains I expected. She sits behind her desk, then gestures for me to occupy one of the two chairs on its long side. I sit on the one closer to the door. She rummages through her desk’s drawer, probably more for effect than actual necessity. Finally, she looks up.

‘I’m having issues with your performance, Coraline.’

Suddenly, the food in my stomach feels like a brick. ‘What do you mean?’

I’m conscious of my efficiency and truly believe I’m doing a good job.

Wanda taps her pen on a pad in front of her, which I would expect to contain some performance results. When I peek at it, I only see the UN-tourist’s logo at the top of the blank page.

‘I have been noticing that you are lingering on the phone instead of solving the problem at hand. Customer care lines aren’t for chitchatting.’

The food threatens to make its way to my mouth, as the blood starts boiling in my veins. ‘I’m not chitchatting, but you can’t cut a client off. If the problem is solved, a few seconds won’t make much difference.’

‘A few seconds per call can easily add up to wasted minutes… hours,’ she counterargues. ‘On days like today, time is of the essence.’

‘You had a problem with my performance today?’

Wanda has a problem with me. Always. Period.

‘It’s a rather stressful day for everyone, so the utmost efficiency was needed.’ She sounds like a recording from a handbook in efficiency in employee management.

‘And according to you, I wasn’t efficient.’

‘Not as needed.’

Which means nothing. I know I’ve been efficient. During break, we discussed how many calls we each managed to respond to, and our performance was more or less the same. Only what I do is always inferior, as far as this bitch from Hell is concerned. Who is now looking at me defiantly, probably expecting an apology that won’t come. But I’m done playing placid to this asshole, and it’s either allow the migraine that’s tickling my temples take over and make me puke all over her desk, or speak up.

‘What exactly is your problem with me, Wanda?’

The stick that’s up her ass is visible as she blinks slowly. ‘I have no problem with you.’

‘And yet you do.’

She doesn’t hide her eye-roll. ‘You are not as important as you think, Coraline.

If I hear her use my full name once more… ‘I never claimed to be important.’

Her puckered lips move to the left, then to the right, before she speaks. ‘Of course not, but you do expect privileges.’

‘I do what?’

‘You always go for the shifts that suit your life, like a proper entitled princess with a rich, famous boyfriend…’

‘So, this’—my finger draws a circle in the air—‘is about Luuk?’

‘You’re obviously distracted since he’s confined in the US after his accident…’

WTF, she’s been keeping tabs on him?

Wanda can’t know the real story since Luuk and Aaron agreed to let Luuk’s whereabouts be vague. Aaron’s argument was that the fans would feel less judgmental knowing he is ready to hop on a stage the moment he is given the green light, although hopping should be refrained from for the next couple of months. Luuk just went with it, only adding some videos where he teases new material to his fans, and all has been running smoothly in the past ten days, the plan being to keep the secret of him being stranded in Amsterdam, even more at my place. But this was before I was about to blow a gasket because of this unbelievable woman, who has made a whole story in her head so that she can justify her hostility.

‘You know what, Wanda? I’m not even going to try and reason with you. We both know you’re making things up. For the record, though, I don’t need to worry about my boyfriend being far away, because he is very much here. At my place.’