Lizeth woke up still got a slight hangover from last night's hanging out with her new friends. She frowned after hearing some annoying voices outside. Before she could even get up on her bed, her sister Leslie barged into her room.
"Sister, the landlady is here again. She was here yesterday, and now she's back again," Leslie, expression looked troubled and worried. She could understand her. It was new for her especially hearing her landlady nagging.
They had never experienced being nagged by her or someone else when her dad was still working since they never missed payments. However, now it was different, they missed a month's payment since their dad got in an accident, and the landlady wasn't that generous to excuse that delay.
Lizeth trudged down to the front door and opened it, exposing the angry fifty-something lady with curly hair, tattooed eyebrow, and plumpy torso. She used to be a cheery old lady before but not now, or at least not to them at this moment.
"Mrs. Fox, I'm sorry for our delays. But I am already working now, and I promise you that I will send it right away to you as soon as I get my pay. My payday will be on the fifteenth and month-end." Lizeth tried to hide her sleepy annoyance and tried her best to smile at Mrs. Fox.
"Okay, I will take your word from that Lizeth, I will wait until your payday, and if you still cannot pay, you better find another place to stay," she glared at her before she walked away.
Lizeth only shook her head as she got back inside the house. She wanted to shake away all the bad vibes it brought her. She passed by her dad in his wheelchair while Lander was feeding him. He seemed like, has something to say in his expression.
Nevertheless, being paralyzed prevented him from doing that. Lizeth wanted to halt and tried to comprehend what her father wanted to say, but as she glanced over the wall clock, she realized that she didn't have the luxury of time to do that anymore.
She held his hands for a moment then went straight to the bathroom.
Lizeth realized how big the responsibility was being passed down to her. She had always thought that she wasn't ready for something like that, but her luck never gave her the chance to be prepared. She just had to be, even though she knew it was hard.
She had to enter the production area with a big smile. That's what she read while scrolling for a moment over her Facebook wall. It was a quote about how smiling can make your day better and who wanted bad days, smiling for Lizeth wasn't that hard.
She looked around the moment she reached her area. Dia was busy preparing her machine while Petal was still nowhere to be seen. Lizeth was badly curious about what happened to Petal and Nil last night, and she couldn't wait to hear some gossip from her.
However, she had to disregard that. For sure, she would hear it by lunchtime. As of the moment, she had to focus on her work and prepare her machine. Lizeth tested her device, it ran for a moment, but then it stopped.
"Oh, what happened?" she mumbled under her breath. This was the last thing she wanted to happen. She was scared that she had broken her machine and would be kicked out of work. The next worst thing is to be noticed by Vanna.
"What's that?"
Lizeth could already imagine Vanna's raised eyebrow with that voice. She slowly looked up to her while biting both her lips, hiding her shivers.
"I don't actually know what happened, but it seems… broken?" Lizeth said with her most discreet voice.
"Okay, whatever, just go get Nil to the maintenance office. Have it fixed," Vanna walked away right after she instructed. That at least gave Lizeth a little relief. She was expecting harsher words than that.
Good thing she already knew where the maintenance room was, and she had directly gone there. The door was open, and she could hear little giggles and mumbles from the inside. Lizeth got inside the maintenance office without a sound and peeked over out of her curiosity.
She covered her mouth as she gasped, 'Sh*t, it's Petal and Nil, they were making out. They shouldn't do that here. It's too risky.'
Lizeth abruptly walked out and closed the door while checking if there was no one else around.
***
Xander was staring at that day's newspaper while riding in the back seat of his car. He wanted to have his driver, especially going to work. So, Xander could do something else while traveling. Most of the time, he would be calling clients.
However, as of the moment, he was even having a hard time concentrating on the paper he read, and he was smiling. It had been days since that happened, and he couldn't take away that young girl's face in his mind. Her cute innocent look was so naturally refreshing. He wondered what had happened to her after that.
If he wasn't only in a hurry that time, she could have known her better or at least known her name.
Xander shook his head. He wouldn't meet her again. So, he better forget about her. He knew that she was too young to be one of his playthings. Besides, he wasn't sure if she was the kind of girl who would go and play with him.
She wasn't giving him the same aura as the others, she wasn't even trying to seduce her, and he knew that if ever she would meet her again. She would never glance or notice him. For sure, she got a lot of those pretty young men buzzing around her.
Nonetheless, that was the first time for him not to forget one encounter with a girl. He usually forgot a one-night stand with others even if something had happened to them. Yet, she remained on his thoughts.
Or was it because nothing had happened to them, and it frustrated him? He needed to calm himself down before facing his work.
"Drop me to the garden first, and you go head straight to the office. I need some air."
"Yes, boss," the driver replied as he pulled over a bit of distance from the gate of their factory premises.
There's a little garden outside the factory building not far from the maintenance office and the canteen. Xander made sure to set a bit of natural scenery in their workplace for their employees and himself as he was a genuine nature lover.