"Ha ha!" the girl laughed. Alex's words had reached her heart. She looked at him intently and said with a smile, "you are a little loser."
"Hey, beautiful; I mean, hey, girl, are you not angry with me anymore?" Seeing her smile, he relaxed a little.
"If you don't laugh at me, why should I be angry at you?" the girl said as she glanced at him.
"That's good to hear. If you're busy, I'll leave you to it." Alex waved his hand and started walking away.
"Wait, don't you want pancakes?"
"You'll make them for me?" Alex asked in surprise. The girl didn't answer. She had already scooped a ladleful of batter from a bowl, poured it onto the grill, and made it around with the back of a spoon.
Alex's heart warmed up, and he walked back to the food truck's counter. An appetizing aroma reached him.
"You're a very skilled cook, and they smell delicious," he said to her.
"There's nothing to it. If you go to a training class for a couple of days, you can learn how to make them. But if you don't develop the skills, so much the better for me. It keeps me from starving to death," the girl said while flipping the pancakes.
"Don't you have someone taking care of you at home?" Alex thought her comment was very strange. Although the girl was ugly, she didn't look any older than seventeen or eighteen. She didn't go to school, as she worked at a food truck. Her family was too irresponsible.
"I don't have a family," she said faintly as her expression soured. Alex was surprised. Although he was very curious, he felt that she didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't ask.
"Do you want syrup?" The girl was fast and efficient, and in about a minute, the pancakes were nearly ready, Alex nodded, and she poured some syrup over them. "By the way, you don't look very rich. How come you gave that old man a hundred dollars?"
"Um..." Alex felt that there was no point in hiding anything from her, so he said, "I am rich. I just don't dress well. A hundred dollars means nothing to me."
"Oh, you little loser. As soon as you've made a good impression, you start to brag, right? Okay, aren't you rich? I'll give you the pancakes for free."
"Do you believe me or not?" Alex asked. He didn't need to prove anything to the girl.
After a few mouthfuls, he solved the problem of payment by sweeping up around the food truck.
"What's your name? Do you work near here?" the girl asked.
"My name is Alex, and I've come to Washington to find my girlfriend," he said.
"Your name is not a good name," said the girl, puzzling Alex. What's wrong with my name? he wondered.
"My name is Nelly Lane. I hope you can find your girlfriend soon."
Alex waved goodbye to Nelly and set off to look for Debbie.
By seven in the evening, Alex had not come across any trace of her. But he wasn't discouraged. The Washington, D.C. area was huge, so he knew it wouldn't be easy to find someone. Before setting off on his trip, he had already prepared himself for a protracted search.
He ate a meal and as soon as it was dark, he was ready to find a hotel for the night.
Alex walked into the Crown Hotel next to the train station. He thought it was a bit too luxurious, but there weren't that many people around, and he liked the quiet. A receptionist approached him while he was still at the door.
"Hello, sir. Are you staying in our hotel?" the man asked with a smile,
The Crown was one of the top hotels in D.C., and it was conveniently located near the train station. It was much more expensive than the other establishments in the area. As soon as the receptionist noticed Alex's clothes, he realized this was not the kind of person they catered to. Subtly, he told him, "If the manager sees someone walking around the lobby who is not a guest at the hotel, he will probably ask that person to leave, as otherwise, it affects our image."
The receptionist thought that Alex would get the message and that he was helping him to avoid embarrassment if he couldn't afford to pay for a room. He thought that Alex should understand what he meant.
"I want to get a room," Alex said with a smile and walked in.
"Er..." The receptionist was slightly stunned. He looked at Alex but decided that when he saw the prices, he would leave in dismay anyway.
The lobby of the hotel was really splendid. It reeked of money. The people walking around were beautifully dressed. At first glance, they seemed to be successful business people. Alex looked at his reflection in a mirror and realized that he didn't fit in with the surroundings.
He smiled to himself. Although the hotel looked good, it wasn't as grand as Sam's Berkeley Hotel.
Alex was thinking of heading to the front desk to check-in when he heard a voice behind him. "Alex?"
He looked in the direction the voice was coming from and saw a beautiful woman with long hair down to her shoulders and uncertainty wrote on her face. She was wearing a cream-coloured one-piece suit, and three-inch heels. She looked clean and well put together.
Beside her stood a tall man.
Alex frowned, as he couldn't remember who she was.
"It really is you, Alex!" The woman said in surprise after she got a better look at him.
"Are you Myriam Henley?" When she smiled, Alex recognized her. She was his high school hall monitor.
"I didn't expect to find you here." Alex was surprised to run into her in Washington and immediately walked over to his old friend.
In high school, because he had been very poor, most of his classmates had looked down on him. Like at University, he was often ridiculed. Only a few students had gotten along well with him. Myriam had been one of them.
Alex remembered that she would often tutor him in his senior year, and her academic support helped him get into Preston University.
He walked over to her and reached out to shake her hand, but Myriam didn't acknowledge the gesture. He pulled his hand back angrily.
"You're looking fantastic. I almost didn't recognize you. You're much more beautiful than you were in high school," Alex said with a smile.
"You mean I didn't look good in high school?" Myriam said with a snort and sneered.
"Um..." Alex was stunned by the hostility in her words and felt that she had changed a lot. "I didn't mean that. I mean, you were beautiful in high school, and now you're even more beautiful."
"You really can talk," she said sarcastically. "I didn't expect that you would become so glib after spending a couple of years in New York."
Alex was speechless, but he smiled.
"You're in college, right?" he asked, changing the subject. He had not seen her since graduating from high school and had no idea what she had been up to.
Alex's question instantly put her in a bad mood.
During the college entrance examination, Myriam had become increasingly irritated because the ink wasn't flowing properly from her pen. As a result, she failed mathematics and didn't do well in English either. And because of that, she lost her chance to get into the colleges of her choice.
Myriam had heard people saying behind her back that she was spending every day teaching Alex how to answer the exam questions. In the end, she lost out, and Alex made it into Preston University. It was said at the time that she was a fool and had given her scores to him.
Myriam hated the classmates who had said those words, but she couldn't help but feel resentment toward Alex. She felt that she was the one who should have gone to Preston. Alex had "stolen" her university from her.
"Lower East College; are you satisfied?" Myriam sneered at Alex and told him again that she thought he was being deliberately sarcastic."
"What college?" Alex was surprised. He thought that Myriam had been admitted to a top university.
Where's Lower East College? I've never heard of it, he thought.
"One of the two worst. Are you satisfied? Does that make you happy?" Myriam sneered.
"What are you talking about? Myriam, how could I be happy? Are you misunderstanding me?" He thought that Myriam's reaction was abnormal. She was the one who had offered to help him in high school; he hadn't forced her to do it.
"Hmm. You thief. You're just pretending," Myriam said bitterly. Thinking that her future had been destroyed by Alex, her heart was still bleeding.
Alex was left speechless again. He was sure that Myriam had misunderstood him. At this point, he knows what to say.
"What are you doing here? Is this where you're staying? Don't you feel like you ought to get going?" Myriam said coldly. She had heard about Alex from some former classmates. He was considered a lousy loser at Preston University.
What's he doing in a fine hotel like this? she wondered.
Alex sighed heavily. Myriam's tone was too hateful.
"Obviously, I came to the hotel to book a room."
"A room!" Myriam laughed. "Alex, look at your clothes. This is way out of your budget. You obviously didn't go home for summer vacation. Did you come all the way from New York to Washington to find work here? I've heard from other students that you pay for your living expenses by working during your vacations.
"How much money can you earn by working two months? Four thousand dollars? Five thousand? Is that the sort of money you earn? Do you know how much it costs to stay at the Crown Hotel for one night?" Myriam looked at him contemptuously.
"Four thousand or five thousand? What's wrong with that?" Alex said faintly, thinking how unpleasant Myriam was. In New York, he stayed at the Berkeley Hotel and at the Azalea Guest House, which was more expensive than the Crown.
"Oh, you seem so relaxed. It seems that four or five thousand dollars don't mean anything to you. This hotel is really cheap for you, isn't it. The cheapest room is actually only two thousand dollars."
Myriam assumed that Alex was in Washington to find work, which proved that he didn't have much money. He clearly didn't have any idea of the prices of the hotel, and there was no way he was going to be able to afford a room.
"Baby, who is this guy?" the man beside Myriam asked her. He was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. He looked like a hip-hop singer. He was Myriam's boyfriend, Jake Grant.
"This guy?" Myriam sneered. She looked at Alex with a terrible smile in her eyes. "He's the high school classmate I told you about who stole my college dream. In high school, he was a lousy loser. Often, all he ate was bread in the morning, at noon, and in the evening. He was so poor that he didn't even have the money to buy notebooks. In order to save paper, he used pencils instead of pens, so he could erase what he wrote and re-use the pages. He also used to write on the front and back covers. Honey, do you think you can stay at the Crown Hotel for one night?