Meet you at nightfall

Chapter 3

Just at this moment, dozens of white doves flapped their wings and took off, covering the man's profile. Her heart was beating wildly, and she chased after him like a child chasing a hydrogen balloon in the square, staring at him without blinking.

His eyes were a rare gray-blue color, revealing a kind of indifference that didn't care about anything, but his face was full of affinity. He seemed to be a little old, with obvious eye wrinkles and eye bags, but for some reason, these flaws, like the broken arm of Venus and the missing head of the goddess of victory of Samothrace, made his eyes look deeper, and at the same time weakened the cold feeling brought by the cold-toned pupils.

Anna looked at him, looked at him again and again, her mind was in a mess, her ears were "buzzing", and she could not hear anything except the increasingly strong heartbeat.

She didn't know what love was, nor what love at first sight was, she just felt that this man exuded a temperament that made her heart beat.

She couldn't describe what kind of heartbeat it was. If she had to describe it, it was probably like ice meeting fire, the desert seeing an oasis, and the fish in the sea seeing the antelope in the grassland.

Anna was a self-aware girl. It was precisely because of her self-awareness that she never fantasized about changing her fate through knowledge, nor did she fantasize about getting out of that dirty neighborhood. She knew that she was destined to be a bad girl, so she never thought about getting better.

But at this moment, this minute, this second, she suddenly had the urge to get better.

Perhaps because young girls are inherently changeable, she no longer thinks it is impossible to get better, nor does she think it is impossible to get out of that dirty neighborhood - she has met this person in the vast crowd, so what else is impossible?

Anna chased the man down a street in a daze until he walked into a luxury hotel. A waiter in a tuxedo and white gloves bowed slightly to him and pushed open the heavy glass door. After watching his figure disappear in the magnificent hall, she came back to her senses.

She stood outside and looked at herself in the dark blue glass in a daze. Compared with that man, she was so naive and frivolous, like a little girl eating sundae ice cream in a fast food restaurant. He was steady and mature, and his every move exuded a unique elegance. The only connection between her and him was probably that she glanced at him from a distance on the street. Then what?

There was nothing else.

Thinking of this, Anna's impulse to change for the better disappeared completely. She took a last look at the hotel in despair and turned away.

After returning home, she took off her canvas rubber-soled shoes and looked at the quiet and empty living room. She suddenly wanted to cry.

The living room of her home used to be the most lively. Every day when she came home from school, she could see different styles of men's leather shoes on the carpet in the entrance. Her mother liked to listen to slow-tempo jazz music, and often cried alone while listening.

Anna thought she was too neurotic. Every time she listened to music, she would sneak into the bedroom and pretend to read a book. She hated talking to her mother the most, but at this moment, she suddenly missed her mother very much, and even missed those ugly female jazz voices.

Anna sniffed, walked to the radio, and tuned to the jazz channel. The prelude of the clarinet, saxophone and piano flowed slowly, and soon, a melancholy female voice full of nasal and hoarseness lamented the sad love that happened in the summer. Anna closed her eyes and listened for a while, but still found it unpleasant.

After listening to an unpleasant jazz song, Anna's sad mood was temporarily cured. Her stomach growled, and she was about to get some money to go out for dinner, but suddenly realized that she had taken a day off today and ran to the opera house in the city center, wasn't it just to find a long-term meal ticket?

Then, what did she do?

She ignored the long-term meal ticket introduced by Mrs. Mason and ran after another man down the street. It was not until she went home and listened to a song that she remembered the existence of the long-term meal ticket.

... What to do?

Go back to find the long-term meal ticket?

If she hadn't seen the other man's profile, she would have definitely gone back to find the long-term meal ticket, but she saw it... She really couldn't accept the appearance of the meal ticket anymore.

Anna covered her flat stomach and lay on the sofa, thinking about life.

She was so hungry and wanted to eat soft and crispy bread, but she also wanted to have the noble and elegant temperament of a strange man... If she chose bread, she would have no chance to become noble and elegant again.

But she was really hungry.

Moreover, she owed a debt of $165 for bread... Can temperament make money? Obviously not.

The more she thought about it, the more irritated she became. Anna turned over, hugged the pillow, and hit the pillow hard with her head twice.

Because she hadn't eaten all day, she almost fainted in the bathroom when she got up the next day. White light flashed in front of her eyes, her brain was buzzing, and her internal organs sounded a sharp alarm. This is a sign of hypoglycemia. Anna leaned against the wall, took a break, and went to boil a pot of hot water. She used the remaining honey in the glass jar to make a cup of hot sugar water.

After drinking it, her stomach felt much better. However, it was impossible to drink honey water all the time, and there was not much honey left. She had to make a choice between "bread" and "strange men".

I don't know if it was because she was too hungry or the fight between "bread" and "strange men" was too intense. Anna was a little dazed all morning. When recording the customer's order, she heard "pork neck" as "pork leg", "cream-baked lobster" as "cream puff", and sent "cowboy leg" as "pork rib".

The restaurant manager was almost angry to death, but after seeing her pale and beautiful face, his anger disappeared without a trace.

"What's wrong?" The manager looked at her long and wet black eyelashes and asked kindly, "You have been listless all morning."

Anna waited all morning for him to say this. She blinked her eyes, and tears like gemstones fell down: "I'm sorry, I'm so hungry..." She was really hungry, so her crying was particularly realistic and pitiful, "My mother ran away with a man, I have no money to go to school and no money to eat... I'm sorry, I thought I could hold on, but I didn't expect to mess up the job... I'm really sorry."

As long as the person she was talking to was a man, Anna's mind was particularly sharp. She deliberately concealed information that was unfavorable to her and only told the truth that was beneficial to her. Because it was all true, even a shrewd man like the restaurant manager could not hear any traces of lies - of course, even if he could hear that Anna was lying, he would not blame anything in front of this beautiful face.

The salary of the restaurant manager was several times that of Anna. He held Anna's thin shoulders, pressed her on the chair, and asked another waiter to go to the kitchen to bring a plate of children's meal.

After saying this, he sat down next to Anna and said gently: "If you don't have enough to eat, tell me again. Don't go to work on an empty stomach in the future. It's not good for you or me. Those cute little mistakes you made just now have caused me a lot of scolding."

Because she is beautiful, Anna has received a lot of preferential treatment since she was a child, and this level of preferential treatment is not enough to make her grateful. But she did make a lot of mistakes just now, so she apologized honestly and said, "I'm sorry."

The manager waved his hand nonchalantly, as if the person who was almost angry to death just now was not him at all. Soon, the children's meal was served, a cup of Coca-Cola, a plate of grilled pork ribs with sauce, and a bowl of Italian vegetable salad. Anna was so hungry that she didn't care about her image and immediately gobbled it up.

The manager looked at Anna with a smile. Her little mouth was full and bright red. After being stained with the yellow-brown sauce, it didn't look greasy, but instead made people feel a surge of appetite. There were tears hanging in the corners of her red eyes, and her black eyelashes were too long and wet and stuck together.

This girl is so charming, so sexy, so beautiful, but she has too much girlish aura, especially the way she gulps down Coca-Cola, which reminds the manager of his daughter who just started high school.

Thinking of this, the evil fire in his body disappeared completely, and he found an excuse and left in a huff.

Anna knew that the manager was looking at her, but she was used to it and didn't care. Anyway, he treated her to a big meal and solved her urgent needs, so he could look at her as he pleased. She was still thinking about the problem of bread and love, even though she didn't know the name of "love" at all, but it didn't matter, she gave him a code name, "l", the first letter of "love".

Mr. L.

I don't know if it's a psychological effect, but when she thought of Mr. L, even the trouble of owing money was much lighter, and everything she looked at was warm pink.

Thinking of this, she raised her head and saw Mr. L walking in from the main entrance of the restaurant.

Today he was wearing a black striped suit, a light grey shirt and a black tie. This suit made his legs look particularly slender and his temperament even more noble and outstanding. Under the dazzling crystal chandelier, his gray hair was all combed back, revealing his full forehead and high brow bones.

He did seem to be a little old. Even though his cheeks were narrow and thin and his nose was straight, she still saw many abrupt wrinkles. But it didn't matter. Old was old. She had no concept of age and couldn't tell how old he was. She just thought he looked good even when he was old.

At this time, a woman saw Mr. L and immediately stood up and waved to him enthusiastically. The woman had curly hair, a fashionable miniskirt, brown stockings and red Mary Jane shoes, and a handbag inlaid with sequins and fake pearls. She walked over, took Mr. L's arm affectionately, and invited him to sit down.

Anna bit her lower lip a little unhappy, but immediately, Mr. L pulled out his arm without a trace and chose a seat to sit down. Anna breathed a sigh of relief and became happy again.

But soon, she was unhappy again. The woman sat opposite Mr. L, with her slender fingers crossed, resting on her pointed chin, smiling at Mr. L and whispering something. If it was just like this, Anna would not be unhappy, but under the golden dining table, her red Mary Jane shoe actually quietly climbed up Mr. L's straight calf.

Anna couldn't help it and stood up suddenly.

But she could only stand up in anger, she couldn't do anything, because Mr. L didn't know her at all.

He didn't even look at her.

What "love" and "Mr. L" were just her romantic and ridiculous fantasies, and they didn't even talk.

Anna was dejected and took a deep breath, trying to break free from her fantasy about Mr. L, but a colleague's words made her fall back again.

"Anna, have you finished eating? My stomach hurts a little, can you take care of table A2?"

Table A2 was Mr. L's table.

Anna turned around and smiled brightly at her colleague for the first time: "Okay."