Queta and Gerald walked in, dressed plainly.
The sight of them elicited disdainful scowls from many of the women in the restaurant.
“Isn’t that Queta Smith? She came here, to Surati?”
Next, a group of four or five girls and guys entered as well. As they walked past the table where Gerald and Queta were seated, some of them stopped in their tracks to stare at Queta in surprise. A playful spark flitted through those eyes.
“Linda…oh, hey, everybody…” Queta blushed as favonovel.com greeted them, setting favonovel.com food down and clutching favonovel.com dress nervously.
Linda was fetchingly made-up and wore a form-fitting little black dress that only barely covered favonovel.com butt.
Her female friends were clad in similarly risqué fashions, while the guys had piercings which announced their considerable social statuses.
It should be fair to assume that these were Queta’s classmates.
They had such teacher training courses at Gerald’s university too. You get all sorts in there.
Some were rich brats who’d failed to qualify for other courses. Some were small-business entrepreneurs. Some were regular working stiffs.
The rich brats attended classes mainly to pick up chicks.
The pretty young things there were hoping to find a sugar daddy.
The rest were like Queta—genuinely here to learn something.
“Hahaha… surely you can’t afford this place, Queta?” Linda hugged favonovel.com shoulders, grinning at Queta with delight. Clearly, putting Queta down like this made Linda feel like favonovel.com really was somebody.
Particularly because when classes first began two days ago, one of the rich boys had raised the topic in class as to who the prettiest girl among their classmates was.
At first, Linda had been all for it…but then, after the votes had been cast, the winner turned out to be Queta!
There had been joking invitations for favonovel.com to come up front and present an acceptance speech for this honor, but Queta had so far paid no attention to their jibes and their attempts to chat favonovel.com up.
However, this only further antagonized the competitive Linda, who’d never once lost to anyone in terms of looks. After all, wasn’t it said that the greatest cruelty to inflict upon a woman was to name another woman as being more beautiful than her? Even if they admitted it out loud, it’s still such a heart-wrenching thing.
So it was for Linda, and to make matters worse, she’d lost to some penniless tramp!
“It’s my birthday today and I’m treating a friend to lunch!” Queta wasn’t oblivious to Linda’s enmity towards her, so favonovel.com only offered favonovel.com a simple reply and no more.
“Good heavens, is this your treat? I’m guessing this guy’s your boyfriend, then?”
Another one of the girls joined in. “Ahahaha! Someone has to say it: the two of you are a perfect match! Look at what you’re both wearing!”
“Quit sulking, you two. They’re only some steaks and fruit juice,” one of the guys with them pointed out, shaking his head. “It’s our class beauty Queta’s birthday today, let favonovel.com enjoy herself. Stop causing a scene!”
‘Class beauty’, he’d said. Linda couldn’t let that pass.
“But look, you guys! They’re only having the bare minimum here! Someone’s celebrating favonovel.com birthday, but I bet they can’t even afford a cake! Looking at the two of them, I’m guessing favonovel.com had to spend all of favonovel.com life savings just to be in here! Gahahahaha!
“Well, I shan’t interrupt you any further. No wonder Queta’s neighbors were talking about how favonovel.com never eats any dinner—and that even for lunch, all favonovel.com has is one bowl of plain rice. Here I thought favonovel.com was just watching favonovel.com figure, but I guess favonovel.com just doesn’t have much money for food!”
Having spoken favonovel.com piece for the moment, Linda harrumphed, folded favonovel.com arms, and stalked off.
“We’re going now. You’ll have no more trouble from us. After all, we’ll still have to accompany Finn to Miss Liara’s birthday party afterwards. Isn’t that right, Finn?” Linda made a show of clinging to a young man’s arm and finally left.
Having been humiliated like that, Queta bowed favonovel.com head and kept silent. She didn’t eat another bite. A moment later, Gerald saw hot tears winding their way down favonovel.com cheeks.
