Volume 4: White Devil Chapter 197 Unless Something Unexpected
When Zoe Winters walked out of the airport, the lights were already on. She glanced at the airport sign in confusion: "San Francisco? Shouldn't it be Los Angeles?"
"Mr. Hawke and Mr. Bean have booked restaurants and hotels near Berkeley for you." Page introduced.
Paige helped Zoe open the door of a business car that was waiting to pick her up at the airport. After Zoe got in, he sat in the passenger seat and told the driver to drive the car to a parking lot in the small town of Berkeley.
Getting out of the car, Zoe looked around the quaint town.
Zoe has always lived on the East Coast. In her impression, California should be sunny during the day and full of lights and nights. But at this moment, the small town of Berkeley under the night sky is completely the opposite.
The night breeze blew gently, blowing away all the restlessness, noise, and academic, artistic, or other temperaments that filled the small town of Berkeley during the day, leaving only tranquility and leisure. Even Zoe's depression and irritability caused by the suspension of work gradually faded away with the quiet scenery before her, and she felt a little more relaxed.
At the end of the bluestone road in front of them was the restaurant that Tommy and Stephen had booked, Pampas House. From the outside, it looked no different from an ordinary house, with plain and monotonous stone walls, wooden signs and fences. If Paige hadn't introduced the building as a restaurant, Zoe would have thought it was a house.
Pushing open the wooden door of the restaurant, most of the seats inside were empty, except for two young men sitting at a small table. Hearing the sound of the wind chimes on the wooden door, the two young men stood up, raised their heads and gave Zoe a hearty smile.
Then they came over and gave her a warm hug.
“I guess this restaurant must have been recommended by Stephen.” After hugging the two men, Zoe sat down at the dining table and said affirmatively to the two men sitting side by side opposite her.
Stephen said happily, “That’s not a difficult question, right, Zoe.”
"Why can't it be my recommendation?" Tommy asked unhappily.
Zoe smiled and said, "Because you are stingy and it is unlikely that you have such taste, Tommy."
Zoe's guess was not wrong at all. According to Tommy's idea, they should find a well-known high-end restaurant in Los Angeles, but Stephen insisted on booking a table in this inconspicuous restaurant.
Tommy had heard of the name of this restaurant when he was studying at Stanford University. Some gourmet or artist highly praised this restaurant, touting it as the perfect combination of art and food, and the chef was touted as the Da Vinci of the food world. Therefore, this restaurant is very attractive in California, and many men and women living in Los Angeles even come here specially to taste it. New York Gourmet Magazine even sent a reporter to interview it, making it quite famous on the East Coast.
In fact, in Tommy's opinion, the taste of the restaurant has no special advantage over other restaurants. The only difference is that the restaurant's design is very artistic, the food served is more exquisitely presented, and the restaurant claims that all the vegetables it uses are grown by itself.
As for the magazine interview, it must be that the reporter was paid to help place an advertisement.
After the waiter served the dishes and the three of them had a few drinks, Zoe, who looked elegant and intellectual on the outside, began to reveal her true nature and let herself go in front of her two friends.
She spoke viciously to Tommy and the other man, gritting her teeth as she talked about the bastard who sent chocolates disguised as bombs to the TV station, causing her to take a temporary vacation. Because of that guy's behavior, she might lose the qualification to compete for this year's Massachusetts Local Social News Investigation Award.
Tommy glanced at Paige not far away calmly, then smacked his lips and said to Zoe, "Look at it brightly, Zoe. At least he gave you a vacation and two handsome and rich friends."
"Do you two deserve to be called handsome and rich?" Zoe asked, looking at the two of them.
"Wow~" Tommy and Stephen spoke up at once and looked at each other. Then Tommy said to Zoe, "I'm responsible for handsomeness and he's responsible for wealth. Isn't this a more appropriate way of putting it?"
Zoe heard Tommy's words, looked at the expressions of the two, and laughed happily. Then she sighed and said, "It feels good to see that you haven't changed much since then."
"Even better, Stephen is going to make a movie and include our story in it. He is full of movie dreams and needs to find someone to talk to. As a reporter, you are the best person to talk to." Tommy patted Stephen on the shoulder: "You can start now."
Afterwards, Stephen began to talk incessantly to Zoe about his ideas for the movie. Zoe listened with great interest, gave suggestions from time to time, and talked about the little things that impressed her during her summer camp, reminding Stephen to remember to include them in the film.
Tommy listened to their conversation quietly with a smile on his face, until Stephen got a little drunk due to his high spirits and ran to the vegetable garden in the back with the chef to appreciate the vegetables grown by the restaurant itself. The table suddenly became quiet.
"Don't you have anything interesting to tell, Tommy?" Zoe asked Tommy curiously, holding up the wine glass and swirling the wine .
Tommy picked up a piece of chicken with a fork and put it into his mouth. He didn't look up until the food was completely swallowed. He said, "Why don't you work for me, Zoe?"
"Your black TV station?" Zoe laughed out loud.
She knew that Tommy had started a black TV station.
Tommy shook his head slightly. "No, I'm planning a cable news network and I need a lot of reporters. I mean, you can leave that rural place in Worcester and find a bigger stage."
Zoe laughed at Tommy's words, then she looked at Tommy carefully and realized that he was not joking. She hesitated for a moment and said, "If I win the local social news investigation award this year, my boss will be able to retire soon. Then I can take over his job as the news editor-in-chief of a local TV station. Then I can work hard for about three to five years and win a few more news awards. By then, my resume should be qualified to join the news department of the three major TV networks, or work for a large newspaper."
Tommy ate his food and nodded. "You've always been angry, right? The first day I met you, I knew you were an angry girl."
As he spoke, he wiped his hands with a napkin, then reached out and grabbed Zoe's left hand, lifted it up and observed it. There was a ring on the middle finger.
Zoe believed that Tommy would not take advantage of her so blatantly. He did not have the courage to do so because he knew what would happen to him if he turned against her. So at this moment, she let Tommy carefully observe the ring on her finger and did not pull her hand back.
Tommy looked at the ring and asked, "What about that guy? Is he also a jerk like us summer camp mates?"
"He is a shy and introverted person who runs a flower shop by himself." Zoe also looked at the engagement ring on her finger. Although she didn't know why Tommy changed the topic to the ring, she still said gently:
"Most importantly, he can tolerate my vicious swearing and bad temper when I get home from work."
"I can guess that he must be a gentle and considerate man, who can wrap a bad girl like you softly like warm sea water." Tommy let go of his hand, then continued to pick up the knife and fork and put food into his mouth:
"Then, as time goes by, your anger towards the world will become less and less, and eventually it will be completely eliminated by this tenderness and thoughtfulness."
Zoe was stunned when she heard Tommy's words.
"I'm not inviting you to join. I just want to give you a choice. I'm starting a news network, and I need trustworthy friends to be by my side. You also need to vent your inner anger. You don't need to follow those old guys step by step to absorb the so-called nutrition to grow yourself. Here, you can grow wildly in your own way. Choose a place on the world map and tell me, then you can select team members and set up a press station there. Do you want to continue reporting on social news that the locals are not interested in and win some obscure news awards in Massachusetts, or do you want to witness the world's major moments, interview those world-famous celebrities, and let Pulitzer chase you to award you the Journalist of the Year?" Tommy looked at Zoe:
"That's the choice. You can go back to Worcester and let your fiancé who runs a flower shop teach you gently that you don't need to face the world with anger and compromise with it. Or you can try to keep your anger and let everyone in the world hear it."
Zoe looked at the ring on her hand, then her eyes stayed on Tommy's face for a long time before she lowered her head and said, "I don't know if I can accomplish what you call wild growth on my own."
"Then have you seen how I grew up? If I can do it, why can't you?" Tommy asked after taking a sip of wine:
"I didn't want to agree to Stephen making this movie, but since he was willing to trick the bank into lending me money in the end, I didn't object."
"Do you know why I disagree? Because I think the time is not right. As the prototype of the character, we don't have any outstanding achievements worthy of adaptation, right? But if it is many years later, those female stars will rush to play you, a world-renowned journalist, instead of now, when only unknown actors are willing to play you, a TV reporter in a small city and the girlfriend of a flower shop owner for the pay."
"Long time no see. Your eloquence has improved a lot since high school, Tommy." Zoe said with a forced smile.
Tommy stared at her seriously, capturing Zoe's subtle facial expressions, and immediately said, "You're blaming me for not being honest enough, right?"
Hearing Tommy's last words, Zoe looked at Tommy again and nodded slightly without denying: "Yes."
"You are thinking, this opportunity can be given to you or to someone else, why does it have to be you? Well, actually, it's because I need to meet the father of the actress who plays you in Stephen's movie, and having you come to work with me will make everything fall into place."
"Just like when you asked us to manage those students for free." After listening to Tommy's words, Zoe said with emotion, and then smiled: "This is my impression of you. If I work for your news network, have you helped me choose the first place to grow?"
"East Germany, under the Berlin Wall, you will be the first reporter in the world to witness the fall of the Berlin Wall," said Tommy.
"I can't find any reason to refuse this sentence, but can I go back and finish my investigation first?" Zoe thought for a moment and said to Tommy, "I don't want to give up halfway."
"Of course you can." Tommy said with a bright smile, "No one likes to quit halfway."
Zoe also laughed and then continued to eat with her head down. Tommy looked at Paige, and Paige nodded to Tommy almost imperceptibly.
"Unless something unexpected happens," Tommy added to Zoe after getting the answer.
