She'd been engrossed in her studies, busy berating herself for what she wasn't doing right, when the stranger suddenly sat down across from her. For Mingmei, this wasn't abnormal. It was quite common in China for people to slide into seats that were unoccupied, even if someone else was already sitting at that particular table. She glanced up when the stranger spoke, wondering briefly if he was talking to her or not.
Oh. He was talking about the coffee. She smiled politely, and spoke in her slightly accented English in response, "I'm sorry that you don't like the coffee. I can make you some coffee more? Without pay, of course." Outside of her coworkers, customers and those in her dormitory, this was the first person she'd really actually spoken to. She wasn't shy about it, however. She was determined and quite ambitious, hardly worried that her English might deter him from speaking to her in the future.