6. GT

Naturally, Kandhi had assumed that she and Chris would be going together, so she was hugely disappointed when he happened to mention, while wishing her every success, that he would not in fact be joining her. When she asked why not, he came up with several truly lame and absurd excuses, but she got the picture. He didn't want to put himself in a situation where he was alone with her. He had a feeling that he really shouldn't get into that particular Pandora's box.

"Damn it", she announced up front at the info desk.

"What now?", her colleague Klehre inquired indifferently. Klehre didn't really want to know, but it was boring as hell at that station. They were alone together in the middle of the large and nearly empty store, with hardly any books on the lovely wooden bookcases that surrounded them, and not a single customer in sight. Way over by the front door sat Harry, reading a right wing gay men's magazine and occasionally sipping from a coffee cup filled with gin. Otherwise, it was just Kandhi and Klehre, and the situation was driving Klehre crazy.

"Want to go to L.A. this weekend?" Kandhi asked.

"No", Klehre replied. "I fucking hate L.A."

"Huh", Kandhi said, and shut up. The two young women were seated on barstools behind a long dark desk which was as empty as the rest of the store. This is great, she was thinking. I get sucked into driving to L.A. on some crazy stupid mission, I don't even want to go, and I don't get to go with Chris which I thought, for some reason, since he asked and it was his idea, and now I have to go alone? Fuck it. I'm not going, she decided.

"Okay", Klehre broke the silence. "I'll go. When do we leave?"

"You'll go?" Kandhi had to ask again. She didn't even know this girl, really. Klehre had only been working there a couple of weeks. Kandhi'd been there a year, about as long as Chris. Tom had arrived a few months back.

"Sure", Klehre said, "Actually I've always wanted to go there."

"You just said you hated it!"

"Everybody says it", Klehre told her. "It was just instinctive. Then I thought about it. How come I hate some place I've never even been? Stupid me. So yeah, I want to go. When are we going? Why are we going? Why'd you ask me?"

Kandhi explained the test. Klehre thought she was kidding. After Kandhi had told her everything she knew about it, Klehre was nearly speechless.

"I'm not a child", she said, "You're putting me on, right?"

"Nope", Kandhi assured her, "that's the idea in a nutshell".

"Nutshell is right", Klehre snorted. "Nutcase more like it. Those guys. What the fuck?"

Klehre was pretty sure she'd seen and heard it all in her twenty four years. After all, she'd left home at sixteen, supported herself ever since, working every kind of job that she could get - secretarial, retail, food service, gas stations, supermarkets, stripping, phone sex and now even this, a bankrupt bookstore. How low can I go? she asked herself. Well, not that low, she answered. She had achieved her variety of wisdom through a series of lousy boyfriends, tattoos, project living and public transportation. It was time for a change, again. It was always time for a change for Klehre. Why not check out L.A.? But she wasn't just going to follow the leader. If she was going to play somebody's game, she was going to play it her way.

She didn't have much use for Kandhi so far. She thought she was dim, maybe even retarded, always so fucking cheerful, and that stupid hair. Klehre had done the pink thing once. Now she was solid dark purple all the way. Only a ditz does pink, she thought. And Kandhi, what kind of a name was that? Still, she was pretty sure the chick had cash - they were going to need that - and probably a car.

"You have a car?" she asked, and watched Kandhi bob her head enthusiastically.

"Yeah, yeah", she bubbled. "I've got a Mustang GT Convertible. It'll be awesome!"

"Christ", Klehre thought. "What the fuck am I getting myself into?"

"Great", she said out loud. "So when do we leave?"

"Friday night?" Kandhi suggested. "If the stuff is ready, right after work? We can stay at my mom's. It's near Disneyland!"

"Great", Klehre gagged. "Yeah, okay."