8. Grapevine

It can be a long drive from S.F. to L.A., and Klehre would have liked to have had some of that time to reflect, to think, even to breathe quietly, but it wasn't meant to be. If she had hoped that Kandhi had already told her everything she could possibly tell her over the past few days, she had hoped in vain. She was inexhaustible, one of those magical people who are never, ever at a loss for words. Klehre was reminded of those fairy tales about enchanted pouches that always seemed to have lunch inside, or the legends of non-stop rain for days and days and days. Kandhi talking was a lot like that. Taken in bits and pieces, some of what she said was even interesting. It was just too hard to filter, as if you could win a million dollars off a mosquito but had to take a billion bites from it first.

There was the time when she was a little girl. There was a time when she was a teen. There was a time when she was a baby. There was a time when anything and everything was possible and real. Kandhi had jumped out of airplanes. Not just once. Regularly. Kandhi had driven a bus, did you know that? An actual city bus. Kandhi didn't do well in geology. Memorization was never her thing and a rock is a rock, you know what I mean? Thought so. Kandhi had seen a bear in the wild. Kandhi had counted all the freckles on her boyfriend's back. That was her ex. William. Did I tell you about William? Well ...

Klehre did manage to process a few notions of her own. She realized that for all her worldliness, she had never done really much of anything but read. She had traveled a bit. Europe. North Africa. Nicaragua with a political group. She had majored in history and minored in cultural anthropology. She could talk about pretty much anything, given half a chance. She had been to Mississippi, and Florida, where she came from, originally. Didn't like it. Too sticky. Too I don't know, she would tell you. Too something for sure. She would much rather be on a couch, with a book, by a lamp, in the city, imagining the world while the passersby passed by.

It wasn't that she didn't like Kandhi. Kandhi was funny. Kandhi wasn't stupid. She was simply too cheerful. Klehre was never like that. I can smile, she reassured herself, when I mean it, but all of the time? No way. Nothing bothers this girl. Nothing gets her down. How does she do that? Klehre wanted to know, but didn't want to ask. What she did ask, eventually, was whether or not Kandhi wanted to stop somewhere to get a bite. They were approaching the grapevine and it was getting on towards ten. Kandhi pulled over at the next available rest stop.

Klehre went for a sandwich. Kandhi got Chinese, and they rendezvous'd at a coffee shop where each of them added a drink to their meal. They sat inside, surrounded by a half-dozen tables full of other travelers, most of them sagging and weary.

"Yum", Kandhi declared, as she ploughed into her shrimp fried rice. Stuffing her face kept her quiet for a few moments.

"You know", Klehre said, inspecting her ham on rye with suspicion, "Do we really know what we're going to do down there? I mean, changing the world by talking out loud in public? I mean, that's what we're doing right now. Don't see anything changing."

"Sure", Kandhi bubbled, "that's why it's so important about when and where and who and what and all of that", but Klehre wasn't listening to her answer. Instead she was eavesdropping on the guy at the next table. He was maybe in his thirties, kind of cute, she thought at first, even with those horn-rimmed glasses and my god are those loafers, but he was lauging, and saying to his larger, hairier, less-cute friend,

"Did you hear that chick just said? That's too funny. I've got to broadcast that on my socialnet", and he pulled out a device of his own, about the same size and shape as the one Klehre had left in the car, and started tapping away on it with an unsharpened pencil.

"What's with that clown?" she thought, and she was so pissed that he was laughing at her that she almost leaned over and tipped his coffee right into his lap.

"Of course we've got to find the guy", she heard Kandhi saying, and that brought her back to her own predicament.

"What do you mean, find him? You know where he is, don't you?"

"Minor detail", Kandhi chuckled. "That, and what he looks like."

"What?", Klehre jumped up. "What he looks like?"

The guy at the table was watching her now and she knew it. She was ready to give him a good piece of her mind. She even turned towards him and glared, at which he kind of sat up straighter and made a pucker face as if to say, "oh no, the mean girl's going to hit me". His friend cracked up and nearly fell off his chair. Klehre trembled with rage for a moment, but forced herself to sit back down. Then, although Kandhi's totally out-of-place smirk was driving her mad, she calmly and quietly said,

"Are you telling me you don't know what he looks like, or where we're going to find him?"

"Sort of", Kandhi chirped, but before Klehre could get all upset again, she reached out and patted her hand. "It's not that bad, actually. I do know where he'll be tomorrow morning. Playing racketball. He always does. That's what Chris says, anyway."

"And do you know where he will be playing racketball?" Klehre asked, trying to control herself".

"La Fitness", Kandhi assured her. "Marina Del Rey".

"God I hope so", Klehre exhaled. "This whole thing is beginning to freak me out."

"Don't worry", Kandhi said. "What could go wrong?"