Page 38 of Best Friend Burden

I recognized the face before I could place it. And the recognition was strange because this was a new location, and I didn't think I knew anybody. But I did know this girl.

Then it clicked me.

“Farmer's market,” I said.

She nodded.

“I saw on Instagram that you were planning on getting set up today,” she said. “I figured you might need a little help.”

I'd given her my information with the belief that she'd completely forget about me in less than a day, but here she was, eager to help. I didn't know how to tell her that I preferred running things on my own.

“Remind me of your name,” I said.

“Kalle.” She extended her hand, and I shook it.

It was strange. For someone who was essentially a stalker to my business, she didn't seem too happy to be there. She was dressed all in black and wore a blank expression.

“I'm a good worker,” she said, “if I like what I'm doing. Can I work for you?”

“The thing is, Kalle,” I told her, trying to be both blunt and kind, “is I wasn't really planning on having any help. Not right away. And the investors haven't worked in salary for any employees.”

“Pay me under the table,” she said.

I shook my head. “My lawyer wouldn’t like that.”

“Fine, pay me minimum wage and let me live off of tips.”

She was nothing if not persistent.

“Why do you want this so bad?” I asked her.

“It's kind of a long story,” she said. “How long do you have?”

I pulled out my phone. Technically, I had all day. I was on my own time, but I also wanted to get back at a semi-reasonable hour.

“I can give you five minutes,” I told her.

She sat down across from me.

“Here's the number one,” she said. “The job at the farmer's market sucks. I'm helping out a friend of my dad's. She pays me shit, but my dad tells me I need to have a job or he's taking away the car.”

I'd been in Los Angeles long enough to know that cutting off someone's access to a car was akin to cutting off their oxygen. Sure, you could use ride share apps, to a degree, but they were expensive and limited. Cars meant independence and, if Kalle was anything like me, nothing was more important than that.

“My thing is I might as well be killing two birds with one stone, so to speak,” she continued. “I don't want to work for anyone else so long as I can help it. But, you know, I'm 19, so I don't have a choice right now. I want to start up my own business and I figure I could work for you, let you take me under your wing, and when I'm a little older, you let me fly away and do my own thing.” She paused. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to confuse two bird metaphors.”

I had to laugh at that. “Your selling point is that you want me to give you all my trade secrets so you can go off and be a competitor?”

Kalle wasn't one to smile, but I thought I saw the sides of her lips rise just a little bit in response. “Or make me a business partner at some point if you don't think you'll be able to compete.”

Some may have been turned off by her arrogance. Without working a single day in the truck, she was already trying to negotiate a deal whereby she'd be a partial owner of the business.

Not me, though. Where others may have seen arrogance, I saw ambition. This was a girl who didn't take no for an answer, who marched to the beat of her own drum. Someone who fought against the world constantly trying to fit her into a mold that wasn't a match. A rule-breaker and independent thinker who would make a series of stupid decisions in paving out her path for life.

In other words, she was a little version of me.

“You're not very good at poker, are you?” she asked.

“Pardon?”

---