The ride back to my apartment was bleak, and things didn't improve when I got home. My roommate, a new girl named Scottie who was supposedly a literature major at UCLA, was crashed face down on the sofa, her pants halfway down her legs and her ass poking up in the air, snoring loudly. I'd have worried about her if it wasn't that it had happened four times previously in the two months we'd lived together. She seemed to major less in the works of Steinbeck than she did in trying the entire Kama Sutra, most often when stoned out of her mind. Even still, all of that wouldn't have been a problem except that she was late with her half of the rent.
"Scottie? Yo, Scottie!" I said, shaking her shoulder. I could smell the weed and sex drifting off of her, both disgusted and jealous at the same time. I had been busting my butt for too long to have more than the occasional hookup, and it had been a long time since one of those, even. I wasn't quite sanctified yet, but occasionally nuns would pass me on the street and give me a commiserating look, like they knew what was going on for me. "Scottie, wake the fuck up!"
She rolled over to the side, mumbling incomprehensibly. I shook her shoulder again. "Scottie! Where's your half of the rent? I had to pay the office this morning, and I'm down to three bucks in change. The cupboard is empty, and I need some food."
She smacked her lips and waved with her hands. "I'ma geddit furya," I think she said before rolling over, snoring as sleep overtook her again.
At least with the way she turned I didn't have to look at her ass any longer. I pondered going into the kitchen and getting a glass of water to pour over her, but realized I'd just be left with a wet couch and no money still. Sighing, I went back into my bedroom and pulled up my computer. It wasn't top of the line, hell it barely kept up with modern websites, but I could do e-mail and try and make contacts. Besides, it kept me out of the kitchen, where we truly were down to a box of cheap macaroni and cheese and half a carton of milk. I'd been hoping to save that for when times were tough, but that time was looking more and more likely.
It was, in fact, my e-mail that gave me the first good news of the day. In desperation two days before, I had gone onto a job hunting website and signed up, putting in applications for anything that might let me still make auditions or studio sessions. If that hadn't worked out, I'd have been playing guitar or violin on the street corner, busking for my food. I heard that you could get good hauls at the LA Zoo, and outside some of the busier train stations, or at a decently trendy Starbucks.
Instead of worrying about how I would sweet talk a coffee shop manager into letting me cadge off his electricity, I had a reply to one of the jobs I’d applied for. I clicked the link, double checking which job it was, and grinned. It wasn't the worst job I'd applied to, and it was a decent wage, just over twelve bucks an hour. If I wanted an interview, I could have one the next morning. Of course, I didn’t have much of a choice.
The Japanese American National Museum was in downtown Los Angles, in the Little Tokyo area of the city. I'd applied simply because as a child I loved museums, especially the kind where you could go around and actually touch the exhibits. Science museums were a ton of fun for me, and if it hadn't been that I loved music so much, I would have gone into engineering. I'd been in science museums all over the country, from Portland to New York to Houston, and really loved the entire idea behind them. The JANM wasn't the branch of the air and space museum, but a job was a job.
I smoothed my hands over the only decent set of interview clothes I had, a skirt and blouse set that I thought matched well with my hair and went inside. I was surprised to find that the person who interviewed me wasn't Japanese at all, but I guess when you look at hiring a girl like me for a tour guide position, ethnicity isn't all that important. Then again, California was unique in that race was both totally unimportant and a constant factor in relations between people all the time. I don't think in any other place did you have to be simultaneously hypersensitive and relaxed about it to the degree a person in Los Angeles had to.
"Miss Banks?" the man, who was probably in his mid-forties, asked me when I was escorted into the back offices. "Hi, I'm Harry Takahashi."
The name took me aback, I guess the guy did have some Japanese blood in his family tree somewhere. In looking closer, I guess I could see it in his facial features, but it had to be a couple of generations back. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Takahashi. I'm actually surprised you'd take the time to interview someone for a position like this. It's just a tour guide, not a curator or anything."
"Not at all Miss Banks," Harry replied, gesturing towards a chair. I sat across his desk from him, separated by what could only be described as a fortress of stuff. Papers, books, and folders were stacked so high I couldn't even see the man's keyboard, all of these mini towers topped with coffee cups, little figurines, balls, and other knick-knacks. I felt like I was interviewing inside a kid's play fort. Maybe Harry Takahashi was insecure, and liked the physical separation, or perhaps he was just chronically behind on his office work — I had no idea. Either way, he cleared his throat, picked up my resume to glance over it again, and asked his first question. "So what made you apply for a position here at JANM?"