Work in Progress - Vanessa

"Did you ask the eye to tell you what it knows?" Aphrodite asks.

She means the eye on the whale of a couch in Persephone's living room in the underworld, I should ask about George and why he said no to the idea of me moving back in with him.  I've taken a trip once to the underworld and had a conversation with the eye, but I never told Fanta or Aphrodite what it said.  Aphrodite mesmerizes with her fancy words and promises of new adventure, and before I know it, I start to describe the night I spent swimming in the neighbor's ocean staring up at the twinkling lights on the patio and what they were saying about Beast and me.  But I'm telling Patti about all of it.

Careful, the Mean Girls say, the time you went next door is edge behavior.

I don't know why they help me out with Patti.  Patti asks me to separate the real from the make-believe.  I tell her she's real, I'm real, and Marianne is real.  And Fanta and Aphrodite are characters in a book, they're make-believe.  I don't say about the times I talk to Fanta and Aphrodite as if they are friends.  Patti and I talk about the parties that go on long after midnight in my head where I can't sleep, and people I used to know sit next to me, tell me about their lives, and give advice on my depression. 

"Sometimes, I tell these ghosts the kinds of things I would never say to Marianne or George like how I get into beer and vodka like a wild animal."

"Do you have a drinking problem?" Patti asks.

The Mean Girls tell me I'm acting sloppy drunk and to quit telling Patti anymore about that night.

"I only took a little alcohol from the neighbor's bar, maybe wild animal was being dramatic."

This eye, with heavy black mascara and cream beige shadow tells me a vision I don't want to accept.  Is it possible Beast is an imaginary friend?