Vanessa August 23

From Vanessa's Theories of the Universe

July 31, 1 pm

Real and imagined ghosts fill the spaces on the shelves of the living room, collect dust, and clog my nose.  I take my reader to the patio and dream of the trip Beast told me about - no shopping malls for hundreds of miles.  Just me and him and his bike in a land with many turns and edges.  "You need a hamburger when you reach the top," he said.  The ocean outside comes in.

Fine dishes on the table, and there are these foods I can't pronounce.  Beast and I and our friends dine at one of Marianne's date night restaurants.  There are high ceilings and good light.  Light everywhere.

Vanessa Remembering a Date Night

August 23

The place Chabichou takes us feels as if it could be in a portrait room in a museum.  It's the kind of space you want to sit and take in, the atmosphere from the painting on the walls, some of apples, others of antique peoples to the chatter and the clinking of glasses and forks and knives around at the other tables, you don't expect to be asked, "Why do you have no boyfriends?"

"Are you serious?" I ask.

Marianne is in a fog.  Whatever Chabichou says she smiles, she makes no defense of me or why I don't answer Chabichou's question.

Marianne and Chabichou met in yoga class.  Her friend, Delucca introduced them.  "Chabichou is a kind of miracle man," Marianne said.  This after one date.  And she begged me to go out with them.  They aren't together anymore.  I learned more about Brie than I leaned from my high school biology teacher in a year.  But I should have asked Chabichou about clothes.

Chabichou does miraculous things with Marianne's wardrobe.  He transformed Marianne's favorites, the flamingo t-shirt and hot pink mini-skirt are now respectable outfits.  "Never wear them together.  Mix and match," he said.  "Switch up textures.  Jeans with formal or formal with flops."

And this is not so unlike George, except he asked me if I wanted a tattoo like Marianne's with all-seeing eyes and crooked teeth, a butterfly that could talk.

At dinner, I never answered Chabichou's question about boyfriends, but I thought about telling him, "My boyfriend is dead."  I wonder if Marianne would still have been smiling.

Based on the book Imagine