Bertelli Investigations Volume 1: Noteworthy Mysteries

Chapter 27

"I'm surprised you've made another appointment for so soon Miss Gonzales,instead of just waiting until next week",Dr Drake said,tipping his glasses down to his nose and looking at Vanessa.

"Yeah I didn't plan on it,but I had to.",Vanessa admitted."This has been bothering me."

"What has?",he questioned with concern.

Vanessa sighed with a look of disappointment. "After leaving your office Monday I went straight to work. And I hated every minute of it.  I mean I noticed I even hated the things that I loved about it.-or I thought I loved about it. I hated doing the laundry. I hated washing people's hair. I hated even cutting people's hair."

Dr Drake sat back and crossed his legs,looking at Vanessa with curiousity."You know it's funny. You originally came to me because of being traumatized. Now we're discussing your career."

"I know.",she chuckled ."I've found that interesting as well."

"Tell me, Miss Gonzales, why are you a hairdresser?"

"Well, because I thought I liked it."

"But you don't like it.",he was quick to point out.

Vanessa hesitated to reply. for a second."I hate to admit it, but no."

"Then what ever made you think you liked it to begin with?"

Vanessa started remembering the painful memories she had as a child. Her life wasn't too bad. She was raised by parents who had a lot of money,loved her,and tried to give her an amazing future. But even all the money in the world couldn't make that family rid of its problems.

"My mother was a model. She...she had a lot of ideas about what women should be like."

Dr Drake started writing in his notebook like a typical therapist."Oh? And how so.",he asked.

Vanessa hated recalling all the bad memories,but she knew she had to."Well",she said in a sullen voice as she felt the hurt all over again,"...im currently 23 years old. She was 42 when she had me;very unexpectedly had me. Because she was so much older, she had very old fashion ways. She thought that women could have a career, but they needed to look pretty doing it. And she thought that if a woman had a career, she couldn't have a "man's job". "

"I'm taking it that being a hairdresser is a woman's job to your mother?",Dr Drake asked.

"Yes. And because I ruined my mom's body by her being pregnant with me, she kind of lived through me as I grew up. I grew up doing beauty pageants. I was expected to be a model."

"So why aren't you a model?",Dr Drake asked curiously.

Vanessa scoffed."Look at me. I'm too big to be the kind of model my mom wanted me to be. She tried putting me on a diet when I was 12 as I started putting on weight."

"It's perfectly normal for pubescent girls to put on weight.",he replied.

"Well, my mom believed a woman should be thin.",Vanessa said as she rolled her eyes and felt remorse at the memories of her mother forcing her harsh beliefs down her throat from an early age." They were not to be big like me. Plus size models were disgusting to her, and she wouldn't have her daughter being one.And you know, the diets she put me on actually worked. I became slim and I was model material. I did it for my mom. And I did model until I was 17."

"So what happened that you are not a model today?"

"I hated it.",Vanessa said bluntly."I hated that my whole purpose was to look good for the camera. I had to starve all the time,exercise all the time,and even make sure I was under a weight requirement set by a company. I told my mom I wanted to drop modeling. I wanted to go to college. It started a huge fight. The only way to make her happy and to make sure she would still even talk to me was to compromise. I had to be either a nail tech or a hairdresser.",Vanessa paused before pointing out the obvious course she took." I'm not very good at art."

Dr Drake stopped writing as he put his head resting on his fingers,looking at Vanessa with compassion."That's horrible. Your mother has controlled what you're doing with your life."

"Yeah, she has.",she agreed."But it's my mom. I only have one. And I figured that being a hairdresser is better than not having a relationship with my mom."

"What did you want to be originally when you told your mom you wanted to go to college?"

"Oh, well, it uhm...it sounds ridiculous." Vanessa said with an awkward smile.

"Really? Try me",Dr Drake asked,lifting an eyebrow in curiousity.

"I wanted to be a doctor."

"That's a great career. Its sad your mother didn't support it.",Dr Drake said in a very surprised tone.

"Well, I guess being a doctor wouldn't have been ideal for me. I really can't stand all the icks a doctor deals with. So maybe it's good I didn't do it. But still, I would have loved to have done something else with my life besides bleaching or braiding another woman's hair."

Dr Drake straightened up his posture as he was about to point out something he found interesting."I want to point something out. In my notes from the last time you were here, you said that seeing that dead body bothered you because you couldn't do anything to help her."

"Yeah. What about it?",Vanessa asked,wondering where he was going with this.

"I could be wrong; this is something that you have to ponder over for yourself. But I take it that it bothered you more to stand back and do nothing as you see someone lying dead, than it bothered you to actually see them lying dead."

"Yeah, maybe so." Vanessa thought on what he said,knowing that he was possibly right.

Dr Drake bluntly pointed out what he found to be true:" I think you are more traumatized over the fact that there was nothing you could do for that poor, murdered, woman than you are by seeing all the blood and gore."

As Vanessa thought about it, she knew it was all entirely true."You're right. I think I am. So what do I do now?"

Dr Drake looked back up at her as he tipped his glasses to his nose."That's entirely up to you."