Imagine

Chapter 3 - The West Side

I walked up the stairs to my Aunt Judy’s house and knocked on the large wooden door,  it had a lot of detailed carvings on it.  As I waited for someone to answer, I waved goodbye to Michael. He gave me a farewell smirk and pulled out of the driveway. I watched the car until it disappeared along the horizon. For a few seconds my mind was at complete peace thinking about Michael but the shrieking voice of my cousin pulled me out of my own thoughts.

“Mom, Jennifer is here!” I looked towards the door where cousin Cassie was standing. The last time I saw her I remember her being a little brat with light brown hair and also a slight lisp. Now, Cassie has tranformed into this bigger brat who looked like a bottled up blonde with that same shrieking voice that I always found irritable.

“Hi Jennifer,” She snorted then did one of those fake smiles as she checked me out in a way that mean 'hi jenny I am way better than you.'

“Oh hello dear come on in,“ greeted my Aunt Judy. Her blonde hair tied up in a slick bun so perfectly that not a hair was out of place.

“Hi Aunt Jude,” I set down my bags and embraced her in a meaningless hug.

“Oh honey I prefer to be called aunt Judith," she pulled out of the hug and, like Cassie, studied my clothes and general appearance. "The longer names are in style now,” she explained looking down at me through her nose.

I couldn’t believe that I was getting lectured on what to call her. She was nothing like my mother. A simple wannabe is what she was. My mom was naturally graceful and youthful with her smooth light golden brown hair which framed her face perfectly and beautiful hazel eyes. My mum was an excellent doctor.

Whereas my aunt Judy, was a little stubbier then my mom and had stringy yellow blonde hair and small brown eyes. If they stood side by side, you could hardly tell that they were related. My aunt was just a nurse which is- admittedly- a good profession. What irritated me was that she wanted to be like her sister her whole life, but since she didn’t make it as a doctor, she decided to become a nurse. It didn’t help that my Aunts names is Judith or Judy for short. While my mother’s was Katherine but people called her Kate and because of that, she held a grudge against her and didn’t talk to her very much.

Now she was taking care of her daughter, and I'm pretty sure that she's glad that her precious Cassie (or now Cassandra) will be more successful than me and now I know I wasn't going to be called Jenny since longer name's were apparently "in style !" I wasn’t going to put up with that.

“Sorry Aunt Judith," I gave her a smile and asked politely, I wanted to be on her good side- well at least for now. "Where can I put my things?” 

“Follow me Jennifer and I’ll show you to your room.” she replied.

“Okay, and you can just call me Jenny.”

“Don’t be silly. That was simply a nickname for you when you were younger, now that you’re a woman so you're going to be called by your real name.” 

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t going to talk to her. I called her Judith now why in the hell can’t she just call me Jenny. That was what my parents used to call me.

My mind flashed back to the night I dread. I begged my parents to come pick me up, I refused to walk because if you walked then you were considered as lame. That’s how things were on the West side. If you had money you showed it off and my parents had loads of it. My mom was a doctor and my dad was a writer. My mom made most of the money but my dad contributed with his best selling novels. I begged them to come get me and they complied and told me that they were "on their way". I didn’t care that they were both over tired from the trip they just got back from, I just didn't want to walk.