Author's Note:
I tend to enjoy writing things which are very long, or have a lot of backstory, in order to breathe a little more life into my characters. I think this makes the characters, and therefore the story, more engaging and enjoyable, but it tends to bog down my creative process. For this story, I limited myself to 2,750 words, or about ten double-spaced pages in my word processor. I hope this will help me to write shorter, but equally enjoyable stories, happy reading!
All participants in this story are over the age of 18.
Brrrng!
Jenna snapped her attention up from her book, the landline was ringing in the kitchen.
Shit
. She thought, jumping to her feet and racing to pick up the receiver.
She'd only just successfully put her baby step-sister down for a late-afternoon nap, and this noise was tempting to shatter the serenity which had at last greeted her.
Brrrng!
Another urgent interjection from the kitchen, which she almost overshot. Sliding on the hardwood floor in her socks, she skidded to a halt, arresting herself on the beige molding of the doorframe.
Brrrng!
She cursed as she scrambled to the phone, snatching it up and pulling it to her ear breathlessly, shoving aside her shoulder-length, dirty-blonde hair to get to it.
"Hello?" She tried to keep her voice down, listening carefully for any noise at all from the baby.
"Oh hey sweetie." Jenna bit back the sigh that was begging to leave her lungs.
Her step-mother, Karen, was both literally, and figuratively, a Karen in all senses of the word, and was only a few years older than Jenna. She couldn't imagine why her father had agreed to marry the bitch, let alone have a daughter with her.
"I was expecting your dad to be home already-" Jenna grimaced, Karen acted like her father was on a leash, or should be honorbound to check in whenever she even thought about it.
"He's not, just me and the baby here." A pause from the other end of the phone, then a brief sigh.
"Okay, Jenny-" Karen began.
"It's Jenna, for the last time." Jenna interjected with a cruel twist to her mouth as she did so. She'd gone by Jenny for a while, but had changed her nickname, in part to trip her new step-mom up a year ago.
"They're both short for Jennifer but okay." Jenna imagined Karen throttling the receiver. "Just-" Another sigh. "Just tell your dad I'll be home late tonight, maybe nine or ten, long day at the office..." She sounded exhausted, and despite their feud, Jenna felt a little bit bad for her. Not much, but a little bit.
"Yeah, sure thing Karen." The (slightly) older woman must've been surprised by her acquiescence.
In truth, it wasn't the first time that Jenna had felt pity for Karen. They weren't so far apart in age, or different in temperament. Karen had gotten knocked up on her honeymoon, and had returned, pregnant, to find a surly teenager living in her new home.
The interceding year hadn't been kind to her either, the pregnancy and delivery with little Macey had been difficult on her, and Jenna likely hadn't made it any easier (at least until the post-birth era, when she'd started providing childcare in exchange for some spending money).
Karen had been left a little drained from the experience of her first child, and had to go back to her demanding job afterwards, getting very little time to recuperate.
Jenna suspected that her father and step-mom now had a dead bedroom, so she wasn't even getting dicked down for her trouble.
"Okay, let me know if you need me to pick anything up on my way home..." Jenna replaced the receiver without replying.
Her charity only stretched so far.
Mere moments after settling back in on the couch, lounging with her book, Jenna was once again interrupted by the outside world. She crossed her fingers that her father would be quiet coming in the front door.
"Jenna? Karen? Anyone home?" He instead called loudly from the adjoining entryway.
Jenna jumped to her feet once again, a long-suffering expression fit in place, ahead of time. Sliding into the foyer, she offered her father a glare of reproach.
"It's naptime, you should know better than to shout like that!" He paused in confusion, jacket half-off, simultaneously bending to undo his shoelaces.
"Do you take scheduled naps now?" He asked.
A sardonic eye-roll was his only reward.
He blinked, then realization crossed his face. "Oh, the baby, that makes a lot more sense."
She snorted. "It seems like I spend more time with Karen's kid than you do sometimes..." Her words drew a scowl from her father as he kicked off his dress shoes, and shrugged his jacket to a pile on the floor.
"That 'kid' is your sister. She's all of our kid, young lady." He shifted his briefcase from floor to side table. "And you're well-compensated for the work that you do, regardless, so I don't appreciate the attitude."
Chastened, Jenna crossed her arms across her chest, still visibly annoyed. "I guess I'm going to have to stay Mom for a little while longer tonight. Your wife called, and she's going to be very late." Her father sighed, straightening up to look at her, taking her in with a shrewdness only he could muster.
"Where are your pants?" He queried.
