The Journeys of John and Julia: Genesis (Book 1) ~Complete~

Line 2

LINE 2

Julia was in her room, staring into the mirror above her dresser, moving her head this way and that while studying her face critically. With a pleased smile she turned around and grabbed the phone from the side table next to her bed. Sliding it on, she quickly speed-dialed the number she would have remembered in a coma. She sat down on her bed, one foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

"Finally! What took you so long? I miss half my life waiting for you to pick up the phone." She listened intently to the voice of her friend on the other end of the line - her tapping foot picking up speed.

"Ok, ok. I see. Just why you think we have those scientist geeks inventing all this micro stuff if you don't take it with you everywhere?" The impatiently tapping foot seemed to have infected her free hand. "Listen, all I wanted to tell you is, the stuff we bought at the mall yesterday is fan-absolutely-tastic! I put it on before I went to bed and it wiped this pimple completely!"

Phone pressed against her ear, Julia got off the bed and started dancing around the room.

"Yesss! Another victory in the battles of adolescence! My life is totally changed! Now I'm so ready to go to camp and face Miss I'm-so-Wonderful and her homies."

She stopped her spinning in front of the door and put her free ear against it.

"Sorry Kellie, gotta go. I hear mom coming up the stairs. Probably because I didn't respond when she called. Keeps her in shape," Julia giggled. "Twenty stairs less on the stair-stepper at the gym tonight. Talk to you later. Sure. Bye."

With her usual display of excess energy, which she tried to work off in the daily gym routine her daughter had hinted at, Julia's mother knocked at the door, and by the time Julia had a chance to answer, she was already sitting on the bed. She wore a dark two-piece suit and pumps of the same color. Her auburn pageboy hair, beautiful enough for shampoo commercials, bobbed around her made up face. No doubt, she was all geared up to go to work.

"Wow mom," Julia exclaimed, closing the door behind her mother, "sometimes I think you'll be the first one to break the faster-than-light-speed-barrier."

Under normal circumstances, Julia did not allow her mother to violate the fragile structure of their mother-daughter-boundaries by rushing into her room without being properly invited in. But this morning, she still carried that glorious sense of well-being, originating in her triumph over that nasty pimple and consequently, she felt rather generous towards the world. As a sign of just how deep this generosity reached, she surprised herself by extending it to include her mother.

"Julia I have to talk to you," said Elizabeth, dropping her shoes on the floor and pulling her legs under. "Why don't you sit with me for a minute."

"Sorry but that sounds way too serious for the space I'm in right now. Whenever you start without saying any of those nice things mothers are supposed to say - you end up saying something I don't want to hear."

Julia walked towards the mirror, scanning her smooth, unblemished skin in an attempt to hold on to the blissful feeling, which now was fading fast. "I'm in such a great mood and I won't let you spoil it with your mother-daughter-intimacy stuff."

"Oh come on, darling," her mother sighed, fighting for composure as she recognized the dreaded if familiar feeling of tears pushing behind her eyes, her usual emotional response to harsh words. Julia's in particular. "It's never the right time for you. You're either depressed about something or too busy talking on the phone or off solving mysteries with your nose in a book and we hardly talk at all anymore."

"See, now you've done it. Thank you very much. This is exactly the reason why I don't want to talk to you. It's all about you and your needs."

Julia turned around, the golden specks in her eyes shooting phasers in the general direction of her mother.