"I'm home!"
The housekeeper, Mrs. Koraleski came out of the kitchen as I put down my bags and started pulling my coat off.  She took my coat from me and smiled.
"So nice to have you home, Miss Violet.  Your aunts have been waiting most anxiously for you.  They can't wait to celebrate your birthday," Mrs. K told me, hanging my coat up and waving me into the kitchen.
"Have they indeed?" I asked over my shoulder, while my stomach led me towards the smell of cinnamon rolls.  Yes, they had been expecting me.
"Is that my little girl?  That stylish young lady?"
My stomach was temporarily waylaid by the sound of my Aunt June's voice.  I smiled at the mature woman of seventy, beginning her years of being known as "cute little old lady", who was wearing a pale blue silk dress trimmed with fine lace, and sock monkey slippers.
"Still your little girl, Aunt June.  I promise."
June Ames smiled her pert little smile.
"Don't be so silly, Violet.  You're 22, you swear, you drink, you wear impractical underwear, you are hardly a little girl.  But you still come home for your birthday to spend time with your decrepit aunts, so I appreciate the efforts," she said, teasing me.
I grinned.
"Where else would I spend my birthday?"
"With your sophisticated college friends, of course, like other girls your age."
I shrugged and resumed my journey for cinnamon rolls.
"My friends can hang out with me later.  They know this is tradition."
Aunt June laughed softly from behind me.
"Such a good girl.  Bella tells me she has a special treat for you, just for the occasion."
I raised an eyebrow and swallowed a very large bite of cinnamon roll.
"You guys didn't get me a stripper, did you?" I asked cautiously.  Aunt Arabella, or just Bella, was notorious for that threat.
"Goodness, no, dear.  We have to serve at church this weekend, we could hardly do such a thing in good conscience."
I smiled again and munched away at my snack.
"Not that you won't have a very handsome date for dinner this evening.  We couldn't let you go stag on your birthday, even if it is with just your aunts," June said, dropping the statements like Fat Man and Little Boy on Japan.
And then she whisked out of the room while my mouth was full and I knew I'd have to wait for an explanation later.  Aunt June was crafty like that.  But I didn't mind.  June and Bella had raised me since I was four, and became my official guardians at six.  My father was their younger brother, and he and my mother had no interest in having children, and even when they did they had no interest in raising one.  My aunts came to visit for Christmas and found me cooped up in one end of the house with a nanny who was barely seen.  Aunt June pursed her lips and carried me off to the Ritz-Carlton, and Aunt Bella called Social Services, fired the nanny, and gave my parents an earful.  My parents never took me back, but I was happier with my aunts anyway.  June had been widowed young, and Bella never married, so we became an odd little family, but it suited us.  I couldn't ask for a better place to be than with my two demure little aunts in their stylish brownstone, Mrs. Koraleski the housekeeper, and Mr. Koraleski the driver.
As I finished my cinnamon roll, I pondered what birthday surprise was in store for me.  Aunt June would've only vaguely disapproved of the stripper, and Aunt Bella could be crafty too.  I theorized that my former French tutor would be draped naked across my bed when I went up to my room, and my dreamy British History TA would somehow be using my shower.  My aunts, for all their perceived daintiness, were not above something like that.  But I was sure Renard was married by now (he was too handsome and intelligent not to be), and Oliver was back at Brown, so I didn't theorize too far.