Fancy Girl

By Jasen Sousa

Fancy Girl by Jasen Sousa is a novel in poems which tells the coming of age story of Deanna Keight, a teenage single mom who is struggling to raise her daughter Madelyn inside of the Mystic Housing Developments in Somerville, Massachusetts. Deanna is a brash, but capable teen who is stuck at a point in her life where she doesn't know how to escape the world she has found herself living inside of. Deanna is a female Ponyboy, and Fancy Girl is a modern day version of The Outsiders, and is written in the same successful style as Jacqueline Woodson's Locomotion, and Patricia McCormick's Sold.

One day, Deanna is approached in the park by Alissa, a new breed of independent prostitute who offers to teach Deanna the tricks of the trade so she can save up enough money to move out of the projects. Without many options available, Deanna accepts Alissa's offer. Deanna is even more desperate to disappear from Somerville as she has recently found out that the father of her child, Machinegun Mike, who is doing time in jail, will be getting out earlier then expected. Machinegun Mike becomes enraged with jealously after learning that Deanna has been selling herself, and plans to come home and reunite with Deanna and Maddy so that they can be a family.

At night, Deanna leaves Maddy in the care of her elementary school crush, Johnny J, the only guy in her life that she trusts. Johnny J goes along with this plan at first as he sees it as a logical way for Deanna to save money, but over time, his feelings for Deanna grow, and he becomes disgusted with the idea of sitting at home while strangers feel up every inch of her body. Johnny J confronts Deanna's way of life, Machinegun Mike, and will let nothing get in his way of freeing Deanna and Maddy.

Fancy Girl is the story of a young teenage mother living in an unforgiving environment, and her journey to do whatever she has to in order to secure a new, and better life for herself, and her daughter. Deanna realizes that fast money is not the way of creating a better life for her family. Deanna is a courageous young girl who has to teach herself about the harsh realities of her projects. Deanna realizes this doesn't have to be her life. That she doesn't have to sell her body for money, and that just because generations of her family lived in poverty, doesn't mean that she does. She realizes she can leave, even if it means leaving with less than what she originally had. This book is important for all teens in general, but especially for young people in the inner city who will be able to look up to a young single mother as a new hero of young adult literature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9780971492684

Book preview

MOTHERS

PROLOGUE

THE PLAYGROUND

Madelyn bursts

like water out of a gutter;

down the slide, toes up

and I sit watching her

on a wooden bench.

That’s what good mothers do.

Some girl, her heels sinking

in soggy woodchucks, still strutting

and I see it’s Alissa,

the one girl every Somerville guy

has on speed dial.

You be Deanna, right? she asks.

I be, different things, to different people, I say.

She sits down next to me, and my wandering eyes.

Short,

short skirt, and stockings, careful

not to let splinters stab her thighs.

Maddy smiles and waves

from the top of the slide, our project

building standing behind her.

She’s beautiful, Alissa says.

Maddy crash lands and says

to the older boy who plays

without anyone watching him,

Bet you can’t go down faster than me!

She has your eyes.

I pause before I answer, think

about what my eyes have seen.

She has my everything, I say.

"She was lucky being born

with all of my beautiful genes,

not her father’s."

"I heard things have been rough

for you lately with your mom dying

and all. If you’re looking for a way

to make some extra cash, I might be able to help

you out," Alissa says.

I know it’s not easy to make it on these streets.

The buildings of the Mystic Projects draw a shadow

over Alissa’s face, she looks away from me, sparks a Newport,

and blows smoke towards a setting Somerville sun.

SOMERVILLE, MY HOOD

In my neighborhood nobody really knows who they are.

Like Phil Bailey:

a 40-something-year-old dude

with Coke bottle glasses and a backwards

Bruins cap who plays ball with the kids at the playground,

and then recruits them to sell drugs for him.

Like skinny-ass Sherri:

a twenty-something-year-old lady

who looks like she is fifty, but still

dresses like she’s a teenager. A straight-up

case of what living in Somerville does

to a person’s skin, and to their soul.

Like the Sledgehammer and Zoo-Nikki:

two old school Irish cats who pretend they’re mobsters

roughing people up in their scaly caps,

jean shorts, and white sneaks with no socks

that they wear no matter what season it is.

Like Megan:

a chick in her twenties

who doesn’t have a home of her own. Her

parents kicked her out for stealing the TV

and sofa and selling them for a hit. You

can still find her roaming around her crib,

trying to find new ways to break in.

Like Cadillac Chris:

A dude in his twenties covered

with the worst tats you have even seen! You know,

the ones that are done by a friend of a friend for cheap money

at a house party. They ain’t even black, they’re like green,

Cadillac Chris with his green Cadillac

logo tattooed over his heart. Everyone needs

to love something, right?

Like me:

Deanna. A single mother who will do anything

to get out of the projects, even

if it means taking off my top, pulling down my pants, and filling

up my pockets with dirty money.

In Somerville, sometimes you just become things

to be something.

LAST NIGHT’S DREAM

My apartment infested:

cockroaches.

Stained toilet seat cover hung

half-way off,

couldn’t see water in the bowl, toilet paper,

cigarettes, funky

combination of piss and shit.

Someone stabbed

outside my door, hallway

of the Mystic Projects.

Cops and paramedics left, couple

in the apartment next door cursed

for two hours, made-up

for longer.

Became nauseous, smell

of curry floating, Indian

couple down the hall.

Heard rats run

through walls

behind my headboard,

last night’s dream,

today’s reality.

I DON’T KNOW HOW MANY TIMES

I don’t know how many times

I have looked out my window and seen

a street lamp and mistaken it

for the sun.

I don’t know how many times

I have looked out my window and seen

red and blue flashing lights

and thought they were coming for me.

I don’t know how many times

I have looked out my window and seen

cigarette ashes disappear into the sidewalk

and thought