Feminine Prerogatives: 3 Tales of Empowerment

By Louise Jaffe

Louise Jaffe, author of Feminine Prerogatives: 3 Tales of Empowerment, is a Pushcart nominee for poetry. Here is what some concerned and creative writers of today have to say about her first work of fiction, Feminine Prerogatives.

Feminine Prerogatives: 3 Tales of Empowerment, is Louise Jaffes first fiction book, a trilogy of novellas about womens choices and survival, sometimes humorous, sometimes painful, always insightful. Jaffe writes with wit and poignancy, her characters are everyday earthy heroines who seek solace and recognition in their world. Her style is both plainspoken and poetic.
~ Editors Note
Faustinas Upward Fall is a humorous allegory dramatizing the lengths to which one writer, Faustina Cohen, will go to be published. Ive cried with April Carter, ached with Faustina, and both mourned and rejoiced with Shirley Stone.
~ Lisa Roma, poet, singer-songwriter, artist, author of
poetry collections, Emerging from Limbo, and Haikusized;
founder-director of Creative Womens Network

Poetry therapists will be interested in reading about Shirley Stone, Louise Jaffes protagonist in the novella, Journeynotes, her experiences with journaling and her first attempts at writing poetry, as described in Jaffes trilogy Feminine Prerogatives: 3 Tales of Empowerment. Shirley flies on owl wings and through her own determination recreates and revitalizes herself. She evolves into an empowered woman thriving in a world of self-determined choices.
~ Lila Lizbeth Weisberger
Director, bridgeXngs POETRY CENTER
Past President, National Association for Poetry Therapy (1999-2001)
Co-editor, The Healing Fountain: Poetry Therapy for Lifes Journey

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 28, 2006
• ISBN: 9781469105710

Book preview

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Copyright 2006

Library of Congress Control Number   2006901845

ISBN                          Hardcover:             1-4257-1099-9

                                     Softcover:              1-4257-1098-0

                                             eBook                     978-1-4691-0571-0

- Fiction -

Feminine Prerogatives: 3 Tales of Empowerment

is an original work and the sole copyright property of author Louise Jaffe. This book, or any part of it, may not be duplicated, copied, scanned, recorded, distributed, or sold in any manner or form without the authentic permission of the author. In addition, none of the illustrations or designs herein may be duplicated, scanned, copied, reproduced, sold or used without the authentic permission of the designer-illustrator, Lisa Roma. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws. All rights reserved. Copyright 2006.

Book design, layout, cover collage art & illustration

by Lisa Roma - copyright 2006

Creative Women’s Network

[e-mail]

Printed & Published

by Xlibris, Philadelphia, PA, 2006.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

NOTES

Lies: A Chorus

Faustina’s Upward Fall

Journeynotes

Editor’s Message

About the Author

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dedicated to

my granddaughter

Tanya Ellis Jaffe

in all your newness

and ancient soul-gathering

may you be inspired

to fly with owl-wings

and empowered

with Athena’s wisdom

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Acknowledgements

   I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help and encouragement of several very special people. Without them this book would not have been born.

   Heartfelt thanks to my seventh-grade English teacher, Mrs. Sylvia Carlin, who wrote in my autograph album this memorable and inspiring message: Don’t disappoint us, Louise. We expect you to be the author of a best seller. Made over half a century ago, this prophecy sparked the obsession with writing that has been with me ever since.

   Equally heartfelt thanks of a somewhat different nature to my amazingly articulate and accomplished son, Aaron, and daughter-in-law, Bonnie. Holders of degrees in journalism, both are employed as editors and whet my insatiable appetite to see as many of my word-children as possible in print and thus make them proud of me.

   Realizing that, if not enriched by love, the joy of literary achievement, or achievement of any kind, can be greatly diminished, I am enormously grateful for the ongoing support and devotion of my husband, Leo Gerber. Without him, I might experience the feeling that I am creating in a vacuum.

    The inspiring midwife of this book, Lisa Roma, has also earned my undying gratitude. Without her judicious editing and advice, unique book design, cover illustration and genuine enthusiasm for this project, it might have remained forever in the dream-state, or a mere manuscript, typed on aging white paper.

   I bless all these people and others too numerous to mention who have found time in their hectic and productive lives to offer me their encouraging feedback and support of my writing. Together they make it all worthwhile.

~ Louise Jaffe

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Foreword

   When my pen is finished with me, I lie spent and exhausted on the naked floor, amazed at the tome that has thus been channeled.

   It’s a woman’s world, and so says the common thread that weaves thru this cloth. Each story is a piece of a different pie, but pie nonetheless, whose calories we choose to ignore when we feast on the delicacy of its fruit. Ah, and what delicious fruit empowerment is! Whether it is wisdom that nourishes, experience or errant choices, the game is in the choosing.

   For me, the elixir of choice is, indeed, its own magical catalyst needed to transform a mere existence into a meaningful life. It is a cause for celebration to which the grateful participants throng arrayed in rainbow robes of self-respect, an irrefutable conviction of uniqueness, and a willingness to take risks. Ultimately, despite whatever encouragement it gets, it takes root and blooms alone, rediscovered by each individual who seeks out and claims it. It is not easy for any human being to find and retain; even in our comparatively liberated world, because of its heritage of sexism, it is immeasurably harder for women.

   In the three stories, empowerment comes to the protagonists in unexpected and divergent ways. After it has worked its magic, none of them will ever be, or want to be, the same again.

                  ~ Louise Jaffe

Introduction

   Feminine Prerogatives: 3 Tales of Empowerment is a trilogy of separate but equally provocative stories, fundamental and profound, tied together by the silver chord of feminine choice, three different women in three different voices speak. Independently unique, they combine to represent the virtual Everywoman.

   Lies: A Chorus is written as an alernation of short monologues rather than conventional narration, focusing on lost innocence of several kinds. Our young idealist at once finds herself enrolled in a municipal college, where naivete feeds her belief in virtually everything she is told. After being expelled for poor academic performance she has a rude awakening. It is apparent she is a survivor, albeit a disenchanted one. Other characters share some of her experiences. Her mother, guidance counselor, and English professor have all been victimized and/or short-changed in one way or another by the vagaries of a world in which dishonesty is usually the rule of thumb rather than the exception. Life eventually teaches even our protagonist to lie.

Faustina’s Upward Fall is a somewhat dour allegorical fantasy in which the otherwise happily-married heroine, a newly retired professor, decides to further her literary success by engaging in an affair with a suave but swarthy gentleman. She sells her proverbial soul to him for the favor of having her poetry published. But—watch out! Can he be trusted? Downtrodden and discouraged, she falls helplessly back into the arms of her loved ones and is disarmed by the familial surprises that await her.

Journeynotes takes the form of a series of journal entries by a recently widowed middle-aged woman. She has never kept a journal before and is doing so at the suggestion of her psychotherapist, concerned about her survival since her beloved husband’s sudden death. The novella’s basic concern is with the metamorphosis of a grown-up good girl who, without realizing it, was dominated by a patriarchally repressive spouse, into a multi-dimensional and full-blown human being. The metamorphosis is effected mainly by the widow’s budding interest in writing poetry, to her ongoing amazement and utter surprise, garnering her increasing praise. Her husband, when he was alive, had brainwashed her into thinking that poetry was for him to write, not her. After two short-lived and disappointing romantic encounters with other men, she realizes that, if need be, she can survive as an autonomous and worthwhile person, on her own.         

~ Louise Jaffe

NOTES

Definitions -

prerogative \ n : an exlusive or special right, power, or privilege.

~ The Merriam-Webster Dictionary

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

prerogative \ n : (Latin); voting first; the first to choose.

~ Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House, 2001.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

About Choice -

Rather than original sin, the Adam and Eve story of eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is really, original choice. The word sin comes from a Hebrew word that means missing the mark." To be empowered to choose implies the ability to make mistakes.

   ~ excerpt from Science of Mind, April 2005, Vol. 78 No. 4, page 43, from Daily Guides . . . by Arthur W. Chang

Lies: A Chorus

Chapter 1

April

   Rats, it’s raining again. Wouldn’t mind so much, but it’s my graduation day so I’m all dress up and don’t wanta ruin my new clothes. Other days I sorta like rain—it’s soft and sexy, somethin’ like a kiss. But today I wanta look good. I hafta. And this rain ain’t helpin’ things one little bit.

   Breakfast ready. Come get it, Momma call. Not all woken up yet, I sorta waddle into the kitchen, and she give me a great big hug. She don’t hafta say nothin’ to let me know how proud of me she is. I guess when you yourself ain’t nevah finish high school, your kid graduatin’s a heavy trip. I thought I be too excited to eat, but she made bacon an’ egg just the way I likes it and toast and a blueberry muffin on the side. All of a sudden I could eat a horse.

   My sister Carolee at the table when I gets there. She’s fourteen but chubby and almost as tall as me. In fact she look sixteen or seventeen, just one or two years younger than me. You excited, April? she ask with a mouthful of egg.

   Of course, I tell her. Wouldn’t-cha be, too? And don’t talk with a mout’ful.

   Next year she be in Florence Nightingale High, too, but I’m outtta there today. It’s not the greatest school in Brooklyn, I guess, but, if you black like she and I an’ you plans to be a nurse, usually you winds up there. Besides, from East New York, where we lives, it’s only around twenty-five minutes on the bus—unless you just misses one and gotta wait on the next one. Then it’s a bit more. I never mind it that much when I go there.

   Some girls that graduates from Nightingale becomes practical nurses straight outta school, but me, I want more. So in September I be going to Community College and study more so’s I can be an RN and make better money. When you like me, that is poor, and you goes there, you don’t have to pay hardly nothin’. They gives you lotsa financial aid without hardly no hassle. Thank God for that!

   Momma work for an old lady in this here project where we done lived since before I’m born. And for a long time (can’t remember just how long) ’til she get her this here job, we was on welfare. She really hate that—said they make her feel like a piece of garbage every time she hadta go down to the welfare office. Hmph.

   Sometime I think if my Daddy was around we’d have it much better and not have to go through this crap, but I’m not exactly sure. My friend Janine, she live on the fifth floor and we lives on the third, her daddy live with them. Sometime he have no job, but other time he work. And still last winter she want a new coat and he tell her, We ain’t got no money for one. Wear your last year coat. She have to work in Burger King to buy herself it. I work there, too, but I have a bank account. Momma say it ain’t no good to spend everything you makes. Now that I turn eighteen and understand them things, I agree with her.

   Lemme tell you, my Momma, she one gutsy lady. She born in Jamaica, British West Indies, that is. I never been there. Maybe one day I go. Warm there all year round, she say. She smart, did good in school, mostly A’s and B’s, she say. She wanted to be a nurse, too. Then she meet my Daddy.

   He play steel drums and I guess sweet talk her plenty. Too bad she didn’t know what I already know—from her, not from me—how a man can mess you up. He didn’t just mess her up, she say. She didn’t know what she doin’, so next thing she knowed she was in the family way—with me—and he done flew the coop, wer’n’t around no more. She couldn’t tell her ma and dad—they was strict and wudda kill’d her—so she think.

   She drop outta school, go to the States, to her friend Connie’s house. They was pen pals a few years since they met one summer when Connie and her ma and dad be in Jamaica for vacation. So that’s what she did ’til I be born and she could get on her feet and have her own place—here. Then she meet someone else and get knocked up again—with Carolee. She don’t see her dad neither. I think she learn her lesson.

   And she say, April, you pretty. And you smart. And you be sure now the same shit don’t happen to you. But she don’t even gotta say it. I much too smart. I’m gonna have a better life. Move her and Carolee and me the hell outta here. Into a better place. A better life.

   I get pretty up now and we all goes to graduation. I have a nice new dress, all pink and white, and black patent leather pumps. Momma even get me a corsage. We goes to graduation, and I walk down the aisle with my head high ’cause I know I be walking towards a better life.

   All I have to do is work hard and keep in mind what I want for all of us, for her and Carolee and me. All I have to do is keep tellin’ myself I’m gonna have a different life, a better life than her.

Chapter 2

Professor Olivia Bramwell

   If anyone had predicted, even ten years ago, that I’d be a student counselor in the College Discovery Program at a community college, I’d probably have looked that individual squarely in the eye and offered the obvious diagnosis: You’re out of your mind!

   Now that I think of it, I find it hard to believe not only the ambitious dreams I had, but how real they once seemed to me, as real as my name, or the fact that these days, if one’s been first or second in her class all through school, her being a black woman (like me) rarely stands between her and success.

   I went to Howard University, then Columbia, both on partial scholarships, and never doubted for a moment that I’d be an academic wonder and that most of my professors would happily remember Olivia Bramwell years after I graduated.

   I got my degrees in psychology, but I wanted to be an actress. Most of my professors in the few acting courses that I managed to fit into my crowded academic schedule reassured me that I had talent, too. My parents, though, were always much more encouraging about the psychology than about the acting. I wasn’t particularly surprised.

   Daddy teaches social studies in our local high school in Newark, and Mom taught second grade until she retired last year. I dearly love them both, and can easily understand why they find it difficult to think of acting as a real job. Nonetheless, I wish they’d have been more supportive in that direction.

   I pursued my stage dreams despite them, for the better part of five years. In fact, got a couple of bit parts off-off Broadway and one spot in an ad for nose drops. It hurt to read it, but I couldn’t close my eyes forever to the handwriting on the wall. With one broken engagement and a sickening assortment of go-nowhere relationships, I could see that, unless I wanted to take handouts from my parents, I’d have to find something other than acting to work at.

   Then one Sunday morning my friend Barbara phoned me.

   "Did you see the Times editorial section today?" she began.

   I explained that I’d been out late the night before and hadn’t gotten to it yet. She told me about a big ad there for student counselors in a fairely new community college in Brooklyn, where, by happy coincidence, I’d recently moved. When I phoned on Monday morning and heard the salary range, I had all I could do to keep from drooling. My resume went out that afternoon. So much for my acting career, at least for a long time.

   My first appointment for today is a pre-nursing student named April Carter. She’s in the College Discovery program, too, I notice, which means that her academic record leaves something to be desired. Wonder what her problem is. It’s only the beginning of October, and I’ve already heard so many problems from students that I’ve started to wonder how some of them actually manage to graduate.

   April’s pretty, I notice immediately. She looks a bit like I did at her age but somewhat taller and thinner. Hi, Professor Bramwell, she begins, giving me a most engaging smile. I’m April Carter. You wanted to see me?

   Have a seat, I tell her. Make yourself at home.

   She looks more comfortable than most of the students I’ve seen this semester but not completely at ease.

   April, I called you in because I want you to understand that you have some hard work to do before you can be accepted into the nursing program.

   Really? she asks, fidgeting with her beads. I’m trying real hard. I thought I’m doing real good.

   Well,—I always try to let them down as painlessly as I can—I notice that you’re in remedial arithmetic, remedial reading, and remedial writing courses. I want to be sure that you understand that you have to pass all those courses this semester. If you fail any of them, you’ll be in serious danger of not getting into the nursing program.

   She fidgets in her chair and stares at me almost like a wounded sparrow. As usual, I wish that I’d called her in to relay more positive news. I don’t know very much about her personal life, but she looks as if she most assuredly could use a giant helping of encouragement. Better start with the academics, I decide, before I ease my way into that. How are you doing in, well . . . let’s talk about those courses first.

   Fine, I guess. Her grin is really charming. I go to all my classes and do all my English papers. I ain’t got all of them back yet, but I get mostly C- and D+. Dr. Goldman, my teacher, she say I have very good ideas, but I have problems with my grammar and sentence structures. In Math I get 70’s. I understand most of what we do, but sometime I make mistakes. In reading we ain’t had no tests yet. I understand most of what we reads. When I don’t understand a few words, I try to look it up in the dictionary. I ain’t got none at home, but I go to the library and use the one there.

   April, do you have a TV and a VCR? I ask.

   She stares at me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. Of course, she says. Don’t everyone do?

   I get the distinct impression that this is not the appropriate occasion for a mini-lecture about luxuries and necessities and how relativistic are the differences between them. And into which category would most people put my acting career, that might have to simmer on the back burner for so long that I forget about it? I wouldn’t want to attempt an answer to that one. It hurts too much.

   That’s nice, I try to purr, try to keep my disgust from becoming apparent to her. Christ, when did I get so jaded anyway? I wasn’t always like this. But I would strongly suggest that you buy a dictionary. You can get a paperback one in the college bookstore. It won’t cost you very much at all.

   Thanks, she says with what seems genuine appreciation. I don’t know why I never thought of it. No problem either. I got a job.

   Relieved, I notice that she’s saved me a question, probably not a particularly embarrassing one, though. Almost all our students work, especially if they belong to minorities.

   Where do you work? I ask casually.

   In Burger King, she responds proudly. Four nights a week and all day Saturday. It’s not bad, near my house and all. I be working there two years now, since sixteen. It pays for most of my things and I even save up for special things once in a while. She then tells me a few more details about her life. I’m not at all surprised. I’ve heard the same story from so many of the students I see that I’m getting to expect it.

   A peek at my watch reminds me that I’m expecting another student in five minutes. I quickly stand up, and so does April. I thank her for coming and tell her not to hesitate to call my office for another appointment if she has any problems or anything at all that she’d like to discuss.

   She smiles, thanks me and leaves, looking rather glad that our first meeting is over. I can’t help wondering whether she’ll tell anyone at home about it or whether anyone at home will care.

Chapter 3

April

   While I be sitting in Professor Bramwell’s office, playing with my beads ’cause she don’t make me feel none too relax, I be remembering my graduation day. In some ways it feel like it happen only yesterday, but in others it feel like five or ten years ago.

   Me and Carolee, Momma tell her she could take off from school that day, and Momma put on our best togs even though it be raining real hard, and take the bus to Nightingale. We was suppose to have the graduation on the lawn, but, when we gets there, there’s a big sign says it’s in the school auditorium on account of the weather.

   Funny thing, I been counting the days ’til I’m outta high school, but now that it be happening, part of me don’t wanna leave. I gues when you goes to a school four whole years, you gets use to it and it start to feel almost like a cushion.

   I be sittin’ in Professor Bramwell’s office rememberin’—not so much now nice everyone look that day—even Hyacinth Moore, who weigh about three hundred pounds and usually look like a hippopotamus, or my pregnant friend Arlette, who’s starting to show—but what our principal, Miss Clarissa Cooper, say and how I feel hearin’ it.

   Boys and Girls, she begin—we had a handful of guys at Nightingale although we was mostly girls—and then she tell us how happy she be that all of us be graduatin’, and how proud of us she be, and how she’s gonna miss us. Carol Peters, sitting right next to me, keep whispering, Bullshit.

   She be disgusting. Manage to graduate just by the skin of her teeth. A real lazy bitch, don’t even work after school or nothin’. Miss Cooper also say how she be black like us and from a real poor family in North Carolina but always work very hard, ’specially in school. Then she tell us what I knowed before anyways, that if we works hard we can make all our dreams come true.       Carol keep sayin’, Bull shit every few words, but I know what our principal say make sense, lotta good sense. I think about my Momma and the way she work for every single thing we has, and I know Miss Cooper ain’t b.s.-ing us at all: she know what she be saying.

   Afterward, Momma take me and Carolee to Kentucky Fried Chicken and say, Order as much as you want. But me and Carolee has never been big eaters, so we orders just regular portions. Then Momma hug me and say, April, do you know, you the first one of us to graduate high school and go on to college? I expect you to make us proud. And I tingle all over ’cause I know she really mean every word she say.

   I be hearing Professor Bramwell, making believe I listens to every word she say, but really thinking about graduation day, kinda graduating all over again. I don’t want to seem the least bit rude—Momma always tellin’ me rudeness don’t get you nowhere—but I know what the professor say can’t be the entire truth.

   So I just let it wash over me like dirty dishwater, wait ’til she be done, glue on my biggest smile, leave, and get ready for my next class.

Chapter 4

Momma

   I always been a true believer and get myself to church most every Sunday, so I’m not one to complain. Instead I try to be thankful for everyt’ing the Lord see fit to give me, like April and Carolee and having this place to live and a job to work at. I know lots of people that has it much, much worst than me. But oftentimes, ’specially on cold mornings and long winter nights, I feel cold in my bones.

   It’s a feelin’ I can’t exactly put into words, but it creep between my toes and up my legs. Sometime it shake me in the middle of the night, and it whisper over and over, I need, I want. Then it be morning, time for me to put on my Momma face again. And I do ’cause I know darn well what April and Carolee expect from me and how they thinks I be—all old and wise and not needing nothing, least of all some loving from anyone but them.

   After Desmond swear he love me, steal my innocence and my childhood, and leave me in a mess, expecting, scared and not able to say nothing to my Mom and Dad, I promise myself not to have nothing more to do with men—ever! I know by then, young as I be, how they sweet-talks you in the moonlight, then at sun-up they flies away.

   When I come to America, I keep my legs tight together, dress very plain, throw out my lipstick, and makes out like I be some kinda nun. For a while I almost believes I be one. Then one night a few years later, when I have my job taking care of old people—as near to a nurse as I probably ever be—my friend Hortense give me a lecture.

   Hey, Girl, she say. She really care about me, too. "What you