Caught Up in the Rapture - Hardcover

Jackson, Sheneska

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684814870 ISBN 13: 9780684814872

Verlag: Simon & Schuster Ltd, 1996

Inhaltsangabe

Jazmine Deems is twenty-six, and her life hasn't really started yet. She's going to school in the mornings, working at Bullock's in the afternoons, and hoping to get discovered in her free time. She's also just about had it with men. They treat you badly and expect you to be grateful for their attention. Well, forget that. Raised amid the negativity of South-Central Los Angeles, she survived through the church and the strict rules set down by Reverend Deems, her preacher father. But Jazmine, a former fat girl who can sing like a dream, is ready to step out from under his influence, make it on her own, discover her sexuality and have some fun with the help of her wisecracking soul sister and confidante Dakota.
Dakota and Jazmine share their righteous anger at men, girlfriend to girlfriend. Dakota is the more outgoing of the two, and she's determined that, with her help, the talented and beautiful Jazmine will get her share of the spotlight. There's always one man or another in Dakota's life, until something happens that turns Dakota's humor into pain, her opinions into convictions, and her ambition into determination to succeed on her own terms and help both herself and Jazmine to rise up beyond their circumstances. Besides dealing with all that, she's got to keep an eye on the more vulnerable Jazmine as she begins to fall for Xavier.
Xavier Honor, better known as X-Man, has not been able to escape the pull of the streets. He's a gangsta, headed for a life of pure destruction, along with his homies T-Bone and Rich, unless something big happens in their lives. Through his rapping, X-Man sees a chance to escape the hood, and if he can make it out of the ghetto he just might win Jazmine's heart.
Black Tie Records is the hip recording company that unites Jazmine and Xavier, but at the hands of its all-powerful record executive Bobby Strong, the two soon learn that the glamour of the music industry hides some very real lessons about life.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

SHENESKA JACKSON teaches at the UCLA Writing Programme and she is the author of CAUGHT UP IN THE RAPTURE.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

Are you listening, god?

I'm just about sick and tired of all this sneaking around like I'm some two-year-old child. I mean, look at me. I'm twenty-six years old and still breaking out in a cold sweat because I'm afraid Daddy won't let me go out tonight. He's probably going to say something like I need to be in church where God can reach me better, or he'll break out into one of his holy chants. "Oh Lord, save this child," he'll say, closing his eyes and holding the palm of his hand to my forehead. "Make her see the error of her evil ways. She's headed for destruction in them streets, Lord. She don't know no better. You gotta save her." The Reverend Deems has a definite flair for the dramatic. By the time he's finished, I'll feel so guilty and ashamed that I'll get dressed in one of my homey little white dresses and follow right behind him to the summer revival at Holy Sight Baptist Church. Or at least that's what usually happens, but not tonight. Tonight I've got big plans, and nothing, not the good Reverend Deems, not even the Almighty Himself, is going to stop me.

I mean, my goodness, to hear Daddy talk, you'd think I was some sort of low-life tramp who hangs in the street all night. But to tell the truth, I'm just like every other young woman these days. I wanna hang out With my friends, go places, see things, meet people - hell, have a little fun before I'm too old or too ugly or too tired from working or too depressed over what I don't have or too spooked by all the things I do have. And dang it, I'm entitled to a little fun. I get up every morning and go to school, make good grades, then rush off to my part-time job at Bullock's. Then I come home and clean up everything Daddy didn't have time to because he had to rush off to choir rehearsal or go to the hospital and pray for someone he doesn't even know or go help out at some other church auxiliary function. Next it's homework or studying for the next test or research, and if I'm lucky, I'll get about fifteen minutes to sneak a listen at Luther or En Vogue before I hear the clink-clink of Daddy's keys at the front door. What a life.

Okay now, let's see. I've got my hot curlers, my makeup kit, my good panties that I keep hidden in a pillowcase just in case Daddy comes peeping into my underwear drawer on one of his surprise scavenger hunts. He claims he'll be looking for a pair of his socks that might have gotten mixed up with my things in the laundry, but I know he's really trying to see if I have what he calls "demon material" hidden in there. Once he opened my drawer and found a romance novel and an Ice Cube tape, and I swear I thought the man was going to have a stroke. He went off into one of his holy trances and for the next month I was by his side every night at Holy Sight, praying for redemption. That man is too much. You'd think he'd be grateful. I mean, I could be a whole lot worse. I'm a college student, at UCLA no less. I work, I'm dependable, I'm smart, I can take care of myself, I'm kind to people, ambitious, clean, neat, careful, and have a high tolerance for putting up with bullshit or else I'd be out of his dang house by now. I could have turned out like some of the rest of these stupid girls running around here. I could have dropped out of high school, had about four or five babies, be on welfare, and sit around the house watching The Young and the Restless and Oprah all day. But nooo. I'm trying to do things the right way, and look at me - still sneaking around trying to think of a good lie to tell the good reverend so he won't be suspicious.

Now where did I put those lace stockings? I've gotten so adept at hiding things from Daddy that I can barely remember where the heck anything is when I need it. Oop, here they are, under my mattress right next to my birth control pills. Ha, if Daddy knew I was taking the pill? I don't even want to think about how he'd react. His baby having sex? And she's not even married? Lord have mercy. By the time he would get finished with me, I'd be ripping out my own uterus. But it's not like I really use them anymore. The only time I took them for their intended purpose was when Dakota set me up with one of her cousins because she said I needed to be broken in. I was twenty-one years old and still a virgin and to Dakota that was like some sort of Guinness world record. Dakota's a dick-happy, borderline tramp, but hey, she's my best friend and I love her. So of course I did like she said and gave my virginity away to Boston, her stupid cousin who looks like a Bob Marley reject, with his long, messy dreadlocks that hang down to his butt and that goofy smile that makes him look like he's high all the time.

I did it partly because it was the thing to do and partly because I wanted to know just what the heck Dakota and everybody else was so crazy about. The whole experience lasted less than fifteen minutes, and I swear that boy didn't know the true meaning of deodorant or the pleasures of a long hot shower, but then again it was the middle of summer in L.A. and even the best of us get a little funky in one-hundred-degree weather. I had waited twenty-one years to do it so of course I thought my first time would be extra special, but it was nothing that I thought it would be. In fact it was pretty painful. Dakota said that it was just because it was my first time and since I hadn't done it before, I was just too tight and that it would take at least three or four times before I would experience any real pleasure. So Boston and I spent the majority of that summer twisted around each other, rubbing, poking, trying to get me to feel what everybody said I was supposed to be feeling, but it just didn't work. By the time I started my next semester at UCLA, I just gave up. The whole situation was just too dang awkward. I mean Boston was cool and everything, but he just wasn't my type, and I'm not one to put up with anything for too long that doesn't satisfy me to the fullest. Except for Daddy and that's just because I have no other choice.

Dakota says I'm weak when it comes to Daddy, but she just doesn't understand. "You need to leave the nest, Jazz," she tells me just about every other week. "You need to break away, do what you wanna do for a change. You're twenty-six years old and still running around trying to please him like he's going to put you on punishment or tell God to strike you down in a bolt of lightning."

"I know, I know," I tell her, but she just doesn't get it. She never had these type of daddy-daughter problems. I envy Dakota, I really do. She may not be the smartest sister, but she has her freedom. It seems like we're exact opposites, but I guess that's why we are the best of friends. I remember the first time we met at the beginning of twelfth grade at Harriet Tubman High. It seems the older I get, the more I like to reminisce about my last year of high school. Up until that time, life had been pretty boring, but twelfth grade was a time of change. In twelfth grade, there was Dakota.

It was the second week of school and by that time everybody had formed their cliques and posses and as usual, I was left by the wayside. Just another geeky-looking fat girl, with a face full of freckles, who was neither in style nor really wanted to be. While all the other girls were wearing their cropped tops and biker shorts, Guess? jeans and bomber jackets, I was in my homey, pleated skirt, penny loafers, and starched, white, button-up blouse - looking neat and pure and like a virgin. Makeup was a no-no, according to Daddy, and my red, shoulder-length hair was plaited in one fat braid down the middle of my head. And pants? Please. The only pair of pants Daddy ever let me wear were some cream-colored slacks that he only let me put on in the winter or if it rained and got really cold, which was hardly ever in sunny Los...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1996
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0684814870
• ISBN 13: 9780684814872
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 270
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar