In Her Own Right (story by Jill inspired by Jennifer's image)

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After the fail with the last picture, I was so happy when Jenn sent me this on June 4, 2021! I absolutely love his image! And I was excited to see what it inspired me to write. And, this was what I came up with...


In Her Own Right

    She was used to hearing, “You’re so pretty!” She would smile, tilt her head, and say, “Thanks.” But she never truly believed it. 

    She was just Jayne. 

    Daughter of former model, turned Miss Universe, turned Emmy Award Winning soap star, Roxanne Deford. That was a lot to try to try to live up to. 

    Sometimes people would say, “Oh, you look just like your mom!” But that wasn’t true—not at all. Jayne favored the larger-boned, shorter, less dynamic Jones side of the family. She looked a lot like her dad’s mom, former … well, nothing really. Nothing exciting, anyway, in Jayne’s opinion.

    The day of her junior prom, Jayne put on the gorgeous full-length fuchsia gown that Roxanne and she had purchased in a swanky boutique about a month earlier. Roxanne had also wanted Jayne to get an updo and have her makeup professionally done—red carpet style. 

    But Jayne had insisted that she was going to do her hair and makeup on her own. And without too much argument, Roxanne had given in to Jayne’s wishes. 

    Jayne hadn’t wanted to look at pictures, years later (or even the next day), and think that’s not what I look like. She felt like that was being dishonest on some level.

    But the evening of prom, there was this girl in the mirror, in a stunning fuchsia gown, smiling at Jayne. She held out the sides of her full skirt and swayed from side to side a little. And for the first time, Jayne thought that maybe she was seeing what everyone else had always expressed. 

    While she still looked nothing like the legendary Roxanne Deford, that was okay because Jayne was actually pretty, in her own right.

—Jill Morse (written June 6, 2021)

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