Diary of an Ugly Duckling

by Langhorne, Karyn

  cry, Audra told herself.

  “Thank you, thank you very much,” she muttered

  Elvis-style, taking a couple of quick nodding bows

  around the room, blinking quickly as though it were

  a part of her routine and not a desperate attempt to

  keep her emotions at bay. “I’m here in Vegas ’til

  Tuesday . . .”

  More laughter reverberated around her and Au-

  dra took another quick bow, her hands firmly af-

  fixed to the seat of her pants, just as four more COs

  joined them in the day room to help. She glanced at

  Bradshaw, hoping for support, but he simply stared

  into the space between her shoulder and the walls,

  as usual.

  The handsome creep.

  “It’s okay, fellas,” Audra said, taking charge of the

  confusion on the newcomers’ faces. Clearly they’d

  been expecting an outbreak of prison violence . . .

  and were surprised to find themselves in the audi-

  ence of a comedy show. “It’s all over but the jokin’

  and the sewin’—”

  “Gonna take a big needle close that up!” Someone

  quipped, but before Audra could isolate the identity

  of the speaker Haines’ moaned.

  “Shut up! Won’t somebody shut her up? Fat bitch

  broke my ribs! She broke my damn ribs then

  slammed me into that table there!” He clutched at

  his abdomen, bent double, Audra supposed, with

  pain. “Y’all saw it! It’s police brutality! I want my

  lawyer! I’m filing a claim with the warden! I want

  reparations—”

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  Karyn Langhorne

  “Quiet, Haines.”

  Audra turned in surprise.

  Bradshaw.

  His voice was smooth, rich and deep like some for-

  bidden chocolate treat or an expensive coffee drink.

  The voice of a screen legend from Hollywood’s hey-

  day, mesmerizing in its depth. She glanced over at

  him and found a somber expression on his face.

  “You okay?” he asked at last.

  Audra hesitated. He still wasn’t exactly looking at

  her, but when no one else replied, she assumed the

  question was intended for her. For some reason,

  Bradshaw’s concern made tears tremble just below

  the surface again, but Audra shook them aside.

  “Marvelous, darling,” she muttered in her best diva

  dame voice, but with the inmates still muttering

  “fat” and “dude with tits” and with her fingers tight

  over her rear end, it was hard to keep the image

  alive. “Thanks for asking. I was beginning to won-

  der what it took to get your attention.” She shrugged

  toward her rear end. “Now I know.”

  Bradshaw blinked, his light eyes shifting at last to

  her face. Audra felt a shock like electricity course

  through her body as his full lips curved into the

  slightest smile. “Sorry. Had a lot on my mind lately,”

  he said, then leaned toward Audra, dropping his

  voice to a husky whisper. “And you confused Dou-

  ble Indemnity with Casablanca,” he murmured in a

  tone intended for her ears only. “Try to get it straight

  next time, Marks.” Then he shifted his attention to

  the inmates. “Recreation’s over, gentlemen,” he an-

  nounced in a smooth baritone. “Line up! Now!”

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  13

  Reluctantly, the men shuffled into a haphazard

  line along the wall. Bradshaw led the way back to

  the cell block, leaving Audra staring after him with

  her hands covering her bloomers and her mouth

  open in surprise.

  Chapter 2

  “If that’s all you’re getting from what I told you,”

  Audra said, her voice rising to a near shout in

  frustration, “You are missing the point, Ma—”

  “I ain’t missing nothing, Audra,” Audra’s mother,

  Edith Marks snapped, her words lilting with the to-

  bacco fields of North Carolina, as though she hadn’t

  lived in New York City since she was eighteen. “The

  point is, you ripped your pants and showed your

  butt—literally—to this man—”

  “Art Bradshaw—”

  “This Art Bradshaw,” Audra’s mother repeated,

  more loudly than before, hammering home her

  point by volume alone. “What must he think of

  you?”

  What did Art Bradshaw think, Audra wondered,

  replaying the way his eyes had locked on hers, liq-

  uid and glowing with warmth. His words betrayed

  that he’d been listening to her conversation with the

  kid, Carter. Audra wondered how many other times

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  15

  he’d watched her, as surreptitiously as she’d watched

  him.

  “I think . . .” Audra began slowly, determined to

  say the words aloud in spite of the patter of her

  heart. “I think he thinks what I think. That we’re

  soul mates—”

  “Soul mates! Soul mates, my eye,” Edith scoffed.

  “You humiliate yourself in front of him and now,

  you’re talking some mess ’bout him bein’ your soul

  mate?” She rolled a pair of shrewd, bright eyes care-

  fully lined with black pencil and batted her mas-

  caraed lashes in Audra’s direction. “Honestly,

  Audra. If you think that man’s interested in you be-

  cause you can crack a joke after humiliatin’ yourself,

  you musta bumped your head—”

  “Will you forget about the pants for just a second,

  Ma?” Audra folded her arms over her chest like a

  defiant teenager and lifted her head in protest. “I

  think he’s interested in me because we both know

  the movies—”

  “Movies!” The older woman tossed this week’s

  hairdo, making the strands of a sleek black bob

  dance. Audra knew for a fact most of the hair was

  fake, purchased wholesale from the inventory of

  her mother’s salon, Goldilocks, and sewn in on a

  Monday or Tuesday morning when there weren’t

  many paying customers. It looked good, too, on her

  mother’s still pretty fifty-something head, but then

  most styles did. It was yet another way they were dif-

  ferent: opposite as night is from day. “So he likes

  movies. Everybody likes movies. What’s that got to

  do with the price of beans in China?” her mother

  concluded, as if the question were completely logical.

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  Karyn Langhorne

  Talking to her mother was always like this. So

  many questions, so little listening. They were as

  combative as the mother-daughter relationship in

  Mildred Pierce. Joan Crawford played the long-

  suffering, giving mother to Ann Blyth’s selfish,

  greedy, mean-spirited daughter. Only in their case,

  Audra was certain, it was the daughter who was the

  suffering one.

  “It’s tea, Ma,” she corrected, infusing a touch of

  the movie’s drama into the moment to make it more

  bearable. “The price of tea in China. And I’m telling

  you, that stuff with the pants, it w
on’t matter. He

  knows the old movies—the classic movies—and he

  knows I know them, too. Did you hear what he said

  about confusing Casablanca and Double Indemnity?”

  Her chest lifted in a sigh of longing. “It’s like we

  were meant for each other—”

  “Oh, Audra, please,” Edith Marks muttered dis-

  missively. “Stop talkin’ foolishness and get real. I

  can’t think of anything much more of a turnoff than

  a woman who’s let her butt get so round she rips her

  pants in front of a bunch of men!”

  Audra rolled her eyes. Leave it to Edith to reduce

  things to their lowest, crudest denominator. “They

  ripped,” she said loftily, wishing her mother would

  let her forget the awful mortification that had ac-

  companied that moment, but the woman seemed

  determined to make it breathe again, “because I was

  breaking up a fight—”

  “No, Miss Queen of De-Nial,” her mother

  drawled. “They ripped ’cause you need to lose some

  weight!” She sniffed sanctimoniously. “I know that

  sounds mean, but it’s the truth and you need to hear

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  17

  it. A little weight is one thing, but you’re getting too

  fat, Audra.”

  “I just need to cut back a little—” Audra began.

  “A little?” Edith interjected. She reached behind

  her, opening one of the old kitchen’s cabinets to re-

  veal its contents: a solid wall of junk foods piled on

  its shelves, cookies, crackers, candies and chips

  jumbled atop each other. “You just bought all this

  stuff last night and it’ll be gone by the end of the

  weekend—”

  “I’m not the only one who eats that stuff. Kiana

  likes it—”

  “Kiana’s a child,” Edith reminded her, jerking her

  head toward the other room where Audra’s niece

  watched animated girls cartwheeling around, solv-

  ing some kind of mystery through their derring-do.

  Either because she was transfixed by the images, or

  because she was used to Grandma and Auntie A’s

  noise, she didn’t even turn toward their raised

  voices. To Kiana, the sound of the two of them argu-

  ing over the dinner dishes was as comforting as a

  lullaby.

  “She doesn’t need this stuff any more than you

  do,” Edith added when Audra focused on her again.

  “Okay, so I like a little something sweet from time

  to time.” Audra shrugged. “I know in your world of

  high fashion and glamour, that’s some kind of crime,

  but to the rest of us mere mortals, it’s no big deal.”

  Edith sighed. “I don’t understand you, Audra.

  Seems like you don’t care about what you look like.

  Not at all,” Edith continued. Audra was pretty sure

  she didn’t do it on purpose, but her mother punctu-

  ated the words by striking one of her little poses,

  18

  Karyn Langhorne

  slewing out a foot and propping her hand with her

  waist, emphasizing her trim figure. She nodded to-

  ward a snapshot of Petra, Audra’s older sister, look-

  ing like Tyra Banks doing a photo shoot for army

  fatigues, taped to the refrigerator. “Even soldiering

  in that awful Baghdad, your sister takes some time

  to put herself together. It’s just a matter of pride—”

  “I’m looking for a man who sees deeper than out-

  ward appearances. Someone who’ll love me no mat-

  ter what I look like,” Audra muttered, tossing a dish

  towel on the counter and snatching at an open bag

  of Oreos protruding from the cabinet like a choco-

  late tongue.

  “Men are visual, Audra.” Edith grabbed the bag

  from her hands and tossed it into the garbage can.

  She dipped her hands into the sink for the next of

  their dinner dishes. They were a leathery brown—

  almost an entire shade darker than her cinnamon-

  colored face thanks to the harsh chemicals of her

  three decades working as a hairstylist. Still, dark as

  the hands had become, they were still three shades

  lighter than the lightest part of Audra’s body. Audra

  frowned, staring at those hands.

  “You want to catch one, you don’t gotta be no

  beauty queen, but you sure as hell better work what

  you got,” her mother continued, enjoying the

  sound of her own wisdom. “Why do you think

  Goldilocks Salon is packed from morning to night?

  Sisters in there pressing and curling and straight-

  ening and weaving”— the hands came up out of

  the water as Edith snapped a couple of soapy fin-

  gers. “Working it, that’s what they doing. Working

  it!” She shook her head, folding her full lips in

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  19

  disapproval. “You keep that hair cut short as a

  man—and I run a beauty salon, for God’s sake!

  How do you think it makes me look in the neigh-

  borhood, my own daughter wandering around

  with her hair looking like this?” She reached

  toward Audra’s short naps, but Audra danced

  backward out of her way.

  “You know I like my hair short, Ma,” she said de-

  fiantly.

  “I don’t know any such thing—”

  “Well, you ought to know it. We’ve tried every

  other style and none of them work any better,

  you’ve said so yourself.”

  Edith paused, blinking while she remembered the

  countless hours she and Audra had spent trying to

  get the thick bristles of her hair to behave. But it was

  no use: unlike Petra’s locks, which lay down per-

  fectly under straightening comb or relaxer—and un-

  like Edith’s own—Audra’s hair seemed to have a

  mind of its own.

  “Well,” Edith said slowly, since there was no ar-

  gument to refute this, she wagged her swingy new

  hairdo again. “The short look doesn’t do a thing for

  you with your face that full. I don’t understand why

  you can’t Pretty Up—like they say on the Beautify!

  Network—”

  “Stupid makeover shows,” Audra grumbled.

  “Not as stupid as your classic movie fantasyland,”

  her mother shot back, a tinge of anger in her voice.

  “From where I’m standing, it seems like you’re go-

  ing out of your way to look fat and ugly—and both

  of those things are completely within your control!”

  Fat and ugly . . . fat and ugly . . . fat, black and ugly . . .

  20

  Karyn Langhorne

  The words chimed in her ears, chanted by in-

  mates and now uttered by her own mother.

  Fat, black . . . black . . . black . . .

  Something angry slithered and squirmed deep in

  Audra’s soul, and before she could stop herself she

  snapped, “What about black, Ma. Is that under my

  control, too?”

  Her mother turned to her in surprise, hands paus-

  ing over the sink. “Black?” she shrugged. “Of course

  not. We’re all black, Audra—”

/>   “No, Ma. You’re not black, you’re brown. Even tan.

  You and Petra and Daddy—you’re all tan.” Audra

  stretched out her own arm, rolling the sleeve up to

  the elbow. “See this? This is black.”

  Edith blinked at her, her mouth working silently,

  then she pushed Audra’s outstretched arm away

  from her. An instant later, she thrust her hands back

  in the soapy water, fished up another plate, and be-

  gan scrubbing as if her little sponge could clean up

  this turn in their conversation.

  “So what?” Edith told her sponge in a careful, low

  voice. “I’m brown-skinned, Petra’s light-skinned.

  But there are darker people in the family—”

  “Name one,” Audra demanded.

  Edith’s dishwashing hands paused, the plate slip-

  ping out of them to splash audibly in the bubbly wa-

  ter. Her whole body grew very still, as though some

  kind of spell had been cast on her, making her as

  motionless as Snow White after she ate the apple.

  She did not look at Audra or speak.

  “I’ve seen the pictures.” Audra pressed on. “I’ve

  been with you back to North Carolina. Almost all of

  us have the same eyes and same shape of face . . .”

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  21

  Audra hesitated, and then pushed the words out

  with sudden determination. “Your people aren’t

  this dark, Mama. Even Gran said she couldn’t figure

  out where my coloring came from—”

  When Edith finally faced her, her lips were folded

  tight and there was a funny auburn flush creeping

  up from the skin of her neck up to her ears.

  “Really, Audra,” she said, in a voice that strug-

  gled for light, bright and breezy, but ended up

  sounding strangled and tight. “There’s some darker

  kin on your father’s side—”

  “No, Ma.” Audra interrupted, shaking her head.

  “Remember that reunion we went to? All of his peo-

  ple have fair skin. Next to them, you and Petra are

  dark!” Audra stared hard at her mother. “No one ei-

  ther side of the family is as dark as I am, Ma.” She

  swallowed hard, forcing herself to continue. “Is—is

  there something you want to tell me?”

  Edith’s eyes slid from Audra back to the plate,

  back to the sink. “Like what?” she asked the dish in

  the same constricted voice.

  Audra shrugged. “Like I’m adopted . . . or . . .

  something else,” she murmured.

  Now, Edith’s head snapped toward Audra in sur-