Diary of an Ugly Duckling
Page 14
be on the show anyway, Shamiyah thought it would be
better if I didn’t tell anyone (except you, of course).
And all that’s fine with me: I don’t want to hear Ma’s
mouth until I have to. She’s not stupid, though. She
knows something’s up—that’s why she’s mad at me.
She’s been needling me with questions since I got
back from California . . . but all I do is smile.
Shamiyah and the camera crew will be here either
today or tomorrow, so I guess my days of silence are
about to end with a scene that would shame the
campiest dramatic moment in Hollywood. I wish you
were going to be here to see it!
It’s only been a couple of weeks, but people are
starting to tell me I look “different.” Of course, I’m still
losing weight, but they always say, “No, that’s not it,”
and just keep staring at me, like somehow continued
inspection will answer the question. Ma does it a lot. I
just stand there and smile. I don’t really see any
difference yet, if you want to know the truth. I scanned
a picture in—you can tell me what you think.
I hope your detail doesn’t have to make that supply
run you wrote about. Sounds dangerous. Really dan-
gerous. I know it’s what you’re trained to do . . . but
maybe you could call in sick that day? Just joking . . . J
Be careful out there,
Audra
“You want to bring some cameras into it, fine
with me!” Edith shouted, signing her name
in a broad flourish across the bottom of the paper
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Shamiyah proffered, then slamming the pen down
on the kitchen counter. “Just don’t expect me to put
all my private business on TV just because she wants
to”—she gave Audra the kind of hard, gangsta stare
Audra saw all the time at the prison—“because that
is not the kind of woman I am!”
“No, no, of course not, Mrs. Marks,” Shamiyah
nodded as though she were in vigorous support of
Edith’s position, then gave Audra a quick wink the
second her mother turned her head. She looked ex-
actly like she had the last time Audra had seen her,
only now she wore a teal camisole in some shiny,
lingerie fabric over her demin jeans and seriously
pointy, black high heels. “We want your honest reac-
tion. That’s what makes it a reality show.”
“Oh, you’ll get my honest reaction,” Edith snorted,
glaring at Audra in disbelief. “And I honestly hope
you’re kidding about this whole idea, Audra. I hope
this is one of your weirdo jokes, right? That you
watched Now, Voyager again on TV, and now you’re
poor, put-upon Bette Davis, treated badly by her
family until she gets beautiful and runs off on an
ocean cruise with Charles Boyer—”
“Actually, it’s Paul Henreid,” Audra corrected, ig-
noring the wheeling, circling motions of the cam-
eraman as he angled himself into position just a foot
from her shoulder. Edith’s tone dug at her, tingling
her most sensitive spots and goading her toward re-
sponse. “I’m impressed, Ma. I didn’t know you
knew that movie—”
“Oh, stop it Audra!” Edith snapped, shaking her
head so hard, Audra knew she missed the exten-
sions she’d just taken out a few days ago. Now she
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was experimenting with a look that featured heavy
bangs and razored short sides that Audra thought
made her look a little too much like a Marine. “You
can’t be serious, right? This is why you went out to
California? You aren’t actually going to—”
She stopped, staring hard into Audra’s face. “Oh
my God . . . that’s it. I knew there was something
different about you! You’ve already started it. What
did you have done to your face?”
“Laser treatments for the acne .. . though the
doc says I’ll need a few more. And . . .” She hesi-
tated, steeling herself for Edith’s next explosion, as
Shamiyah nodded vigorously, urging her toward
confession. “And a drug to lighten my skin tone.”
Edith’s mouth fell open. “Lighten your skin!” she
repeated, peering close into Audra’s face. “You’re
actually going to lighten your skin? Why? What’s
wrong with the color you are now?”
“Nothing . . .” Audra began slowly, “but . . .” Her
eyes swung toward Shamiyah, whose head was bob-
bing furiously with encouragement.
“Go for it,” she mouthed, silently stretching her
lips so that there was no mistaking what she was
trying to communicate. “Go for it!”
“Nothing . . . except that I’m darker than every-
one in my family,” Audra said quickly, pushing the
words out with more difficulty than she had antici-
pated. After all, she’d said them a thousand times
before. Only there hadn’t been cameras before. “I’m
darker than everyone in my family,” Audra repeated.
“Darker than Petra and Kiana. And you. Everyone
I . . . love,” she concluded, as unexpected emotion
sprang to her throat.
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Edith frowned, then tried to turn away from the
cameras, but they followed her, recording both the
sudden softness and the fearful nervousness that
flushed into her face. She mastered them an instant
later, and swung on Audra, choosing once again
not to ignore the family resemblances—or the lack
thereof. Instead, she fired back with a sharp, “Are
you nuts?” And before Audra could respond, she
had launched into, “I’ve seen these shows. They
turn women into—into—Miss America look-alikes,
whether that suits them or not.” She eyed Audra du-
biously, shaking her head. “I should have known
something was up. I should have known when you
finally started getting serious about losing that
weight. But don’t tell me you’re this pathetic, that
your self-esteem is so low, you’d actually do some-
thing as crazy as this. That you’d be willing to put
yourself through all that.”
Audra swallowed back her tenderness in a single
bitter gulp.
“Oh, I’m absolutely going to put myself through
it, Ma.” Audra twisted her lips into a determined
grin. “I’m going to put myself through all of it.”
“But why, Audra?” Edith’s voice rose in exaspera-
tion, and if Audra wasn’t mistaken, she threw up
her hands as extra emphasis just for the benefit of
the cameras. “You’ve lost some weight and I think
that’s great. But surgery and—and”—she struggled
with the words as though they were choking her—
“skin bleaching. Why would you do something like
that?”
“To be something different, Ma,” Audra replied
calmly. “To see something different—something
143
other than fat, black and ugly when I look in the
mirror—”
“You still gonna be the same person on the in-
side,” Edith said, as if that weren’t obvious. “And if
you don’t like yourself now, you won’t like yourself
any better, just because you see something different
when you look in the mirror.”
“I like myself just fine,” Audra declared. “It’s a
matter of making the outside match the inside.”
“Audra . . .” Edith muttered. “Audra, Audra, Au-
dra . . .” she repeated, then folded her arms about
herself and stared at her daughter with an expres-
sion Audra was certain she’d never seen on the
woman’s face before. Amazement, fear, anger and
contempt seemed to have blended into a single arch
of eyebrows and pull of lips. Audra waited, staring
back at the woman, feeling she wouldn’t have been
surprised if her mother reached out an arm to hug
her or a palm to slap her face. But in the end, she did
neither: just kept staring at her with that strange
look frozen on her face.
“There are also some amazing prizes offered to
the contestant with the biggest transformation.”
Shamiyah interjected. “A modeling contract, cash, a
part in a movie—just a walk-on part, but still.” She
grinned so wide Audra could have counted all her
teeth. “It could lead to all kinds of opportunities.”
“A modeling contract,” repeated Edith, her eyes
still fixed on Audra’s face, her lips in a tight line. The
eyes seemed to say, “don’t do this,” but the lips car-
ried a different message, one of determined distrust.
“Is that what you want?” her mother asked at last.
“You wanna be a model? A movie star?”
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Karyn Langhorne
Audra shook her head. “I just want to look like
Petra . . . and you,” she said quietly, speaking to the
woman’s eyes, trying hard to ignore the judgment
in the rest of the face. “I just want to fit in . . .”
Edith lowered her eyes, then turned away entirely.
The camera crew might have picked up her expres-
sion, but Audra got nothing, nothing but a bit of her
shoulder. Edith sighed and that shoulder lifted
nearly to her earlobe. Audra waited, feeling the
weight of the air between them. Would she finally
admit it now—now, to stop Audra from going to
California, to stop her from erasing her skin tone as
an Ugly Duckling?
Audra held her breath, feeling a confession swir-
ling between them, the explanation for the words
she’d overheard all those years ago: She ain’t
mine . . . She ain’t mine. She glanced at Shamiyah: the
woman was following the scene between them with
such intensity, she looked like all she needed was
some popcorn.
When Edith spoke there was a sadness in her
voice that hadn’t been there before.
“Fine. Do it,” she said tersely. “It’s your body,
your skin, your life. Who knows? Maybe you’ll be
better off.”
Audra stared at her, her heart sinking deep in her
chest with disappointment. Clearly, her mother in-
tended to take her secrets to the grave.
“She’ll be in California for the surgery from the
end of June through September,” Shamiyah said
when the silence became loud and unbearable.
“You—the whole family—are invited to the Reveal
at the end of the process. We’re already working
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145
with the Army to get permission for your other
daughter and son-in-law to join us and I’m opti-
mistic. But that’s just the taping. You won’t see the
episode on TV until the end of November. If Audra
gets enough audience votes, she comes back to do a
special show with the other top three Ugly Duck-
lings,” she continued, grinning again as if the
power of her smile alone could diffuse the tension in
the air. “That’s a real cool show. The UDs—the Ugly
Ducks—will get a crash course in modeling and take
a screen test. We’re going to be using this really cool
interactive tool to let people vote online and use cell
phones to crown a winner that very night—”
“So you’re gonna be gone.”
Audra shrugged. “Three months. I only go back if
the audience votes for me—”
“They will,” Edith muttered. “You got a black
woman turning herself into a white woman? They
will . . . just so they can keep talking about you.”
Audra opened her mouth to object, but her
mother changed topics before she could speak.
“And just what are you gonna tell Kiana about
this?” she said at last. “She looks up to you. She
thinks you’re the strongest, most wonderful person
in the world—and she always has.” Edith studied
the floor as though the effort of paying Audra this
compliment had cost her something. “I sometimes
think she loves you more than she does her own
mother. Or me.” The woman’s smoky eyes pinned
Audra’s in query. “How do I tell her that her beloved
Auntie A is actually a shallow, superficial mess?”
The words stung, but Audra did her best not to let
her hurt show. “You give with one hand and take
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Karyn Langhorne
with another, Ma,” she said, as a wry smile lifted
her lips.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, don’t tell her anything,” Audra
replied. “I’ll tell her myself. In my own way, in my
own time. Probably the next time we read The Ugly
Duckling.” And she leveled her most penetrating
gaze on her mother again. “Anything else?”
Edith gathered herself up like an affronted
Queen. “Else? What else is there? You made up your
mind. Me and Kiana will get by those three months
somehow.” She turned, head up, lips turned down,
and marched toward the doorway, batting at the sur-
rounding cameras. “Get away from me, now. I’ve said
all I’m gonna say about it, so you can turn those
things off.”
“You realize we may end up showing some of this
on television, Mrs. Marks—” Shamiyah began.
“Yes, I realize that,” Edith snapped. “But I ain’t the
one who’s done something she ought to be ashamed
of,” and she swept herself from the room.
Chapter 12
June 5
When I get back—if I come back—I’m moving out. I
know I’ve said it before, but this time, I mean it. Even if
I have to move to one of those tough-girl neighbor-
hoods where you need a switchblade to go out for
your morning newspaper. Or maybe I’ll stay out there
in Los Angeles and live among the “beautiful people.”
Maybe I’ll even be one of them!
And no, I’m not avoiding your que
stions about Art
Bradshaw. I just don’t have anything to report. I haven’t
seen him at all since his daughter’s party and I don’t
plan to—not until after the surgery. Then I might just
call him up and treat him—and his daughter—to a nice
meal. I guess I owe them “thanks.” If it hadn’t been
for their one-two punch I probably wouldn’t have
called UD.
But then, again, maybe I would have. I don’t
know . . .
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Karyn Langhorne
Anyway, it’s great news that you might be given leave
to come to the Reveal—and even better news that one
or both of you might be home for good in December. Is
Michael seriously considering re-enlistment? Is he
insane? You’re not going to re-up, are you? Kiana
needs you guys.
So do I.
Be careful out there,
Audra
“Marks!”
His voice rumbled through the air toward
her, low and smooth as the bass line of a soul groove,
and Audra stopped short, struggling with the com-
peting emotions that welled up inside her.
Bradshaw.
She sighed. It was bound to happen, she knew it
as soon as she saw his name on the duty roster. For
whatever reason, Bradshaw was working the grave-
yard shift tonight, and Audra knew that tonight, af-
ter all these weeks and months, the thing that had
been opened with movie flirtation and the invitation
to his daughter’s party would finally, at last, be
closed.
She turned around slowly, searching her mind for
the angle, the character, the stance to play this
scene, feeling the need of the protection of a role,
the safety of an imitation.
“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” she
drawled, slewing out a foot and lifting her chin,
dead diva style. “How are you, Bradshaw?”
He was as handsome as ever, every tall, muscled
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
149
inch of him. There were smudges of fatigue under
them, but his amber eyes glittered a little and a bit of
a smile twitched the corner of his still-delectable lips.
“Heard you were cleared,” he said, as though that
answered her question. “Woodburn make you
switch to nights?”
No, you did, Audra thought, but kept the words in
her mind. Instead, she shook her head. “My idea,”
she said quickly. “How about you? What are you do-
ing here?”
But he appeared not to have heard.
“You look different, Marks.” Art Bradshaw