the hallway, just outside Dr. Goddard’s office, turn-
ing the thing over and over in her hands.
“I assume you’ve been waiting for this,” she said
with an eagerness that didn’t match the vibe of the
moment, and she held the package toward the cam-
eras for a second too long before she stuffed it into
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Audra’s hands with a quickly murmured, “Oops.”
“I’m dying to hang around and see what’s in it, but I
guess I’ll just have to wait,” she said, squeezing Au-
dra’s shoulder. “Good luck!” Then she set off down
the halls, humming a little to herself, swinging her
round hips in yet another pair of designer jeans.
“Would you like me to open it, or would you like to
do it?” the good doctor asked gently, when Audra
had done nothing more than turn the envelope in
her hands a few times. The cameraman had taken a
spot across from her and she felt the light on her
face, but she’d become so accustomed to him, it was
like he wasn’t there.
All that mattered was the envelope, and yet, Au-
dra realized with a sudden jolt of fear that shook her
to her heart’s core, she was absolutely terrified of
knowing what lay inside. Instead, she focused her
eyes on the doctor.
“Do you think she loved him?” she asked at last.
“That it was more than just . . . Oh, I don’t know.
Some kind of cheap thrill?”
“Oh, I’m certain she loved him,” Dr. Goddard
said without hesitation.
“How can you be so sure?”
Dr. Goddard smiled. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but—”
“There’s no ‘but.’ That she chose to have you is
love. She raised you and kept you and took care of
you—”
“I know all that, but . . .” She shrugged. “Maybe
she felt like she had to. Maybe—”
“Even that’s a kind of love, Audra,” Dr. Goddard
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said, sounding suddenly ancient, suddenly wise.
“She loves you, doesn’t she? You fight, you misun-
derstand each other, you drive each other crazy . . .
but you’ve never really doubted that she loves you,
have you?”
Audra considered. Dr. Goddard was right: What-
ever else stood between them, however odd the
form it took, Audra had never doubted that Edith’s
love for her was genuine. But still she paused,
stroking the envelope, pinioning the doctor with,
“She didn’t deny that when she looks at me . . . she
feels ashamed.”
“Of herself, Audra. Not of you.”
Audra shook her head, her eyes filling with tears.
“No.”
“Yes.” The doctor handed her a tissue from a very
full dispenser placed on the coffee table between
them. “Close your eyes, Audra.” Audra complied.
“Now, think about it, Audra. Put yourself in her
shoes if you can. You’re a married woman and
you’ve fallen in love with another man. You’re preg-
nant by this other man, but before you work up the
nerve to tell your husband and leave, he’s killed in
an accident—or at least that’s how much of the story
we’ve been able to piece together so far.” She leaned
into Audra’s space from her armchair. “Now if that
were you—and I personally think you and your
mother have to be a lot alike—if that were you, how
would you feel? Would you be mad at the baby—”
“Of course not—” Audra began, but Dr. Goddard
kept speaking right over her.
“Or would be mad at yourself? And every time
you looked at that child, you’d be thinking, Why
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didn’t I act sooner? or, I wish I’d done this differently, or
even, God, why did you take him? But you wouldn’t be
mad at the child. Sad, maybe. Maybe you feel bad.
For yourself. For the child . . .” She let her voice trail
off and for a long second there was silence in the
room. “But you wouldn’t be mad. And meanwhile,
that child would be watching your face, thinking
she’s the thing that’s making you feel sad, bad and
mad. And that would be just wrong. Dead wrong.”
Audra couldn’t form words to respond. A huge
lump rose in her throat, choking off everything but
an odd feeling of release. It was like a golden key
had been slipped into a secret lock somewhere deep
in Audra’s heart.
“I think it’s time you met your father,” Dr. God-
dard said gently, nodding toward the envelope.
“When a young woman makes peace with her fa-
ther, she opens herself up to have loving relation-
ships with men. Open it. There’s nothing but love
for you in there . . . if you’re willing to see it.”
Audra nodded. Through a haze of tears, she posi-
tioned her fingers at the lip of adhesive running
along the top of the brown paper and tugged.
It ripped easily, sending a small stack of miscella-
neous papers spilling out over the coffee table in a
sudden disorganized jumble. Later, Audra would
know the investigator had included his report, a few
official documents, and a folded letter, handwritten
on what appeared to be paper torn from a notebook.
But at first her eyes followed the snapshot as it
floated from the envelope to the floor, landing face
down on the doctor’s thickly carpeted floor. Audra
bent to retrieve it.
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Karyn Langhorne
Her own face stared out at her, only it was settled
on a thick chunk of masculine body, leaning against
a land yacht, a two-toned Cadillac from back in the
day. He had deep chocolate skin, smoky black eyes
and full lips, and was smiling a smile that seemed
tailor made for this moment of reunion.
“Hi, Dad,” Audra whispered as fresh tears
streamed down her face. She stroked the photo with
her fingertips. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Chapter 20
July 25
Dear Petra,
Glad you were able to get a message off to Ma about
your deployment. I was pretty worried, not hearing
from you for so long.
I’m doing okay. Starting to heal. Been doing a lot of
thinking . . . a lot of self-discovery. Or rediscovery, as the
case may be. It sucks . . . but it’s easier than worrying
about how I’m going to look when all this is over with.
I stopped using the lightening cream. I told Dr.
Jamison that now that I’d met my father, I thought I’d
had enough. He didn’t argue—actually he didn’t say
much of anything about it, except to remind me to stay
out of the sun unless I want to look like a checkerboard.
Apparently once you start using this lightening cream,
weird things can happen to your skin when you stop.
But it seems to have done the
job: I don’t have any
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Karyn Langhorne
keloid scars. In fact, I don’t have any scars at all. I
guess that’s why Dr. Jamison let me stop without a
word. Even Shamiya hasn’t said a thing. Which, in a
way, makes me more nervous than if they’d all lined up
in the hallway, trying to persuade me.
I’m not quite as light as you are . . . but I think this is
enough.
I have a lot of conflicting emotions about this whole
thing, now. On the one hand, I want to see it through.
But I wonder, if Ma could only have told me sooner . . .
would I have still wanted to go through with it? I look
just like him, Petra. Or I used to. Would I have wanted
to bear the face of a man I never even knew?
I have no way of answering that . . . and it’s too late
now anyway. Most of the bandages are off and I’ll be
starting the exercise regimen soon. Talking to Bradshaw
helps. Did I tell you he calls almost every night? No, it’s
not like that. Nothing romantic (though I confess, I still
have some pretty hot dreams about him). It’s weird.
He’s turned out to be kinda like my best friend. I wonder
if he still will be when I get back to New York.
Anyway, write when you can.
Be careful out there,
Audra
“Bradshaw . . .”
It was one of those conversations that
began with a focus and lapsed into an easy silence
before picking up and sailing into fresh waters.
They’d been lulling for a while, enjoying each other’s
silent company, when the question tickled at the
back of Audra’s brain.
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“Can I ask you something?” she said before she
changed her mind.
“Can I stop you?” Bradshaw quipped, then chuck-
led, sounding completely at ease. Audra couldn’t
stop a little trill of desire from chasing through her,
but she beat it down with a mental We’re just friends
and pressed on.
She backpedaled a bit, trying to think of a way to
phrase the question that wouldn’t sound either too
angry or too desperate and ended up with, “Well,
you’re a man, right?”
Bradshaw’s mellow basso chuckle deepened into
a hearty belly laugh. Audra imagined his handsome
face turned up with laughter and wished for the ten
thousandth time she were in New York, enjoying the
pleasure of his laughter face-to-face. “Yeah, Audra,
I’m a man. Or at least I was last time I checked. You
want me to verify it again before we go on?”
“Never mind.” Audra rolled her eyes in exaspera-
tion. “I didn’t mean it like that and you know it. I
meant—”
“You need a male perspective,” he finished for
her. “I get it. Ask away. But perspectives are like . . .
uh . . . armpits. Everyone’s got ’em.”
“Armpits?” Audra squealed. “That’s a new one.”
“Well . . . I’m too much of a gentleman to say
something disrespectful or profane in the presence
of a lady.”
“I work in a prison, Bradshaw. I’ve heard every
kind of disrespect and profanity imaginable and
you know it.”
“Not from me you haven’t. And I’d like to keep
it that way. Now, ask your question. And if my
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Karyn Langhorne
armpit doesn’t please, well,” he said, “there’s an-
other aroma, right?”
Audra giggled in spite of herself. Armpits . . .
ridiculous. But the silliness made it easier to ask.
“I don’t get you men,” Audra admitted. “Do any
of you know what you want?”
Bradshaw let out another of his booming
chuckles—and in the background, Audra heard
Penny exclaim, “Dad!” Audra imagined her rolling
her eyes at him in dramatic mortification.
“We men! Do any of you women know what you
want?”
“Okay.” Audra nodded. “That’s fair. Nobody
knows what they want—”
“I didn’t say that, either. Or at least, I didn’t mean
it that way,” he corrected. “I just mean that most peo-
ple don’t know what they want, or how to get it . . .
or even who they are. Which makes the ones who
do that much more likely to succeed. Take you, for
example. You knew what you wanted—”
“Whoa.” Audra shook her head. “It wasn’t so
much that I knew what I wanted. More that I knew
what I didn’t want.”
“And what was that?”
Audra hesitated. For some reason, it was always
hard to talk to Bradshaw about the physical aspects
of her Ugly Duckling transformation. Hard to say fat,
black and ugly . . . hard to explain about the face-lift
and the dieting—and impossible to mention the
skin lightening at all. It just all seemed so superficial,
when time and time again, Bradshaw had proved
himself to be more than handsome, but smart, com-
passionate and kind.
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“I knew I felt unattractive,” Audra said carefully.
“And I knew I didn’t want to feel that way any
more.” She shook aside the words before they de-
manded further analysis. “Besides, I don’t want to
talk about me. I want to talk about you, Bradshaw.
Do you know what you want and how to get it? Do
you know who you are?”
It would have been hard to miss the earnestness in
her tone, and she wasn’t surprised when Bradshaw
paused to consider carefully before answering.
“I know some things I want . . .” he said seriously.
“And I know some of the steps I can take to get
them. But a lot of what I want involves the wants of
other people. And unless those other people want
what I want, short of some heavy persuasion, there
may not be a lot I can do.”
Something—whether it was the intensity of his
words or the expression that she imagined accom-
panied them, Audra didn’t know—sent Audra’s in-
ternal temperature toward the heat of August. She
fanned herself in her dim California hideaway, feel-
ing almost like something inside him was speaking
directly to something directly inside her.
“Thanks for that non-answer,” Audra murmured,
still trying to sound flippant light, even though
there were deep currents of attraction racing though
the phone lines. “Now, would you please tell us or-
dinary, plain-speaking folks what the hell you’re
talking about?”
There was a characteristic hesitation before he
spoke.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you again, Au-
dra,” he said simply. “Why don’t we talk about that
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Karyn Langhorne
more when we can sit down face-to-face. When
you’re back in New York. Okay?”
Audra’s heart skittered to the pit of her st
omach.
It sounded almost like—like—“Yeah,” she mur-
mured. “We can do that, but . . .” She hesitated.
“Suppose they’ve botched this surgery. Suppose—”
“Do you really think I’m that shallow?” he asked,
sounding deeply offended.
“No,” Audra responded, hoping it was the truth.
Then she let the silence engulf them again.
Chapter 21
July 30
Dear Petra,
I have a whole other family I never knew about. Most of
them live in the Caribbean, scattered around the Virgin
Islands. I guess I’ve got an “in” now on St. Thomas, St.
John and St. Croix.
As soon as she heard the news, Shamiyah wanted
to invite them to the Reveal. I had to remind her that
she’d agreed not to air any of this paternity stuff—she
gave Ma her solemn promise. She looked really
disappointed. Art thinks she had already written the
script to one of those reunion shows in her mind. He’s
probably right. I don’t know what I would have done
without him the past few weeks. It’s funny: My being
here is letting us get to know each other in a way we
probably never would have if we could see each other
face-to-face.
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Karyn Langhorne
So, of course now I worry about the face-to-face.
What if he doesn’t like the outside, Petra? He didn’t
before . . . he couldn’t even look at me. But what if in
person, there’s still no chemistry for him (girl, you
know I got chemistry for him—always have!)
Speaking of Ma (I know, I wasn’t. But she’s always
just beneath the surface, isn’t she?) Dr. Goddard says
the next step in my healing is to forgive her. I feel like I
already have, but she thinks Ma and I still need what
she calls a “clearing.” (She doesn’t know our Ma!) It’s
kinda hard to have a clearing with a woman who won’t
even allow you to bring up the subject . . .
I guess that’s going to take some time.
Speaking of time, mine is up. I’m going to the gym
today—for the first time since the surgery. Looking
forward to it.
Be careful out there,
Audra
“No excuses, Audra. It’s time to take this
seriously—as seriously as your surgeries or
your diet or any other part of the process—”
“I’m not making excuses. I’m just telling you that
I was just cleared for normal activities yesterday,
and this is hardly a normal activity—at least not for
me.”
Audra spoke from a position of precarious bal-
Diary of an Ugly Duckling Page 23
