Diary of an Ugly Duckling Read online

  This book is dedicated to my husband, Kevin,

  who loves me in a T-shirt, a towel, or a tiara.

  Contents

  PART ONE: Fat, Black and Ugly 1

  Chapter 1

  “There’s a speed limit in this state, mister.”

  3

  Chapter 2

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

  told

  you,”…

  14

  Chapter 3

  “Woodburn wants to see you, Audra,”

  Darlene Fuchs, the assignment…

  28

  Chapter 4

  “Something fancy and hip. Fancy and hip,”

  Audra sang the…

  46

  Chapter 5

  Too trendy for words.

  58

  Chapter 6

  “My God, Audra! Do you have any idea

  what

  time—”

  73

  PART TWO: Light, Bright and Beautiful 85

  Chapter 7

  “Audra, it’s Shamiyah Thomas again,

  from the Ugly Duckling show?”

  87

  Chapter 8

  “Audra! So nice to finally meet you!

  Though I feel…

  97

  Chapter 9

  “So which one was it? The Atkins or

  South Beach?”

  109

  Chapter 10

  “He’s kidding, right?” Audra swung her

  face around the room,…

  126

  Chapter 11

  “You want to bring some cameras into it,

  fine with…

  138

  Chapter 12

  “Marks!” 147

  Chapter 13

  “Shamiyah…it’s Audra.”

  161

  Chapter 14

  Shamiyah stood at the baggage claim

  when Audra arrived, looking…

  166

  Chapter 15

  “So, Audra.” Dr. Anna Goddard crossed then

  uncrossed her legs…

  180

  Chapter 16

  “So. It’s tomorrow.” Edith’s voice was

  heavy with the lateness…

  198

  Chapter 17

  One big, oozing incision.

  209

  Chapter 18

  “So what color are you now?”

  224

  Chapter 19

  “Is that it?” Dr. Goddard nodded to

  ward the thick brown…

  234

  Chapter 20

  “Bradshaw…” 239

  Chapter 21

  “No excuses, Audra. It’s time to take

  this

  seriously—as…

  245

  Chapter 22

  “Okay, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

  259

  Chapter 23

  “Two minutes,” the stage manager hissed,

  taking Audra’s gloved hand…

  275

  PART THREE: The Final Package 285

  Chapter 24

  “It’s amazing…amazing…” Penny

  Bradshaw kept saying the word over…

  287

  Chapter 25

  “You’re gonna need a new badge,

  Marks,” Darlene Fuchs said…

  296

  Chapter 26

  Audra knew the woman before she

  entered the diner.

  306

  Chapter 27

  Her mind was spinning with a million

  thoughts: Ma, Andrew…

  318

  Chapter 28

  “I’m sick and tired of being fat, black

  and

  ugly,”…

  336

  Chapter 29

  “What’s going on with your face?”

  Shamiyah asked, peering at…

  356

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books By Karyn Langhorne

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PART ONE

  Fat, Black and Ugly

  Chapter 1

  Thursday, March 29

  Dear Petra,

  Greetings from your fatter, uglier sister! (I know, I

  know—but I figure starting this letter like that will get

  your mind off the chaos there in Iraq.)

  Glad to hear that the latest violence has not

  affected you or Michael. Me, the same as always:

  work, home to help Ma look after Kiana (who, other

  than missing her mom and dad, is doing fine), watch a

  good classic movie (Double Indemnity was on last

  night!), sleep and back to work.

  Speaking of work . . . there’s a new guy. Girl . . .

  smooth milk chocolate skin, eyes light as caramel . . .

  delicious! Even a married woman like you would lick

  her lips! Works the same shift I do, but he’s never said

  a single word to me. Actually, he doesn’t talk much at

  all. The strong, silent type, I guess. No one seems to

  4

  Karyn Langhorne

  know much about him, so he could be married with

  kids. Or he could be a snobbish jerk who thinks he’s

  tougher than the rest of us because he worked at

  Upstate Maximum.

  Or maybe he just doesn’t like fat chicks . . . J I

  wonder what it would take for him to acknowledge my

  existence?

  Oh well, that’s all from the home front. Let’s be

  careful out there,

  Audra

  “There’s a speed limit in this state, mister.”

  Anyone else would have told the kid to

  walk, to stop speeding through the day room

  like he needed Ritalin, but Audra Marks was too

  bored to do what everyone else would have done.

  Instead, when the kid passed her at run, hurrying

  over to a gaggle of young men hovering over a video

  game rivalry, Double Indemnity—that great movie

  classic of greed and betrayal—rose to her lips. In

  a blink, she was no longer Audra Marks, a big-

  boned black woman in a size-too-small uniform,

  but Barbara Stanwyck—a film noir princess hitch-

  ing the hem of her slinky dress to flummox Fred

  MacMurray’s careful cool with a shapely, ankle-

  braceleted leg.

  Too bad her captive audience didn’t get it.

  “Huh?” he offered with the eloquence typical of

  young men of a certain age.

  “Speed limit. Forty-five miles an hour. And you’re

  over it, sure as ten dimes will buy you a dollar.”

  Puzzlement creased her listener’s face. He was

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  5

  literally her captive—an inmate named Carlton

  Carter at the tail end of eighteen months for petty

  theft. He stopped short, watching her intently, his

  dark eyes skittering in his face, trying to decide if

  she was hassling him for a specific reason or just for

  general purposes.

  Audra sighed. For the half instant before he

  opened his mouth, she played out a scene from her

  own secret fantasies—that she’d be answered with a

  line from one of the old classics, from The Petrified

  Forest and Mildred Pierce, Desk Set and All About Eve.

&n
bsp; It wouldn’t matter if he was nineteen or ninety, if he

  was a convict or a conqueror, once he offered the

  words like a magic kiss, Audra would lift eyes of

  adoration to his face, violins would begin to play . . .

  and they would live together happily ever after,

  The End.

  Clearly this kid wasn’t her guy . . . Audra shifted

  her feet as though expecting to hear the telltale

  shimmy of anklet beads colliding with each other

  instead of the faint scuff of her orthopedic, regula-

  tion black lace-ups. She put her hand on her ample

  hip and leaned her sizeable frame close to the kid,

  tossing her head as though it were covered with

  Stanwyck’s flaxen curls.

  “Look, kid,” she continued, mimicking the rapid-

  fire delivery of a black-and-white film as the boy’s

  brow crinkled in deeper confusion. “There are a lot of

  losers in this mixed up, crazy world. Desperate peo-

  ple, people willing to toss over their own mothers

  just for a shot at the brass ring. One day soon, they’ll

  spring you from this hole. But if you’re stupid

  enough to commit another crime and end up back

  6

  Karyn Langhorne

  here, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not to-

  morrow, but one day soon, and for the rest of your

  life—”

  Audra stopped short. Crap, wrong movie. She cut

  her eyes nervously at the young inmate, but the kid

  obviously didn’t know the difference or much care.

  She glanced around, wondering if anyone else had

  heard the mistake.

  Not likely.

  Around them, the day room of the prison buzzed

  with the chatter of men: young ones clustered around

  video games, older ones gathered around card ta-

  bles or the pieces for chess or checkers. Indeed, the

  only person close enough to have overheard any of

  Audra’s little bit of drama was that new corrections

  officer—that very tall, very handsome, very built

  brother named Art Bradshaw—but Officer Brad-

  shaw was staring determinedly at a table of inmates

  in the opposite corner. There was such a blank ex-

  pression on his GQ cover-boy handsome face, she

  was pretty sure of one thing: Even working the same

  shift, in the same room, he didn’t even know Cor-

  rections Officer Audra Marks existed.

  When she turned back to him, Carlton was in-

  specting her in minute detail. Audra saw herself in

  the kid’s eyes: He must have preferred the long,

  flowing, hair-weave look, because he seemed to gri-

  mace at her short ’fro. And Audra already knew her

  face was too full and her nose too flat—it seemed like

  she’d heard those criticisms every day since she

  was a kid—curses of a heredity she could only

  guess at. But the bulk of her arms, the shelf of her

  breasts straining against the crisp white cotton of

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  7

  her uniform and the thick roll of excess skin and fat

  beneath them, her thighs straining the fabric of her

  pants uncomfortably—those were her own doing.

  And no, Carlton Carter wasn’t seeing Barbara Stan-

  wyck . . . or any other starlet before 1944 or since,

  Audra realized, with an unpleasant jolt back to real-

  ity. Not for the first time this week, she wished she’d

  really started that diet and exercise program she’d

  been planning on starting since New Year’s . . .

  Today, she vowed, starting at lunch. I’ll just have a

  salad . . .

  “Uh . . . Officer?” Carlton snatched at her atten-

  tion, dragging it back to him and the present mo-

  ment. “You done? Can I go?”

  Audra sighed. “I’m trying to teach you something

  here, Carter. I’m trying to teach you how to banter—”

  “Banter?”

  “Yeah, banter. It’s how you win a woman with

  your words—”

  “You mean my rap?” He shook his head, grin-

  ning. “Yo, I don’t need no help with that—”

  “Take that, you bitch!” someone behind her

  screamed.

  Audra’s fantasy faded like the trappings of Cin-

  derella’s trip to the ball, leaving neither a glass

  slipper—or even an ankle bracelet—to keep alive

  the memory. Audra leaped to her feet, one hand on

  her baton, the other on the service revolver snapped

  tight into the holster on her right hip as she whirled

  toward the sound. She touched a button on the

  walkie-talkie at her hip, activating a speaker and mi-

  crophone on her shoulder, following procedures on

  reflex.

  8

  Karyn Langhorne

  “Control, this is 0847. Incident in the day room.

  Backup requested, over,” she murmured quickly

  into the device as the words, “Fight! Fight!” went up

  like a grade-school chant, filling the room.

  Art Bradshaw was already wading through the

  sea of orange toward the brawlers and Audra dived

  into the commotion. “Hey!” she hollered, dropping

  her voice to its hardest, most authoritative edge as

  she bumped through the knot of jumpsuited men

  hyped on the sounds of fists flying. “Get back! Back,

  I said!”

  “You heard her! Get back!” Bradshaw rumbled,

  echoing Audra in a commanding chorus. “Out of

  the way!”

  The cluster of orange onlookers fell away at the

  power of the man’s voice. Of course, it wasn’t just

  his voice that parted the men like Moses at the Red

  Sea: Audra noticed, not for the first time, that the

  new corrections officer was very tall—at least 6 feet

  5 inches in his socks, with the kind of thick muscles

  that usually meant a man sweated for a living. Au-

  dra glanced quickly into his face: It was smooth and

  rich, chiseled sharp at the cheekbones and chin. Im-

  possibly handsome. Prince Charming handsome.

  Once again, he gave Audra not the slightest look or

  word, ignoring her as thoroughly as if she didn’t ex-

  ist, even though the two of them needed to act as a

  team to resolve the conflict unfolding before them.

  Two men lay tangled in each other’s arms, each

  trying to beat the living hell out of the other. The top

  man’s number was stenciled across the side of his

  jumpsuit like a tattoo: MI 761098. Audra transcribed

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  9

  it in her mind to the face of a long, lean, don’t-give-

  a-good-damn brother whose mama had named him

  Princeton Haines, though he was neither princely in

  manner nor smart enough for the college of the same

  name. Even with only the back of his cornrowed

  head visible as he wrestled with the man beneath

  him, Audra knew his cocoa-colored face was con-

  torted into the sneer it always wore. Unlike kids like

  Carlton, there was no point talking to inmates like

  Haines; odds were overwhelming that not only

  would Haines likely return to Manhattan Men’s for


  repeat visits when he’d finished this three-to-five,

  but that he’d probably one day reside at Upstate, the

  maximum security prison, for the rest of his life.

  If the top man was Princeton Haines, the bottom

  man had to be a new inmate he’d been exchanging

  bad blood with for the past two weeks, a youngster

  by the name of Garcia, who was working overtime

  to create a bad-ass rep. An instant later, her suspi-

  cions were confirmed as the two men shifted posi-

  tions and the bottom man became the top.

  “Break it up!” Bradshaw shouted, grabbing at

  Garcia’s back and lifting him easily off the floor.

  Audra slipped her baton back into its loop at her

  belt and on the impulse of her training, grabbed

  Haines firmly by the armpits and tugged him up-

  ward with all her might, dragging him to his sur-

  prised feet.

  “Dag,” one of the orange-suited men muttered

  from the cluster. “You see her lift him like he was

  nothing—”

  “That’s one strong-ass chick, man—”

  10

  Karyn Langhorne

  “You sure it’s a chick? Looks like a dude to me.”

  “Yeah man, one fat, black ugly dude, y’know—”

  “Fat, black, ugly dude with tits,” another voice

  chuckled.

  Fat . . . black . . . ugly. The words shook her insides

  like they always had, and she was nine years old all

  over again, listening where she shouldn’t have,

  hearing things that cut her to heart’s core.

  Fat . . . black . . . ugly . . .

  She jerked toward the voice, half-expecting to see

  the ghost of her father, when—

  Rip.

  It was the most awful sound imaginable: loud

  and insistent, more shattering than gunfire. It

  seemed to echo in the room, reverberating, register-

  ing in every ear with deafening meaning. Automati-

  cally, Audra threw Haines roughly aside and heard

  him crash against something, hard and loud. She

  reached behind her, feeling for the tear and getting a

  nice handful of her large, white, granny panty

  underwear—as a flush of mortification heated her

  face.

  Her tight blue uniform pants had given up their

  valiant struggle and ripped waistband to crotch

  down the center butt-seam . . . in front of a roomful

  of men.

  An instant later the sound of laughter filled the

  room, echoing in her ears as Audra spread her

  hands over the tear, humiliation settling thick and

  hot in her chest. The last remnants of the elegant

  fantasy of the forties slipped from her mind as tears

  bubbled just beneath her eyelashes.

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  11

  I won’t cry. I won’t cry . . . Corrections officers don’t