Diary of an Ugly Duckling Read online

prise. For a long moment, mother and daughter

  stared at each other in a game of visual chicken,

  each daring the other to blink first. Audra’s heart

  pounded in her chest, banging so hard against her

  ribs she wondered if her mother could see it, won-

  dering if it looked like the animated heart of an old-

  time cartoon character. She put a hand to her chest,

  pressing, hoping to still the frantic beat.

  Just tell me the truth, just tell me the truth, she

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  Karyn Langhorne

  thought over and over in her mind, knowing that

  Edith could read the words in her eyes. For once,

  just—

  When her mother finally spoke, her voice was

  hard as a slap.

  “What’s this supposed to be? Some big dramatic

  scene out of one of your old movies? The climactic

  scene where all the secrets are revealed? Well,

  I’m sorry, but you weren’t adopted . . . or anything

  else,” she said brusquely. “I don’t know why you’d

  want to say something like that,” she grumbled.

  “You and Petra got the same father . . . and he’s been

  dead two years now and you know it. Didn’t leave

  anybody anything but bad debts and worse memo-

  ries, so you’re better off without him. Not that you

  ever needed a thing from him anyway.”

  “No, not a thing,” Audra agreed, an ugly sarcasm

  taking over her tone. “After all, we always had you.”

  From her mother’s silence, Audra suspected the

  woman understood fully the implications of that

  comment, that she could feel Audra’s resentments,

  longstanding and desperate, flowing toward her in

  the silence between them.

  “You need to lose some weight. Do something

  with yourself,” her mother said in a nasty, hasty

  voice, giving back as good as she was getting. “Then

  you’ll stop focusing on this crazy mess.” She dried

  the sparkling plate herself, pulled the plug and re-

  leased the water from the sink with an air of rushed

  finality. “Make yourself useful and go put your sis-

  ter’s child to bed,” she told Audra abruptly. “We

  promised to take care of my baby’s baby until she

  comes home from the war, and I ain’t lettin’ this

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  23

  trash you’re talking keep you from doing your

  part.” Then, with a swish of her new hairdo, she fled

  the room and Audra heard her bedroom door slam,

  locking Audra, and further conversation, out.

  “This one.”

  Six-year-old Kiana handed Audra a thin story-

  book, its paper cover vividly illustrated, and then

  climbed into Audra’s lap with a proprietary cer-

  tainty that only a niece who’d enjoyed a young life-

  time of considerable doting and spoiling could

  manage. “Read it with the voices, Auntie A. Can

  you do it with the voices?”

  “You bet I can do it with the voices,” Audra told

  her, letting the little girl snuggle tight against her

  ample chest. Kiana didn’t seem to mind how tight

  her sweatshirt was or how her thighs spread across

  the surface of the old rocking chair. Audra breathed

  deeply, letting the girl smell of bubbles from the

  bath she’d just taken erase the day, snuggling her

  chin into the child’s freshly braided hair. Kiana held

  Mugsy, the stuffed rabbit she’d slept with since she

  was a mere baby. “You read, too, though,” Audra

  told her. “You’re getting to be a big girl. Pretty soon,

  you’ll be reading the whole book to me.”

  Kiana nodded solemnly, showing the smoky

  brown eyes that were the signature characteristic of

  all the women in Audra’s family—even Audra had

  the eyes.

  You ain’t adopted . . . or anything else.

  Her mother’s words echoed in her brain, stirring

  memories, questions and more questions, questions

  she wondered if she would ever get answered. But

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  Karyn Langhorne

  before she could get too lost in considering the mat-

  ter, Kiana was prying Audra’s distracted fingers off

  the book’s glossy cover. “The Ugly Duckling,” she

  read, girlish and serious all at once.

  The Ugly Duckling.

  Great, Audra thought, a sinking feeling of dread

  pulling her heart down to her toes. Of all the stories,

  on all the bookshelves, in all the world . . . this book has to

  jump into my hands.

  But all she said was, “Very good,” squeezed the

  girl tight, and started to read.

  Although it had been years since she’d given the

  story any serious thought, the plot hadn’t changed.

  Separated from her own kind, a swan chick was

  raised by Mama Duck and her cute little ducklings,

  who teased and mistreated her for her ungainly

  awkwardness. Finally, ostracized from the duck fam-

  ily altogether, the ugly one went out into the world,

  where she met with similar treatment from other an-

  imals in both the wild and the barnyard until, after

  a long harsh winter of solitude, she discovered that

  she was never a duckling at all, but a beautiful crea-

  ture of another kind.

  “And, no longer an ugly duckling, the swan

  lived happily ever after,” she read aloud to the little

  girl on her knee, closing the book. “The end. Now,

  you’d better hop into this bed before your grandma

  finds out you’re still awake. It’s nearly eight-thirty.”

  Audra frowned, dropping her voice to a co-

  conspirator’s whisper. “You know how she gets

  when she’s mad.”

  “Gramzilla,” Kiana murmured in a voice of rever-

  ent respect and immediately hopped out of Audra’s

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  25

  arms and into her bed, her face as serious as a

  spanking.

  “Gramzilla is right,” Audra agreed. “When she

  sends your mommy and daddy their emails tonight,

  I want her to be able to give them a good report on

  you.”

  “Are Mommy and Daddy all right?”

  Audra nodded. “Fine,” and she added a prayer of

  thanksgiving in heart that it was still true. “Mommy

  will probably be home soon. Before you go to first

  grade in the fall, we hope. We’ll send them another

  package this weekend. Now, go to sleep.”

  Kiana nodded and immediately closed her eyes,

  feigning sleep.

  “That’s the way.” Audra laughed. She smoothed

  the covers around the child, kissed her forehead and

  headed for the door. “Good night.”

  Kiana sighed the deep and grateful sigh of child-

  hood rest. Before Audra had backed out of the room,

  Kiana was no longer pretending and was already

  half asleep.

  The lights were already out in the rest of the three-

  bedroom apartment they all shared. Clearly, her

  mother had emerged from her bedroom long

  enough to accomplish that mission, and, Audra as-

  sume
d, double-check the locks on the door—all in

  the time it took for Audra to supervise Kiana’s bath

  and read The Ugly Duckling. Audra passed her

  mother’s room on the way to the bathroom; the light

  was on and Audra knew she was in there watching

  one of those makeover shows she loved so much,

  typing out her daily message to her daughter and

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  Karyn Langhorne

  son-in-law at war so many thousands of miles away.

  Audra hesitated for a moment, staring at the shaft of

  light seeping from beneath the door, fighting down

  the urge to reconcile, to beg to be forgiven.

  But I’m not sorry, she reminded herself. I’m not

  sorry, and I’m not wrong. Art Bradshaw might very well

  be my soul mate . . . and if he is, it won’t matter how

  much I weigh, or whether my hair is done. When people

  connect like we did—when the connection is beyond

  the superficial, looks don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if

  you’re fat, or ugly or—

  She pushed aside the last of it, not wanting to con-

  template skin tone or her mother or the possibility

  that she might have more in common with the ugly

  duckling in the story than she ever could have imag-

  ined.

  But ultimately, it was her bladder that pulled her

  away from her mother’s door. Audra hurried up the

  narrow hallway of the old apartment toward the

  bathroom. But when the urge was satisfied and

  she was giving her hands some needed attention,

  she looked up and into the mirror.

  She could see the extra weight in the roundness of

  her cheeks, which these days seemed on the verge of

  becoming part of her neck—and her hair was a wiry,

  unnatural helmet of brittle, black spikes. Her ebony

  skin was pocked and marred by the after-effects of

  adolescent acne—and as if to remind her that the

  bad old days were far from over, two new zits

  shined out on her chin and forehead. Audra’s atten-

  tion bypassed her lips and eyes—there was nothing

  wrong with them—to find her nose. It appeared to

  be a misshapen blob off-center in her face, like a

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  27

  lump of overused Play-Doh crudely abandoned by a

  bored child.

  “Please let him see beyond fat, black and ugly,”

  she whispered toward the sky. “I’m counting on you,

  Art Bradshaw.” Then she moved quietly through the

  house toward her own room, where the sweeping

  music and opening credits of another old black-and-

  white film were coloring the darkness in shades of

  gray.

  Chapter 3

  Friday, March 30

  Dear Petra,

  She was so angry. She looked at me like I’d called her

  a “slut” to her face last night. I almost told her what I

  overheard all those years ago . . . but I couldn’t do it. I

  just couldn’t do it . . .

  She hasn’t said a word to me since our kitchen

  conversation last night. It’s an early day at the salon,

  so she was up when I got up, but she kept sipping her

  coffee and didn’t even look at me.

  I’ve been up all night, watching movies, trying to

  figure out how to proceed with AB (Art Bradshaw, to

  you). We work the same shift, so there should be

  opportunities, right? I really want to get to know him—

  see if what I hope might be there, really is.

  I watched Desk Set—the Hepburn-Tracy dynamic is

  classic, so that could be a nice opener. Lots of good

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  29

  dialogue. But I always have a hard time getting my

  Katharine Hepburn imitation straight, so I might mess

  it up. And anyway, I keep hearing the spirit of Mae

  West in my brain. She’s earthier, sexier, more overt.

  Think that would get his attention?

  I wish you were here to give me your opinion before

  I head off to work. As it is, I’ll just have to send you an

  email tonight and let you know how it went. I really

  think he might like me, Petra. And once he gets to

  know me, I think he might like me a lot!

  Well, I’ve got to go, dahling . The New York Depart-

  ment of Corrections awaits!

  Be careful out there,

  Audra

  “Woodburn wants to see you, Audra,” Darlene

  Fuchs, the assignment officer on duty mur-

  mured as Audra clocked in at Control and double-

  checked her duty assignment for the day. “Here,”

  and she thrust a small piece of memo paper bearing

  the name Deputy Warden Stephen Woodburn into

  Audra’s hands. On it, in a ballpoint scrawl, were Au-

  dra’s name and the words, “See me, ASAP.”

  Crap, Audra thought. This wrecks everything . . .

  On the subway on the way to the prison, Audra

  had decided to march into the day room, flounce

  right over to the handsome Art Bradshaw and blurt

  out a few lines of dialogue from Desk Set—just to see

  how deep the man’s repertoire really was. After all

  he said he liked movies, but was he limited to film

  noir? Or was he versatile enough to do the comedies

  and dramas, too? And what about the musicals? Was

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  Karyn Langhorne

  he man enough to admit to Gene Kelly? To Ginger

  Rogers and Fred Astaire? Or would that he draw the

  line at the films where they danced around, the

  women’s beautiful costumes swishing around them

  like fans?

  For an instant, Audra lost herself, caught up in the

  image of herself as Ginger and Bradshaw as Fred,

  swirling around a ballroom floor together—

  “Marks, did you hear me?” Fuchs repeated, more

  insistently. “The deputy warden wants to see you.

  Now.”

  Ginger/Audra and Fred/Bradshaw tripped and

  fell flat on their faces, then hurried, embarrassed, off

  the stage and out of sight. Audra shook herself back

  into the moment, almost surprised to find herself at

  Manhattan Men’s Correctional Facility now that the

  power of her daydream had been broken.

  “The deputy’s here?” she asked the woman,

  round-eyed with surprise. “This early?”

  “Apparently,” Fuchs replied without looking up.

  Now here was a woman who could have done

  Katharine Hepburn justice, Audra decided, taking

  in the other woman’s rangy, thin figure and long

  chestnut hair, worn in a bun as tight as her thin lips

  while on duty. Audra had seen an entirely different

  side of the woman at a retirement party for a col-

  league of theirs a few months back. With her hair

  down and her lips loosened by a couple of apple

  martinis, Darlene could have given a few of the

  young women on America’s Next Top Model a serious

  run for their money. But there wasn’t a glimpse of

  that beautiful party girl to be seen today: Darlene

  was all business this morning. “All I know is, when

  DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

  31

  I got h
ere, he waltzed down and gave me these little

  ‘see me’ notes for you and Bradshaw—”

  Heat climbed from the pit of Audra’s stomach to

  her neck, warming her ears and cheeks. “Bradshaw?”

  she stammered, sounding anything but cool, calm

  and collected.

  Darlene’s eyebrows shot over her green eyes as

  though she knew Audra had spent most of the night

  and right up to twenty seconds ago rehearsing ro-

  mantic scenes with Bradshaw as the male lead.

  “I mean,” Audra said, bringing her voice back

  to its normal register and adding a little casual

  what’s-the-diff to the mix, “what does the dep want

  with Bradshaw?”

  Darlene stared at her just a second longer, and Au-

  dra got the distinct feeling that, had they been out

  on the New York streets, or sitting in a cozy little

  café somewhere, she would have leaned forward

  and asked the most girlfriend-ly of questions, like a

  character on Sex and the City or out of one of Terry

  McMillan’s books. But as they were in a men’s

  prison—“Testosterone Central”—the other woman

  simply lifted a shoulder and said in her blandest

  and most professional tone, “My guess would be

  something to do with that skirmish in the day room

  yesterday,” and from the look on her face, Audra

  knew she’d heard as much about the color of Au-

  dra’s bloomers as she had about the fight between

  Haines and Garcia that had precipitated it all.

  “Don’t you think?” she asked, struggling to sound

  innocent.

  “Yeah,” Audra mumbled, trying hard to smile,

  even though the memory of the event was the last

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  Karyn Langhorne

  thing she wanted to relive. In an instant, she aban-

  doned willowy Kate Hepburn for a vampy imitation

  of Mae West. “I guess when you rip your pants in

  the line of duty, you gotta expect the tale,” and she

  turned and wagged her behind at the other woman,

  “will be told.”

  Audra had expected Darlene to laugh . . . but in-

  stead the woman gave her a smile that mingled

  friendliness with pity and changed the subject.

  “I’ll radio your sergeant,” she said, grabbing the

  needed telecommunications device from its slot on

  the table. “Tell him you and Bradshaw will be a few

  minutes behind schedule—”

  “You mean Bradshaw’s in there now?” Mae West

  vamoosed, and Audra heard her own voice, rising

  nervously into the stratosphere again.

  “Well, yeah, Marks,” Darlene said, in “duh” tones.