Diary of an Ugly Duckling by Langhorne, Karyn (general ebook reader .txt) 📕

in a low

voice, that suggested to Audra that she didn’t really

want to know.

“It means I heard you, Ma!” Audra shouted. “I

heard him, I heard you—” she paced away from the

sight of her mother’s horror-stricken face. “I know

what he accused you of that last night.”

Audra’s mother’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Listen, Audra . . . you don’t understand. He was

just angry, he didn’t mean—”

“He said I wasn’t his,” Audra hollered bellowing

out the words at the top her lungs. “He said there

was no way he could have had a child as black and

ugly as me, Ma—”

“Hush! You’ll wake Kiana—”

“Are you ever going to admit it, Ma?” Audra

swung on her, her fists clenched. “Are you ever go-

ing to tell me the truth?”

“Can’t nobody tell you nothing, Audra,” Edith

snapped. “And that’s what’s wrong with you. Now,

I’m going to bed. And if you were smart, you’d go to

bed, too.” She hurried past Audra toward her bed-

room up the hall. “And put some clothes on. No-

body wants to see all your jiggly stuff,” she hissed, a

final parting, hurtful shot before closing her door

and shutting Audra out for what must have been the

thousandth time.

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77

* * *

She flipped through every channel of the dial at least

twice, but there was nothing—no distraction in film

or otherwise. Not tonight. Sleep was impossible . . .

and she knew it. If she fell asleep, if she allowed her

mind to wander for even a second, she’d hear the

girl’s words all over again— I don’t want to be like

you—or see the expression on Art Bradshaw’s face as

he watched Esmeralda Prince sashay away from

them. Or she’d be nine years old all over again . . .

“Why?” her mother wailed, in a voice more des-

perate that Audra had ever remembered hearing,

before or since. “Why now, James?”

“Because I’m sick of the whispers and the looks,

that’s why! Because I’m tired of playing this game

with you, Edith!” And she heard him throwing suit-

cases, drawers opening and closing . . .

“James—”

“That girl ain’t mine,” her father had growled be-

hind the partially closed door of her mother’s bed-

room. “You know it, and I know it—everybody

knows it. Ain’t no way I could have a child as black

and ugly as that. Get the guy you been fucking to

raise her. I’m not doing it—”

Audra snapped herself back to the present, will-

ing her mind to focus on the television screen.

“I mean, look at these pants,” a slender woman in

one of those tops with a single thin strap over one

shoulder and full-length arm on the other was say-

ing. She stretched a pair of what seemed to Audra to

be perfectly acceptable gray sweatpants toward the

camera, while gesturing to several other pairs in the

closet behind her. “This is all she wears! Sweatpants!”

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Karyn Langhorne

and the slender woman shook her straight, blonde

locks in disgust.

“But they’re comfortable!” Another woman

stepped into the frame, clutching the sweatpants de-

fensively. And of course, she wore a pair of dark

blue sweats, matched with a faded orange T-shirt.

Her dark hair was tied back in a long, frizzy pony-

tail. She looked just fine to Audra. Just your average-

looking white girl, the sort of woman Audra might

see on the subway or pass on the street a thousand

times in a typical New York day. Unlike her tarted-

up friend, who looked like something off a televi-

sion commercial or a movie set.

“Just because I don’t dress like you doesn’t mean I

look bad,” the average-looking girl was saying, and

Audra found herself nodding her head in absolute

agreement.

“Listen, girlfriend,” a masculine voice lisped,

snatching the sweatpants so violently, Audra felt a

deep sympathy for the poor girl whose wardrobe

was being savaged. “Sweats have their time and

place,” he announced, like some kind of authority,

and to punctuate that point, the words kenny close,

master stylist appeared on the screen beneath him

as he continued. “If you’re cleaning your apartment,

you wear sweatpants. If you’re at the gym in winter,

you wear sweatpants. After that . . .” and he tossed

the sweats into a waiting garbage can that clearly

had been placed in the room just for that purpose.

The dark-haired owner of said pants gasped in

horror. Then to Audra’s surprise the fashion man

yanked the remaining pants out of the drawer and

tossed them into the trash with glee.

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

79

“You can keep the ones you have on,” he finished,

slapping his hands together like he’d just finished a

particularly distasteful chore, while the brown-

haired girl fairly wept with dismay. “Don’t worry,

honey,” Kenny Close Master Stylist offered comfort-

ingly. “When we’re done with you, you’ll have for-

gotten all about sweatpants, I swear. We’re gonna

give you a hot new look and have men lining up out-

side your door!”

Then the program cut to a promotion for the next

segment, through which Audra learned that the

name of the program was Recreate Me, and that after

this program ended, a show called Style Spy prom-

ised to update the looks of unsuspecting passersby,

and that both were part of Makeover Madness

Weekend on the Beautify! Channel.

“Pretty Up with Beautify!” a pleasant female

voice suggested in a tone that mixed encouragement

with command. Audra could almost imagine the

words “or else” being added to the tag line.

Pretty Up . . . by any means necessary. That’s what

Penny Bradshaw had advised. Pretty Up . . . her

mother was always nagging. Lose weight, change your

hair—then the boys will like you . . .

“Are your looks ruining your life? Are you tired

of being the “ugly girl,” the “plain Jane?” a calm fe-

male voice asked from the television screen, star-

tling Audra’s attention back to the box. But there

were no graphics, no stylish pictures or products.

Instead, the screen was filled with the elegant image

of swans, floating calm and serene on a quiet lake. It

was mesmerizing in its stillness and beauty.

“We can help. Accepting audition tapes now for

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Karyn Langhorne

Ugly Duckling, the Beautify! Channel’s ultimate

makeover show. Call us at 888-UGLY DUCK for de-

tails, or visit our Web site at BeautifyChannel.com.

Hurry, tapes must be postmarked by Monday, April

second.”

Ugly Duckling. It was like the stupid ad was

talking to her, recounting the night’s failures. Her

looks were