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

about herself or her

adopted town, the woman frowned. “But you

shouldn’t have needed any money. The room should

have been totally comped—”

“Yeah,” Audra said. “That’s what they told me

when I went to check in. That everything was com-

plimentary . . .” she grinned. “Except the tips.”

“Well, there’s a few things a sister’s gotta handle

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on her own. But for everything else”—she gave Au-

dra a cynical eye roll—“there’s an expense account.

Now.” She grasped Audra’s arm again. “Before you

meet everybody, there’s some stuff they want you to

do.”

“What kind of stuff?” Audra asked, suddenly feel-

ing on guard.

“Medical kinds of stuff,” Shamiyah said, waving

her fingers vaguely as if she weren’t certain of the

details. “Basically they want to do the whole exam,

like you were going to be on the show. It’s pretty

comprehensive—takes hours and hours—so we’d

better get started.”

Shamiyah steered her toward the elevator and along

the third-floor corridor to a glass-encased office. The

words alan bremmar, m.d., and herbert koch,

m.d., graced the door, each man’s moniker followed

by a long line of letters like a perverse alphabet soup.

Through the glass, Audra could see an elegant recep-

tion desk and an even more elegant receptionist.

“These guys are absolutely the best,” Shamiyah

murmured as though it were a secret, guiding her

through the glass doors with one surprisingly firm

and determined hand. “They’ve done everybody.

More stars than the Walk of Fame . . . Hi Maisy!”

Shamiyah said with a gushing enthusiasm that Au-

dra couldn’t decide was real or fake. “Here she is,

Audra Marks! The Ugly Duckling candidate we’ve

been talking about?”

Maisy stretched her face into a smile, staring at

Audra as though she were some interesting new

species that required great analysis, while Audra

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101

stared back at her with similar interest. Up close,

Maisy had the look of someone who had seen a few

cuts of the surgeon’s knife herself: her eyebrows

were suspiciously high, her nose perfectly straight,

her breasts impossibly perky. Add to that the warm

glow of a paid-for tan, and the perfect lowlights of a

custom dye job and Maisy looked fake right up to

her enhanced eyelashes.

“Nice to meet you,” she said in a voice far too

high and girlish for her years, but pleasant enough.

She stood up, showing them a lean figure clad in a

tight black T-shirt and black pants in some clingy,

sexy fabric that would have shown every bump of

cellulite, if the girl had had any. “Carla—she’s one

of our nurses—is waiting for you in Room One. But

first . . .” She pulled a thick folder full of papers

from the cubby beneath the elegant desk. “Papers to

sign,” she said, handing them to Audra.

“Good grief! More papers?” She shook her head,

turning to Shamiyah in amazement. “My hand still

hurts from the stack you sent over last night.

Haven’t I released you people from all liability for

just about every conceivable accident imaginable?”

“I—I don’t know,” the girl said, looking gen-

uinely confused. “But these are the medical forms

so Dr. Bremmar and the others can do their prelimi-

nary consultation. Did someone already send you

these? Because—”

“No, no,” Shamiyah patted the girl on the arm, re-

assuringly. “The forms she got last night were from

the Ugly Duckling show. Consenting to her appear-

ance on the program, for the use of her image in

promotion, release from libel and slander—stuff like

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that. Not the same. She’s got to do these, too.” She

cast a significant glance at Audra. “Just skip all the

financial and insurance information. Write Ugly

Duckling. They know where to send the bills.”

“So basically, I’m giving these docs permission to

kill me and your production company permission to

film it.” Audra quirked an eyebrow at Shamiyah. “Is

that about right?”

For once, Shamiyah seemed to forget to smile.

“Yes, that’s about it,” she said levelly, meeting Au-

dra’s eyes. “You’re cool with that, though, right?”

For the first time, a current of the seriousness of

this undertaking charged the air between them like

ions before a lightning storm. Audra grabbed the

edge of the reception desk, steadying herself.

The whole point was to remake herself . . . and

she was actually here, in Los Angeles, to find out

if—and how—it could be done. She imagined her-

self transformed into a swan of unimaginable

beauty, and inhaled.

“Ice-cold chilly,” Audra told the woman, clench-

ing and unclenching her fist, making ready for the

work at hand. She grabbed the folder, crossed the

room and threw herself into a nearby chair, feigning

exhaustion. “I’m gonna need surgery for carpal tun-

nel by the time you guys get done with me.”

“Carpal tunnel?” The blonde’s confusion seemed

to deepen even further. “I don’t think Dr. Bremmar

does that. It’s somewhere in the foot, right?” She

smiled and continued before either Shamiyah or

Audra could respond. “Can I get you ladies some-

thing? Espresso? Latte?”

“Double skim latte sounds great to me,” Shamiyah

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103

breathed. “You’re a life saver, Maisy. Just a life saver!

Audra?”

A Snickers bar would really hit the spot, Audra

thought, but she decided against saying that out

loud in this company. Instead, she shook her head,

“No, thanks.”

“We also have all kinds of fruit juices,” Maisy

tempted, as though it were specifically in her job de-

scription to make sure every guest had a cup of

something. “Papaya? Kiwi? Guava?”

Audra grimaced. “No, thanks,” she insisted and

watched the girl’s face crumple in disappointment.

“Are you sure?”

“How about just a bottled water?” she said to

keep the girl from feeling like a failure, and watched

a smile twitch Maisy’s lean face again. “Okay, so

that’s one double skim water”—she slapped herself

on the forehead—“Double skim water! I mean,

latte—and a water.” She nodded. “When you finish

with those”—she nodded at the forms—“Room One

is the first one on the left. Go on in, she’s expecting

you. I’ll be back in a flash with your drinks.”

“Thanks, Maize,” Shamiyah said, already pulling

Audra down the hall. The second they were out of

earshot, she murmured, “You can do those forms

later. And don’t mind her. She’s nice enough . . . but

she’s not here for her brains. She’s a walking adver-

tisement for Bremmar and Koch’s work. Nose, eyes,

chin, boobs, lipo—you name it.”

Audra nodded. “I suspected as much.”

They stopped outside a door upon which a silver

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