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

affixed. Shamiyah lay her hand on the

knob, then paused, staring hard into Audra’s face.

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Karyn Langhorne

“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” she said at last,

“but I really want you to have this chance, Audra.

The rest of the candidates won’t do this step until

we bring them here in three weeks. We’re doing this

now for you, because, of all the tapes we got from

African-American women—and there weren’t that

many, I’m sorry to say—yours was absolutely the

best.” She lowered her voice. “But these docs,

they’ve got real concerns about whether they can

make your transformation work. The only way I

could convince them to consider you was with this

advance consultation to work out the . . . details. But

you can never tell anybody about it and . . .”—she

leaned closer, her eyes intent—“it will really help if

you show them that you’re willing to do whatever it

takes. Whatever it takes,” she repeated. “Okay?”

Whatever it takes. The words echoed in Audra’s

brain, sounding suddenly dark and dire, as if some

kind of shadow had suddenly engulfed this sunny of-

fice space. In the movies, this moment would have

been accompanied by music so tense and ominous

that Audra shivered a little, just imagining it. For a

second, running back out into the California sun-

shine and finding her away aboard the next flight

back to New York seemed like the wisest course, even

if she had to walk all the way to the airport. But then

she imagined herself a finished swan of a woman, as

pretty as Petra, able to silence her mother’s criticisms

with a single bat of a perfectly mascaraed eyelash.

She closed her eyes, carrying the fantasy further,

imagining herself running into Art, Penny and Es-

meralda Prince—his long-haired, long-legged, fat-

free Esmeralda Prince—and heard herself saying:

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105

“Art? Art Bradshaw, is that you? It’s me, Audra

Marks!” and watching their mouths fall open in

amazement as she tossed her hair, and struck a pose

for their admiration. She could almost hear him

stuttering out his “hello,” could almost see the ex-

pressions of interest and desire competing on his

face. In the fantasy, the two of them walked on to-

gether, chatting about old times while poor little

Essie stood on the sidewalk with her vapid little

mouth hanging open in surprise and disappoint-

ment.

“Okay,” Audra said grimly. “Okay.”

Shamiyah’s small bosom heaved in relief and she

ran a café au lait hand through the wiry strands of

her kinked-up hair. “Great. Sisters in Lala Land—or

anywhere else for that matter—really need to stick

together, Audra. Remember that.”

Nurse Carla was another athletically thin woman,

with red hair and a real-looking nose, but suspi-

ciously plump lips. She greeted Audra warmly, then

commanded her to strip to her underwear “for the

examination and the photos.” Audra did as she was

told, glad she’d brought her newest matching pair of

skivvies. The examination part made sense—but

photos?

“What are these for?” she asked as the nurse used

a digital camera to take front, side and rear views of

her body, then close-up profiles of her face at several

different angles.

“The doctor uses them in a software program to

get an image of what your body can look like after

surgery.” Carla snapped the camera again and

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Karyn Langhorne

again until Audra felt like some kind of super-sized

model doing an underwear shoot. “They’re also our

before and after shots. We’ll send copies to Shamiyah

and the other producers of Ugly Duckling. No doubt

they’ll be a part of the package when your show

airs,” Carla replied.

“You sound like you know quite a bit about this

TV stuff.”

Carla laughed. “Drs. Bremmar and Koch consult

on about half a dozen of these makeover shows. It’s

a solid half of their business!”

“And the other half?”

Carla shrugged. “Celebrities and celebrity

spouses.”

Shamiya had said as much. Audra wondered if

she would recognize the names of the stars if she

heard them. “Like who?”

Carla just shook her head. “We never tell,” she

said lightly, then lowered her voice a little. “Out

here, just about everyone has a ‘little work done’ . . .

but no one admits to it. This office is the repository

of some of the best-kept secrets in Hollywood, be-

lieve me. Okay, Audra,” she said in her normal tone

again. “Hop up on the scale, then we’ll do the blood

and urine work. Then we’ve got to get downstairs to

the pool—”

“Pool? Why?”

“To test your fat-to-muscle ratio, of course. How

else are we going to figure out exactly how much

weight you have to lose?” She grinned. “You don’t

actually think we just use one of those silly height-

weight charts, do you?”

“Uh . . . no . . . of course not,” Audra mumbled,

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107

not wanting to admit that that was exactly what she

had thought.

“Then hurry up. You’re meeting with the other

experts at noon—”

“Other experts?”

“Didn’t Shamiyah tell you?” Carla’s reddish hair

bobbed from side to side again. “Between the show

people like Shamiyah and Camilla, the fitness peo-

ple and the doctors, you’ve got a whole baseball

team!”

“Camilla? Who’s that? Shamiyah’s assistant?”

Carla barked out a short, bitter laugh. “The other

way around. Camilla Jejune’s the producer. Shamiyah

works for her. The whole show was Camilla’s con-

cept, and she’s the one who did all the leg work to

bring it into being—not an easy thing, no matter

who you are—and until last year, Camilla Jejune

was a nobody. I guess that could explain why she’s

so protective of it. A real micro-manager, if you ask

me. She’s gotta okay every contestant personally.

Make sure each one of them has a concept that will

sell the show to the network . . . and hopefully kill

all the competition in the ratings.”

Audra blinked at her, stuck on an earlier thorn in

her words. “B—but I thought Shamiyah was the

producer—”

“She’s a producer. The show has three or four of

them who work on creating the package for each

woman featured as an Ugly Duck. Shamiyah’s your

producer. But Camilla’s the executive producer—or

one of them anyway.”