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

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

cry, Audra told herself.

“Thank you, thank you very much,” she muttered

Elvis-style, taking a couple of quick nodding bows

around the room, blinking quickly as though it were

a part of her routine and not a desperate attempt to

keep her emotions at bay. “I’m here in Vegas ’til

Tuesday . . .”

More laughter reverberated around her and Au-

dra took another quick bow, her hands firmly af-

fixed to the seat of her pants, just as four more COs

joined them in the day room to help. She glanced at

Bradshaw, hoping for support, but he simply stared

into the space between her shoulder and the walls,

as usual.

The handsome creep.

“It’s okay, fellas,” Audra said, taking charge of the

confusion on the newcomers’ faces. Clearly they’d

been expecting an outbreak of prison violence . . .

and were surprised to find themselves in the audi-

ence of a comedy show. “It’s all over but the jokin’

and the sewin’—”

“Gonna take a big needle close that up!” Someone

quipped, but before Audra could isolate the identity

of the speaker Haines’ moaned.

“Shut up! Won’t somebody shut her up? Fat bitch

broke my ribs! She broke my damn ribs then

slammed me into that table there!” He clutched at

his abdomen, bent double, Audra supposed, with

pain. “Y’all saw it! It’s police brutality! I want my

lawyer! I’m filing a claim with the warden! I want

reparations—”

12

Karyn Langhorne

“Quiet, Haines.”

Audra turned in surprise.

Bradshaw.

His voice was smooth, rich and deep like some for-

bidden chocolate treat or an expensive coffee drink.

The voice of a screen legend from Hollywood’s hey-

day, mesmerizing in its depth. She glanced over at

him and found a somber expression on his face.

“You okay?” he asked at last.

Audra hesitated. He still wasn’t exactly looking at

her, but when no one else replied, she assumed the

question was intended for her. For some reason,

Bradshaw’s concern made tears tremble just below

the surface again, but Audra shook them aside.

“Marvelous, darling,” she muttered in her best diva

dame voice, but with the inmates still muttering

“fat” and “dude with tits” and with her fingers tight

over her rear end, it was hard to keep the image

alive. “Thanks for asking. I was beginning to won-

der what it took to get your attention.” She shrugged

toward her rear end. “Now I know.”

Bradshaw blinked, his light eyes shifting at last to

her face. Audra felt a shock like electricity course

through her body as his full lips curved into the

slightest smile. “Sorry. Had a lot on my mind lately,”

he said, then leaned toward Audra, dropping his

voice to a husky whisper. “And you confused Dou-

ble Indemnity with Casablanca,” he murmured in a

tone intended for her ears only. “Try to get it straight

next time, Marks.” Then he shifted his attention to

the inmates. “Recreation’s over, gentlemen,” he an-

nounced in a smooth baritone. “Line up! Now!”

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

13

Reluctantly, the men shuffled into a haphazard

line along the wall. Bradshaw led the way back to

the cell block, leaving Audra staring after him with

her hands covering her bloomers and her mouth

open in surprise.

Chapter 2

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

Audra said, her voice rising to a near shout in

frustration, “You are missing the point, Ma—”

“I ain’t missing nothing, Audra,” Audra’s mother,

Edith Marks snapped, her words lilting with the to-

bacco fields of North Carolina, as though she hadn’t

lived in New York City since she was eighteen. “The

point is, you ripped your pants and showed your

butt—literally—to this man—”

“Art Bradshaw—”

“This Art Bradshaw,” Audra’s mother repeated,

more loudly than before, hammering home her

point by volume alone. “What must he think of

you?”

What did Art Bradshaw think, Audra wondered,

replaying the way his eyes had locked on hers, liq-

uid and glowing with warmth. His words betrayed

that he’d been listening to her conversation with the

kid, Carter. Audra wondered how many other times

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

15

he’d watched her, as surreptitiously as she’d watched

him.

“I think . . .” Audra began slowly, determined to

say the words aloud in spite of the patter of her

heart. “I think he thinks what I think. That we’re

soul mates—”

“Soul mates! Soul mates, my eye,” Edith scoffed.

“You humiliate yourself in front of him and now,

you’re talking some mess ’bout him bein’ your soul

mate?” She rolled a pair of shrewd, bright eyes care-

fully lined with black pencil and batted her mas-

caraed lashes in Audra’s direction. “Honestly,

Audra. If you think that man’s interested in you be-

cause you can crack a joke after humiliatin’ yourself,

you musta bumped your head—”

“Will you forget about the pants for just a second,

Ma?” Audra folded her arms over her chest like a

defiant teenager and lifted her head in protest. “I

think he’s interested in me because we both know

the movies—”

“Movies!” The older woman tossed this week’s

hairdo, making the strands of a sleek black bob

dance. Audra knew for a fact most of the hair was

fake, purchased wholesale from the inventory of

her mother’s salon, Goldilocks, and sewn in on a

Monday or Tuesday morning when there weren’t

many paying customers. It looked good, too, on her

mother’s still pretty fifty-something head, but then

most styles did. It was yet another way they were dif-

ferent: opposite as night is from day. “So he likes

movies.