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

doing now is totally cool. Are

they going to use what I said? Is that why that

woman called my dad—”

“Hello?”

Penny’s soft tones were replaced by a heavy mas-

culine voice. “Marks?”

A thrill ran up and down Audra’s spine, but she

mastered it and managed a perfectly calm, “Hello,

Bradshaw,” like his call wasn’t out of the ordinary in

the slightest.

There was an awkward silence before he said,

“Seem to be constantly apologizing to you,” in that

slow drawl of his. “Penny told me what she said to

you. I’m beyond sorry—I’m appalled. She’s totally

wrong: I’ve never introduced her to any woman for

the purpose of educating her on ugliness or any-

thing like that. You believe that, right?”

Audra hesitated. Shamiyah started talking in her

brain, reminding her of things done and not done,

things said and things not said in the “Art Brad-

shaw” account. And again, the result was mixed: On

the one hand, he’d called. On the other, the call was

more of a matter of parenting than anything suggest-

ing interest in one Audra Marks. At this point, Audra

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

205

concluded, she really didn’t know how to rate the

man. She sat up a little straighter, tied on the breeziest

of Bette Davis routines and said, “Don’t come down

too hard on the kid, Bradshaw. It’s hard to be a girl,

believe me. Especially if you’re too tall, or too fat or

too short or too smart—any ‘too’ is too much.”

“This is no joke, Marks,” Bradshaw grumbled.

“I’m trying to teach her about character—about the

things that really matter. But all she cares about is

what her silly little girlfriends think and whether a

bunch of dumbo teenaged boys with their balls in

their brains think she’s cute. Her rudeness to you is

just—just—”

“When you were sixteen you had balls for brains,

too,” Audra interrupted, keeping her chin high and

enunciating every syllable of every word as was the

style in the films of Bette’s era. “You may still have

them, for all I know. The point is, she wants accep-

tance from her peers like most teenagers. Hell, like

most people.”

He was silent for so long Audra suspected she had

offended him in her frankness.

I don’t care, she told herself. I’m sick of tap dancing

around, trying to get this man’s attention.

“You don’t sound so good,” Bradshaw said at last.

“You doing okay?”

Fat lot you care, Audra almost replied, but she

stuffed the words back. “I’m having surgery in the

morning . . . and . . . I’m a little scared,” she answered

truthfully. “That’s all.”

“Hell, give me a prison fight any day,” Bradshaw

muttered. “I hate needles and knives.” He sobered a

little to ask, “You changing your mind?”

206

Karyn Langhorne

Audra shook her head. “No. I’m going to do this.”

“Okay,” Bradshaw said quietly. “Then I guess

what you have to do is keep telling yourself that

you’ll be fine. Say it over and over in your mind un-

til you believe it.”

“Do you think that will work?”

“Know it will. Got me through Iraq War, Part

One,” he said solemnly. “That and picturing myself

getting home in one piece. When things got tough,

I’d imagine that Kodak moment at the airport.”

“Kodak moment . . . ?”

“You know it, Marks. When the soldier steps off

the plane and his family comes running to meet

him. See, Penny was just a baby then and I’d

imagine holding her in my arms and hugging my

wife—” The sentence came to an abrupt end at the

specter of Esmeralda. “Anyway,” he continued in

his brusque military way, “just picture yourself get-

ting what you really want. Feel the joy of it. You’ll be

fine.”

“Joy?” Audra repeated. “Wait a minute . . . Is this

Art Bradshaw? Hardboiled corrections officer? Talk-

ing about joy?”

“Joy is the only word for it—the only word I

know for the feeling,” he said softly. “The word for

loving something so much, it comes alive with feel-

ing. If this makeover does that—gives you that

feeling—that’s great. But if it doesn’t, you gotta keep

searching until you find that thing. That thing that

gets your heart and soul involved with the day-

dream. That’s what you want to think about and

think about and think about . . . until it happens.” He

paused. “Listen Audra, I just wanted to apologize,

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

207

okay? Hear that you’re okay out there. Don’t want

to keep you up too late . . .”

“I’m fine, really.”

“I’m not. I’m working the seven-to-three tomor-

row. I’ve got to go to bed,” he said, yawning, and

Audra imagined him stripping off his shirt to reveal

a sculpted chest. “I’ll call you again in a few days . . .

after the surgery . . . to check on you.”

“Sure,” Audra thought, wondering how many

weeks were bound together under his “few days.”

“If you want . . .”

“Then that tears it,” he said, using an idiom of a

bygone era. “Good luck tomorrow,” he said quickly

as though he didn’t like talking to her and didn’t

care to continue. “Good night.” Then he hung up,

leaving Audra with one more thing to contemplate.

She lay back on the bed, searching through the

swirling images in her brain, looking for the one

that sparked the emotion Bradshaw had talked

about, the one that made her long for its fulfillment

above all others. The one that connected mind and

body with the power of emotion.

Of course the Reveal was there, and she saw Petra’s

and her mother’s faces, shocked into stunned admi-

ration. There was a sort of weird triumph in the mo-

ment, but behind that a surprising emptiness. She

took the image deeper, imagining every detail . . .

seeing her mother, her sister and Michael, little

Kiana . . . but there was no joy there, just the dis-

comfort of so many issues and hard feelings still yet

to be resolved.

Joy, joy, where are you? Audra thought. Come out,

come out, wherever you are!

208

Karyn Langhorne

She closed her eyes again, searching for joy along

the streets of New York, and finding