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

disappointed nor surprised. “Hope

we won’t have to wait for too long.”

Audra glanced at her watch. “I thought you said

we had an appointment.”

“We do! But Ishti’s an artist, Audra. She has to

make every style perfect, and perfection can’t be

constrained by anything as mundane as time!”

“I don’t know, Shamiyah . . .” Audra said slowly.

“Are you sure this Ishti—”

Shamiyah jabbed her in the ribs hard enough to

make Audra wince and muttered, “Lower your

voice. Ishti’s a diva—talented as hell, but a diva from

the old school, trust me. If she hears you—”

At that very moment, the voices around them

suddenly dropped from raucous to whispers.

Shamiyah’s head snapped toward the center of

salon with the energy of a young Marine coming

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to attention in the presence of a commanding

officer.

A tall woman with a pair of the highest cheek-

bones short of Native America strode into the wait-

ing area. Her hair was piled atop her head in a high,

sleek beehive of a style, its natural black colored by

streaks of bright blonde. Her skin was dark: past

mahogany, past ebony, almost as a dark as night it-

self. She had fringed her dark brown eyes with

lashes so long and carefully curved there was no

way they could have been real, and spangled the

space between lid and brow with a shimmering

silvery eye shadow. Added to the dark shade of

lipstick, Audra quickly surmised that very little

about this woman was natural . . . if indeed she was

a woman at all. There was something very “drag

queen” about the look . . . right down to the silvery

platform shoes peeking from beneath the hem of a

pair of carefully frayed jeans.

“Shamiyah!” Ishti’s voice was a mello contralto

that didn’t help Audra make any kind of final deter-

mination of gender. Audra found herself staring at

the base of the woman’s dark throat, searching for

the telltale lump of an Adam’s apple instead of lis-

tening to the woman’s words, when she stretched

out a much be-ringed hand and said, “And you

must be Audra.”

Shamiyah’s demanding elbow lashed out again,

prompting Audra to tear her thoughts away from

contemplating Ishti’s throat long enough to accept

Ishti’s hand. The fingers felt fine-boned but the skin

was hardened, calloused. Over the years, hairstyling

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and the chemical processes involved could be hard

enough on the hands to cause that, Audra knew. She

sighed, making mental plans to quiz Shamiyah on it

later, and accepted this unusual specter for the fe-

male it appeared to be for now.

“Uh . . . nice to meet you .. . uh . . . Ishti.” The

words sounded as phony as a twenty-dollar bill

with Ben Franklin wearing an eyepatch.

Fortunately, Ishti wasn’t listening. The moment af-

ter Audra released her hands, she reached for Au-

dra’s hairline, ruffling her slender, work-worn fingers

through the soft naps of Audra’s hair, making it stand

in a fluffy three-inch halo around Audra’s head.

“And this is totally virgin? Never relaxed?” She

directed the question at Shamiyah as though Audra

were too ignorant of the processes of style to know

the answer. Audra noticed that she spoke with an

approximation of a British accent that sounded as

fake as she looked.

“I had one once, years ago.” Audra answered

moving slightly to get Ishti’s fingers out of her head.

“But I didn’t have time for all the curling and

primping to make it look right, so I—”

“Audra needs something elegant enough for the

Reveal, but practical enough for her to work with

once she gets back home,” Shamiyah explained.

“She’s a corrections officer at the city prison, so—”

Ishti waved the rest of Shamiyah’s explanation

aside with a flutter of her fingers and an impatient,

“of course, of course,” while she reached again for

Audra. This time the woman grabbed her shoulders

and spun her around. Audra felt the woman’s

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breath on the nape of her neck as she inspected her

scalp.

“Color first, then extensions,” she pronounced in

a tone Audra didn’t care for at all, but before

she could open her mouth in objection, the woman

was whirling Audra back around. “Thank you,

Shamiyah,” Ishti said. “This is a worthy challenge. I

accept. But next time,” and she narrowed her eyes at

Audra as if her penetrating gaze were sufficient

force to make any point. “Tell your friend how we

dress here.” She locked her eyes on Audra, then pat-

ted her cheek condescendingly. “Style, my dear.

Style!” She pulled a long piece of black fabric from a

pocket of her jeans, and waved it at her. “Are you

ready?”

“What’s that?” Audra asked skeptically.

“Blindfold,” Shamiyah said, spinning Audra

around. “This place is crawling with mirrors.”

“I think this one . . . and this one . . . and this one.

Jewel tones will really sparkle on your skin tone,” a

little man wearing a fussy peach ascot said as he

ripped gowns off the racks so fast, Audra barely had

time to lift her sunglasses and register their colors

before she was being pushed into a fitting room . . .

which, of course, had no mirror.

It was getting frustrating now: to be able to see

the lightness of her skin all over her body and to feel

Ishti’s long, blonde-streaked extensions brushing

against her shoulder blades, but to not be able to

get even a glimpse of this final effect that was so

“breathtaking,” so “beautiful” for herself. Audra

found herself running her fingers along her chin,

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271

her cheekbones, her nose, trying to create a picture.

But it was useless. She needed to see.

Audra sighed, slipping the sweats off her hips

again without disturbing the pin at the waist. As she

bent for the first dress, a long, curled lock of Ishti’s

hair extensions, in a golden brownish color that de-

fied easy description, fell over her shoulders and

brushed the beige skin of her arms.

Tomorrow’s tomorrow, she thought, holding the

curl between fingers she barely recognized as her

own. Tomorrow’s tomorrow, I meet the new Audra. To-

morrow’s tomorrow, I get to wipe the slate clean, and

start all over again. Art Bradshaw is coming . . . day af-

ter tomorrow, another voice, even more eager, added,

and Audra shivered a little in a strange blend of an-

ticipation and fear.

“My God! What did you do before you came to us?

Drive trucks? Work construction?”