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

AN UGLY DUCKLING

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now . . . when all that stood between her old self and

her new self was a canopy of black cloth and a single

word. She spoke it now.

“Reveal.”

It was the moment in Meet Mr. Jordan—or its

many remakes—when the dead boxer sees the face

of his new body in the mirror and realizes he’s no

longer his old self, but his old self in someone else’s

skin.

Audra stood, stunned, her mind unable to pro-

cess the image in front of her, even as the cameras

rolled and the crowd cheered.

The woman was lovely: caramel skin stretched

over high cheekbones and a neat little nose, in per-

fect proportion to the sculpted brows of her fore-

head and the luscious red bow of her mouth. Only

the eyes seemed familiar, still a smoky black but cir-

cled now with false eyelashes and some kind of

midnight eye shadow Audra knew she’d never be

able to duplicate at home.

Her eyes traveled down her body: her boobs had

never stood so high, her waist never seemed so

long, or her stomach so flat. As though she were

home alone, she turned sideways toward the mir-

ror, examining her profile, then again, to inspect

her round, firm rear end and shapely thighs, before

turning back to examine the front view once

again. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, to

shout or shiver, and so she contemplated herself

without making a single sound of dismay or ap-

probation.

“Well?” Cassandra was at her side, draping an

arm around her shoulder, and Audra realized all of

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the experts were crowded around her now. “What

do you think?”

“I think . . .” Audra said, finding her voice again,

thankful for its familiarity, at least. “I think . . . I’m

beautiful.”

And then, at last, a smile spread across her face.

She had the vaguest recollection of what happened

after that.

She remembered hugging each of the doctors and

experts in turn, thanking them for their efforts.

She remembered her mother and her little niece

coming out from behind the stage to gawk and gape

and make pleasant comments about the drastic

change, even while Audra read in her mother’s eyes

her uncertainty about both Audra’s look and its im-

pact on the days to come.

She remembered bending close to Kiana. “Don’t

you have a hug for your Auntie A?” she asked, with

her arms wide.

“You’re not my Auntie A,” the girl said decisively

and refused to be persuaded otherwise.

She remembered Penny Bradshaw squealing in

her ear as she embraced her, her young face a mask

of teenaged amazement.

And she remembered Art Bradshaw: lifting her

off her feet in a bear hug she doubted would have

been possible at her pre-Ugly Duckling weight.

Audra loved it: loved the feeling of being swept off

her feet princess-style, of being enveloped and pro-

tected. She held him a little tighter, feeling as though

she had stepped out of herself and into a fairy tale

with Art Bradshaw cast in the role of the prince.

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He released her, bit by bit, and Audra tilted her

face toward him, expecting to see happiness shining

in the bright amber of his eyes and in the broad

gleam of his face.

And it was there . . . along with something else.

Something she hadn’t expected to see:

Disappointment.

PART THREE

The Final Package

Chapter 24

“It’s amazing . . . amazing . . .” Penny Bradshaw

kept saying the word over and over again, until

Audra was on the verge of snapping something not

very nice about needing to work on her vocabulary.

“Just . . . amazing . . .”

Audra, her family, Art Bradshaw and his daugh-

ter Penny sat in a limousine, hurtling toward the air-

port in a thick, nervous silence.

Just like that, it was over: the ugly duckling had

visited the wide world, time had passed, and now

she was returning home. Only she was no longer a

duckling, inside or outside or on any side. She was a

prettied-up version of Audra Marks on her way to

the airport in the company of her irritated mother,

her confused niece, the silent Art Bradshaw and his

awestruck daughter.

Audra washed her eyes over him again: He was

massive, taking up almost half the long backseat of

the limousine, and Audra had to talk to herself to

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keep from snuggling up beside him and thanking

him for his help and support in a far more intimate

way . . . if he’d let her. For all their conversations—

and all her erotic dreams, day and night—Audra

had to admit she had no idea what the man’s feel-

ings were. But that embrace . . . that hug . . .

Ask him, just ask him, Dr. Goddard whispered in

her brain.

As soon as we’re alone . . .

Of course, there was also something she was sup-

posed to have told him . . . something about skin

lightening procedures and the shift from dark to

light . . .

It’s a little late for that now.

She peered at him closely, but the confident man

she’d been talking to on the phone for the past three

months was nowhere visible at this moment. He was

sweating a little, patting his hands on his thigh ner-

vously, glancing around the car like a lost man.

“Amazing,” Penny Bradshaw breathed again,

and her father patted her on the arm in a futile effort

to silence her, but an instant later, another soft

“amazing” escaped from the girl’s mouth.

Art cleared his throat. “Good dress,” he rumbled,

interjecting a few new syllables into the silence. He

didn’t sound like the well-spoken man she’d come

to know—or even like John Wayne. He sounded

more like a Neanderthal struggling to navigate the

modern world. “Green. Color.” He seemed to put a

little emphasis on that last word .. . but Audra

couldn’t have sworn to it. It might have been a trick

of her own guilty conscience.

“Thanks.” Audra flashed a smile in his direction,

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hoping to ease him back into the connection that

had lived so vibrantly between them on the phone

for the past several months. “It’s a present from

Dr. Koch—the plastic surgeon who did the body

work.” He said he picked it because it reminded

him of the dress Barbara Stanwyck wears in the be-

ginning of Double Indemnity. He rented the movie

after he watched my audition tape; he’d never