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

conversation last night. It’s an early day at the salon,

so she was up when I got up, but she kept sipping her

coffee and didn’t even look at me.

I’ve been up all night, watching movies, trying to

figure out how to proceed with AB (Art Bradshaw, to

you). We work the same shift, so there should be

opportunities, right? I really want to get to know him—

see if what I hope might be there, really is.

I watched Desk Set—the Hepburn-Tracy dynamic is

classic, so that could be a nice opener. Lots of good

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

29

dialogue. But I always have a hard time getting my

Katharine Hepburn imitation straight, so I might mess

it up. And anyway, I keep hearing the spirit of Mae

West in my brain. She’s earthier, sexier, more overt.

Think that would get his attention?

I wish you were here to give me your opinion before

I head off to work. As it is, I’ll just have to send you an

email tonight and let you know how it went. I really

think he might like me, Petra. And once he gets to

know me, I think he might like me a lot!

Well, I’ve got to go, dahling . The New York Depart-

ment of Corrections awaits!

Be careful out there,

Audra

“Woodburn wants to see you, Audra,” Darlene

Fuchs, the assignment officer on duty mur-

mured as Audra clocked in at Control and double-

checked her duty assignment for the day. “Here,”

and she thrust a small piece of memo paper bearing

the name Deputy Warden Stephen Woodburn into

Audra’s hands. On it, in a ballpoint scrawl, were Au-

dra’s name and the words, “See me, ASAP.”

Crap, Audra thought. This wrecks everything . . .

On the subway on the way to the prison, Audra

had decided to march into the day room, flounce

right over to the handsome Art Bradshaw and blurt

out a few lines of dialogue from Desk Set—just to see

how deep the man’s repertoire really was. After all

he said he liked movies, but was he limited to film

noir? Or was he versatile enough to do the comedies

and dramas, too? And what about the musicals? Was

30

Karyn Langhorne

he man enough to admit to Gene Kelly? To Ginger

Rogers and Fred Astaire? Or would that he draw the

line at the films where they danced around, the

women’s beautiful costumes swishing around them

like fans?

For an instant, Audra lost herself, caught up in the

image of herself as Ginger and Bradshaw as Fred,

swirling around a ballroom floor together—

“Marks, did you hear me?” Fuchs repeated, more

insistently. “The deputy warden wants to see you.

Now.”

Ginger/Audra and Fred/Bradshaw tripped and

fell flat on their faces, then hurried, embarrassed, off

the stage and out of sight. Audra shook herself back

into the moment, almost surprised to find herself at

Manhattan Men’s Correctional Facility now that the

power of her daydream had been broken.

“The deputy’s here?” she asked the woman,

round-eyed with surprise. “This early?”

“Apparently,” Fuchs replied without looking up.

Now here was a woman who could have done

Katharine Hepburn justice, Audra decided, taking

in the other woman’s rangy, thin figure and long

chestnut hair, worn in a bun as tight as her thin lips

while on duty. Audra had seen an entirely different

side of the woman at a retirement party for a col-

league of theirs a few months back. With her hair

down and her lips loosened by a couple of apple

martinis, Darlene could have given a few of the

young women on America’s Next Top Model a serious

run for their money. But there wasn’t a glimpse of

that beautiful party girl to be seen today: Darlene

was all business this morning. “All I know is, when

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

31

I got here, he waltzed down and gave me these little

‘see me’ notes for you and Bradshaw—”

Heat climbed from the pit of Audra’s stomach to

her neck, warming her ears and cheeks. “Bradshaw?”

she stammered, sounding anything but cool, calm

and collected.

Darlene’s eyebrows shot over her green eyes as

though she knew Audra had spent most of the night

and right up to twenty seconds ago rehearsing ro-

mantic scenes with Bradshaw as the male lead.

“I mean,” Audra said, bringing her voice back

to its normal register and adding a little casual

what’s-the-diff to the mix, “what does the dep want

with Bradshaw?”

Darlene stared at her just a second longer, and Au-

dra got the distinct feeling that, had they been out

on the New York streets, or sitting in a cozy little

café somewhere, she would have leaned forward

and asked the most girlfriend-ly of questions, like a

character on Sex and the City or out of one of Terry

McMillan’s books. But as they were in a men’s

prison—“Testosterone Central”—the other woman

simply lifted a shoulder and said in her blandest

and most professional tone, “My guess would be

something to do with that skirmish in the day room

yesterday,” and from the look on her face, Audra

knew she’d heard as much about the color of Au-

dra’s bloomers as she had about the fight between

Haines and Garcia that had precipitated it all.

“Don’t you think?” she asked, struggling to sound

innocent.

“Yeah,” Audra mumbled, trying hard to smile,

even though the memory of the event was the last

32

Karyn Langhorne

thing she wanted to relive. In an instant, she aban-

doned willowy Kate Hepburn for a vampy imitation

of Mae West. “I guess when you rip your pants in

the line of duty, you gotta expect the tale,” and she

turned and wagged her behind at the other woman,

“will be told.”

Audra had expected Darlene to laugh . . . but in-

stead the woman gave her a smile that mingled

friendliness with pity and changed the subject.

“I’ll radio your sergeant,” she said, grabbing the

needed telecommunications device from its slot on

the table. “Tell him you and Bradshaw will be a few

minutes behind schedule—”

“You mean Bradshaw’s in there now?” Mae West

vamoosed, and Audra heard her own voice, rising

nervously into the stratosphere again.

“Well, yeah,