Diary of an Ugly Duckling (22 page)

person cheering squad. “Like them?”

The grim doctor’s lips curved into a smile as he

gazed down at her family. “Graham cracker brown?”

he repeated, showing a set of well-shaped teeth that

somehow made him look more intimidating, not

less. “Yes, graham cracker brown. I think that’s ex-

actly what you’ll be.”

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179

Audra nodded. “Then, yes. That is still my inten-

tion.”

“I’ll ask Shamiyah to see about that umbrella-

toting personal servant . . . though I confess it would

surprise me a great deal if that were in the budget.”

He paused a bit. “Your surgery is next week, I be-

lieve, so we’ll begin an increased dosage immedi-

ately.” Then he excused himself, leaving Audra

alone with the film crew and the sick feeling she’d

just offered up her first official, not exactly flatter-

ing, sound bite.

Chapter 15

Tuesday, June 26

Dear Petra,

Well, I’m here . . . and I guess there’s no turning

back now. The first of the surgeries is in a couple

of days and I’d be lying if I pretended like I wasn’t

scared to death. If I didn’t know what was on the

other end, I think I’d back out now. Go home and live

with Ma hollering, “I told you so,” for the rest of my

life.

Well, maybe not.

Please write to me as often as you can. I know

things are heating up for you there, but it means a lot

to have your support.

Be careful out there,

Audra

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“So, Audra.” Dr. Anna Goddard crossed then

uncrossed her legs as though she couldn’t

quite get comfortable. In fact, everything about the

woman said “discomfort”: the way she balanced her

notepad on one precarious knee to the occasional

glance she took in the direction of the ubiquitous

cameraman. Which was weird, considering that his

presence couldn’t be a new experience for the psy-

chiatrist. Audra knew for a fact that she was the

twelfth woman made over on
Ugly Duckling
. . . and

every single one of her predecessors had been re-

quired, as she was, to sit down for twice-weekly

meetings with this body-image shrink. If anything,

this woman should have been an old hand at being

on TV and acting like she wasn’t at the same time.

Dr. Goddard crossed her legs again, glanced at

the camera nervously and picked at the fabric of her

black slacks before flipping her notebook open and

fixing her eyes back on Audra. “So . . . Audra,” she

began again.

“Relax, Doc,” Audra joked. “I’m sure they’ll make

you look great.”

The woman smiled. “It’s not that.” She rolled her

eyes. “At least, it’s not
just
that,” she admitted,

chuckling a little. “It’s . . . well, I’ve been studying

body image for twenty years. And to be honest, in

my prior works, I’ve never really addressed the is-

sues that affect women of color. I’ve been doing a

great deal of reading and research to prepare for my

sessions with you . . . and I’m hoping that I can be of

help, without being”—she hesitated—“offensive in

any way to . . . uh . . . your brothers and sisters of

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Karyn Langhorne

color.” She offered Audra another nervous smile.

“The last thing I want to do is come off as patroniz-

ing or unsympathetic when this is such a delicate

topic. So if, I say something . . . you know . . .

wrong
. . . I’d really appreciate it if you’d correct me.”

“Uh . . . yeah,” Audra agreed, not certain of ex-

actly what that meant, or what she was supposed

to do.

But with that agreement, the doctor’s face became

serious and the last of her nervousness seemed to

drain away. She clicked her elegant black pen into

working order and zeroed in on Audra with target-

shooter eyes.

“So . . . Audra,” she began a third time, and this

time Audra heard the shift in her voice. Whatever

had come before was prelude, but this sentence was

the real thing. “When exactly did you start to hate

your skin tone?”

Audra’s mouth fell open. “What?”

“You know, when did you look in the mirror and

decide, “I’m too black.”

“Never,” Audra shook her head vehemently, feel-

ing her anger rising. “I never even thought about

lightening my skin until I came here.”

“I find that difficult to believe, Audra,” the

woman said. “In your audition tape, you called

yourself fat, black and ugly repeatedly . . . and in-

deed compared to our American standards of

beauty, you’re quite different from what our culture

considers to be the ideal.” She pushed her glasses

higher up her nose and peered at Audra knowingly.

“In my readings about black American culture,

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183

there does seem to be historical preference toward

lighter skin tones and straight hair dating back to

the days of the Reconstruction, when it was some-

what easier for lighter-skinned blacks to assimilate

than darker-skinned ones. And even earlier, to slav-

ery. The conflicts between the ‘house negro’ versus

‘field negro’—correct?”

Audra stared at the woman, too stunned by what

she was hearing to speak.

“I know that black women are usually more satis-

fied with their body image than white or Latin

women . . . at least as far as issues like weight go. But

the skin-color issue is a very different image factor.”

“Oh, really?” Audra muttered, not bothering to

conceal her sarcasm. “Don’t tell me we’se going

back to the plantation now, is we boss?”

“Well, yes, we are.” Dr. Goddard smiled a profes-

sional little smile. “Darker skin was associated with

ignorance and poverty, lighter skin with education

and affluence. Fairer-skinned women were quite

sought after—at least until the 1970s and the Black

Power movement,” Dr. Goddard continued, sound-

ing like she was dictating a chapter of her latest

book. “And even now, biracial people are attributed

with a certain comeliness, but their darker compan-

ions are not. I’m assuming that’s why you want the

lightening—to be perceived differently. Would that

be correct? Have you incorporated the negative ste-

reotypes of dark skin? And what was the first mem-

ory you have of being told something negative about

your dark skin tone?”

As long as I can remember, as long as I’ve been

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Karyn Langhorne

alive . . .
a voice whispered in the back of her brain,

but Audra silenced it with a blink, assumed some

Foxy Brown and snapped back, “All I remember be-

ing told is that black is beautiful, baby.”

Dr. Goddard seemed unfazed by the attitude.

“Which, of course, is true,” she agreed. “But you know

what I think?” The shrink leaned toward her and

placed a gentle hand on Audra’s knee. “I think a long

time ago, someone said something. Something you

carry deep in your heart to this very day. And you

know what else? Whatever other reasons you might

have had for joining us on
Ugly Duckling
, I think

there’s a part of you that wanted to do this show be-

cause you know it’s time to get rid of that image of

yourself. You want to erase it in any way you can.”

A flood of pictures and voices filled Audra’s

brain. She was nine again, overhearing her father’s

“she ain’t mine”; she was fourteen, enduring the

merciless teasing of teenage boys and girls alike;

she was twenty, in the criminal justice program and

the ultimate “dog date” candidate; it was three

months ago, and inmates were whispering “dude

with breasts” in voices too loud to be considered

talking behind her back. It was last week, and Art

Bradshaw was looking over her shoulder rather

than directly into her eyes.

These were embarrassing things, private things.

They weren’t things she could just blurt out, with

cameras rolling, to a psychiatrist she’d only met

once before.

“Uh-oh, sounds like a personal problem to me,” she

quipped instead. “Wrong for the show. Not at all en-

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185

tertaining.”

Dr. Goddard’s lips lifted in another small smile.

“I’ve worked with many women with terrible self-

images, Audra. And a good number of them develop

ways to compensate—sometimes overcompensate—

for what they perceive to be missing. Some women

work hard to be extra ‘nice,’ extra helpful. Others

concentrate on being wildly successful. Their promi-

nence or money becomes their shield.” Her eyes

found Audra’s. “And some women use humor. Their

weapon against the hurt is being the jolly fat woman

or the prankster or the clown.” The good doctor

shrugged. “Some women also escape . . . into nov-

els, movies. They create a beautiful fantasy life,

imagining themselves to be Halle, or Joan or Bette.

But it’s still a shield. A way to hide the hurt.” She

raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

The woman’s words resonated, buzzed and

echoed inside her as though all of her thoughts

and feelings had evaporated, leaving her hollow

and empty. The room was suddenly too warm, too

crowded, too small. Audra forced her lips into a

smile. “I think . . .” she began, striving for lightness,

for cheerfulness, and all the while feeling as if her

mask of certainty and competence had slipped be-

yond easy repair. “It’s not the sort of thing a funny

woman—who would like to stay that way—would

talk about on national television.”

Dr. Goddard must have practiced her piercing

stare for hours in front of a mirror somewhere, be-

cause she had that sucker down pat. She focused her

super high beams on Audra with the expression of

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Karyn Langhorne

one who would not be denied. “Unless, of course,

that woman was ready to lay those feelings aside . . .

and become an inspiration to millions of women in

the process.” She glanced at her watch, closed her

notebook and sighed. “Think about it. That’s all for

today . . . We’ll talk day after tomorrow.”

It was like living in
The Odd Couple:
Dr. Bremmar’s

upbeat-and-smiley-little-man routine, his white lab

coat neatly buttoned to reveal a blue dress shirt and

tasteful red tie; Dr. Koch his polar opposite:

grouchy, sloppy, frowning and sipping at a cup of

coffee as he stared at Audra through eyes so bleary

that Audra wondered if he’d just crawled in from a

wild night on the town.

The humiliation of another examination was

over—an examination that had basically amounted

to Audra standing pretty much naked in a sterile

room, with a silent nurse for female company, while

the two men took turns making marks on her body

with a purple pen as though she were their very

own living canvas . . . which of course, in a way, she

was. From time to time, one or the other of them

would direct a question in Audra’s direction, or ask

her to lift her arms or turn around. But for the most

part, their conversation sounded like the pages of a

medical textbook.

Audra stared down at her own body. In the places

where the sun never shone, her skin was far lighter

than in the places presented to the world, giving her

an odd two-tone appearance. Dr. Jamison was right:

There was work to be done. Whether it was for this

reason, or because of her near nakedness, the cam-

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187

eras weren’t allowed in the room . . . and this was

something for which Audra found herself deeply

grateful.

But as soon as the examination was over, there

were the cameras again, stationed in Dr. Brem-

mar ’s office, already in position to record the dis-

cussions to come. There was no conversation at all

for the time it took for each of them to be fitted with

a microphone—both docs submitted to the proce-

dure like old pros—and no conversation while

Dr. Koch and Audra took seats behind the desk, as

though this were just another doctor-client pow-

wow. Dr. Bremmar stood, leaning against the cor-

ner of his desk, the better to gesture toward another

computer screen showing front and rear images of

Audra in a pair of gray workout shorts and tight-

fitting Jogbra.

“We’re scheduling your first surgery for Friday,”

Dr. Bremmar was saying, bouncing slightly on his

toes, as though the prospect were the most exciting

thing to have happened to him in weeks—perhaps

months. And as if his body language weren’t enough,

he actually said the words, “Your case presents some

fascinating challenges and opportunities and I have