Diary of an Ugly Duckling (29 page)

meant—”

“You need a male perspective,” he finished for

her. “I get it. Ask away. But perspectives are like . . .

uh . . . armpits. Everyone’s got ’em.”

“Armpits?” Audra squealed. “That’s a new one.”

“Well . . . I’m too much of a gentleman to say

something disrespectful or profane in the presence

of a lady.”

“I work in a
prison
, Bradshaw. I’ve heard every

kind of disrespect and profanity imaginable and

you know it.”

“Not from me you haven’t. And I’d like to keep

it that way. Now, ask your question. And if my

242

Karyn Langhorne

armpit doesn’t please, well,” he said, “there’s an-

other aroma, right?”

Audra giggled in spite of herself. Armpits . . .

ridiculous. But the silliness made it easier to ask.

“I don’t get you men,” Audra admitted. “Do any

of you know what you want?”

Bradshaw let out another of his booming

chuckles—and in the background, Audra heard

Penny exclaim, “Dad!” Audra imagined her rolling

her eyes at him in dramatic mortification.

“We men! Do any of you
women
know what you

want?”

“Okay.” Audra nodded. “That’s fair. Nobody

knows what they want—”

“I didn’t say that, either. Or at least, I didn’t mean

it that way,” he corrected. “I just mean that most
peo-

ple
don’t know what they want, or how to get it . . .

or even who they are. Which makes the ones who

do that much more likely to succeed. Take you, for

example. You knew what you wanted—”

“Whoa.” Audra shook her head. “It wasn’t so

much that I knew what I wanted. More that I knew

what I
didn’t
want.”

“And what was that?”

Audra hesitated. For some reason, it was always

hard to talk to Bradshaw about the physical aspects

of her
Ugly Duckling
transformation. Hard to say fat,

black and ugly . . . hard to explain about the face-lift

and the dieting—and impossible to mention the

skin lightening at all. It just all seemed so superficial,

when time and time again, Bradshaw had proved

himself to be more than handsome, but smart, com-

passionate and kind.

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

243

“I knew I felt unattractive,” Audra said carefully.

“And I knew I didn’t want to feel that way any

more.” She shook aside the words before they de-

manded further analysis. “Besides, I don’t want to

talk about me. I want to talk about you, Bradshaw.

Do you know what you want and how to get it? Do

you know who you are?”

It would have been hard to miss the earnestness in

her tone, and she wasn’t surprised when Bradshaw

paused to consider carefully before answering.

“I know some things I want . . .” he said seriously.

“And I know some of the steps I can take to get

them. But a lot of what I want involves the wants of

other people. And unless those other people want

what I want, short of some heavy persuasion, there

may not be a lot I can do.”

Something—whether it was the intensity of his

words or the expression that she imagined accom-

panied them, Audra didn’t know—sent Audra’s in-

ternal temperature toward the heat of August. She

fanned herself in her dim California hideaway, feel-

ing almost like something inside him was speaking

directly to something directly inside her.

“Thanks for that non-answer,” Audra murmured,

still trying to sound flippant light, even though

there were deep currents of attraction racing though

the phone lines. “Now, would you please tell us or-

dinary, plain-speaking folks what the hell you’re

talking about?”

There was a characteristic hesitation before he

spoke.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you again, Au-

dra,” he said simply. “Why don’t we talk about that

244

Karyn Langhorne

more when we can sit down face-to-face. When

you’re back in New York. Okay?”

Audra’s heart skittered to the pit of her stomach.

It sounded almost like—like—“Yeah,” she mur-

mured. “We can do that, but . . .” She hesitated.

“Suppose they’ve botched this surgery. Suppose—”

“Do you really think I’m that shallow?” he asked,

sounding deeply offended.

“No,” Audra responded, hoping it was the truth.

Then she let the silence engulf them again.

Chapter 21

July 30

Dear Petra,

I have a whole other family I never knew about. Most of

them live in the Caribbean, scattered around the Virgin

Islands. I guess I’ve got an “in” now on St. Thomas, St.

John and St. Croix.

As soon as she heard the news, Shamiyah wanted

to invite them to the Reveal. I had to remind her that

she’d agreed not to air any of this paternity stuff—she

gave Ma her solemn promise. She looked really

disappointed. Art thinks she had already written the

script to one of those reunion shows in her mind. He’s

probably right. I don’t know what I would have done

without him the past few weeks. It’s funny: My being

here is letting us get to know each other in a way we

probably never would have if we could see each other

face-to-face.

246

Karyn Langhorne

So, of course now I worry about the face-to-face.

What if he doesn’t like the outside, Petra? He didn’t

before . . . he couldn’t even look at me. But what if in

person, there’s still no chemistry for him (girl, you

know I got chemistry for him—always have!)

Speaking of Ma (I know, I wasn’t. But she’s always

just beneath the surface, isn’t she?) Dr. Goddard says

the next step in my healing is to forgive her. I feel like I

already have, but she thinks Ma and I still need what

she calls a “clearing.” (She doesn’t know our Ma!) It’s

kinda hard to have a clearing with a woman who won’t

even allow you to bring up the subject . . .

I guess that’s going to take some time.

Speaking of time, mine is up. I’m going to the gym

today—for the first time since the surgery. Looking

forward to it.

Be careful out there,

Audra

“No excuses, Audra. It’s time to take this

seriously—as seriously as your surgeries or

your diet or any other part of the process—”

“I’m not making excuses. I’m just telling you that

I was just cleared for normal activities yesterday,

and this is hardly a normal activity—at least not for

me.”

Audra spoke from a position of precarious bal-

ance atop a bright red exercise ball.

“It’s perfectly safe, Audra.” Julienne had the hard,

no-sympathy voice of a drill instructor. “Now quit

your bellyaching and lay back like I told you—”

Audra felt a pair of pincer-like fingers curl over her

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

247

shoulder and proceed to gently force her into com-

pliance.

Audra resisted, feeling an uncomfortable twinge

in her abdominals with the effort. By far, of all the

surgeries the tummy tuck and the nose job were the

worst. And probably, for the sheer gross-out

factor—what with tubes stuck inside her to drain

the excess fluid resulting from the procedure—and

for pure, unadulterated pain, the tummy tuck won

the close race between the two. Having just gotten

to the point that she could get in and out of bed

without feeling like her guts were going to start

spilling out between her fingers, Audra wasn’t about

to take any chances, bossy personal trainer or not.

“I’m telling you, Julienne, I’m not ready for—”

Julienne’s face appeared beside Audra’s own,

pink with righteous, zealous anger. “I’m telling
you
,

if you keep resisting, you’ll never be ready for your

Reveal. All of you Ugly Ducklings are the same: You

don’t want to take responsibility for yourselves. You

think the surgery alone will fix you. But I’m here to

tell you, the surgery only goes so far. The rest is hard

work, diet and exercise, and more hard work! You

have to get some discipline or—”

“Look,” Audra hissed back at the woman. “Don’t

accuse me of having no discipline, because I’ve got

as much of it as you! And I was in good shape when

I got here! I have to be, to keep my job, okay? But I

think I know my own body well enough to know—”

“Do you?” Julienne challenged. “Really, Audra,

do you?”

“Hell yes!” Audra practically shouted at the

woman, giving her anger its head. She felt her fingers

248

Karyn Langhorne

curling into fists, her jaw locking tight. “Now cut it

out, before you make me really, really mad!”

The journal Dr. Goddard had presented to her was

now filled with page after page of meandering,

sometimes petty vituperativeness—and her encoun-

ters with the woman seemed always to find Audra

on the very edge of her seat, sitting on her hands to

keep from slapping the shrink hard enough to make

her taste yesterday. Even Shamiyah was beginning

to work her last nerve, and mirrors or no, Audra

would have to have been ignorant of her own body

not to be able to tell how loose her sweatpants had

become or how light the skin on her legs, arms and

body was, even though she’d stopped using Dr.

Jamison’s cream.

The thought of a mirror was almost scary. In an-

other six weeks or so, she’d be looking into one . . .

and it was pretty clear she probably wouldn’t recog-

nize herself, probably wouldn’t have a clue who the

woman in the mirror was. And that gave her an-

other reason to feel angry: Since while everyone in

her daily life here could see the change in gradual

bits, she, the actual subject, had no such luxury.

She’d started out a heavyset, dark-skinned black

woman and her whole identity was bound up in that

image. What would it be like to look in the mirror

and see this new person, with fair skin and a slen-

der, shapely body? Would her dark-skinned insides

see her light-skinned outside and run screaming for

the hills?

The weirdest part was, the nastier she got, the

happier everyone around her seemed to be. It was

happening again, right now, with Julienne.

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

249

“I’m making you mad, huh, Audra? Good. Forget

the ball, then. You know your body, right? You know

it so well, you’ve taken care of it by stuffing it with

foods it didn’t want and didn’t need. You know it so

well that you’ve overdeveloped the muscles in your

arms and thighs, but left your stomach so weak

you’re afraid you won’t be able to sit back up if you

lay back on a rubber ball. All of that, and yet you ex-

pect me to believe you know your body?” She shook

her head. “You don’t know a thing about your body,

Audra. No, excuse me. You do know one thing

about it,” she continued in a no-nonsense tone of

voice, all the while glaring at Audra like she’d of-

fended her personally. “You know you positively

hate it. You hate it, and you hate yourself—”

“Why do you all keep saying that!” Audra

bounded up off the ball and yanked her towel off a

nearby rack fast enough to use it as a weapon. But

Julienne barely flinched. She just kept staring at Au-

dra, every rangy muscle in her thin chest and upper

arms flexed and ready.

“You can hit me if you want to,” Julienne said, her

voice calm, her face a mask of earnest sincerity. “It

won’t change anything, though. What
will
change

things is for you to challenge your body—challenge

yourself—beyond what you think you are capable of.

See, Audra, it’s all one!” And she cupped her hands

together, making them into an irregular circle.

“Your mind, your body, your emotions, your spirit.

When things don’t work here”—she touched her

head with a fingertip—“or here”—she touched her

heart—“it shows up here.” She lay both hands on

her stomach. “Or here.” She patted her behind. “Or

250

Karyn Langhorne

even here.” The hands moved down to her thighs.

“Some people think you have to start at the head or

the heart before you can fix the body issues”—she

shook her head—“but I personally believe you can

enter the continuum anywhere.” She returned her

hands to her circle again. “You can start with any

one of them, and if you keep going, the others will

follow.” Her stern expression broke into a sunny

smile that made her thin face suddenly open and

approachable. “You’re doing great, Audra. Everyone

thinks so.”

“Great? I’m mad as hell,” Audra muttered.

“What’s so great about that?”

Julienne’s smile broadened. “It means you’re

ready for the gym. It’s a great place to work on