Diary of an Ugly Duckling (10 page)

Audra. You can’t expect a guy that handsome—”

“Why can’t I, Ma?” Audra roared her anger and

frustration and humiliation beyond containment.

“Why can’t I?

“Because that’s not the way it works, Audra. An

ugly man has as good a shot as a good-looking one,

but an ugly woman is a sin against nature,” she

preached. “I earn my living on the truth of that. Do

you think I caught your father with my personal-

ity?” She shook her head. “No—”

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Karyn Langhorne

“And that great love story worked out really

well,” Audra scoffed. “He left you when I was nine.”

“Well, there were lots of reasons for that.”

“Tell me about it,” Audra muttered, closing her

eyes against the memory of the night her father left.

Edith hesitated, her eyes fixed on Audra’s face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked in a low

voice, that suggested to Audra that she didn’t really

want to know.

“It means I heard you, Ma!” Audra shouted. “I

heard him, I heard you—” she paced away from the

sight of her mother’s horror-stricken face. “I know

what he accused you of that last night.”

Audra’s mother’s hand flew to her mouth.

“Listen, Audra . . . you don’t understand. He was

just angry, he didn’t mean—”

“He said I wasn’t his,” Audra hollered bellowing

out the words at the top her lungs. “He said there

was no way he could have had a child as black and

ugly as me, Ma—”

“Hush! You’ll wake Kiana—”

“Are you ever going to admit it, Ma?” Audra

swung on her, her fists clenched. “Are you ever go-

ing to tell me the
truth
?”

“Can’t nobody tell you nothing, Audra,” Edith

snapped. “And that’s what’s wrong with you. Now,

I’m going to bed. And if you were smart, you’d go to

bed, too.” She hurried past Audra toward her bed-

room up the hall. “And put some clothes on. No-

body wants to see all your jiggly stuff,” she hissed, a

final parting, hurtful shot before closing her door

and shutting Audra out for what must have been the

thousandth time.

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77

* * *

twice, but there was nothing—no distraction in film

or otherwise. Not tonight. Sleep was impossible . . .

and she knew it. If she fell asleep, if she allowed her

mind to wander for even a second, she’d hear the

girl’s words all over again—
I don’t want to be like

you
—or see the expression on Art Bradshaw’s face as

he watched Esmeralda Prince sashay away from

them. Or she’d be nine years old all over again . . .

“Why?” her mother wailed, in a voice more des-

perate that Audra had ever remembered hearing,

before or since. “Why
now
, James?”

“Because I’m sick of the whispers and the looks,

that’s why! Because I’m tired of playing this game

with you, Edith!” And she heard him throwing suit-

cases, drawers opening and closing . . .

“James—”

“That girl ain’t mine,” her father had growled be-

hind the partially closed door of her mother’s bed-

room. “You know it, and I know it—everybody

knows it. Ain’t no way I could have a child as black

and ugly as
that
. Get the guy you been fucking to

raise her. I’m not doing it—”

Audra snapped herself back to the present, will-

ing her mind to focus on the television screen.

“I mean, look at these pants,” a slender woman in

one of those tops with a single thin strap over one

shoulder and full-length arm on the other was say-

ing. She stretched a pair of what seemed to Audra to

be perfectly acceptable gray sweatpants toward the

camera, while gesturing to several other pairs in the

closet behind her. “This is all she wears! Sweatpants!”

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Karyn Langhorne

and the slender woman shook her straight, blonde

locks in disgust.

“But they’re comfortable!” Another woman

stepped into the frame, clutching the sweatpants de-

fensively. And of course, she wore a pair of dark

blue sweats, matched with a faded orange T-shirt.

Her dark hair was tied back in a long, frizzy pony-

tail. She looked just fine to Audra. Just your average-

looking white girl, the sort of woman Audra might

see on the subway or pass on the street a thousand

times in a typical New York day. Unlike her tarted-

up friend, who looked like something off a televi-

sion commercial or a movie set.

“Just because I don’t dress like you doesn’t mean I

look bad,” the average-looking girl was saying, and

Audra found herself nodding her head in absolute

agreement.

“Listen, girlfriend,” a masculine voice lisped,

snatching the sweatpants so violently, Audra felt a

deep sympathy for the poor girl whose wardrobe

was being savaged. “Sweats have their time and

place,” he announced, like some kind of authority,

and to punctuate that point, the words kenny close,

master stylist appeared on the screen beneath him

as he continued. “If you’re cleaning your apartment,

you wear sweatpants. If you’re at the gym in winter,

you wear sweatpants. After that . . .” and he tossed

the sweats into a waiting garbage can that clearly

had been placed in the room just for that purpose.

The dark-haired owner of said pants gasped in

horror. Then to Audra’s surprise the fashion man

yanked the remaining pants out of the drawer and

tossed them into the trash with glee.

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79

“You can keep the ones you have on,” he finished,

slapping his hands together like he’d just finished a

particularly distasteful chore, while the brown-

haired girl fairly wept with dismay. “Don’t worry,

honey,” Kenny Close Master Stylist offered comfort-

ingly. “When we’re done with you, you’ll have for-

gotten all about sweatpants, I swear. We’re gonna

give you a hot new look and have men lining up out-

side your door!”

Then the program cut to a promotion for the next

segment, through which Audra learned that the

name of the program was
Recreate Me
, and that after

this program ended, a show called
Style Spy
prom-

ised to update the looks of unsuspecting passersby,

and that both were part of Makeover Madness

Weekend on the Beautify! Channel.

“Pretty Up with Beautify!” a pleasant female

voice suggested in a tone that mixed encouragement

with command. Audra could almost imagine the

words “or else” being added to the tag line.

Pretty Up . . . by any means necessary
. That’s what

Penny Bradshaw had advised.
Pretty Up . . .
her

mother was always nagging.
Lose weight, change your

hair—then the boys will like you . . .

“Are your looks ruining your life? Are you tired

of being the “ugly girl,” the “plain Jane?” a calm fe-

male voice asked from the television screen, star-

tling Audra’s attention back to the box. But there

were no graphics, no stylish pictures or products.

Instead, the screen was filled with the elegant image

of swans, floating calm and serene on a quiet lake. It

was mesmerizing in its stillness and beauty.

“We can help. Accepting audition tapes now for

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Karyn Langhorne

Ugly Duckling
, the Beautify! Channel’s ultimate

makeover show. Call us at 888-UGLY DUCK for de-

tails, or visit our Web site at BeautifyChannel.com.

Hurry, tapes must be postmarked by Monday, April

second.”

Ugly Duckling. It was like the stupid ad was

talking to her, recounting the night’s failures. Her

looks
were
ruining—had ruined—her life. She
was

the original ugly girl . . . ugly enough to give lessons

in it.

Pretty Up
, the words echoed in her brain, pulsing

toward a moment of decision.
Pretty Up
. . . but not

just with a new outfit, and some over-the-counter

beauty consultant comestics. But
Pretty Way Up
, dra-

matically, drastically, permanently.

Because her mother and Penny Bradshaw weren’t

wrong. For all the platitudes the ugly girls of the

world were asked to live with, accept, embody, the

girl wasn’t wrong. It didn’t matter how smart you

were, how funny, how great a person—the package

was the deciding factor when it came to the opposite

sex, and even this child’s own father, who for just a

second, Audra had thought might be just a little dif-

ferent, had turned out to be a full-fledged member

of the club.

Her own father was certainly a member, too—if

that’s who the man who had raised her until she

was nine really was.

The gauzy, hazy light from another dawn filled

the bedroom. The last of Beautify! Network’s make-

overs surrendered to fresh programming focusing

on home décor, and Audra flipped the channels list-

lessly. In another couple of hours, the apartment

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

81

would come to life, and her mother would bustle out

of the door for sixteen hours at the salon, pretending

once again that nothing was wrong between them—

nothing except that Audra needed to
Pretty Up!

Kiana would need care. There would be things to

clean, errands to run . . . Audra saw her life stretch

hopelessly out in front of her: predictable and safe

and entirely alone.

Ugly Duckling . . .

The commercial raced around her brain, its pitch

resonating in her mind. What would it be like to be

totally transformed, to see yourself remade, not just

in new clothes and fresh makeup—how many times

had she tried that, only to be disappointed—but re-

shaped from the bones outward? What would it be

like to look in the mirror and find, not fat, black and

ugly, but something lovely and desirable. What did

it feel like to glance in the mirror and find a reflec-

tion like a movie star’s, like Esmeralda Prince’s, like

Petra’s? Could it be as close as a telephone call? As

close as 1-888 UGLY DUCK . . .

But I can’t do that. I couldn’t possibly call some reality

television show
, Audra thought, flipping down the

dial toward Classic Movies Channel.
I couldn’t possi-

bly call . . .

Why not
? another voice in her brain answered.

Nothing else has worked.

I don’t have time. The deadline is Monday
—

And you’re off
, the other voice in her head re-

minded her.
You’re on administrative leave, indefi-

nitely, thanks to Princeton Haines, remember?

I don’t have a camera—

But at the same instant she remembered something

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Karyn Langhorne

Darlene Fuchs had said, drunk as a skunk at that re-

tirement party. Something about a place in Green-

wich Village. A place where they help actors make

audition tapes . . .

I couldn’t
, Audra told the voice again.
I’m no actor
—

Fine then
, the insistent voice challenged.
Do noth-

ing. Let your perfect guy date some boring, selfish

woman just because of her outside packaging. Sure, you

could change your own package and find happiness . . .

but no. You can’t. You won’t . . .

And again she saw the look on Art Bradshaw’s

handsome face as his eyes followed Esmeralda

Prince into the ladies’ room and beyond. He’d never

looked at Audra like that . . . In fact, when she really

thought about it, he’d never looked at her much at

all if he could help it.

Not mine . . . Ain’t no way I could have a child as black

and ugly as that . . .

Maybe . . .

This is madness
, Audra told herself firmly, shaking

the idea and the insistent, challenging voice egging

her onward from her mind and focusing on the TV

instead. A movie was starting as Audra resettled

herself under her comforter with a deepening sense

of depression. Bette Davis was in the movie, and

Paul Henreid . . . and as the credits faded into the

opening scene, Audra knew exactly what she was

watching.

Even the movies seemed to be sanctioning her

course.

Now, Voyager
. The ultimate forties makeover film.

Bette Davis played an ugly spinster, stuck and sti-

fled by her domineering mother, who, after a nervous

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

83

breakdown, completely remakes herself and finds

love with a married man on an ocean voyage. She

returns home, stares down her mother and—

Audra watched, transfixed. It was as if Bette were

speaking to her . . . telling her what to do . . .

They probably won’t pick you anyway . . . Why not at

least find out? It couldn’t hurt to find out . . .