Diary of an Ugly Duckling (21 page)

doors of a building in the same neighborhood as

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171

the offices where Audra had met the
Ugly Duckling

show’s experts a few weeks before. “Home, sweet

home. You’re on the third floor. Letter J.”

The letter J belonged to an apartment near the

back of the building. Shamiyah opened the door

and then handed her a set of keys, nodding her into

the room.

The place was small but adequate. The horseshoe

of the kitchen opened out into a living room, whose

sofa, Shamiyah explained, converted to a sleeping

area. “For the nurse,” she explained. “The first few

days after the surgery.” Down a short hallway were

a small bedroom, a small bathroom and a little

closet. Completing the space was a ledge of a bal-

cony reached by a sliding glass door that was cov-

ered with fake bamboo shades.

“And we’ve made sure you have the Classic Movie

Channel, so you’ll be well entertained.” Shamiyah

turned the TV on and off as Audra yanked on the

cord to lift the bamboo. She had expected the room

to flood with sunlight, but instead, the shady leaves

of nearby palms clustered around the window like a

jungle, allowing barely any additional light inside

the apartment. The little place seemed like a cave.

Audra was about to comment on it when Shamiyah

hustled her into the kitchen.

“Your refrigerator is fully stocked with foods al-

lowed on your plan,” she said, showing Audra the

contents with a quick jerk of the handle. “And there

are some basic implements in the drawers if you

want to cook.”

“Where’s the light switch?” Audra joked. “It’s aw-

fully dark in here, isn’t it?”

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Karyn Langhorne

“That’s what the doctors wanted,” Shamiyah ex-

plained with a shrug. “But the lamps should be

working . . .” She crossed the room quickly and

snapped a switch on the base of a lamp on the sofa-

side table. “Yep. We double-checked everything yes-

terday when they brought in the food and took out

the mirrors.”

“Took out the mirrors?” Audra stared at her.

Shamiyah grinned. “You bet. Look in the bath-

room,” she offered, jerking her springy head to-

ward that alcove. “You’ll see.”

Sure enough, where the mirror should have been

there was nothing but a smooth brown patch of dry-

wall.

“It really wasn’t necessary,” Audra called, wan-

dering from the dark mirrorless bathroom to the

dark mirrorless bedroom. “I hardly ever look in the

mirror anyway.”

Shamiyah’s laughter floated back to her. “Liar! I

saw you checking out how those sunglasses looked

in every gleaming surface from the baggage claim to

the front door of this building!”

“Yeah, but that’s different,” Audra murmured, re-

turning to the living area, where she found the

woman on her knees on the floor, rifling through

Audra’s bag like an addict looking for a fix. When

she saw Audra, she flashed her quick smile, then

pulled out a multicolored stack of undies and set

them on the coffee table, to make it easier for her to

peer inside.

“What are you doing?” Audra demanded, and for

the first time Shamiyah got a taste of her corrections-

officer voice. Her little body jumped, and for the

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

173

fleeting second that her eyes met Audra’s, she

looked intimidated and afraid.

“Looking for contraband!” she said as though

that should have been perfectly evident. “You read

the stuff I sent you, right? About how you’re not sup-

posed to bring any mirrors?”

Audra relaxed. Of course, mirrors had been

on the list of “no-nos”; she remembered that now.

No mirrors, no makeup, no jewelry, no beauty

products—

“There’s no mirrors—or anything else that

shouldn’t be here—in there,” she told the other

woman. “Trust me. I don’t even own much of that

kind of stuff to begin with.”

“I have to search, Audra,” Shamiyah said in a

voice that had suddenly gone flat and professional.

“There will be no mirrors anywhere for you for the

next three months. Not anywhere: doctors’ offices,

hospital, gym . . .”

“What if I want to go to the grocery store, or out to

a restaurant? Or to do some sightseeing—”

Shamiyah shook her head slowly.

“You won’t be doing any of that, Audra. No sight-

seeing. No eating out. No shopping—”

“But what—”

“You’re here to completely change your appear-

ance, and between doctors and trainers, shrinks and

coaches”—the black curly head wagged a little

harder—“your days should be pretty full.”

“Are you telling me I can’t so much as go for a

walk unless you guys have cleared the route for mir-

rors?”

“Worse,” Shamiyah said, grinning uncomfortably

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Karyn Langhorne

now. She busied her hands with placing Audra’s

undies into one of the drawers of the cabinet. “I’m

telling you can’t take a walk at all—unless we say

so. I know there’s a lot of stuff in those contracts,

but”—she sighed—“them’s the rules and we’ve ac-

tually asked women to leave the show for breaking

them.”

“You’ve kicked people off the show?”

“You bet.”

“But why? I mean, is this
really
necessary—”

“Two reasons.” She held up a finger. “First, we

want the cameras to capture your first reaction when

you see for the first time how beautiful you are at the

Reveal, and”—she hesitated a long second—“two,

we want to make sure you look as”—she hesitated

again, as if afraid of Audra’s reaction to her next

words—“unattractive as possible in all the scenes

before the Reveal.”

Audra stared at her for a second. “Like an ugly

duckling,” she said at last.

Shamiyah nodded. “Exactly.” She patted Audra’s

bag. “You’re clean, Marks,” she said, trying her best

to recover some of the jovial friendliness that had ex-

isted between them out in the sunshine, but the room

was such a cave, even Shamiyah seemed to be finding

it difficult to turn on the high-beams. “Two more

things to tell you, then I’ve got to dash. We’re in the

middle of post-production on one of my other

subjects—the first Ugly Duckling, actually. Her Re-

veal was absolutely stunning!” She gushed, reaching

into her purse again, this time producing a thick let-

ter, sealed with some kind of embossed sticker. “Your

schedule and instructions for the first couple of days.

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175

Open them after I leave . . . and feel free to talk to

yourself, mumble and grumble, lie on the floor and

kick and scream . . . whatever feels right to you.”

Audra chuckled. “Now, why on Earth would I

want to do all that?”

Shamiyah pointed to the ceiling, where Audra

could make out several recessed openings filled

with lenses and wires. “Because the
cameras
are

rolling, Audra . . . and of course, we’ll be recording

all your phone calls. That’s why we had to have a

phone list—and get the permissions signed by any

potential callers in advance. And camera crews will

accompany you on all your appointments, and of

course we’ll film the surgery as well. Pretty much

every move you make and every word you say will

be recorded for the next three months.”

Audra blinked at her. “Every move? Every word?”

Audra shook her head. “I’m not sure America needs

to hear every word I say. Some of them might be a

little . . .”

Shamiyah took Audra by both arms, staring her

hard in the face as though she were the mother and

Audra were a child. “You’re a student of the glory

days of film, Audra, so you ought to understand

what this is about—that’s one of the reasons they

picked
you. You need to give the people a
show
, girl.”

She gave Audra’s shoulders a determined little

shake. “Remember what I told you the first day we

met, about being willing to do anything for this

chance?” She waited until Audra gave her a single,

slow nod. “Then don’t edit yourself. Let yourself

be yourself. I’m counting on you.” She shrugged.

“Besides, you’ll forget about the cameras soon

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Karyn Langhorne

enough. Until you do, just try to pretend they aren’t

there.”

Audra nodded, tried to smile and cast a ner-

vous glance at the ceiling. Right now—at this very

moment—she was being recorded. Of course she

was, she’d known that from the beginning . . . but

the reality of it made her feel a little sick.

You’ve lost your marbles
. Those had been Edith’s

parting words. And right now, it felt like her mother

might just be right.

“You’ve got Dr. Jamison in”—Shamiyah glanced

at her watch—“about an hour. The skin stuff is really

important—it’s a great visual effect—so you’ll have

a lot of sessions with him.” Shamiyah squeezed her

shoulders in a quick hug. “I’ve got to go, but the car

service will take you there and bring you back—in

fact, they’ll get you to all your appointments. I’ll let

you freshen up a bit,” she said gathering up her

purse and notebook. “You smell like New York.”

“Hmm.”

Dr. Jamison put a finger on either side of her

cheeks and turned her face from right profile to left.

“Hmm,” he said again, releasing her. He stepped

away from her, stroking his chin and staring at her

like an artist contemplating a masterpiece gone seri-

ously awry.

Audra tried to forget the bright light being shined

over them, and the presence of the two men—one

resting a heavy-looking camera on his shoulder, the

other supporting the light—which was exactly what

she’d been instructed to do. Pretend they weren’t

there. Pretend she didn’t have a microphone taped

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177

to her back and that she was just sitting in the pri-

vacy of her doctor’s office having a heart-to-heart . . .

which was easy enough with the man frowning and

stroking his lips like she’d done something wrong.

Before she could stop herself, a nervous chuckle es-

caped from her lips and she’d wisecracked in her

best Bugs Bunny voice. “What’s up, Doc?”

If Dr. Jamison were amused in the slightest, it

didn’t show in his mien. His critical expression

didn’t change, nor did his continual chin stroking,

and still he said not a word. There was a lot about

him that reminded her of Art Bradshaw—his sparse

use of the English language, for one. But there was

no point of thinking about Bradshaw, she reminded

herself. No use at all . . .

“Yes, yes.” The doctor nodded. “It’s coming along

fine. I think you haven’t been taking my warnings

about sun exposure seriously enough—but now that

you’re here, we should be able to address that.”

“I don’t spend any time in the sun, Doc, I swear,”

Audra averred, raising her hand for an oath on an

imaginary stack of Bibles as if the gesture added in-

stant credibility. “And I switched to working nights,

so I could stay in days. And I wore hats, like you sug-

gested. See?” And she waved the floppy baseball

cap at him as proof.

Dr. Jamison fluttered his fingers dismissively.

“Not enough. The medication you’re taking de-

presses the melanin in your skin. Sun exposure aug-

ments it.” He frowned. “In order to get the full effect

of the medication, you must not just avoid the sun.

You have to consider it to be your enemy.”

Audra nodded. “Okay, so what do you want me to

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Karyn Langhorne

do? Hire someone to shade me under an umbrella

every time I step into the street?”

She’d thought he might laugh, might crack those

thin lips into something she might recognize as a

smile. But the doctor just blinked at her and said in a

calm, quiet deadpan way: “Yes. That would help. As

would a very wide-brimmed hat, along with a scarf

to cover the neck and gloves for the hands and

arms—”

“Gloves?”

The good doctor’s bushy gray brows shot up.

“Gloves. You must cover your arms and any other

part of your body exposed to sunlight. That is, if you

want to achieve the coloring we’ve discussed.” He

peered at her closely. “Is that still your intention?”

He seemed to almost be offering her the opportu-

nity to back out, to change her mind, to reconsider—

and in that instant a nervous fluttering of images

swarmed around her like bees. Her mother and Pe-

tra, Art Bradshaw and Penny. Esmeralda Prince and

Kiana’s Ugly Duckling book.

Audra swallowed hard. “What color will I be

when it’s over? Graham cracker brown?” She reached

into her duffel for the worn leather wallet and

pulled out a picture of Petra, little Kiana astride her

knee. The two of them grinned up at her like a two-