Diary of an Ugly Duckling (27 page)
lightening or her parentage—“being the family ugly
duckling. And . . .” She sighed. “I’m not much of a
writer, Bradshaw. Or a feeler if you want to know
the truth.”
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Karyn Langhorne
“Not all that crazy about it myself,” he offered af-
ter another of his signature pauses. “When you’re a
guy of my size, people think you’re invincible. A big
block of flesh that don’t feel nothing. They say all
kinds of things, act all kinds of ways, because you’re
supposed to be so big . . . so tough . . .” He paused
for a long moment, as though reliving a memory he
chose not to relate. “Bought that bullshit myself for a
long time. Too long. But the truth is, I’m human too.”
Another silence, but this time, Audra heard hesita-
tion in the pause, as though he were looking for the
words to say something he wasn’t sure would be
well received. “I’ve heard some of the things people
say about you. You’d have to be deaf to miss them,”
he muttered in a low voice. “And I can understand
why you want to do what you’re doing. So you won’t
have to feel that hurt anymore. But people say nasty
things about all kinds of people: big ones because
they’re big . . . fat ones because they’re fat . . . beauti-
ful ones because they’re beautiful, ugly ones because
they’re ugly. Point is, you’re gonna get your share of
hurt from other people one way or the other . . . and
you got to learn to deal with it.”
The dude was more than just handsome . . . He was
deep, Audra decided. And since she was protected by
miles and miles and miles, she felt completely com-
fortable saying, “Thank you, Dr. Bradshaw.”
This time the pause at the other end of the phone
stretched and expanded into something almost
large enough to have a life of its own. Audra felt
something palpable taking shape between them,
something that might mean something. Something
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
223
exciting and different. Something world-changing
and terrifying.
“Whistle if you need me,” he rumbled, a bit of a
sexy chuckle in his voice. “You know how to whis-
tle, don’t you, Marks? You pucker up and blow.”
July 15
Dear Petra,
I hope you’re okay. I’m not sure I am. They tell me I’m
depressed . . . I guess I am. Maybe I just miss my
sister. I miss home. I even miss Ma.
Be careful out there,
Audra
“So what color are you now?”
Edith’s voice had a familiar edge to it, like
she was trying to sound like she was joking, when
almost anyone with half a brain would be able to
tell a joke was the last thing on her mind. Audra
closed her eyes and pictured her: dramatic eyeliner
and lipstick, her hair in some fashionable, youthful
style.
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225
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Audra shot
back, trying not to grunt in pain as she resettled her-
self on the bed. Reaching for the phone had been an
uncomfortable stretch that jangled all the nerve end-
ings in her torso, but to admit to pain would give
Edith ammunition that Audra didn’t want her to
have. “It’s two in the afternoon. Aren’t you sup-
posed to be at the salon?”
“I am,” her mother replied. “But I own the joint,
remember? I can take a break if I want to and make
a few phone calls. Besides, I got something to tell
you. About Petra.”
A tingly feeling of anxiety coursed from Audra’s
stomach to her mouth, drying up every bit of mois-
ture between them.
“You heard from her? You got through?” she stut-
tered over a tongue that felt like a dead leaf. “Is she
all right? Michael, too?”
“She called,” Edith said, sounding bright and re-
lieved. “She’s all right. Michael, too. Her detail’s on
the move, that’s why she hasn’t been able to write.
They’re going to be manning a new supply sta-
tion.”
Audra exhaled relief and inhaled a breath of fresh
suspicion. Edith thought she was a decent actress,
but Audra knew every nuance of her mother’s voice
too well to be fooled.
“A new supply station?” she repeated. “Where?”
“I don’t remember,” her mother lied.
“You don’t honestly expect me to buy that, do
you, Ma? You and I both know you memorize every
word Petra says! Now tell me where the new supply
station—”
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Karyn Langhorne
“Well, I wasn’t sure you’d want to know, consider-
ing you’re out there in California trying to change
yourself
into
your sister. I thought you might be more
worried about how much you weigh, or the shape of
your nose or whether your skin tone is closer to cof-
fee or toffee—”
“Nice try, Ma. If we were talking about anything
other than Petra, I might be distracted by those
insults. But I love her, too, Ma, so I’m just going
to have let all that bullshit slide.” Audra sighed.
A pounding headache started behind her eyes, a
headache she would have liked to have blamed on
the healing pressure of her face-lift, were she not
certain its cause was a certain attractive hairstylist
on the isle of Manhattan. “Now, where’s the new
supply station? Where’s Petra now?”
“Well . . .” Edith dawdled. “I
think
she said a camp
set up in the southern part of the country—”
“Fallujah,” Audra said, feeling the hairs rising on
the backs of her arms. “Is that where she is? Fallu-
jah?”
Thousands of miles away, Edith heaved a little
sigh that Audra knew instantly signaled the affir-
mative. “Shit,” she muttered, knowing fully well
that the Iraqi city was one known for violence and a
high number of U.S. casualties. “Shit.”
“She said she’s fine,” Edith continued quickly,
covering her own concerns with annoyance at Au-
dra’s reaction. “No need to panic. She’s fine. She
even said to tell you her superior officer got a call
from that girl—Shamya—”
“Shamiyah.”
“That’s the one. About her coming home for the
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show. She said she’d email you as soon as they get
the infrastructure set up.”
Infrastructure.
Audra nodded to herself. That was
a word straight from Petra’s mouth,
infrastructure
.
Army-speak.
“Thanks, Ma.” Audra sighed, feeling a week’s
worth of tension drain from her body in a single
breath.
Her mother didn’t reply right away, and when she
did, she took the conversation in a different direc-
tion altogether: “I guess I should start getting ready,
shouldn’t I?”
“Ready? Ready for what?”
“I ain’t stupid, Audra. You’re up there, erasing
yourself, erasing me and your father and our entire
family—”
“I’m not erasing you, Ma,” Audra told her. “I’m
going to look more like you, not less. And as for my
father, it’s kind of hard to erase someone when
you’re not sure who he
is
—”
“His name is Andrew Neill.” Her mother blurted
out the name in a tumbled rush of syllables. “An-
drew Neill. Not James Marks.”
Audra caught her breath. “Ma,” she began in a low
voice. “You know this call is being recorded . . .”
“His name is Andrew Neill . . . or it was. He’s
dead now. Been dead, almost as long as you’ve been
alive.”
The words stretched around Audra like a swath of
cotton, swaddling close, blocking out light and air.
“Ma—” she began again.
“He was a good man . . . a good man,” her
mother ’s voice rose, defensive and angry. “And
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Karyn Langhorne
you are so much like him. If he’d lived, I would
have left James Marks—I would have left Petra’s
father for him and you would have known him,
Audra. Then maybe you’d be proud to look like
him.”
“I look like him?” Audra repeated. “He’s where
the dark skin and bumpy nose come from—”
Edith sighed.
“All these years every time I looked in your
face . . . I could remember . . . you don’t know how
many times I looked at you and felt—felt—”
“Ashamed?” Audra muttered. “That’s what I read
in your face over and over, time and time again
every since I was a child.” Audra heard her voice ris-
ing and swallowed hard, struggling to keep it down.
“And you know something else, Mama? I’d bet
every cent I’ll ever have that we wouldn’t even be
having this conversation if it weren’t for this sur-
gery . . . if it weren’t for
Ugly Duckling
. You’d have
been happy to keep staring at me like you didn’t
know where I came from—like you wished I’d never
been born—”
“Not true, Audra.”
“Then why now, Mama? Why
now
?”
From the other end of the phone, a long painful
silence, but no words. Audra felt her anger crest and
subside in that silence, making her insides hollow
and dry, as though every drop of feeling inside her
had been wrung out.
“That girl Shamiyah. She said they need it to help
you. That you need it to . . . move on. She said they’ll
keep it confidential . . .” Edith continued. “I been
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229
thinking a lot. And maybe I should have told you a
long time ago, but I didn’t. I thought it was for the
best.” Her voice had an edge of nastiness to it as she
said, “I suppose now you blame me.”
“Well, who else is there?”
“Fine, then, blame me,” Edith said tersely. “But
while you’re blaming me, you ought to under-
stand. It’s not so simple. I was a young woman
with two little girls. In the time James Marks and
I stayed together I was able to get this salon up and
running. Provide for you two. That’s something,
isn’t it?”
Questions swirled in Audra’s mind by the
dozens: angry questions, sad questions, practical
questions, dumb questions. But before she could
stammer out the first of them, her mother muttered,
“Shit, my customer’s here. I told that girl Shamiyah
I won’t be coming out there. You do what you gotta
do. I don’t need to see it,” and Audra could hear her
proclaiming to someone in the distance, “Well, girl,
I know why you’re early. Your head is a
mess
—”
then the connection was severed and Audra was
alone with the information she’d waited a lifetime
to hear.
“Andrew Neill.” Bradshaw repeated the man’s
name slowly. “That’s it? That’s all you know? Just
his name?”
“That’s it.” Audra repeated.
She wasn’t sure why, but he was the first person
she’d called.
“This is pretty heavy, Marks,” he began.
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Karyn Langhorne
“I guess that’s not even my name,” Audra inter-
rupted, trying to laugh it off. “My name should
probably be Neill, too . . .” She stopped, her voice
faltering. She was silent for a long moment, trying
to master herself and failing. Tears slipped from
her eyes and rolled unchecked down her face.
Art Bradshaw seemed to know what was going
on. For the longest time, he didn’t say a word, and
in a way, his silence just made it worse. Audra
dabbed at her face, still bandaged at the brow
and around the chin, her nose still packed with cot-
ton. She snuffed in a ragged breath through her
mouth and muttered, “I’m sorry,” in a shattered
voice.
“It’s okay,” he murmured and Audra heard the
words as license to sob in earnest.
“I don’t understand her,” she stammered. “How
she can just drop this on me . . . then go and do
some woman’s
hair
”—she gave a wild chuckle—
“Have you ever heard anything like it?”
“Beats any movie I’ve ever seen.”
“You got
that
right.” Audra sniffed, struggling to
bring herself under control. “Of course, they pretty
much didn’t do story lines like this back in the thir-
ties and forties. I think that’s one of the reasons I
like those movies so much . . . Everything was so . . .
squeaky clean.”
“This isn’t your fault . . . uh . . . Audra.” Bradshaw
sounded uncomfortable in a way Audra hadn’t ex-
pected. Not with the information, but with her pain.
Like he wished he were closer or something. “Might
not be hers, either. Your father—at least the man you
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thought was your father—he doesn’t sound like
much of a guy if he walked out on you guys all those
years ago.”
“He did . . . and he wasn’t. I—I—always felt like
that was my fault, too . . .” Audra whispered, feeling
her fragile control slipping away again. “Like . . .
they might have stayed married . . . if only . . . if
only . . . I’d never . . . been born . . .”
And then the tears were there again, drowning
out any hope of speech. Audra covered her eyes