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
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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
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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.
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.
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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
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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
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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