Diary of an Ugly Duckling (6 page)

He hesitated again, and for a flash of a second,

Audra feared her mother might be right. After all,

he’d heard the inmates’ remarks—heard the litany

of
fat, black and ugly
—and he had eyes after all. For a

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

41

moment her mask of bravado slipped and she

wanted to cover herself head to toe like the Muslim

women in the foreign land where Petra was now

stationed.

“Uh . . . nothing,” he said. His eyes snapped back to

her face and Audra’s concerns were swept away again,

lost in those bright, honeyed orbs fringed by black

lashes. “I . . . uh . . .” he hesitated until Audra quirked

a curious eyebrow at him. “Forget Haines,” he offered

in his clipped, not-a-single-unnecessary-word way.

John Wayne
, Audra thought.
He talks like John Wayne.

“Warden’s right: be cleared up in a few days.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt him—”

“You’re a tough woman. Strong,” Bradshaw said

with a nod.

“Is that a good thing . . . or a bad one?” Audra

laughed, rolling her eyes girlishly.

Bradshaw considered for a long time before reply-

ing, “Good. If you’re a corrections officer,” in a tone

as serious as if she’d asked him to opine on death.

“Which you are.”

Audra stared at him, parsing through the words

fifteen different ways before she decided to just

mark it down as a compliment and move on. She

gazed up into Bradshaw’s eyes, a grin spread over

her face like margarine on burnt toast, and he

stared back, looking unsettled and nervous, like he

was waiting for something to happen and wasn’t

sure it would. They stared at each other a good ten

seconds past the comfortable point as Audra

racked her brain, trying to think of just one of the

clever lines she’d practiced all night—just one fa-

mous movie quip or quote to fill the space—but

42

Karyn Langhorne

now that he was standing right in front of her, it

was as if she’d never seen a movie in her life. But it

didn’t matter. Stupid and awkward as she felt,

there was a part of her that would have happily

stayed rooted to this spot, staring at Bradshaw and

dreaming that Fred-and-Ginger ballroom dream

all over again.

As if reading her thoughts, Bradshaw opened his

mouth.

“Do you like parties?” he blurted out in a rush of

words.

Yes!
Audra’s soul jumped to her throat, dancing,

and she had to struggle to keep her feet from joining

it. A prayer of gratitude sprang to her lips and she

imagined herself sauntering home just as fat, black

and ugly as she’d left it, and dropping this piece of

news on her mother’s dinner plate.

“You really came through, Bradshaw, you know

that?” she murmured, beaming at him. “I knew you

were different. I just knew it—”

Bradshaw blinked at her in surprise. “What?”

“Forget it,” Audra said quickly. Calling upon the

ghosts of dead divas, she cocked her head and met

his gaze with an expression she hoped said some-

thing sassy and seductive at the same time. “What

did you have in mind?”

He hesitated a little, a puzzled expression gleam-

ing out of those honey-colored eyes. “Having a little

get together. Saturday. For my daughter. Sweet six-

teen.”

Daughter?

“Oh . . .” Audra said, feeling a little like she’d

been doused in cold water. “I—I didn’t know you

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

43

had a daughter that old. I guess you and your

wife—”

“Not married . . . and I was a father young. Too

young.” They stared at each other again, each ap-

parently waiting for the other, until he said, “You’ll

come?” he asked sounding suddenly urgent. “I was

hoping you’d . . . talk to her.”

Talk to his daughter?
Audra frowned. “You want

me to talk to your daughter
?
About what?”

Art Bradshaw’s amber eyes gleamed down at her.

“Girl stuff. The stuff girls have to deal with,” he fin-

ished hurriedly, as if just naming the things girls

had to deal with were too much for him.

Audra shook her head. “This sounds like a job for

her mother—”

“No,” Bradshaw’s voice sharpened to dangerous.

“No help there.”

“Is it just the two of you?”

“Just the two.” He hesitated a moment, then

stepped closer to her, filling the space between them

with warmth and heat. “So you’ll come? Saturday.

Eight o’clock—”

Audra was almost swept away by the despera-

tion radiating in his handsome face, while movie

titles flickered through a mental catalogue in her

brain. There were dozens of mother-daughter

films—but father-daughter? The only one that came

to mind was
Father of the Bride
. . . and that hardly

suited the circumstance Bradshaw was describing.

Audra shook her head. This was sounding less like

a date and more like a babysitting gig with every

second . . .

“She wanted a party,” Bradshaw said suddenly,

44

Karyn Langhorne

sounding almost as though he were talking to him-

self. “A fancy one. To help make friends.”

“I seriously doubt your daughter wants me at her

party—”

“I want you there,” Bradshaw said and now those

lovely golden eyes fixed on her, igniting a fire inside

Audra that erased all of her questions and reserva-

tions. “I need you there, Marks,” he repeated and

Audra stared into those eyes, seeing herself re-

flected in their amber pools, not as fat, black and

ugly, but as a princess as lovely in the eye of the be-

holder as the swan in Kiana’s fairy tale.

“You . . . want
me
there?” she squeaked.

“You’ll come? Please?”

Audra nodded, transfixed by the image of herself

reflected in the man’s shining eyes.

“Sure,” she heard herself mumble. “Just name the

place—”

“Saturday night. Eight. Caverna—it’s a restaurant

in Brooklyn. She picked it. It’s sort of . . .” he gri-

maced like he tasted something sour, screwing his

gorgeous face into a wrinkled mush of lips and

nose. “Trendy,” he finished distastefully. “Hip.”

Audra smiled. Trendy, hip. Handsome, strong,

silent-type Art Bradshaw had just invited her to join

him at a trendy, hip club in Brooklyn, Audra

thought, skipping over the stuff about his daugh-

ter’s party or that there was something she was sup-

posed to talk to the girl about once there. The

unpleasantness with Haines was forgotten, as were

her own nagging feelings of doubt.

See, Ma
, she telegraphed her mother in her mind,

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

45

as she lifted her chin toward Bradshaw, batting her

eyes like a Hall of Famer.
Life can be like a movie . . .

“Hip, huh?” Audra put a hand on her upper thigh

and curled her lips into a Mae West smirk of a smile.

“I got plenty of hip, big boy. But what on Earth will I

wear?”

Chapter 4

“Something fancy and hip. Fancy and hip,” Au-

dra sang the words over and over like a

mantra, as she boarded the subway and squeezed

into the little space between a chunky, sour-faced sis-

ter who grimaced as though Audra had attacked her

and a white man who snapped his newspaper

around him like a shield. Audra ignored them both,

pushed Princeton Haines and the brutality charge to

the back corner of her mind, and whispered, “Some-

thing fancy, something hip,” softly to herself, hop-

ing for a vision.

Fancy
.

Hip
.

She had to keep saying the words to keep up her

courage to do what she had to do. It would take

courage to do this kind of shopping: the kind that

would require branching out of the safe world of

elastic-waist pants and loose sweatshirts in drab

solid colors. Because everyone knew “hip” meant

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

47

come-hither, form-fitting, and “fancy” meant color-

ful or sparkly or something more elaborate than the

everyday blacks, navy blues and grays. It meant—

for one evening—the chance to be a days-gone-by

diva, dressed to the nines, surrounded by gaiety and

laughter. It meant swishing about in too much costly

fabric, with glittering jewels in ears and on neck and

in hair while sipping highballs and making witty

repartee with Art Bradshaw, her captivated host. Au-

dra closed her eyes, letting the rocking train lull her

deeper into her dream until the hard subway bench

around her transformed into an elegant forties-style

divan, the clattering roll of the car’s wheels into the

tinkling of piano keys and clinking martini glasses,

and the aroma of sweaty bodies into the smell of cig-

arette smoke dense in the air. Audra imagined her-

self an Audrey Hepburn or a Grace Kelly, laughing a

throaty, worldly laugh as she tossed her head like a

princess and rearranged her gown like a woman

who had a closet full of party clothes at home and a

dozen places to wear them—

“Do you mind? You’re crushing me!” the sister

beside her hissed with some serious New York atti-

tude. “Can’t you”—she jabbed Audra in the side

with a pointy elbow—“move over”—another jab—

“a little?”

Audra opened her eyes to find herself in reality’s

living color once again. The woman beside her was

staring at her with an annoyed expression on her

face, and Audra saddled up her own ’tude, ready to

give back as good as she was getting. She took an-

other quick look at her adversary to make sure the

sister wasn’t packing something worse than a nasty

48

Karyn Langhorne

mouth and wicked set of elbows. But instead of see-

ing potential weapons, she found herself drawn to

what the woman had on her back.

The sister was a far cry from model skinny, but

she was beautifully dressed in a pair of chocolate

brown suede slacks and a pink cashmere sweater

that suited her body shape perfectly. Audra had to

stop herself from reaching out to caress the soft

fabrics.

She scooted a little closer to the newspaper-

reading man who scrunched a little deeper behind

his paper.

“Where do you shop?” Audra asked the sour-

faced sister.

“What?” The woman frowned up at her like she’d

asked her what color her underwear was.

“It’s just . . . you look very nice,” Audra told her,

smiling as if a smile proved she wasn’t a psycho

killer. “It looks like I’m going to a party tomorrow

night and I’ve got to find something trendy. Some-

thing hip,” she leaned toward the woman. “See, if it

were up to me, I’d go to some vintage store and try

to look like Ingrid Bergman in
Indiscreet
”—she

chuckled a little, like she and the stranger were shar-

ing an inside joke, but the woman just stared at her

blankly. “Well, anyway,” Audra continued, realizing

how ridiculous she sounded. “I thought I’d better

model myself after someone still alive”—the woman

blinked at her in alarm—“I mean, someone who’s

not in an old movie,” Audra corrected. “Someone

who looks
good
. And when you poked me just now, I

noticed your sweater, so I thought I would ask—”

“Marciella’s,” the woman replied, her face finally

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

49

relaxing out of its city-wise, don’t-mess-with-me

game face into a kindness that softened her features

and made her much prettier than Audra had origi-

nally thought. “It’s a little boutique on Madison, be-

tween Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth.”

“Marciella’s,” Audra repeated, wondering if she

should write it down. “Madison and Thirty-fifth.”

The woman nodded, a pleased smile spreading

over her face. She wasn’t really so sour-faced after

all, Audra decided. “Great stuff. Pricey,” she warned,

wagging a manicured finger at Audra. “Very pricey.

But it’s really classy stuff. You won’t meet yourself

coming and going.”

“Pricey, huh?” The word resonated in Audra’s

mind. Combined with the words
Madison Avenue

and
boutique
, Audra couldn’t help but feel this

woman’s shopping budget went way beyond her

own. She wanted to follow up with “How pricey?”

but bit back the question.
If I have to, I’ll spend it
, she

told herself firmly.
But I’ll try the cheaper stores first.

After all, Art Bradshaw had invited her to a

party . . . and all was right with the world.

“The next station stop is . . . Thirty-fourth Street,”

the automated conductor announced in its soul-less

voice. Audra thanked her new friend and rose to

leave the train, freeing up a considerable amount of

seating space in the process.

“Fancy and hip, fancy and hip,” Audra sang aloud,