Diary of an Ugly Duckling (9 page)

thanks, Dad,” she hissed. “It’s bad enough we’re

throwing this stupid party in the first place, do you

have to humiliate me, too?”

She was nearly as tall as her father—at least five

foot eleven if not a full 6 feet—and as wide-

shouldered and muscular, without being fat, also

like her father. She had the man’s deep, amber eyes

and even, milk-chocolate skin, the kind of features

that would mature into a striking kind of female

handsomeness that would have its own admirers in

time. Audra couldn’t stop herself from thinking

how much she looked like her father, which pro-

bably would have been fine if the girl had been a

boy. Under the circumstances, however, Audra sus-

pected looking so much like Daddy might be a

problem.

“Audra Marks, my daughter, Penny Bradshaw.”

Audra hitched the yellow shawl over her shoul-

der again and fumbled with her tiny new purse,

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

67

pulling out the small wrapped box and stretching it

toward the girl. “Happy birthday.”

Penny Bradshaw blinked her light brown eyes at

Audra for a long second, then turned to her father,

shaking her head in dismay. “Oh, Dad,” she whined

in an utterly teenaged way. “Not
again
!”

Bradshaw’s frown deepened. “What are you—”

“I want to go home,” Penny announced, and

without so much as a “how do you do” she stomped

away from them, elbowing her way across the dance

floor and out of sight.

“And she calls other people rude,” Bradshaw

muttered under his breath, before giving Audra his

eyes for the brief second it took him to say, “Don’t

mind her. She’s sixteen.” He frowned toward the

ladies’ room, and kept his eyes in that direction as

he continued, “A drink?”

I want to go home, too
, Audra thought.
Right now. I

want to rip off this stupid top and the silly pointed high-

heeled shoes and—

“No, I can’t stay,” she said quickly, before the last

of her bravura evaporated and she melted into a

puddle of snuffling tears. “Silly me, I forgot I had a

prior engagement. A . . . friend of mine . . .” she con-

tinued conjuring a quick lie. “Bachelorette party.

Wild night ahead, you know?”

Art Bradshaw wasn’t listening. His head swung

from the hallway where the lovely Esmeralda Prince

had disappeared to the dance floor, where his

daughter had vanished from view. “Uh-huh,” he

muttered.

Audra’s heart sank like the
Titanic
, settling itself

somewhere near the pit of her stomach. She felt tired

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Karyn Langhorne

and sick and sad and lonelier than she could ever re-

member.

“I’ll just . . . put this . . . here,” she said, lowering

the birthday present to the table behind him.

Bradshaw sighed and swung his face toward

Audra.

“Sorry, Marks. She’s been acting like this ever

since Esmeralda showed up—”

“No problem,” Audra said, not wanting hear any

more about Esmeralda Prince than was strictly

necessary—especially since the only thing that re-

ally mattered about the woman was abundantly

clear from the expression of concern on Bradshaw’s

face—and the chick had only gone to the ladies’

room. Audra made her shoulders a little more

square and her upper lip a little stiffer than she felt.

“Good night, Bradshaw.” She made a perfect silver-

screen-star flounce door-ward, and even if he had

called out “Audra, wait!” romantic hero-style, she

would have been too far ahead to hear him.

“Nice meeting you, Penny.”

She was leaning against the wall, in the same spot

where the smoking girl had been, her sleeveless

brown arms crossed against the night’s chill. The

girl’s eyes met hers, as calm and steely as any a

grown rival’s.

“I wish I could leave,” she said.

“But it’s your party! Don’t you want to—?”

“These kids don’t like me. They laugh at me in the

halls. Call me Bigfoot. Sasquatch,” she said angrily,

but Audra could see tears glistening unshed in her

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

69

eyes. “Not one of the guys has even asked me

dance.” Her forehead crumpled. “I’m taller than

most of them, anyway. They’re just here to dance

and hang out.”

“Then why—”

“It was my father’s dumb idea. Same reason he in-

vited you. He actually thought it would help,” she

rolled her eyes. “But nothing helps. Nothing will

ever help,” she finished with teenaged drama.

Audra ignored it, her own dejection forgotten in

the girl’s self-indulgent revelations.

“I think it’s nice, your dad caring enough to

throw this bash for you,” she said slowly. “But what

do I have to do with it—?”

“Oh don’t pretend to be innocent!” The girl ex-

claimed. She inhaled as if gathering up all the attrib-

utes of her most grown-up self. “I know all about

this plan you and my father have cooked up.”

Audra blinked at her for a long second, recovering

from the pure shock of Penny Bradshaw’s accusa-

tions. Then she let her hand slip to her hip and shook

her head. “Look, sweetie. I’m not sure what you think

is happening here but—”

“I know
exactly
what’s happening here,” the girl

spat with teenaged venom. “You think you’re the

first ugly woman my father’s asked to ‘talk to me’?

You think this is the first time he’s invited one of

his homely co-workers or one of his ‘great person-

ality’ friends to meet me?” She shook her head.

“Please.”

Her words settled over Audra like a shroud.

Homely co-workers . . . “great personality” friends . . .

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Karyn Langhorne

“What—what are you talking about, Penny?” she

demanded.

“The minute I saw you, I knew he was doing it

again,” Penny continued, almost as though she

hadn’t heard Audra’s question. “Trying to find me

someone to talk to about being a big, ugly giant. A

tenth-grade freak on the road to becoming a grown-

up freak—”

Audra’s heart stilled, stopped.
Homely co-workers . . .

“great personality” friends . . . Talk to my daughter
, he’d

asked her
. Talk to my
—

“I—I don’t believe your father thinks you’re a

freak—” she stammered in a tiny, uncertain voice.

Penny didn’t hear it. “Of course not. He’s my fa-

ther! He has to say that I’m beautiful—but I know

what he really thinks,” Penny railed on to the night,

seeming barely aware of Audra standing beside her

in her rage. “I know, because he keeps introducing

me to the ugliest women he can find!” Her eyes

found Audra’s, no longer hard with fury but wet

with unshed tears. “Women like you.”

It felt like the last straw—the last brick—bringing

down any remaining illusions Audra had about her-

self.
Ugly, ugly, ugly
. . . the word was coming at her

from all sides now . . . and there were no movie-

queen lines, no quips or character to erase it. That

was the reason she was here tonight. That was the

reason, of all the women in the prison, Art Brad-

shaw had invited her. It had nothing to do with her

sense of humor, the things they seemed to have in

common or even her sterling character. It was just a

matter of being the ugliest woman in the prison—

the ugliest woman he could find.

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

71

Fatigue, sudden and exhausting, settled over her

like a garbage bag, hot, stifling.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Penny Bradshaw

asked, suddenly grasping Audra’s arm.

Audra shook her head, not trusting her voice. A

lifetime of hurt, loneliness and pain seemed lodged

in her throat. Penny’s image swam in her wet eyes

and Audra thought she read in them the echoes of

her own pain.

“God . . . I’m sorry . . . I thought . . .” Penny whis-

pered. “Oh my God . . . you
like
him, don’t you?

And he didn’t tell you—about Esmeralda or—

anything?”

Audra cleared her throat, willing herself to

speech. “No.”

“It’s not quite like it seems. My dad isn’t a bad

guy, but—” the girl sighed. “He’s a
guy.
You and I

both know how they are. Niceness and goodness

and smartness don’t matter. If you’re pretty, you can

be a bitch,” she said, anger snaking beneath the

words. “You can be dumb as dirt, mean-spirited,

hurt people—and still, you’ll never be alone.” She

shook her head. “No one cares about what you’ve got

going on the inside—at least not until they like the

package on the outside. Forget character: the thing to

do is pretty up, like they say on TV. Pretty up by any

means necessary. My dad doesn’t get that—because

it’s different for him, being a man and all. But for a

girl . . . for a woman . . .” she sighed, as world-

weary as any sixty-year-old. “I’m sorry, Officer

Marks. I’m sure you’re a nice lady . . . but I don’t

want to be anything like you. Not ever.”

Penny shuddered, whether from the cold or from

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Karyn Langhorne

the words she’d spoken or the thought of being like

Audra, Audra didn’t know. But with a quickly mut-

tered, “goodbye,” she disappeared back inside the

restaurant, leaving Audra very much alone.

Chapter 6

“My God, Audra! Do you have any idea what

time—”

Audra ignored her mother, thrust her arm deeper

into the junk-food cabinet and swept a four-pack of

mini-puddings, a canister of potato chips and two

bags of cookies into the waiting garbage bag with a

single swipe.

She knelt on the kitchen floor in her bra, the but-

ton at the waist of her tight black pants loose, her

new yellow chiffon top in a puddle on the floor be-

side the spikey high heels.

“What on earth are you doing?” her mother de-

manded, standing over her in her bathrobe, her

hairdo now concealed under a colorful do-rag.

“What does it look like?” Audra snapped, crawl-

ing deeper into the cabinet. “I’m going on a diet.

Again. Are you happy now?” She pulled out a small

bag of Halloween candy she’d forgotten was back

there. She dumped it into the waiting plastic bag

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Karyn Langhorne

along with a half-eaten box of ancient crackers and

then rose, letting the cabinet door slam.

“You’re gonna wake Kiana—”

“I’m not gonna wake Kiana, Ma,” Audra said

tightly. She moved around the kitchen, opening

doors and drawers, pulling out a bottle of chocolate

syrup here and a package of marshmallows there

until the garbage bag was too heavy to hold any

more. She let it slip to the floor and turned toward

Edith, breathing hard with her efforts.

Her mother stared at her. For a brief time the two

women considered each other, then Edith shook her

head.

“So, I’m guessing it didn’t go well with your

Bradshaw,” she said in a tone that suggested she

was trying very hard not to sound smug and failing

miserably. “I don’t want to say ‘I told you so’—”

“Then don’t,” Audra snapped, dragging the

garbage bag toward the front door.

“That’s just how men are, Audra,” her mother

continued, following her. “It’s not that they’re not

interested in the rest of the package, but they appre-

ciate the efforts we make on the outside—”

Esmeralda Prince rose like a vision in Audra’s

mind. Art Bradshaw appreciated the outside, all

right. That much was very, very clear.

Audra opened the front door, dragged the

garbage bag of junk food out into the corridor and

slammed the door on it like it was an unwelcome

guest. Edith shook her head.

“So you’re going on a diet. Again. Do you have to

make such a production out of everything? After

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

75

you lose a few pounds and do something with your

hair, there’ll be plenty of men—”

Audra whirled on her, angry words rising in her

throat as she stared into her attractive cinnamon

face.

“Will there, Ma? Is that all it takes—twenty

pounds and a hair weave?” she gestured at herself,

bra and all. “Look at me, Ma. When is the last time I

had a date, huh?”

“Back when you were in criminal justice school, I

think,” her mother frowned calling up a memory.

“Nice boy. Leon or Larry or something—”

“Lamont,” Audra said bitterly. Her mother

couldn’t keep track of the names of the people in a

conversation about today, but she could get within a

few syllables of the name of a rotten jerk she’d had

one date with years ago. “And he wasn’t so nice,

Ma. You know why he went out with me? To win a

competition with his buddies. A competition over

who could sleep with the ugliest girl.”

Edith sighed a sigh that suggested Audra should

have known better. “Well, he was really handsome,