twelfth woman made over on Ugly Duckling . . . and
every single one of her predecessors had been re-
quired, as she was, to sit down for twice-weekly
meetings with this body-image shrink. If anything,
this woman should have been an old hand at being
on TV and acting like she wasn’t at the same time.
Dr. Goddard crossed her legs again, glanced at
the camera nervously and picked at the fabric of her
black slacks before flipping her notebook open and
fixing her eyes back on Audra. “So . . . Audra,” she
began again.
“Relax, Doc,” Audra joked. “I’m sure they’ll make
you look great.”
The woman smiled. “It’s not that.” She rolled her
eyes. “At least, it’s not just that,” she admitted,
chuckling a little. “It’s . . . well, I’ve been studying
body image for twenty years. And to be honest, in
my prior works, I’ve never really addressed the is-
sues that affect women of color. I’ve been doing a
great deal of reading and research to prepare for my
sessions with you . . . and I’m hoping that I can be of
help, without being”—she hesitated—“offensive in
any way to . . . uh . . . your brothers and sisters of
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color.” She offered Audra another nervous smile.
“The last thing I want to do is come off as patroniz-
ing or unsympathetic when this is such a delicate
topic. So if, I say something . . . you know . . .
wrong . . . I’d really appreciate it if you’d correct me.”
“Uh . . . yeah,” Audra agreed, not certain of ex-
actly what that meant, or what she was supposed
to do.
But with that agreement, the doctor’s face became
serious and the last of her nervousness seemed to
drain away. She clicked her elegant black pen into
working order and zeroed in on Audra with target-
shooter eyes.
“So . . . Audra,” she began a third time, and this
time Audra heard the shift in her voice. Whatever
had come before was prelude, but this sentence was
the real thing. “When exactly did you start to hate
your skin tone?”
Audra’s mouth fell open. “What?”
“You know, when did you look in the mirror and
decide, “I’m too black.”
“Never,” Audra shook her head vehemently, feel-
ing her anger rising. “I never even thought about
lightening my skin until I came here.”
“I find that difficult to believe, Audra,” the
woman said. “In your audition tape, you called
yourself fat, black and ugly repeatedly . . . and in-
deed compared to our American standards of
beauty, you’re quite different from what our culture
considers to be the ideal.” She pushed her glasses
higher up her nose and peered at Audra knowingly.
“In my readings about black American culture,
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183
there does seem to be historical preference toward
lighter skin tones and straight hair dating back to
the days of the Reconstruction, when it was some-
what easier for lighter-skinned blacks to assimilate
than darker-skinned ones. And even earlier, to slav-
ery. The conflicts between the ‘house negro’ versus
‘field negro’—correct?”
Audra stared at the woman, too stunned by what
she was hearing to speak.
“I know that black women are usually more satis-
fied with their body image than white or Latin
women . . . at least as far as issues like weight go. But
the skin-color issue is a very different image factor.”
“Oh, really?” Audra muttered, not bothering to
conceal her sarcasm. “Don’t tell me we’se going
back to the plantation now, is we boss?”
“Well, yes, we are.” Dr. Goddard smiled a profes-
sional little smile. “Darker skin was associated with
ignorance and poverty, lighter skin with education
and affluence. Fairer-skinned women were quite
sought after—at least until the 1970s and the Black
Power movement,” Dr. Goddard continued, sound-
ing like she was dictating a chapter of her latest
with a certain comeliness, but their darker compan-
ions are not. I’m assuming that’s why you want the
lightening—to be perceived differently. Would that
be correct? Have you incorporated the negative ste-
reotypes of dark skin? And what was the first mem-
ory you have of being told something negative about
your dark skin tone?”
As long as I can remember, as long as I’ve been
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alive . . . a voice whispered in the back of her brain,
but Audra silenced it with a blink, assumed some
Foxy Brown and snapped back, “All I remember be-
ing told is that black is beautiful, baby.”
Dr. Goddard seemed unfazed by the attitude.
“Which, of course, is true,” she agreed. “But you know
what I think?” The shrink leaned toward her and
placed a gentle hand on Audra’s knee. “I think a long
time ago, someone said something. Something you
carry deep in your heart to this very day. And you
know what else? Whatever other reasons you might
have had for joining us on Ugly Duckling, I think
there’s a part of you that wanted to do this show be-
cause you know it’s time to get rid of that image of
yourself. You want to erase it in any way you can.”
A flood of pictures and voices filled Audra’s
brain. She was nine again, overhearing her father’s
“she ain’t mine”; she was fourteen, enduring the
merciless teasing of teenage boys and girls alike;
she was twenty, in the criminal justice program and
the ultimate “dog date” candidate; it was three
months ago, and inmates were whispering “dude
with breasts” in voices too loud to be considered
talking behind her back. It was last week, and Art
Bradshaw was looking over her shoulder rather
than directly into her eyes.
These were embarrassing things, private things.
They weren’t things she could just blurt out, with
cameras rolling, to a psychiatrist she’d only met
once before.
“Uh-oh, sounds like a personal problem to me,” she
quipped instead. “Wrong for the show. Not at all en-
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
185
tertaining.”
Dr. Goddard’s lips lifted in another small smile.
“I’ve worked with many women with terrible self-
images, Audra. And a good number of them develop
ways to compensate—sometimes overcompensate—
for what they perceive to be missing. Some women
work hard to be extra ‘nice,’ extra helpful. Others
concentrate on being wildly successful. Their promi-
nence or money becomes their shield.” Her eyes
found Audra’s. “And some women us
e humor. Their
weapon against the hurt is being the jolly fat woman
or the prankster or the clown.” The good doctor
shrugged. “Some women also escape . . . into nov-
els, movies. They create a beautiful fantasy life,
imagining themselves to be Halle, or Joan or Bette.
But it’s still a shield. A way to hide the hurt.” She
raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
The woman’s words resonated, buzzed and
echoed inside her as though all of her thoughts
and feelings had evaporated, leaving her hollow
and empty. The room was suddenly too warm, too
crowded, too small. Audra forced her lips into a
smile. “I think . . .” she began, striving for lightness,
for cheerfulness, and all the while feeling as if her
mask of certainty and competence had slipped be-
yond easy repair. “It’s not the sort of thing a funny
woman—who would like to stay that way—would
talk about on national television.”
Dr. Goddard must have practiced her piercing
stare for hours in front of a mirror somewhere, be-
cause she had that sucker down pat. She focused her
super high beams on Audra with the expression of
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Karyn Langhorne
one who would not be denied. “Unless, of course,
that woman was ready to lay those feelings aside . . .
and become an inspiration to millions of women in
the process.” She glanced at her watch, closed her
notebook and sighed. “Think about it. That’s all for
today . . . We’ll talk day after tomorrow.”
It was like living in The Odd Couple: Dr. Bremmar’s
upbeat-and-smiley-little-man routine, his white lab
coat neatly buttoned to reveal a blue dress shirt and
tasteful red tie; Dr. Koch his polar opposite:
grouchy, sloppy, frowning and sipping at a cup of
coffee as he stared at Audra through eyes so bleary
that Audra wondered if he’d just crawled in from a
wild night on the town.
The humiliation of another examination was
over—an examination that had basically amounted
to Audra standing pretty much naked in a sterile
room, with a silent nurse for female company, while
the two men took turns making marks on her body
with a purple pen as though she were their very
own living canvas . . . which of course, in a way, she
was. From time to time, one or the other of them
would direct a question in Audra’s direction, or ask
her to lift her arms or turn around. But for the most
part, their conversation sounded like the pages of a
medical textbook.
Audra stared down at her own body. In the places
where the sun never shone, her skin was far lighter
than in the places presented to the world, giving her
an odd two-tone appearance. Dr. Jamison was right:
There was work to be done. Whether it was for this
reason, or because of her near nakedness, the cam-
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
187
eras weren’t allowed in the room . . . and this was
something for which Audra found herself deeply
grateful.
But as soon as the examination was over, there
were the cameras again, stationed in Dr. Brem-
mar ’s office, already in position to record the dis-
cussions to come. There was no conversation at all
for the time it took for each of them to be fitted with
a microphone—both docs submitted to the proce-
dure like old pros—and no conversation while
Dr. Koch and Audra took seats behind the desk, as
though this were just another doctor-client pow-
wow. Dr. Bremmar stood, leaning against the cor-
ner of his desk, the better to gesture toward another
computer screen showing front and rear images of
Audra in a pair of gray workout shorts and tight-
fitting Jogbra.
“We’re scheduling your first surgery for Friday,”
Dr. Bremmar was saying, bouncing slightly on his
toes, as though the prospect were the most exciting
thing to have happened to him in weeks—perhaps
months. And as if his body language weren’t enough,
he actually said the words, “Your case presents some
fascinating challenges and opportunities and I have
to tell you, I’m very, very excited about it. Both of us,
right, Dr. Koch?”
Dr. Koch muttered something that sounded like
an affirmative and took a loud slurp of coffee, star-
ing first at Audra, then toward the cameras.
“Because of the variety of procedures to be per-
formed, we’ve decided to stretch them out over sev-
eral days. We’ll begin with the liposuction. First I
have to tell you how pleased we are with your
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Karyn Langhorne
weight loss and”— he turned toward the cameras a
little, as though offering his next comment specifi-
cally for their benefit—“with the restructuring
we’ll perform surgically, when you lose the remain-
ing weight after the procedure, you should see
some dramatic changes in the shape of your body.”
He nodded a bit as though satisfied with himself,
grinned big and fixed his attention fully on Audra
again. “We’ll do the legs, tummy and hips first.
Dr. Koch will perform that surgery. Then the fol-
lowing day, he’ll begin work on the breasts and up-
per arms. Then finally, we’ll do the face: nose, chin,
cheekbones, eyes.” He stretched a forefinger lov-
ingly toward her face, as though already imagining
the finished project. “You’ll be under general anes-
thesia for each procedure and there will be some
risks associated with the process, you understand.
But there are greater risks with trying to perform
this many complex procedures simultaneously, so
all in all, we think breaking the surgery into seg-
ments is the smartest protocol, isn’t that right,
Koch?”
Another grunt.
“In all the procedures, we’ll work to disguise
any scarring that might occur by working with the
natural folds of the skin. We’re counting on your
continuing . . . uh . . . therapies . . . with Dr. Jamison
to further prevent any other dark scarring in the
process, but it’s still a risk. Now, do you have any
questions for us?”
Audra blinked at them. Three days of surgeries.
Three days under the knife . . .
“You want to do three separate surgeries . . . in
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
189
three days,” she repeated slowly.
Dr. Bremmar nodded. “Actually, we’ll do several
different surgeries on each of the days. But basically,
that’s right. But don’t worry. We’ve done this sort of
thing before. Not often, of course. But given the time
constraints of the show—”
It sounded like a hustle, a con. It sounded like
something an inmate would say to shift responsibil-
ity or conceal the truth. An inmate . . . or
a child.
“How long would you take to do that much sur-
gery if there were no . . . time constraints?”
Dr. Bremmar’s smile slipped. “Uh . . . well . . . it
would vary, depending on the patient and schedul-
ing and uh . . .”
“I’d wait at least six months. If there were no show.
But like he said, we’ve done it before. With good re-
sults,” Dr. Koch interjected in a flat monotone of a
voice, then took another sip of his coffee and looked
at them as though he’d never spoken at all.
“Very good results,” Dr. Bremmar seconded.
“I’m sure,” Audra murmured.
“Of course, there’s greater patient discomfort
when multiple surgeries are performed in quick suc-
cession—” Dr. Koch began.
“Sometimes,” Dr. Bremmar corrected, as though
this were an important distinction.
“Sometimes,” Dr. Koch agreed.
“Discomfort, huh?” Audra rolled her eyes.
“Sometimes, huh?” She shook her head. “Come on,
guys. You can’t kid a kidder, all right? What you’re
really saying is that this is going to hurt like hell,
right?”
The two doctors exchanged a glance, and Audra
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Karyn Langhorne
waited, expecting their insistent denial. But to her
surprise, Dr. Koch broke into a deep-throated laugh
and Dr. Bremmar’s ubiquitous smile spread wider
across his face.
“Pretty much,” Dr. Koch said.
“You betcha,” Dr. Bremmar agreed. “Any other
questions?”
“I wasn’t expecting you.” Audra held the door
open wider so that Shamiyah could enter the small
apartment. It had to be close to midnight, and in-
stead of being shocked or disturbed by the sound
of the doorbell, Audra felt an unexpected relief.
She was used to the noise of life in an apartment
filled with the drama that was her mother. By com-
parison this space was lonely, empty. “I was just
considering shutting off the TV and going to
bed—”
“Sorry. This won’t take long.” Shamiyah sank
onto the foot of the bed and lay back, kicking off her
strappy black sandals with a sigh. “That feels good.
I’m beat, I tell you, beat.”
“But you came by just to see how your favorite
Ugly Duckling was adjusting?” Audra lay the back
of her hand against her forehead and gave her a
sappy, Hollywood diva-style sigh. “How touch-
ing.”