lowed. “I just wanted to tell you . . . in case some-
thing happens to me—”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you. Nothing’s go-
ing to happen to you or Petra—”
“In case something happens to me,” Audra re-
peated loudly, drowning out her mother’s words,
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“that there’s a little document box under my bed—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know about the box under your
bed.”
Audra frowned. “How do you know about it?”
There was an uncomfortable silence, then her
mother said, “I found it when I was . . . cleaning . . .
one day.”
“You haven’t cleaned my room since I was thir-
teen, Ma,” Audra said skeptically. “Now what were
you doing—”
“Okay, okay,” Edith sounded annoyed. “I was
snooping, I admit it.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, I guess,” Audra said
smiling in spite of the violation. It was so typical . . .
so Edith. And from three thousand miles away,
there really wasn’t anything else to do but smile.
“It’s late,” Edith said abruptly. “Thanks for call-
ing, but you really should be getting to sleep.”
“Yeah . . .” Audra agreed, but her heart wasn’t in
it. Any other time she would have been glad to es-
cape from the nagging that was Edith, but tonight,
she wanted her mother, could have talked to her
mother all night long.
“Well, then,” Edith inhaled, gathering herself to-
gether to perform a difficult task. “Good night.”
“Good night, Ma.”
But neither of them hung up. The connection
stayed open, recording their breathing, each for the
other to hear.
“I love you, Audra,” her mother said at last, and
her voice had the tight, strangled sound of a person
who was trying very hard not to let anyone know
she was crying.
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203
“I love you, too, Ma,” Audra replied, her own eyes
filling with tears, and it was only then that she heard
the light click of the receiver and knew that her
mother had finally hung up.
Audra sank down on the bed, her mind reeling.
The doctors had advised her to get a good night’s
sleep . . . but that seemed to be shot to hell now.
There was too much to think about, too much to
worry about . . . too much to regret.
With the touch of a button, the television sprang
to life and Audra was transported, mid-story, into
another time, another place. Gene Kelly was danc-
ing . . .
She must have fallen asleep, because when she
came to herself again, the phone was ringing. Audra
almost pulled the pillow over her head to block out
the sound, until she remembered where she was and
grabbed for the phone.
“Officer Marks?”
Audra sat up, alarmed. The voice was female,
youthful, formally polite, unfamiliar. A thousand
thoughts swarmed through her mind as she came
fully into consciousness . . . but only two had
names.
“What is it? Is it Petra? Michael—”
“No, Officer Marks . . . it’s me. Penny Bradshaw.”
Penny Bradshaw?
“How did—” Audra began, but the girl inter-
cepted her.
“My Dad got a call from the show. Asking if we
would come to the Reveal . . . and for permission to
use my name and . . . uh . . . comments.”
Of course. Audra rubbed her forehead. “They
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certainly are thorough, aren’t they?” she muttered.
“How much trouble are you in?”
The young woman at the other end of the tele-
phone line twittered a nervous little laugh. “I’m call-
ing you, aren’t I? To apologize?” Her tone changed
into one flat and carefully rehearsed. “I was very
rude to you, Officer Marks, and I apologize. I hope
you’ll forgive me for what I said to you”—she low-
ered her voice to an eager stage whisper—“but I
think what you’re doing now is totally cool. Are
they going to use what I said? Is that why that
woman called my dad—”
“Hello?”
Penny’s soft tones were replaced by a heavy mas-
culine voice. “Marks?”
A thrill ran up and down Audra’s spine, but she
mastered it and managed a perfectly calm, “Hello,
Bradshaw,” like his call wasn’t out of the ordinary in
the slightest.
There was an awkward silence before he said,
“Seem to be constantly apologizing to you,” in that
slow drawl of his. “Penny told me what she said to
you. I’m beyond sorry—I’m appalled. She’s totally
wrong: I’ve never introduced her to any woman for
the purpose of educating her on ugliness or any-
thing like that. You believe that, right?”
Audra hesitated. Shamiyah started talking in her
brain, reminding her of things done and not done,
things said and things not said in the “Art Brad-
shaw” account. And again, the result was mixed: On
the one hand, he’d called. On the other, the call was
more of a matter of parenting than anything suggest-
ing interest in one Audra Marks. At this point, Audra
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
205
concluded, she really didn’t know how to rate the
man. She sat up a little straighter, tied on the breeziest
of Bette Davis routines and said, “Don’t come down
too hard on the kid, Bradshaw. It’s hard to be a girl,
believe me. Especially if you’re too tall, or too fat or
too short or too smart—any ‘too’ is too much.”
“This is no joke, Marks,” Bradshaw grumbled.
“I’m trying to teach her about character—about the
things that really matter. But all she cares about is
what her silly little girlfriends think and whether a
bunch of dumbo teenaged boys with their balls in
their brains think she’s cute. Her rudeness to you is
just—just—”
“When you were sixteen you had balls for brains,
too,” Audra interrupted, keeping her chin high and
enunciating every syllable of every word as was the
style in the films of Bette’s era. “You may still have
them, for all I know. The point is, she wants accep-
tance from her peers like most teenagers. Hell, like
most people.”
He was silent for so long Audra suspected she had
offended him in her frankness.
I don’t care, she told herself. I’m sick of tap dancing
around, trying to get this man’s attention.
“You don’t sound so good,” Bradshaw said at last.
“You doing okay?”
Fat lot you care, Audra almost replied, but she
stuffed the words back. “I’m having surgery in the
morning . . . and . . . I’m a little scared,” she answered
truthfully. “That’s all.”
&nbs
p; “Hell, give me a prison fight any day,” Bradshaw
muttered. “I hate needles and knives.” He sobered a
little to ask, “You changing your mind?”
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Karyn Langhorne
Audra shook her head. “No. I’m going to do this.”
“Okay,” Bradshaw said quietly. “Then I guess
what you have to do is keep telling yourself that
you’ll be fine. Say it over and over in your mind un-
til you believe it.”
“Do you think that will work?”
“Know it will. Got me through Iraq War, Part
One,” he said solemnly. “That and picturing myself
getting home in one piece. When things got tough,
I’d imagine that Kodak moment at the airport.”
“Kodak moment . . . ?”
“You know it, Marks. When the soldier steps off
the plane and his family comes running to meet
him. See, Penny was just a baby then and I’d
imagine holding her in my arms and hugging my
wife—” The sentence came to an abrupt end at the
specter of Esmeralda. “Anyway,” he continued in
his brusque military way, “just picture yourself get-
ting what you really want. Feel the joy of it. You’ll be
fine.”
“Joy?” Audra repeated. “Wait a minute . . . Is this
Art Bradshaw? Hardboiled corrections officer? Talk-
ing about joy?”
“Joy is the only word for it—the only word I
know for the feeling,” he said softly. “The word for
loving something so much, it comes alive with feel-
ing. If this makeover does that—gives you that
feeling—that’s great. But if it doesn’t, you gotta keep
searching until you find that thing. That thing that
gets your heart and soul involved with the day-
dream. That’s what you want to think about and
think about and think about . . . until it happens.” He
paused. “Listen Audra, I just wanted to apologize,
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207
okay? Hear that you’re okay out there. Don’t want
to keep you up too late . . .”
“I’m fine, really.”
“I’m not. I’m working the seven-to-three tomor-
row. I’ve got to go to bed,” he said, yawning, and
Audra imagined him stripping off his shirt to reveal
a sculpted chest. “I’ll call you again in a few days . . .
after the surgery . . . to check on you.”
“Sure,” Audra thought, wondering how many
weeks were bound together under his “few days.”
“If you want . . .”
“Then that tears it,” he said, using an idiom of a
bygone era. “Good luck tomorrow,” he said quickly
as though he didn’t like talking to her and didn’t
care to continue. “Good night.” Then he hung up,
leaving Audra with one more thing to contemplate.
She lay back on the bed, searching through the
swirling images in her brain, looking for the one
that sparked the emotion Bradshaw had talked
about, the one that made her long for its fulfillment
above all others. The one that connected mind and
body with the power of emotion.
Of course the Reveal was there, and she saw Petra’s
and her mother’s faces, shocked into stunned admi-
ration. There was a sort of weird triumph in the mo-
ment, but behind that a surprising emptiness. She
took the image deeper, imagining every detail . . .
seeing her mother, her sister and Michael, little
Kiana . . . but there was no joy there, just the dis-
comfort of so many issues and hard feelings still yet
to be resolved.
Joy, joy, where are you? Audra thought. Come out,
come out, wherever you are!
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Karyn Langhorne
She closed her eyes again, searching for joy along
the streets of New York, and finding nothing but the
sad reality of life without its presence . . . until the
image of Art Bradshaw, walking at her side along
the dim corridors of Manhattan Men’s Correctional
Facility filled her mind’s screen.
Her body relaxed, her mind cleared, her lips
curved into a smile . . . and she drifted back to sleep.
Chapter 17
July 5
Dear Petra,
Are you okay? No email in over a week . . . I’m getting
worried now. Please write as soon as you can.
Be careful, please . . .
Audra
One big, oozing incision.
That’s what she felt like when she came fully
to herself again about four days later, covered in ban-
dages from what felt like forehead to foot. For the
first few seconds, she had no idea where she was,
even though it was the third time she’d woken up to
the sounds of beeps and buzzes in the little recovery
room, the third time an oxygen mask had made her
face feel heavy and stiff, the third time for the pulse
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oximeter clipped to her finger and the EKG wires
feeding from her chest. And for the third time, there
was an odd sense of anxiety—a nervous impulse
that bordered on absolute panic, that only subsided
to manageable when, for the third time, a recovery
nurse leaned into her face and said sharply, “Au-
dra!” as though she were in trouble or something.
And it was so cold in the place, just like the other
two times. Cold enough to make her want to beg for
July. “Cold,” she managed to force out of her numb
lips, hoping the nurse would understand the word.
“Cold . . .”
“From the anesthesia,” the nurse said matter-of-
factly. “I’ll get you some extra blankets in a bit, but
first we’ve got check on some things. Make sure
you’re all right . . .”
Then, for the third time she started the poking
and prodding that went part and parcel with the
whole experience. Audra lay still, focusing on noth-
ing, still struggling to make her brain function.
“Looking pretty good, considering everything,”
the woman said, her examinations complete. “I’ll
tell Dr. Koch. He’ll want to come in and look you
over himself, but it’s all over, Audra. You did it.”
All over . . . you did it.
The words echoed in her mind, fraught with sig-
nificance. All over . . . you did it.
But what have I done? Audra thought, the panic
flashing fresh in her mind. At this moment, thick
with bandages, drainage tubes in her belly, her
thighs and buttocks encased in some kind of tight-
fitting girdle that probably would have seemed
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211
sadistic even by medieval standards, she wasn’t en-
tirely sure what she had done. It might have been
her imagination, but she could have sworn there
was a camera in the corner of the room . . .
It was all too much to think about right then.
“Think . . . think about it . . .” she murmured
.
“Hmm?” the nurse asked. “What are you trying
to say?”
“Think about it . . . tomorrow . . .” Audra mum-
bled, closing her eyes.
“Why, of course, dear,” the woman replied. Audra
couldn’t see her face, but there was a smile in her
tone. “Like Scarlett O’Hara said: Tomorrow is an-
other day.”
“It’s probably going to take three to four weeks for
you to feel well enough to resume normal activi-
ties.” Dr. Bremmar smiled as though this were a
particularly wonderful thing, then did his little toe-
heel bouncing bop like he was pirouetting for the
camera behind him. “But I have to tell you, Audra,
the surgeries went wonderfully.”
“Better than I thought,” Dr. Koch added, sound-
ing like he really wished for a cigar and ice-cold
beer. He was unshaven and tired-looking, as if her
extended surgical procedures had taken something
out of him as well. “I’m still a little concerned about
the potential for scarring, but we’ll keep a close eye
on it. The pressure garments—”
“You mean the girdle?”
He nodded. “That should help . . . but if neces-
sary, we may have to look toward the corticosteroids
to break down keloids if they form. If that doesn’t
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work . . .” He shrugged as if to say, “there’s not
much more I can do.”
“Goodbye Ugly Duck, hello Frankenstein’s mon-
ster.” Audra managed to say it cheerfully enough,
but the words stirred her deepest anxiety—
especially as stiff and bloody and bandaged as she
appeared right now. What if the surgeries had done
nothing more than make things worse? What if—
she thought quickly of her mother, of Petra, even Art
Bradshaw and his daughter crossed her mind—she
really became some kind of monster? What if, in her
bid for beauty, she’d only made it all worse? And
there were no mirrors, no way to check—
She shook the grim thoughts from her mind,
fighting with a sense of depression bordering on de-
spair.
As if reading her thoughts, Dr. Bremmar offered
his optimism once again, and Audra received it with
a tidal wave of gratitude. “I really think we’ll be fine.
Especially the face,” and he stretched his fine-boned
fingers toward her bandaged features as though he
could already imagine the end results. “I was able to
work toward the hairline for everything but the