salon. She thought of her mother with a sudden
longing.
“Looks like the joint is jumping.” Shamiyah
sounded neither disappointed nor surprised. “Hope
we won’t have to wait for too long.”
Audra glanced at her watch. “I thought you said
we had an appointment.”
“We do! But Ishti’s an artist, Audra. She has to
make every style perfect, and perfection can’t be
constrained by anything as mundane as time!”
“I don’t know, Shamiyah . . .” Audra said slowly.
“Are you sure this Ishti—”
Shamiyah jabbed her in the ribs hard enough to
make Audra wince and muttered, “Lower your
voice. Ishti’s a diva—talented as hell, but a diva from
the old school, trust me. If she hears you—”
At that very moment, the voices around them
suddenly dropped from raucous to whispers.
Shamiyah’s head snapped toward the center of
salon with the energy of a young Marine coming
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to attention in the presence of a commanding
officer.
A tall woman with a pair of the highest cheek-
bones short of Native America strode into the wait-
ing area. Her hair was piled atop her head in a high,
sleek beehive of a style, its natural black colored by
streaks of bright blonde. Her skin was dark: past
mahogany, past ebony, almost as a dark as night it-
self. She had fringed her dark brown eyes with
lashes so long and carefully curved there was no
way they could have been real, and spangled the
space between lid and brow with a shimmering
silvery eye shadow. Added to the dark shade of
lipstick, Audra quickly surmised that very little
about this woman was natural . . . if indeed she was
a woman at all. There was something very “drag
queen” about the look . . . right down to the silvery
platform shoes peeking from beneath the hem of a
pair of carefully frayed jeans.
“Shamiyah!” Ishti’s voice was a mello contralto
that didn’t help Audra make any kind of final deter-
mination of gender. Audra found herself staring at
the base of the woman’s dark throat, searching for
the telltale lump of an Adam’s apple instead of lis-
tening to the woman’s words, when she stretched
out a much be-ringed hand and said, “And you
must be Audra.”
Shamiyah’s demanding elbow lashed out again,
prompting Audra to tear her thoughts away from
contemplating Ishti’s throat long enough to accept
Ishti’s hand. The fingers felt fine-boned but the skin
was hardened, calloused. Over the years, hairstyling
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269
and the chemical processes involved could be hard
enough on the hands to cause that, Audra knew. She
sighed, making mental plans to quiz Shamiyah on it
later, and accepted this unusual specter for the fe-
male it appeared to be for now.
“Uh . . . nice to meet you .. . uh . . . Ishti.” The
words sounded as phony as a twenty-dollar bill
with Ben Franklin wearing an eyepatch.
Fortunately, Ishti wasn’t listening. The moment af-
ter Audra released her hands, she reached for Au-
dra’s hairline, ruffling her slender, work-worn fingers
through the soft naps of Audra’s hair, making it stand
in a fluffy three-inch halo around Audra’s head.
“And this is totally virgin? Never relaxed?” She
directed the question at Shamiyah as though Audra
were too ignorant of the processes of style to know
the answer. Audra noticed that she spoke with an
approximation of a British accent that sounded as
fake as she looked.
“I had one once, years ago.” Audra answered
moving slightly to get Ishti’s fingers out of her head.
“But I didn’t have time for all the curling and
primping to make it look right, so I—”
“Audra needs something elegant enough for the
Reveal, but practical enough for her to work with
once she gets back home,” Shamiyah explained.
“She’s a corrections officer at the city prison, so—”
Ishti waved the rest of Shamiyah’s explanation
aside with a flutter of her fingers and an impatient,
“of course, of course,” while she reached again for
Audra. This time the woman grabbed her shoulders
and spun her around. Audra felt the woman’s
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breath on the nape of her neck as she inspected her
scalp.
“Color first, then extensions,” she pronounced in
a tone Audra didn’t care for at all, but before
she could open her mouth in objection, the woman
was whirling Audra back around. “Thank you,
Shamiyah,” Ishti said. “This is a worthy challenge. I
accept. But next time,” and she narrowed her eyes at
Audra as if her penetrating gaze were sufficient
force to make any point. “Tell your friend how we
dress here.” She locked her eyes on Audra, then pat-
ted her cheek condescendingly. “Style, my dear.
Style!” She pulled a long piece of black fabric from a
pocket of her jeans, and waved it at her. “Are you
ready?”
“What’s that?” Audra asked skeptically.
“Blindfold,” Shamiyah said, spinning Audra
around. “This place is crawling with mirrors.”
“I think this one . . . and this one . . . and this one.
Jewel tones will really sparkle on your skin tone,” a
little man wearing a fussy peach ascot said as he
ripped gowns off the racks so fast, Audra barely had
time to lift her sunglasses and register their colors
before she was being pushed into a fitting room . . .
which, of course, had no mirror.
It was getting frustrating now: to be able to see
the lightness of her skin all over her body and to feel
Ishti’s long, blonde-streaked extensions brushing
against her shoulder blades, but to not be able to
get even a glimpse of this final effect that was so
“breathtaking,” so “beautiful” for herself. Audra
found herself running her fingers along her chin,
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271
her cheekbones, her nose, trying to create a picture.
But it was useless. She needed to see.
Audra sighed, slipping the sweats off her hips
again without disturbing the pin at the waist. As she
bent for the first dress, a long, curled lock of Ishti’s
hair extensions, in a golden brownish color that de-
fied easy description, fell over her shoulders and
brushed the beige skin of her arms.
Tomorrow’s tomorrow, she thought, holding the
curl between fingers she barely recognized as her
own. Tomorrow’s tomorrow, I meet the new Audra. To-
morrow’s tomorrow, I get to wipe the slate clean, and
start all over again. Art Bradshaw is coming . . . day af-
ter tomorrow, another voice, even more eager, added,
and Audra shivered a little in a strange blend of an-
ticipation and fear.
“My God! What did you do before you came to us?
Drive trucks? Work construction?” The woman
threw back her head and laughed a deep-throated
laugh that many a forties-style actor would have
paid dearly to learn to imitate.
Her name was Freda Jasper and her job was sim-
ple: teaching Audra how to walk and talk and act
like she was born gliding around Beverly Hills in
four-inch heels and evening gowns.
“I’m a corrections officer.”
Freda nodded. “That explains much. I bet you
usually walk around in those awful black shoes
with laces, don’t you?” and she wrinkled her nose.
She spoke with real humor, not in the condescend-
ing way of so many of the people Audra had met
with in these final days of the process.
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“Give me a pair of regulation blacks and I can
climb stairs with a book balanced on my head.” Au-
dra smiled, deciding to like her.
“By the time I get through with you, you’ll be able
to balance your ‘regulation blacks’ on your head
in stilettos. I’m going to teach you how to cross
those shapely legs of yours in a way that will make
men stammer and women turn green. I’m going to
teach you how to sit with the grace of a queen. On
the stage, for the Reveal, you’re going to move like
something ethereal—like a goddess come straight
down from heaven.” She fluttered her fingers a little,
of fairy dust. “But first, we have to teach you the ba-
sics. And the first of the basics is posture.” She
snapped her fingers. “Stand up straight, Audra.”
“I am!”
“Not like that. Like this. Shoulders,” and she
grabbed Audra’s shoulders and forced them back,
thrusting her breasts forward in a manner that re-
minded Audra of a Barbie doll’s outrageous figure.
“Stomach in.” She patted Audra’s flat belly as though
there were something that needed to be sucked in.
Audra did her best to comply. “Head up,” she in-
structed and Audra raised her head to a height that
felt downright conceited. “Now,” she concluded.
“Walk.”
Audra strode across the woman’s studio, eyes on
the space where a mirror should have been across
the room. But of course they’d covered it with
cardboard and Audra could see nothing. From her
point of view, as weird as it felt to walk this way, it
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273
probably looked pretty good and she was about to
say as much, when Freda shook her head.
“You’re lumbering, Audra.”
Audra stopped.
“Lumbering,” Freda continued. “Like an ele-
phant.” And she imitated—a little overdramati-
cally, Audra suspected. “The posture is fine, but the
steps . . . you’re shifting your entire weight from foot
to foot with each step.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Close your legs, to start with.”
“What?”
“Close your legs! Bring your thighs together and
take smaller steps. You’re walking wide-legged! It
makes you look a sailor on shore leave, still rolling
with the wake of the waves—”
“Hey, I’m enjoying having thighs thin enough not
to rub together and now you’re telling me that’s a
good thing—”
“I didn’t say give yourself a chafing. I said to close
your legs.” She nodded toward the studio floor.
“Try it.”
Audra brought her feet together and concen-
trated on her thighs. She took a couple of small
steps toward the mirror before Freda called out,
“Posture!”
She remembered her stomach, head and chest and
took another couple of mincing steps. “Toe first.
Toe . . . heel, toe . . . heel . . . toe, heel . . . stop!”
Audra froze. She turned her head slowly toward
the woman, awaiting her next instruction, but the
woman simply handed her the shoes she’d just
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selected and nodded. “Okay. Put ’em on and let’s see
what happens.”
Audra walked the room again, her legs moving
slowly to the time of a single word repeating itself
over and over in her brain . . . tomorrow, tomorrow,
tomorrow . . .
Chapter 23
September 21
Dear Petra,
Today’s the day. I’ll finally get to see myself top to toe.
I’m excited and scared and a whole bunch of
emotions. I wish you were going to be here . . . but I
console myself with knowing you’ll be back home to
stay by the time the show airs.
Thanks for listening. You’ve been the one person I
knew would be supportive from the very beginning. I
can’t tell you how much that means to me . . . how
much you mean to me, Petra. You’re the best sister—
the best friend—I’ve ever had.
Now, enough mushy stuff: I’ve got a job to do! I’ve
got to get to makeup. They’re going to slather on
whatever it takes to finalize the effect for the TV
cameras . . .
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Karyn Langhorne
I’ll be sending you a picture of the new me in my
next email, girl.
Be careful out there,
Audra
ing Audra’s gloved hand and dragging her to
an X marked in fluorescent tape in the center of the
stage.
“Hold still,” the makeup artist hissed, brushing
what felt like the thousandth coat of powder over
her nose and cheeks, while the hairstylist fluffed
Ishti’s extensions and smoothed the bangs over the
few remaining dark marks of scar tissue on her fore-
head. The two seemed almost at war for the same
space on Audra’s face, while somewhere behind her,
a third black-clad and nearly invisible person
fussed with the hem of her sapphire gown.
“One minute!”
Audra stared at thick red curtain in front of her. In
less than sixty seconds, she’d strike a pose and the
curtain would be pulled back, revealing her to the
experts who had helped to create her and a small
audience that included her nearest and dearest.
Within a few minutes thereafter, pauses for com-
mercial breaks notwithstanding, she’d be placed in
front of an ornate mirror and finally allowed to see
herself for the first time.
From behind the curtain, she could hear the
voices of her doctors, coaches and trainers.
“Special concerns of African-American features—”
she heard. The voice sounded like Dr. Bremmar’s
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277
happy confidence, but she lost the rest
until Dr.
Jamison intoned something about “skin lightening
medication used to minimize scarring and obtain
the desired beauty effect.”
Desired beauty effect? Audra let the words wash
over her, hearing them but not hearing them, know-
ing she would see it all later—much later—after the
Reveal and the lengthy process of editing Shamiyah
was already complaining about.
“Thirty seconds.”
More tugging on her hair, more swishing of the
dress, another swipe of lip gloss, while from be-
hind the curtain she heard her own voice from her
Audition tape, saying: “Just once I’d like to not be
the tough broad, one of the guys. Just once, I want
to be the beauty queen. I want to be the one who—”
“Ten seconds! Curtain ready? Strike your pose!
Spotlight in five, four—”
Audra’s right foot shot out behind her, lifting the
heavy weight of the gown as she pointed her toe and
balanced seductively on one foot. One gloved hand
found its way under her chin, the other stretching
forward, supplicating an unseen lover: Audra
Marks as Audrey Hepburn blowing a kiss . . . with a
tan.
A spotlight hit the curtain, and Audra knew her
pose was visible in silhouette on the other side. A
roar went up from the small audience that she knew
included her family and Bradshaw, but God only
knew who else.
“Curtain in five . . . four . . .”
Audra bent her lips into a smile, a smile it seemed
like she’d been practicing her entire life. Her heart
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Karyn Langhorne
fluttered nervously, and for a second she wondered
if after all she’d been through, she was going to have
a stroke and die now, now that it was almost over. It
would be the ultimate irony to pass out and die right
here without ever seeing what she’d starved and
sweated for, cried and wished for . . .
“Pull curtain!”
It started to move, slowly at first, in mere inches,
then more swiftly, until Audra was blinded by the
spotlight and deafened by a collective gasp of sur-
prise, followed by the noise of applause.
“Go!” someone hissed from behind her, and she
dropped her pose and started to walk, kicking down
the long red carpet of the stage like a runway model,
adding a little Bronx-born something something,
just to make sure the people watching at home
wouldn’t forget when it got time to make that big
vote for the Top Three winners.
Seated at a long table at the end of the red carpet