mind my asking, what size are you?” Watching Au-
dra’s face change, she added quickly, “I ask because
we only carry up to size twelve. The designer is
launching a plus-size line in the fall, but right now—”
“Are you calling me fat?” Audra snapped at the
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
53
girl, her good mood quickly slipping away. Audra
thought back: the woman on the subway hadn’t
been small . . . but now that she thought about it,
she’d been a heck of a lot smaller than Audra. A sud-
den embarrassment swept through Audra like a rag-
ing forest fire. Of course this was a smaller-size
store. What on earth had she been thinking—
But then again, the top in the window looked like
it might be cut a little on the roomy side . . .
“No ma’am,” the young woman was stammering
in front of her. “ It—it’s just . . .” she hesitated, and
then spoke quickly, as though the speed of her de-
livery would make the words somehow less upset-
ting. “I don’t mean to offend you . . . but I really
don’t think it’s going to fit and these are very expen-
sive garments. If you rip it—”
“It won’t rip. And if it does, I’ll buy it,” Audra
snapped at her with a force she hadn’t fully in-
tended. The girl’s eyes widened and she backed
away from Audra, putting her hands up to her chest
as though she were afraid she’d have to use them in
self-defense.
“I didn’t mean to offend you—”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Audra said, and meant it.
“It’s just . . . I’ve been dealing with a lot of negativity
lately about my size,” she admitted. “And there’s
this guy at work.” She sighed. “This really, really
good-looking guy. The strong, silent type who
knows old movies. He’s got these eyes . . .” She
sighed again. “And he asked me to a party. Okay, it’s
last minute, but still, he asked me, and I’ve got to be
hip and fancy and I’ve been looking all day . . .” She
blew out a heavy exhale. “I can’t help the fat and
54
Karyn Langhorne
black parts, but . . . I just don’t want to look ugly,”
she said, more to herself than the salesgirl.
To her surprise, the girl touched her arm in conso-
lation. “I understand totally,” she said gently. “The
dressing room is behind the curtain . . . over there,”
she said, pointing to a dramatic black curtain near a
platform lined with mirrors. She hurried to a
counter and squatted. “Let me find the twelve . . .”
she murmured, and disappeared.
Audra heard the rattling of cardboard, then the
girl reappeared with a series of flat red boxes.
“Thank you, darling,” Audra drawled and swag-
gered toward the curtain as though she were really
Bette and this were really a movie scene.
Audra avoided the mirror as she stripped off her
sweatshirt, sick of the image of herself she knew
she’d find there. There was too much skin, too many
rolls. I’m not eating until after the party is over, she told
herself. And Monday morning, I’m back on my diet, she
vowed, imagining herself svelte and sexy on Art
Bradshaw’s arm by the end of the summer. In the
tiny fitting room, the image seemed possible, proba-
ble, attainable—but then, there weren’t any Oreos
lying around back here to tempt the resolution.
But Art won’t care, either way. He sees the real me . . .
my true beauty, she added mentally and dismissed
the planned day-long fast almost as quickly as she’d
embraced it.
She lifted the frothy, silvery top out of the box
with a sigh of appreciation. It was so soft, so shim-
mering, so beautiful, so fine . . . and had no price
tag—no tags of any kind—except for a tiny label
stitched into the side seam with the designer’s
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
55
name. Eager for the feel of the fabric on her skin,
Audra slipped it over her head.
She got one arm through, too, before she got
stuck, her other arm wedged trapped in the seam,
bound tight to a roll of flesh at her side. She strug-
gled with it, gently, but it didn’t give. She pulled
She was wedged into the fabric now, too in to get
out, too out to get in.
“Uh . . . help!” she called. “Help!”
The curtain parted. For an instant, the girl’s eyes
rolled upward in an expression Audra instantly in-
terpreted as “I told you so,” making the movie-star
attitude Audra had adopted now nothing more than
a useless ruse. But the girl said nothing. Instead, she
stepped toward Audra and began pulling gently on
the fabric, trying to ease Audra’s left arm through
the armhole.
“Just . . . a . . . little more . . .” Audra encouraged,
feeling her fingers stretching for light and air. “A lit-
tle more . . .”
“I don’t want . . . to rip it . . .” the salesgirl grunted,
still working the fabric. “Maybe if you suck in a
little . . .”
Audra complied. Her arm popped through the
sleeve . . . but as soon as she exhaled the fabric
stretched extremely tight over her breasts and stom-
ach, revealing every bump and roll of flesh. Audra
panted, afraid to breathe, lest the delicate side seams
pop. She stared into the mirror, seeing an effect far
different from the one on the mannequin. The woman
in the mirror looked like a plump sausage wrapped
in a casing, a silvery, gauzy wrapper.
56
Karyn Langhorne
“Oh dear,” the sales clerk breathed, shocked.
“I . . . I don’t think it suits you . . .”
Audra wanted to agree, wanted to rip the thing
off and run as fast as her legs would take her from
Madison Avenue, fancy boutiques, and any hope of
glamour. But that was impossible now.
“I don’t think I can get it off,” she admitted, no
longer Bette Davis, but an embarrassed fat woman in
a shirt far too tight. Her eyes found the salesgirl’s,
seeking assistance. “Please help me out of this . . . If I
rip it”—she sighed, dropping the façade totally—“I
really can’t afford to pay for a top I can’t even wear.”
She left out that part of the story when her mother
came in from her day at the Goldilocks salon—along
with the details of her meeting with Woodburn—
concentrating instead on the magical moment when
Art Bradshaw had invited her to his daughter’s
sweet sixteen.
Edith stared at her for a long moment. “Sounds to
me like you got a date with the daughter,” she said
at last.
Audra rolled her eyes, her voice rising, ready to
re-enter the fray. “Didn’t you hear what I told you he
sai
d? About wanting me to come? Needing me to
come—”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how you get a date out of
that—”
Audra opened her mouth to explain, but her
mother waved the opportunity away.
“It doesn’t matter, Queenie D.” She sighed. “I
been thinking about last night . . . and I’ve decided I
ain’t arguing with you no more. You want to run
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
57
headfirst into a brick wall, you go ahead. Just don’t
expect me to pick you up when you get your feelings
hurt.” She shook her head. “ ’Cause I’m tired. I’m
just too damn tired.”
“Me, too, Ma,” Audra told her, settling deeper
into the couch and returning to the mystical magic
of Breakfast at Tiffany’s currently playing on the Clas-
sic Movie Channel. “And the only thing that hurts
my feelings is that you don’t think anyone can love
me just the way I am.”
Her mother hesitated a moment, then murmured,
“I’ve never said that, Audra,” and then hurried to
her room and closed the door.
Chapter 5
Saturday, March 31
Dear Petra,
Do you really think that I go out of my way to antago-
nize Ma? Because I really don’t see it that way—not
at all.
Besides, I don’t want to talk about her, or her
secrets or any of that stuff right now—not on the day
of my big night out!
You’ll be happy to know that after the embarrass-
ment in Marciella’s, I pulled some kind of outfit to-
gether. It’s not as glamorous as I would have liked, but
it’s nice, I think. Of course, I’ll still be the fat chick, but
I’m going to try hard to look as good as I can. Fortu-
nately, I also have my sparkling personality to rely on—
along with a fantastic repertoire of scenes from
Hollywood’s greatest!
Still . . . I’m nervous, P. Really nervous. I think he
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
59
may really like me. God, I hope so. But the things Ma
says get under my skin sometimes and make me
doubt myself. And it doesn’t help that I have that trou-
ble brewing at work, either. Sometimes it feels like
everything’s always against me and it will take a mon-
umental change to turn it around . . .
Or maybe I just need to eat a few more Oreos!
Wish you were here,
Ugly Sister
Too trendy for words.
That’s what the place was, considering it was
in a basement, sandwiched between an Indian
restaurant and an art gallery in a “transitional”
neighborhood in Brooklyn.
It’s at least aptly named, Audra thought, studying
the bright neon script spelling out the word: Caverna.
A cinnamon-skinned teenager with long, black
hair, wearing a tiny beaded halter, stood just outside
the entrance dragging determinedly on a cigarette
and pretending not to shiver while a not-quite-
spring breeze caught the smoke and bore it away. A
short, older-looking white kid stood near her, talk-
ing excitedly, but the chick barely seemed to be listen-
ing. As Audra descended the five steps toward the
bar’s entrance, the odd couple fixed their collective
gaze on Audra, making her feel self-conscious all
over again: Her nicest black pants were tighter than
she would have liked, and the yellow-shawl-like top
from the plus-size store that had been her second
choice flapped in the breeze like a tent. The pointy
toes of her new shoes pinched her feet. Audra
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Karyn Langhorne
wished there were time for one last check of the
makeup slathered on her face like a mask by a deter-
mined beauty consultant a few hours ago, but there
wasn’t. She was here now . . . and acne or no acne,
running mascara or lipsticked teeth, her look would
have to be good enough.
Still, if she weren’t mistaken, the kids were giving
her that same folded-lip look her mother had given
her just before she’d walked out the door . . . and to
make matters worse, she thought she heard the
smoking girl burst into a twitter of sudden laughter
in the space between the time Audra’s foot crossed
the threshold of the club and the second after, when
the door thudded closed behind her.
She shook off the sound with difficulty and
looked around her.
The owners of Caverna had taken the cave thing
literally. It was dark except for a few torch-shaped
sconces set strategically around the room. The ceil-
ing dripped with stalactites and the tables and
chairs were designed so they looked like stalagmites
growing up from the cave floor. Audra thought she
heard the sound of dripping water under the pump-
ing rhythm of hip-hop music, but could not locate
its source among the crowd of youthful bodies jam-
ming every square inch of the place.
Sleek girls in slim, short skirts and high heels,
showing brown midriffs from tiny halters danced
with boys in low-slung pants and slick-patterned
shirts. Other girls were more conservative in their
strapless, gauzy chiffon and flouncy, asymmetrical
hems, but all of them were so attractive and ener-
getic that Audra hesitated, the worst memories of
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
61
herself as an uncool high schooler returning with a
vengeance.
This was a mistake, a voice from deep inside her an-
nounced, flashing back to many a high-school
dance, when Audra’s only companion had been her
own isolation, her own loneliness. There’s nothing for
you here. Audra’s feet seemed inclined to agree. They
were already shuffling her backward away from the
dancing and the music and the whole party scene.
This isn’t high school. He invited me and we’re going,
Audra told her juvenile self, pulling the mantle of
dead Hollywood dames around her consciousness
like a shield. She strode deeper into the place, her
too-round hips bumping and jostling against the
sharp angles of the dancing young people, scanning
the corners of the room for her host’s broad-
shouldered silence. She had already decided: She’d
greet him with that famous line from All About Eve:
“Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy
night!” and see what developed from there.
“Marks!”
Audra turned toward her name and saw him,
standing in a dark crevice of the room where
the stone bar curved toward darkness. “Marks!”
Bradshaw shouted again over the music, waving his
arm. “Here!”
The sound of his voice erased her carefully pre-
pared dialogue, but the awkward memories of
teenageness also dissipated, so Audra wasn’t en-
tirely mad at him. Her heart skipped a quick beat
as a
feeling of excitement and eagerness replaced
the unease that had been there a moment before.
She waved back, smiling, and began her approach,
62
Karyn Langhorne
moving determinedly through the dancing bodies
toward the rear of the room.
He looked delicious: like the sweetest bar of milk
chocolate, luscious from the gleaming skin of his
head to the tips of his toes, and Audra could imag-
ine gobbling him up in a single serving as she took
in the pure sexiness of the man. He looked like he’d
just stepped out of a magazine, from his crisp
seventies-style butterfly-collared shirt in a soft fab-
ric that looked like linen, opened to the smooth
mocha of his perfect throat. He wore dark slacks
and shoes. But it was his face that most capti-
vated Audra’s attention: those liquid eyes, strong
cheekbones—and those lips! Audra imagined her-
self getting a nibble of those beautiful bow-shaped
lips and just the thought of it was better than the
thought of a bag full of Oreos—with a candy bar on
the side.
She pulled at the yellow shawl, baring a bit more
rounded, ebony shoulder, and willed the butterflies
in the pit of her stomach to stillness as a wide,
happy grin spilled across her face.
“Hi, Bradshaw—”
“Art,” he corrected, blessing her with a curve of
those luscious lips.
Audra’s heart did another desperate flutter up
her windpipe and then down to her kneecaps before
she panted out, “Art.”
“Glad you could make it. You look . . .” his eyes
swept over her. Audra gave the yellow top another
tug, showing even more plump shoulder, before he
finished, “nice.”
“Thanks. So do you.” She glanced around. “Looks
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
63
like your daughter has a good turnout.” She peered
around the dance floor. “Which one is she—?”
A woman approached them, gliding confidently
up to Bradshaw and slipping her arm through his
with a certain possessiveness that couldn’t be mis-
taken for anything else. At first, Audra thought she
must be Bradshaw’s daughter, but in another instant
she realized her mistake.
Her skin was the shade of roasted almonds—fair
and smooth. Her hair, long and dark, burnt straight
and smooth by the latest chemical process, gleamed
off her forehead until it disappeared down her back
in a tumbling wave that brushed against the soft