Free Diary of an Ugly Duckling by Karyn Langhorne Page B

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,
    Audra. You can’t expect a guy that handsome—”
    “Why can’t I, Ma?” Audra roared her anger and
    frustration and humiliation beyond containment.
    “Why can’t I?
    “Because that’s not the way it works, Audra. An
    ugly man has as good a shot as a good-looking one,
    but an ugly woman is a sin against nature,” she
    preached. “I earn my living on the truth of that. Do
    you think I caught your father with my personal-
    ity?” She shook her head. “No—”
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    Karyn Langhorne
    “And that great love story worked out really
    well,” Audra scoffed. “He left you when I was nine.”
    “Well, there were lots of reasons for that.”
    “Tell me about it,” Audra muttered, closing her
    eyes against the memory of the night her father left.
    Edith hesitated, her eyes fixed on Audra’s face.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked in a low
    voice, that suggested to Audra that she didn’t really
    want to know.
    “It means I heard you, Ma!” Audra shouted. “I
    heard him, I heard you—” she paced away from the
    sight of her mother’s horror-stricken face. “I know
    what he accused you of that last night.”
    Audra’s mother’s hand flew to her mouth.
    “Listen, Audra . . . you don’t understand. He was
    just angry, he didn’t mean—”
    “He said I wasn’t his,” Audra hollered bellowing
    out the words at the top her lungs. “He said there
    was no way he could have had a child as black and
    ugly as me, Ma—”
    “Hush! You’ll wake Kiana—”
    “Are you ever going to admit it, Ma?” Audra
    swung on her, her fists clenched. “Are you ever go-
    ing to tell me the truth ?”
    “Can’t nobody tell you nothing, Audra,” Edith
    snapped. “And that’s what’s wrong with you. Now,
    I’m going to bed. And if you were smart, you’d go to
    bed, too.” She hurried past Audra toward her bed-
    room up the hall. “And put some clothes on. No-
    body wants to see all your jiggly stuff,” she hissed, a
    final parting, hurtful shot before closing her door
    and shutting Audra out for what must have been the
    thousandth time.
    DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
    77

    * * *
She flipped through every channel of the dial at least
    twice, but there was nothing—no distraction in film
    or otherwise. Not tonight. Sleep was impossible . . .
    and she knew it. If she fell asleep, if she allowed her
    mind to wander for even a second, she’d hear the
    girl’s words all over again— I don’t want to be like
    you —or see the expression on Art Bradshaw’s face as
    he watched Esmeralda Prince sashay away from
    them. Or she’d be nine years old all over again . . .
    “Why?” her mother wailed, in a voice more des-
    perate that Audra had ever remembered hearing,
    before or since. “Why now , James?”
    “Because I’m sick of the whispers and the looks,
    that’s why! Because I’m tired of playing this game
    with you, Edith!” And she heard him throwing suit-
    cases, drawers opening and closing . . .
    “James—”
    “That girl ain’t mine,” her father had growled be-
    hind the partially closed door of her mother’s bed-
    room. “You know it, and I know it—everybody
    knows it. Ain’t no way I could have a child as black
    and ugly as that . Get the guy you been fucking to
    raise her. I’m not doing it—”
    Audra snapped herself back to the present, will-
    ing her mind to focus on the television screen.
    “I mean, look at these pants,” a slender woman in
    one of those tops