Diary of an Ugly Duckling Langhorne, Karyn (reading rainbow books txt) 📖

of bubbles from the

bath she’d just taken erase the day, snuggling her

chin into the child’s freshly braided hair. Kiana held

Mugsy, the stuffed rabbit she’d slept with since she

was a mere baby. “You read, too, though,” Audra

told her. “You’re getting to be a big girl. Pretty soon,

you’ll be reading the whole book to me.”

Kiana nodded solemnly, showing the smoky

brown eyes that were the signature characteristic of

all the women in Audra’s family—even Audra had

the eyes.

You ain’t adopted . . . or anything else.

Her mother’s words echoed in her brain, stirring

memories, questions and more questions, questions

she wondered if she would ever get answered. But

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Karyn Langhorne

before she could get too lost in considering the mat-

ter, Kiana was prying Audra’s distracted fingers off

the book’s glossy cover. “The Ugly Duckling,” she

read, girlish and serious all at once.

The Ugly Duckling.

Great, Audra thought, a sinking feeling of dread

pulling her heart down to her toes. Of all the stories,

on all the bookshelves, in all the world . . . this book has to

jump into my hands.

But all she said was, “Very good,” squeezed the

girl tight, and started to read.

Although it had been years since she’d given the

story any serious thought, the plot hadn’t changed.

Separated from her own kind, a swan chick was

raised by Mama Duck and her cute little ducklings,

who teased and mistreated her for her ungainly

awkwardness. Finally, ostracized from the duck fam-

ily altogether, the ugly one went out into the world,

where she met with similar treatment from other an-

imals in both the wild and the barnyard until, after

a long harsh winter of solitude, she discovered that

she was never a duckling at all, but a beautiful crea-

ture of another kind.

“And, no longer an ugly duckling, the swan

lived happily ever after,” she read aloud to the little

girl on her knee, closing the book. “The end. Now,

you’d better hop into this bed before your grandma

finds out you’re still awake. It’s nearly eight-thirty.”

Audra frowned, dropping her voice to a co-

conspirator’s whisper. “You know how she gets

when she’s mad.”

“Gramzilla,” Kiana murmured in a voice of rever-

ent respect and immediately hopped out of Audra’s

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

25

arms and into her bed, her face as serious as a

spanking.

“Gramzilla is right,” Audra agreed. “When she

sends your mommy and daddy their emails tonight,

I want her to be able to give them a good report on

you.”

“Are Mommy and Daddy all right?”

Audra nodded. “Fine,” and she added a prayer of

thanksgiving in heart that it was still true. “Mommy

will probably be home soon. Before you go to first

grade in the fall, we hope. We’ll send them another

package this weekend. Now, go to sleep.”

Kiana nodded and immediately closed her eyes,

feigning sleep.

“That’s the way.” Audra laughed. She smoothed

the covers around the child, kissed her forehead and

headed for the door. “Good night.”

Kiana sighed the deep and grateful sigh of child-

hood rest. Before Audra had backed out of the room,

Kiana was no longer pretending and was already

half asleep.

The lights were already out in the rest of the three-

bedroom apartment they all shared. Clearly, her

mother had emerged from her bedroom long

enough to accomplish that mission, and, Audra as-

sumed, double-check the locks on the door—all in

the time it took for Audra to supervise Kiana’s bath

and read The Ugly Duckling. Audra passed her

mother’s room on the way to the bathroom; the light

was on and Audra knew she was in there watching

one of those makeover shows she loved so much,

typing out her daily message to her daughter and

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Karyn Langhorne

son-in-law at war so many thousands of miles away.

Audra hesitated for a moment, staring at the shaft of

light seeping from beneath the door, fighting down

the urge to reconcile, to beg to be forgiven.

But I’m not sorry, she reminded herself. I’m not

sorry, and I’m not wrong. Art Bradshaw might very well

be my soul mate . . . and if he is, it won’t matter how

much I weigh, or whether my hair is done. When people

connect like we did—when the connection is beyond

the superficial, looks don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if

you’re fat, or ugly or—

She pushed aside the last of it, not wanting to con-

template skin tone or her mother or the possibility

that she might have more in common with the ugly

duckling in the story than she ever could have imag-

ined.

But ultimately, it was her bladder that pulled her

away from her mother’s door. Audra hurried up the

narrow hallway of the old apartment toward the

bathroom. But when the urge was satisfied and

she was giving her hands some needed attention,

she looked up and into the mirror.

She could see the extra weight in the roundness of

her cheeks, which these days seemed on the verge of

becoming part of her neck—and her hair was a wiry,

unnatural helmet of brittle, black spikes. Her ebony

skin was pocked and marred by the after-effects of

adolescent acne—and as if to remind her that the

bad old days were far from over, two new zits

shined out on her chin and forehead. Audra’s atten-

tion bypassed her lips and eyes—there was nothing

wrong with them—to find her nose. It appeared to

be a misshapen blob off-center in her face, like a

DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING

27

lump of overused Play-Doh crudely abandoned by a

bored child.

“Please let him see beyond fat, black and ugly,”

she whispered toward the sky. “I’m counting on you,

Art Bradshaw.” Then she moved quietly through the

house toward her own room, where the sweeping

music and opening credits of another old black-and-

white film were coloring the darkness in shades of

gray.

Chapter 3

Friday, March 30

Dear Petra,

She was so angry. She looked at me like I’d called her

a “slut” to her face last night. I almost told her what I

overheard all those years ago . . . but I couldn’t do it. I

just couldn’t do it . . .

She hasn’t said a word to me since our kitchen