Diary of an Ugly Duckling Read Online Free PDF Page A

gets to
    know me, I think he might like me a lot!
    Well, I’ve got to go, dahling . The New York Depart-
    ment of Corrections awaits!
    Be careful out there,
    Audra
    “Woodburn wants to see you, Audra,” Darlene
    Fuchs, the assignment officer on duty mur-
    mured as Audra clocked in at Control and double-
    checked her duty assignment for the day. “Here,”
    and she thrust a small piece of memo paper bearing
    the name Deputy Warden Stephen Woodburn into
    Audra’s hands. On it, in a ballpoint scrawl, were Au-
    dra’s name and the words, “See me, ASAP.”
    Crap , Audra thought. This wrecks everything . . .
    On the subway on the way to the prison, Audra
    had decided to march into the day room, flounce
    right over to the handsome Art Bradshaw and blurt
    out a few lines of dialogue from Desk Set —just to see
    how deep the man’s repertoire really was. After all
    he said he liked movies, but was he limited to film
    noir? Or was he versatile enough to do the comedies
    and dramas, too? And what about the musicals? Was
    30
    Karyn Langhorne
    he man enough to admit to Gene Kelly? To Ginger
    Rogers and Fred Astaire? Or would that he draw the
    line at the films where they danced around, the
    women’s beautiful costumes swishing around them
    like fans?
    For an instant, Audra lost herself, caught up in the
    image of herself as Ginger and Bradshaw as Fred,
    swirling around a ballroom floor together—
    “Marks, did you hear me?” Fuchs repeated, more
    insistently. “The deputy warden wants to see you.
    Now.”
    Ginger/Audra and Fred/Bradshaw tripped and
    fell flat on their faces, then hurried, embarrassed, off
    the stage and out of sight. Audra shook herself back
    into the moment, almost surprised to find herself at
    Manhattan Men’s Correctional Facility now that the
    power of her daydream had been broken.
    “The deputy’s here?” she asked the woman,
    round-eyed with surprise. “This early?”
    “Apparently,” Fuchs replied without looking up.
    Now here was a woman who could have done
    Katharine Hepburn justice, Audra decided, taking
    in the other woman’s rangy, thin figure and long
    chestnut hair, worn in a bun as tight as her thin lips
    while on duty. Audra had seen an entirely different
    side of the woman at a retirement party for a col-
    league of theirs a few months back. With her hair
    down and her lips loosened by a couple of apple
    martinis, Darlene could have given a few of the
    young women on America’s Next Top Model a serious
    run for their money. But there wasn’t a glimpse of
    that beautiful party girl to be seen today: Darlene
    was all business this morning. “All I know is, when
    DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
    31
    I got here, he waltzed down and gave me these little
    ‘see me’ notes for you and Bradshaw—”
    Heat climbed from the pit of Audra’s stomach to
    her neck, warming her ears and cheeks. “Bradshaw?”
    she stammered, sounding anything but cool, calm
    and collected.
    Darlene’s eyebrows shot over her green eyes as
    though she knew Audra had spent most of the night
    and right up to twenty seconds ago rehearsing ro-
    mantic scenes with Bradshaw as the male lead.
    “I mean,” Audra said, bringing her voice back
    to its normal register and adding a little casual
    what’s-the-diff to the mix, “what does the dep want
    with Bradshaw?”
    Darlene stared at her just a second longer, and Au-
    dra got the distinct feeling that, had they been out
    on the New York streets, or sitting in a cozy little
    café somewhere, she would have leaned forward
    and asked the most girlfriend-ly of questions, like a
    character on Sex and the City or out of one of Terry
    McMillan’s books. But as they were in a men’s
    prison—“Testosterone Central”—the other woman
    simply lifted a shoulder and said in her blandest
    and most professional tone, “My guess would be
    something to do with that skirmish in the day room
    yesterday,” and from the look on her face, Audra
    knew she’d heard as much about the