so she was up when I got up, but she kept sipping her
coffee and didn’t even look at me.
I’ve been up all night, watching movies, trying to
figure out how to proceed with AB (Art Bradshaw, to
you). We work the same shift, so there should be
opportunities, right? I really want to get to know him—
see if what I hope might be there, really is.
I watched Desk Set—the Hepburn-Tracy dynamic is
classic, so that could be a nice opener. Lots of good
DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
29
dialogue. But I always have a hard time getting my
Katharine Hepburn imitation straight, so I might mess
it up. And anyway, I keep hearing the spirit of Mae
West in my brain. She’s earthier, sexier, more overt.
Think that would get his attention?
I wish you were here to give me your opinion before
I head off to work. As it is, I’ll just have to send you an
email tonight and let you know how it went. I really
think he might like me, Petra. And once he 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 color of Au-
dra’s bloomers as she had about the fight between
Haines and Garcia that had precipitated it all.
“Don’t you think?” she asked, struggling to sound
innocent.
“Yeah,” Audra mumbled, trying hard to smile,
even though the memory of the event was the last
32
Karyn Langhorne
thing she wanted to relive. In an instant, she aban-
doned willowy Kate Hepburn for a vampy imitation
of Mae West. “I guess when you rip your pants in
the line of duty, you gotta expect the tale,” and she
turned and wagged her behind at the other woman,
“will be told.”
Audra had expected Darlene to laugh . . . but in-
stead the woman gave her a smile that mingled
friendliness with pity and changed the subject.
“I’ll radio your sergeant,” she said, grabbing the
needed telecommunications device from its slot on
the table. “Tell him you and Bradshaw will be a few
minutes behind schedule—”
“You mean Bradshaw’s in there now?” Mae West
vamoosed, and Audra heard her own voice, rising
nervously into the stratosphere again.
“Well, yeah,
