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them this way. Two wrongs don’t make a right, Au-
die. I taught you better than that.”
“I know it,” Audra sighed. “But long time ago,
Shamiyah told me to give the people a show . . . and
that’s what I’m gonna do.” She inspected her face in
the mirror. “That looks good, Ma. Now I guess I’d
better go take my place. It’s going to be an interest-
ing afternoon.”
It was hot under the lights as they walked slowly
through the stages of the Big Reveal, then again, at
live TV speed, timing it down to the last second to
be sure the program could be aired in its entirety in
sixty minutes.
As Audra strutted her way through her paces in
gown and swimsuit, she felt the heavy makeup
melting on her body, staining the expensive cloth-
ing. Her mother smeared on more as Audra dashed
from one piece of clothing to the next, but at the
end of the rehearsal every outfit looked white-
streaked and stained. In the chaos of the effort of
getting the contestants here and there, no one said
anything, and Audra breathed easier. They’d get the
streaks out of the fabrics somehow, and later—when
the cameras were rolling—it would be different.
Out front where the audience sat, waiting politely
for their signal to applaud, things probably seemed
calm and organized . . .
But backstage was pandemonium, to such a de-
gree that Audra realized they almost needn’t have
worried so much.
As it was, Audra made her appearance in the wide
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Karyn Langhorne
makeup room with the other women, making sure
she’d been seen as present and ready . . . then disap-
peared to the little utility closet Edith had bribed a
janitor into letting them use. It had a tiny little sink
and an even smaller mirror, but it was more than
enough for Audra to wash off the pancake makeup,
strip off the gloves, and sit quietly, while Edith con-
tinued the laborious process of removing the exten-
sions sewn tightly into Audra’s hair.
“We should have started this before last night,” she
told Audra in an evil, stressed-out whisper. “I’m
never going to—”
“We couldn’t and you know it,” Audra replied.
“If you’d just worn that wig—”
“That wig looks like a wig. They’d have figured it
out in a heartbeat.”
“Well, we don’t got time to fight about it. Help
me.” Audra lifted her hands to join Edith’s in releas-
ing the extensions from the tight braids that wound
around Audra’s head. “We have to get them all out.”
“I’ll go with them half in and half out if I have to.”
“You won’t have to,” Edith hissed. “And fix your
face a little bit. You may be two toned, but doesn’t
mean you can’t wear a little mascara and lip gloss.
Pretty up a little—”
She stopped short, realizing what she’d said. Si-
lence reigned in the tiny closet as Audra processed
the words. Pretty Up . . . Pretty Up . . .
Then Audra laughed. Edith blinked at her a mo-
ment, as if stunned by the sound, then, shaking her
head at herself, joined in, so that anyone walking by
at that moment might have wondered just what kind
of party was going on behind the little closed door.
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* * *
“Audra! Where have you—” The stage manager
stopped short, staring at her in open-mouthed
amazement. “Oh my God! What happened to you?
You can’t go out there like that.”
“I just heard someone say ten seconds, so I guess
I’m going out there like this,” Audra told her and
hurried on to her spot behind the curtain. In a matter
of seconds, a spotlight would hit, the curtain would
open and Audra would show herself to the world.
“I think we’ve got a problem,” the stage man-
ager was already muttering into her headset. “I’ve
found Audra Marks, but—”
“Five seconds!” someone hissed.
“What do you want me to do?” wailed the dis-
tressed stage manager, but Audra tuned her out. Her
heart was fluttering a mile a minute, but Audra
talked to it, reminding it of their larger purpose.
Shamiyah said I was a messenger for millions of African-
American women . . . and here’s my message. This is my
message right here . . .
The spotlight paused for nothing, not for dis-
tressed stage managers or nervous contestants about
to make their “all natural” debut. The light hit the
curtain and Audra no longer had a choice: She had
to walk the walk.
And walk it she did—down the catwalk like she
was to the runway born, hearing the gasps of sur-
prise from the audience at her mottled, brown-beige
skin, her cornrowed, extensionless head, her rounded,
rubbing-together thighs. She struck her pose, paused
for the judges, and then strode, head up, toward the
host for her question.
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Karyn Langhorne
“Audra, what happened?” he asked, opening and
closing his mouth in stunned surprise, and Audra
knew it wasn’t the prepared question written on the
little card in his pocket.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied in
Bette Davis’s most sweetly guilty voice.
“What happened to your skin—your hair—” the
man stuttered, sounding utterly horrified. Audra
glanced past him into the wings and saw Shamiyah,
her eyes wide in shocked dismay.
“Oh that,” she answered calmly. “I stopped doing
the lightening and the long hair was too hot. I don’t
like living on salads . . . I missed real food. So I de-
cided to accept myself as beautiful, the way I am
right now . . . whether America thinks so or not.”
And she made a little bow and strode past him,
making her exit right on cue, right on time as a smat-
tering of applause reached her ears.
“That’s my baby!” she heard Art shout from
somewhere in the darkness of the audience. “That’s
my girl!”
“Go Audra!” Penny’s voice joined his. “Go!”
“You missed Mickey at Disneyland, Auntie A!
Can we go home now?”
Winning and losing, Audra realized almost im-
mediately, were matters of perception, as much as
beauty and ugliness.
Shamiyah and Camilla were furious at first, hol-
lering in her face about how she’d jeopardized the
show and the reputations of all involved, threaten-
ing legal actions in forty different flavors . . . but that
couldn’t erase the feeling of absolute freedom that
soared in Audra’s heart the second she stepped
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369
from the lights of the
