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corridor. Audra could
    barely hear herself at all over the knocking of her
    heart. Her fingers twitched to reach for her ankle—
    checking for that telltale anklet the screen legend
    had worn. There couldn’t be an anklet—she didn’t
    own one, but if Art Bradshaw had actually tracked
    her down to quote Double Indemnity , some kind of
    magic was afoot, perhaps the same kind that could
    produce an anklet where there had been none.
    I told you, Ma! I told you , Audra thought, doing a
    happy dance in her head. I knew he liked me! I knew
    it—
    As if reading her mind, Art Bradshaw’s perfect
    lips curved upward into a shy smile. “I’d say about
    ninety,” he said softly.
    That was the next line. Audra knew the scene by
    heart. Almost without realizing it, she took a step up
    the corridor toward him. “Suppose you get off your
    motorcycle and write me a ticket?”
    “Suppose I give you a warning?” he said, tracking
    the dialogue from the movie, word for word.
    “Suppose it doesn’t take?” Audra shot back, right
    on cue.
    Bradshaw’s shy smile had widened into a big grin.
    He took a long step toward her, narrowing the dis-
    tance between them.
    40
    Karyn Langhorne
    “Suppose I’ll have to rap your knuckles then.”
    “Suppose I put my head on your shoulder and
    cry,” Audra said.
    Bradshaw hesitated. “Next line is Stanwyck’s,
    ‘Suppose you put your head on my husband’s shoul-
    der,’ but that doesn’t fit, does it?” He lifted an eye-
    brow over those striking light eyes. “For a couple of
    reasons.”
    Audra stared at him, the spell only partly broken
    now that the dialogue was his own words and not
    the words of a movie script. “I didn’t think anyone
    knew that scene but me.”
    Bradshaw shrugged. “I love movies,” he said, his
    deep voice soft. “Had a film noir phase. A few years
    back. Double Indemnity is one of my favorites.”
    “Mine, too,” Audra agreed. “I love the banter.
    And it’s kind of a love story—”
    “Pretty sour ending, though.” Bradshaw grimaced.
    “Not many people know the old black-and-whites.
    Nice.”
    “Yeah . . .” Audra said, and before she knew it,
    her face had gone all gaga and gushy and she was
    staring at him like he was dessert and she hadn’t
    had chocolate in over a year. “Nice for me, too.”
    In the pause that followed, Bradshaw’s eyes slid
    off her face and focused so steadily on a spot over
    her shoulder that Audra turned. There wasn’t any-
    thing behind her but wall.
    “What are you looking at?”
    He hesitated again, and for a flash of a second,
    Audra feared her mother might be right. After all,
    he’d heard the inmates’ remarks—heard the litany
    of fat, black and ugly —and he had eyes after all. For a
    DIARY OF AN UGLY DUCKLING
    41
    moment her mask of bravado slipped and she
    wanted to cover herself head to toe like the Muslim
    women in the foreign land where Petra was now
    stationed.
    “Uh . . . nothing,” he said. His eyes snapped back to
    her face and Audra’s concerns were swept away again,
    lost in those bright, honeyed orbs fringed by black
    lashes. “I . . . uh . . .” he hesitated until Audra quirked
    a curious eyebrow at him. “Forget Haines,” he offered
    in his clipped, not-a-single-unnecessary-word way.
    John Wayne , Audra thought. He talks like John Wayne.
    “Warden’s right: be cleared up in a few days.”
    “I didn’t mean to hurt him—”
    “You’re a tough woman. Strong,” Bradshaw said
    with a nod.
    “Is that a good thing . . . or a bad one?” Audra
    laughed, rolling her eyes girlishly.
    Bradshaw considered for a long time before reply-
    ing, “Good. If you’re a corrections officer,” in a tone
    as serious as if she’d asked him to opine on death.
    “Which you are.”
    Audra stared at him, parsing through the words
    fifteen different ways before she decided to just
    mark it down as a compliment and move on. She
    gazed up into Bradshaw’s eyes, a grin spread over
    her face like