When Smiles Fade

by Paige Dearth

  “You’re right!” Emma shot back. “Not only have I lost all my compassion, I’ve also lost my innocence and my virginity that you allowed my father to rob from me. So don’t give me any of your shit. If you had done something to protect us, things might have been very different today. Instead, you chose to beat us down just like they did. So now you can live with the consequences!”

  Hearing the anger in her daughter’s voice escalate, Valerie grew increasingly fearful. She didn’t want to push her. Even though she played stupid all the time, she was secretly aware that she had participated in the brutal treatment of her two children by letting two men abuse them.

  Realizing the girls were now older and could articulate enough to convince the police about their mother’s culpability in all that had happened to them, she backed off. She feared that if the matter became public, its aftermath would be enough to keep her in prison for a very long time. She now wished that Emma had never found Gracie buried in the basement; since Emma had found her, Valerie’s life had been ruined. Pepper was right after all, she should have aborted Gracie.

  “Fine, Emma, the papers will be there,” she said, wishing she could slap the shit out of her daughter.

  Emma hung up the phone without saying good-bye.

  Gracie had been sitting by Emma all through her phone conversation with Valerie. Now she covered her older sister’s hand with her own. “I’m happy we don’t live with her anymore. When Jake was beating me that night, before he buried me in the basement, she stood and watched him from the doorway. I begged her to make him stop and she just told me if I weren’t such an annoying little bitch, Jake wouldn’t have to punish me. I wished so hard for you to come home, and when you didn’t, I wished that she was dead and Jake too. I hate her, Em,” she said softly, looking for reassurance from her older sibling. “You’re the one that has acted like my mom my whole life. We’ll be okay. We’ll always have each other, right?”

  Emma scooped her up in her arms. “Of course we will. I’ll love you till the end,” she said warmly. “AND we’re gonna be better than okay. We’ll never have to deal with people hurting us again. Understand?”

  Gracie nodded and relaxed in her sister’s embrace. She knew how lucky she was to have Emma. She would do anything to stay with her, even if it meant lying, cheating, or stealing.

  They found comfort in each other’s embrace and felt fortunate, if for no other reason than to have been born sisters. They were encouraged at the new life they were beginning.

  However, they were young, and while they were experts at dealing with what took place inside a home where evil dominated, they were naïve about the horrors outside of those walls of hell.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  That night, Emma had Brianna pick up the papers that Valerie left on the front porch and deliver them to her in Ambler. Since she was scheduled for a shift at Double Visions the following night, Emma asked Brianna to come back again to the apartment to drive her to work.

  “It’s just a temporary arrangement, Bri,” she explained, “until I can figure out how I’m going to get to work and back on my own. I’ll talk to Katie tomorrow and see if she knows someone that will sell me a car.”

  “Who’s gonna sell you a car, Emma?” Brianna asked, half-laughing.

  “I don’t know yet, but somebody will,” she said confidently. “And I’ll learn how to drive.”

  It was not in Emma’s nature to worry about such minor details. Her primary concern was her sister’s safety and her ability to earn a living so that they could remain in their apartment.

  The next morning, Emma went to see Katie about a car. As it turned out, her friend knew a guy who sold stolen cars and was confident about being able to help work out a deal. Later that afternoon, the two girls went to meet the man. Not long after, they left in an old Chevy Cavalier for which Emma had paid $500 and an extra $50 to get a new out-of-state license plate, which too had been stolen. The crooked salesman had assured her that the plate would kill any suspicion about the vehicle being a stolen one.

  “Besides,” he pointed out, “the car won’t be registered in your name anyway.”

  Katie drove the car and they chugged their way back to Railroad Avenue. By the time they got back to the apartment, it was almost dark. Gracie and Brianna came running out to see the car. It was a piece of shit, as cars went, but it would get Emma to work.

  Brianna and Katie took turns teaching Emma how to drive, and a week later, she drove herself to Doubles for the first time. She left Gracie alone at home, sternly warning her never to open the door for anyone. She instructed her to call 911 if anything happened while she was at work.

  It didn’t take Emma long to settle into her job as a stripper. She didn’t mind the work and she made a lot of money doing it. She had also become friends with Foster, the bartender she had met the first night at the go-go bar. Foster was almost six feet tall, had a stocky, muscular build, and wore his short brown hair spiked. He had a round, handsome face and his beard and mustache made him look older than his twenty-two years. He was friendly with everyone, but it was the way he cared about Emma that made him so special to her. At the end of her shift, she would sit at the bar and they would talk about their lives. Eventually she admitted to him that she had been beaten as a child. But that was as far as sharing secrets went. She neither revealed her age nor the fact that she had killed Pepper and Jake.

  Emma also spent a lot of time talking with Alessa down in the dressing room. The two girls gelled perfectly and enjoyed being together. One night, as Emma was going up on stage, she noticed Alessa and Harlin standing in a corner of the room. It was obvious from the way Alessa shrank away from him that he was angry with her and that his fury frightened her.

  Later that night, Emma overheard Alessa and Shiver talking about what happened. An hour later Emma was in the dressing room talking to Shiver when Alessa walked in and plopped down in a chair. As Alessa began to change back into her regular clothes Shiver approached her.

  “What’s going on?” Shiver inquired anxiously. “You still have another hour left on your shift. Has something happened? If one of our customers has been giving you a hard time, you just need to tell me who it is and he’ll be out of here in a minute. Jay doesn’t tolerate his dancers being harassed.”

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Alessa explained. “One of the men asked me for a lap dance. I told him I didn’t do them. Harlin overheard me and now he’s really pissed. I’ve never seen him look so mad. He scared the shit out of me. I’m afraid of what he’ll do to me once he gets me in the car.”

  Shiver had been curious all along about Harlin’s relationship with Alessa. Now she had the chance to ask about it. “What is Harlin to you anyway?” she asked. “He’s always around with those creepy friends of his, watching everything you do. Is he your boyfriend?”

  “No, he’s my best friend’s brother. He lets me live at his house and I pay him for protection.”

  Shiver laughed. “Protection from what?”

  Feeling stupid now, Alessa mumbled, “You know, if any of the men that come in here follow me home after my shift. Harlin makes sure I don’t have to ride the bus to and from work. He looks out for my safety in North Philly too.”

  Shiver was visibly disgusted, “He sounds like an asshole to me.”

  But Shiver sensed the conversation was just making Alessa more nervous than ever. Worry and fear were plastered large on Alessa’s face. She was having a hard time focusing on what Shiver was telling her. Poor kid, Shiver thought to herself. She herself knew a lot about being on the streets. It wasn’t as if she had grown up in a perfect household and then decided to become a stripper. Shiver had begun dancing for survival. Now she danced because she enjoyed it and loved the money. It allowed her luxuries in life that she wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise.

  “Don’t worry, Alessa,” Shiver assured her now. “Everything will work out. I promise. In the meantime, tell the prick that I am going to teach you how t
o perform a lap dance. You get paid a lot of money for lap dances and they are easy, not as scary as you think. I will teach you everything you need to know. All right?”

  Alessa reluctantly agreed, trusting Shiver not to make her do anything she wouldn’t be comfortable with. She quickly changed and gave her a long hug.

  “Thanks, Shiver,” she said gratefully. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

  “I’m glad I can help,” Shiver told her. “When I started out myself, someone was there to help me. We’re a family here, remember?”

  Alessa smiled and headed toward the door.

  Over time, Emma began to observe more closely how Harlin treated her friend. She never failed to notice the look of fury on his face whenever he interacted with Alessa. Emma wanted to help her friend, but didn’t know how. She began by asking Foster casual questions about the pair.

  Foster didn’t know much about Harlin, but clearly didn’t like him either. He confided to Emma that he’d seen the guy roughly grip Alessa by the arm on several occasions and that he too shared Emma’s conviction that Alessa was terrified of him. In the weeks that followed Harlin’s outburst regarding Alessa giving lap dances, she became withdrawn, barely giving Emma a chance to talk to her.

  During those weeks, Alessa performed more lap dances than any of the other girls at Doubles. At the end of each shift, she was utterly exhausted, and Emma suspected Harlin was forcing her to work beyond her capability.

  One night, after Emma had witnessed this familiar pattern of events yet again, she confronted her friend.

  “What’s going on with you?” she asked, concerned. “You never have time to talk to anyone anymore. You do your set and then it’s just one lap dance after another. Is everything all right with you? Is there something I can do to help? If you want to leave Harlin, I can help. You can come and stay with Gracie and me for a while.”

  Alessa wasn’t going to share her painful secrets with anyone. “Listen, Emma,” she replied, “I appreciate that you care about me and all, but you need to just stay out of it. Harlin is a very dangerous guy. So please, for your own sake, don’t talk to anyone about me or him.”

  Emma reluctantly agreed, but couldn’t help adding, “If this shit keeps up, Alessa, you’re gonna have to tell someone. When you’re ready and if you need a friend, you can talk to me. I’m not afraid of that asshole.”

  Alessa gave her a forced grin and thought to herself that if Emma knew what Harlin was capable of doing to people she would know she couldn’t help her.

  The girls embraced in the same way that men shake hands when they come to an agreement. However, Emma knew that her friend would never ask for help and Alessa knew that Harlin was her problem and that she’d never cast him off on anyone. Emma contemplated how she could kill Harlin, but he always traveled with his gang and left no opportunity to catch him alone. While the thought of bumping off the hoodlum made Emma feel charged, she reminded herself that she had to keep Gracie safe. There was no telling what kind of revenge a gang would take on them if they found out who had killed their leader.

  Only a few weeks later, Shiver came into the dressing room and gathered all the girls together. Then she told them that Alessa had been fired.

  “Jay caught her having sex with one of our clients in the lap-dance room,” she said solemnly. “I know we will all miss her very much, but this should be a lesson to everyone. Jay will not tolerate any of his girls selling sex in his bar.”

  Emma wished now that she had asked Alessa exactly where she lived in North Philadelphia. She knew how urgently her friend needed help at the moment, but resigned herself to the fact that there was nothing she could do for her. In the years to come, she would regret failing to intervene on Alessa’s behalf.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  At the end of the evening, while Emma and Foster were still engaged in conversation centering on Jay firing Alessa, one of the dancers came up to the bar and asked for a shot of tequila. The moment Foster laid it on the bar in front of her, the girl, whose name was Jade, gulped it down quickly and ordered a second shot. Then she ordered another. And another. After chasing the tequila with a couple of beers, she was loaded and in no condition to drive. Emma offered to take her home. Half an hour later, she was driving a very drunk Jade to her home in Conshohocken.

  Emma parked in the driveway in front of the girl’s garage and, given her condition, decided to help her into the house. She found the dancer’s living room well lit and cozy. It was certainly a nice place, considering that Jade was a single mom with two small kids.

  “Do you own this house?” Emma asked with a twinge of envy.

  “Nah, I rent it,” Jade replied. “The landlord gave me a good deal, since I was willing to sign a five-year lease. I pay eleven hundred a month, but he takes care of the water bill. Not too bad, huh?”

  “Not bad at all! Where’s your babysitter?” Emma asked, looking around the living room.

  “I don’t have one,” Jade said nonchalantly. “Once I get my kids to bed, they sleep all night.”

  “Oh, I thought your kids were young.”

  “They’re six and eight, old enough to stay here on their own while I work,” Jade said. She pulled two beers from the refrigerator, offering one to Emma, who declined.

  “Six and eight? Aren’t they kinda young to stay home alone all night?”

  “What the fuck are you?” Jade retorted heatedly. “Some saint? They’re fine! Besides, I fucking hate those kids. They ruined my fucking life. Before they were born, I used to be able to do whatever I wanted. Then their asshole father bailed when I got pregnant with the second one. I wish he had taken those two with him. But nooooo, I got stuck with them. It’s so annoying being a mom and they’re so fucking needy! Ya know what I mean?”

  Emma felt as if she were talking to a female version of Pepper. She imagined her father having this kind of conversation with his drunken friends at the bar. She sensed that Jade really did hate her children, and that made Emma begin to dislike the bitch immediately. She wondered if it was the alcohol talking, but not even that would be a good excuse for hating her children.

  Emma knew that if she ever had kids, which she wasn’t so sure she would, they would be loved and nurtured. The way Mrs. Tisdale had cared for her and Gracie when they were younger.

  “I just think you’re a little drunk, Jade,” she observed. “But I gotta tell ya what you’re saying about your kids is pretty fucking lousy.”

  “Yeah, I know, but I can’t help it,” Jade admitted. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am too drunk. I need to go to bed. You’re welcome to stay overnight, if you want,” she said, running her hand over Emma’s ass. “I’m into chicks more than guys, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

  “Yeah, I know what you’re saying, Jade,” Emma told her. “But I have to go. See you at Doubles.”

  Once she was back in the car, she turned off the radio and drove in silence to Ambler. Dwelling on what Jade had said, she decided that she was a mean-spirited person who said whatever she wanted without using a filter. She wondered if her children knew their mother hated them, given how brutally honest she had been with Emma, whom she hardly knew. Emma decided she would get to know Jade better. She wanted to find out if her assumptions about her fellow dancer were true.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Over the next couple of weeks, Emma started to hang out with Jade outside work hours. She felt more like a stalker than a friend, but played her role convincingly. Jade, she realized with increasing disgust, never had a kind word to say about her kids, Claire and Mason. She also drank like a slob until she passed out. Night after night, Jade slept wherever her drunken body fell.

  On a couple occasions Gracie went over to Jade’s house and stayed with her children while Emma took their mother out, trying to understand the type of person she was. It was a warm summer night when Emma and Jade made plans to go to dinner. Emma didn’t like what she’d already seen of her drunken acquaintance, but felt an
overwhelming sense of responsibility to Claire and Mason, whom she was now getting to know better.

  Gracie had offered to stay with the two children while they went out. When Emma and Gracie walked into the living they saw Mason sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. He was whimpering and Jade was leering over him. “Suck it up, you little sissy. All you do is whine, whine, whine!”

  “But Mom, his arms hurts him. The doctor gave you painkillers, just give him one,” Claire pleaded.

  “You shut your dirty mouth, you little bitch. I’m the mother and I will do what I think needs to be done. He doesn’t need painkillers, he needs a good kick in the ass!” Jade screamed.

  “Jade, what’s going on?” Emma asked with annoyance in her voice.

  “Oh, sissy baby over here broke his fucking arm early this morning,” she started.

  Mason turned to look at Emma. His face was red and puffy from crying. “It hurrrts so bad,” the small boy offered, hoping Emma would convince his mother to give him a painkiller.

  “Jade, give him a pill for the pain. What the fuck’s wrong with you?” Emma shot at her.

  While all of this chaos was taking place Gracie pulled Claire off to the kitchen. “Where did she put the pills?” she asked the small girl in a whisper.

  “In her purse,” Claire told her, “it’s hanging on the banister of the stairs.”

  Gracie walked back out to the foot of the stairs, across the hall from the living room where Jade was still yelling at Mason. She and Emma met eyes and she pointed to the purse that hung next to her. Emma nodded as she engaged in irrational conversation with Jade to keep her from noticing what Gracie was doing. The stupid bitch is so easy to distract, Emma thought as she explained in a heated voice that when she was a kid and broke her arm it hurt like hell.

  In the meantime, Gracie snatched the pill bottle from Jade’s purse and dumped four of them in her hand. She replaced the bottle and shoved the pills into her pocket. “Listen,” Gracie stated loudly, “this yelling is really getting under my skin. Just go, Em. You guys are supposed to go to dinner. We’ll be fine.”