When Smiles Fade

by Paige Dearth

  When he was done, Pepper rolled off the bed, got back into his clothes, and guzzled more vodka.

  “You just remember who the boss is around here, girlie!” he warned. “You’re a fucking little whore! All you care about is making men do whatever you want. Well, we’ll see about that, you filthy pig!”

  When he had left, Gracie snuck into their bedroom and untied her sister, who was in a state of shock and could barely speak. As the memory of what Pepper had just done to her plagued her thoughts, Emma raced over to the trashcan in the corner and vomited. Unaware of what had happened, Gracie looked at her, bewildered. She noticed that Emma’s beautiful hair had been hacked off from the back of her head.

  “What the fuck did he do to your hair?” she asked her sister. Then she saw the trail of blood running down the inside of Emma’s legs. “Emma? Emma, what can I do? Oh, Emma, what did Daddy do to you?”

  Emma remained silent. She had nothing to say and certainly didn’t want Gracie to know what had just happened. She felt humiliated and afraid. To make matters worse, Mrs. Tisdale was now dead, leaving her on her own to face this fiend and his new form of torture. Her breathing became labored and she felt dizzy. She couldn’t bring herself to believe what the devil had just done to her. Until that horrifying moment, Emma hadn’t imagined her father could cause more trauma in her life than he already had. Now she knew there was no end in sight—unless she herself did something about it. But what could she do to stop him?

  Chapter Ten

  Mrs. Tisdale and Gracie were the only friends Emma had ever known. Partly because she was an outsider among her peers and worked to keep a low profile, but also because the other kids just didn’t seem to like her. She wanted more than anything to have a friend her own age. She watched the other girls at school sharing their clothes and gossiping about which of the boys they liked. She longed for a relationship with someone she could laugh and share secrets with. Someone she could call her best friend.

  Her classmates enjoyed tormenting her, because with her higher level of tolerance for bullying, acquired through the ordeals she endured at home, Emma seemed an easy target. The kids in her class picked on her because she wore all the wrong clothes and was socially inadequate. She sat by herself at lunch and was pummeled by morsels of food her schoolmates threw at her when the aides weren’t looking. Eventually she started eating her lunch in the girls’ bathroom. She locked herself in a stall and sat on the toilet seat, gobbling down whatever sparse meal she managed to bring to school.

  As the months passed, Pepper’s abuse escalated in new and different ways. Emma’s detachment from the people around her grew. She felt it was taking forever for her to turn fourteen. Finally she did, and with her new birthday came a glimmer of hope. A woman and her daughter moved into Mrs. Tisdale’s old house. Brianna and her mother, Pam, had moved to Chain Street from New York City. Emma was really excited at the opportunity of getting to know someone from a place like New York. To her, it seemed like another country.

  Brianna was bold and sassy, to say the least. Although she was tiny, standing five feet tall and weighing just one hundred pounds, she wasn’t afraid of anything and didn’t take shit from anyone. Emma liked that about her. Brianna had brown hair that fell to her shoulders and brown eyes that seemed able to cut through all the bullshit in the world. She was a ballsy fourteen-year-old who had grown up in New York with an alcoholic mother who made her money selling her body. She had learned to defend herself against predators and to tolerate her mother, who stumbled through life, drowning herself in liquor with men who were willing to pay for sex. Other than that, Brianna’s mother was harmless. In fact, Pam’s lifestyle had put Brianna in a position of power in her own house.

  Brianna took to Emma right away, partly because she was so enamored by her ways, but mostly because she connected with Emma on so many levels. Brianna, who was quick-witted and capable of losing her temper in less than a second, could tell there was trouble brewing inside of her new friend. It wasn’t difficult to see; Emma looked the part—a torn-down, shattered girl.

  They started eating lunch together at school. Emma was thrilled to have someone to sit with. After school, Emma and Gracie hung with Brianna at her house until it was time for Emma to go back across the street to Hell Central and cook for Satan and his wife. For Emma, being friends with Brianna was almost like having Mrs. Tisdale back again. She made Emma feel special. She said things that made her feel as if she wasn’t the piece of shit her parents always told her she was. She made her feel normal.

  A month after Brianna moved into Mrs. Tisdale’s house, and after spending every free moment with her, Emma was granted her wish: she finally had a best friend.

  After school one day, the two girls were sitting on the porch helping Gracie color in a poster board for a science project that was due the next day. Her crayons were in an old cigar box, stripped of their labels and broken into small pieces. The three of them were talking when Brianna lifted the blue crayon to her mouth and began scraping it against the inside of her lower teeth.

  Emma looked on in horror. “What are you doing?” she said. “That’s gross!”

  Brianna laughed. “Oh yeah? Have you ever tried it? I think it tastes great!”

  Emma thought it a little odd, but went back to her chatter, simply accepting her friend as someone different from anyone she’d ever known and glad that she lived across the street from her now.

  As the two sisters lay in bed that night, Emma told Gracie, “I think Mrs. Tisdale sent Brianna to us. She’s wild, isn’t she? I like her a lot.”

  Gracie agreed with her, but deep inside, she was a little jealous that her sister liked another kid besides her. For the first time in her life, Emma had a friend and she basked in the fun they shared. The only thing that made their relationship uncomfortable for Emma was Brianna’s acute insight into people. She kept asking Emma to explain every fresh bruise and scar that appeared on her body. Brianna suspected that Pepper was a big asshole, and only three months into her friendship with Emma she had asked her, “So, Emma, what’s up with the bruises and shit, man? What the fuck is goin’ on?”

  “Oh, I’m just clumsy, that’s all,” Emma had deflected somewhat weakly.

  Brianna’s annoyance had flared at the obvious lie. “You’re not clumsy when you’re with me,” she declared. “How come you turn clumsy when you go home? Your father is a dick, isn’t he?”

  Relieved that her friend had opened the door for her to trash Pepper, Emma, trusting Brianna, began to tell her everything. “See these marks on my hand? That’s where he pressed it down on a hot burner when I was eight. He has broken my bones so many times that I’ve lost count.” Then she explained in detail the horrifying Christmas Eve when Pepper had left her in the basement. “All these dark round marks are from the cigarette burns he gave me,” she explained, showing her arms and legs to Brianna. When she had finished, her friend sat back on the front step and looked at her.

  “Who the fuck does your father think he is?” Brianna said indignantly. “You don’t have to put up with that shit!” She quieted down as she considered the life Emma was living, physically and verbally abused by her father on a daily basis. A mother who blamed all of his violence on her two daughters, telling both of them that it was their fault their father beat them. She addressed Gracie next. “So does that motherfucker do all the same stuff to you?”

  Gracie shook her head. “Not as much. Emma protects me. She gets him pissed off at her so he leaves me alone. Sometimes he beats me even after he beats Emma. My dad hurts me a lot, but he hurts Emma more. I don’t know why my mom and dad hate us, but they do.”

  Brianna started to giggle. If the girls hadn’t known her, they would have thought her reaction freakish. But that was Brianna—a young girl who marched to the beat of her own drum. Laughter was her way of releasing anxiety when her nerves got the better of her. While this coping mechanism might look inappropriate to outsiders, Emma and Gracie took no offense. They knew th
at Brianna was processing what she had learned and was scheming to find a way to help her friends get the freedom she believed they deserved.

  Chapter Eleven

  Now that the three girls had shared their stories, their bond grew stronger. The older girls kept Gracie close to them and Brianna became a second older sister to her. They had no friendships outside of the one they shared with each other. Emma knew Brianna wanted to have other friends; it would have been easy for her with the way the kids at school were always trying to get her attention.

  Brianna snuck around school one day searching for Emma. When she finally found her she gushed about the party they had been invited to. “Yeah, Kelly, you know the one with the huge tits, she told me there’s a party at some construction site. The Conshy Keg Kickers are having it.”

  “The Conshy Keg Kickers? What the fuck are they?” Emma asked, bewildered.

  Brianna laughed. “They’re kids from Conshohocken that drink kegs of beer. When a keg of beer is empty it’s called kicked,” she explained.

  Emma watched Brianna with a confused look.

  Brianna started to giggle at her friend. “What?”

  Cocking her head to one side, Emma stated sarcastically, “So you’ve been living here for what? Two fucking minutes and we’re invited to a party? I’ve lived here my whole pathetic life and none of these assholes have even talked to me.”

  Brianna’s face lit up. “It’s my charming personality. What? You don’t see it? I’m adorable. Who wouldn’t love me? Em, the only reason they’re into me is because I’m new and I’m from New York. The kids at our school are such a bunch of dorks. You’re way better than any of them.”

  When Saturday night arrived, Emma walked over to Brianna’s house. “So we never talked about how we’re going to get to this party,” she stated.

  “No worries, Em. I have everything covered. Come on, let’s roll,” Brianna responded, pulling her friend outside by the hand.

  Brianna enjoyed the privilege of driving her mother’s car, something she had done since she was thirteen years old. The girls got into the car and drove to the construction site where the Conshy Keg Kickers’ party was being held. During the entire car ride Emma marveled at how well her friend could drive.

  Emma was surprised to see several dozen kids milling around the dirt-covered site. The girls walked with intention up to the keg of beer and were approached by a pudgy teen. Her belly protruded beyond where her breasts stopped and all of her clothes looked tight and uncomfortable. “Two bucks if you wanna drink the beer.”

  The two girls looked down at the ground so they wouldn’t laugh in her face. Brianna reached into her jeans and gave the girl four dollars. After she’d handed them each a cup and walked away, a boy approached. “We call her Two-Bucks Burkey. Her name is Daisy Burkey. She dates the old guy over there.” He gestured to a man who looked to be in his early twenties. “He’s the guy that buys the kegs. My name is Funky, by the way.”

  Brianna looked him over and Emma was as uninterested in him as she was in Two-Bucks Burkey. “Funky?” Brianna asked him, her tone clearly stating that it was a stupid name.

  “Yeah, it’s my nickname,” he explained, feeling a little intimidated by the two good-looking chicks, “my real name is Francis.”

  “Yeah, well, whatever. We’re just here to drink some beer. Isn’t that guy a little old for Daisy?” Brianna pressed him.

  Funky laughed. “Yeah, he’s a little old, but hey, it works for the rest of us ’cause he’s over twenty-one so he can get served.”

  “Oh,” Brianna said, then looked over at Two-Bucks Burkey. “By the way, who the fuck names their kid Daisy?”

  An awkward silence hung in the air. “Well, I’ll catch you guys later.” Funky offered.

  As he walked away Brianna leaned in to Emma. “And who the fuck names their kid Francis? Oh, and the only thing that’s ‘funky’ about him was his breath.”

  “Man, you are one tough bitch,” Emma toyed. “I don’t want to be on your bad side.”

  An hour after they’d arrived, while they were sitting on cinder blocks, they were approached by three teenage girls. “Hey, Brianna!” the popular girl sang.

  The two girls were still giggling at a rude comment that Brianna had whispered to Emma about one of the boys standing near them. “Oh, hey, Kelly,” Brianna shot back without the same excitement the girl had shown toward her.

  “So, you brought Emma with you, huh?”

  “Yep, looks like it,” Brianna responded, her guard going up.

  Kelly looked at her friends. “So, Emma, I didn’t know that the white trash look was back in style,” she remarked.

  Brianna stood up abruptly. “Fuck off, Kelly! Since when did you become the fashion czar with your cheap Walmart jeans? What? You think you got fuckin’ style? Or do you think because your tits are so big that it doesn’t matter what you wear?”

  Kelly stood stunned and looked to her friends for backup, but the girls looked away because they were afraid of Brianna. She was from New York, and because of this, all of the kids at school assumed that she belonged to a gang.

  Emma gently placed her beer on the ground and stood. “Fuck you, Kelly. You and your stupid little friends are sickening.”

  Brianna shot Emma a quick smile. She liked that Emma was sticking up for herself. The group of girls walked away, retreating back to the boys who desperately wanted Kelly’s attention.

  “Let’s kill these beers and get the fuck out of here,” Brianna told her.

  Emma was grateful that Brianna had stuck up for her. However, between her pent-up childhood anger and the beer she had drunk, she was on the verge of punching Kelly in the face. As they drove back to Chain Street, they vowed that was the last time they would go to a party thrown by a group of assholes from school.

  Instead, on the weekends, after Pepper had left for the bar, the girls would pile into the car and cruise around Norristown. On several occasions, they drove to the Plymouth Meeting Mall, where Brianna taught Emma how to shoplift. They would leave Gracie on the bench outside the store, assuming she didn’t know what they were up to, but she did. At other times, Brianna would stand outside seedy bars in the area, talking twenty-somethings into buying them a six-pack of beer with her undeniable charm. Then the girls would drive around, drinking their beers and singing along to familiar songs blaring on the radio. They were content in the world they shared together without outside interference.

  On a hot Friday night in July, Emma and Brianna went out for a joy ride. Gracie didn’t come along that night because Valerie had taken her to the church, where she and some of the women she worked with were meeting to play bingo. Gracie didn’t mind. She didn’t really care for the car rides and was petrified when Brianna solicited people to buy her and Emma beer. As usual, the girls hung outside a local bar until they were able to persuade someone to buy them a six-pack of Budweiser. Then they drove to Fairmount Park, where they drank their beer and talked about how much they hated school.

  Inevitably, the talk veered to how much they hated Pepper. Emma constantly told Brianna how much she wanted him dead. Her friend clung to the idea, believing that a man like Pepper had no right to live. Alone, after her beatings, Emma fantasized about him being mugged and getting his throat slit. It got to the point where the only comfort she derived in her young life was from the thought of her father dying a cruel and unnatural death. Now that she had Brianna in her life, she wanted more than ever to escape him.

  The beatings had continued for Emma and Gracie. Valerie continued turning a blind eye to her husband’s treatment of their daughters, often accusing Emma of being too dramatic about how her husband treated them. Emma wondered if she could figure out a way to end this nightmare. How could she make Pepper suffer the way he made them suffer? She prayed for the answer.

  When Emma got home that night, she walked into a shit storm. Gracie was alone, sitting on the kitchen floor and crying. She rushed over to her, not needing to ask why she wa
s in that state. The kitchen had been torn apart and her sister’s face was swollen and bruised. For the first time in her life, instead of hurrying to clean up the mess, Emma sat down next to her sister and held her while she cried.

  Gracie finally looked up at her. “It was awful, Em. He came home early, right after we got back from bingo,” she said. “We ran out of beer and he was really mad. He said it was my fault.”

  “Well, he’s a fucking idiot, Gracie. He’s a drunk and an awful father. What did Mom do? Walk upstairs?”

  “Yeah,” Gracie confirmed, “after she told me that I was a bitch for pissing him off.”

  Over the next fifteen minutes, Emma worked the whole story out of Gracie. Her sister and Valerie had come home and Pepper had lost his temper. When their mother saw how mad he was, she had scurried up to her bedroom like a slimy weasel, leaving Gracie to answer to her father. He began hitting his younger daughter with his fists. When that wasn’t enough to appease his rage, he’d dragged her into the living room, taken off her shirt, and whipped her with an extension cord that had been left there from their cheap Christmas tree the year before. He pulled her into the kitchen using brute force and made her sit at the kitchen table while he tore the room apart, leaving her to clean up the mess as he stormed out of the house, heading for the bar.

  “Let me see your back,” Emma said gently.