by Paige Dearth
“Thanks,” Emma replied gratefully.
“Besides,” Angelica said and lit a cigarette, “I figure if you bitches go out there before me, you can loosen up their pockets. Anyway, I have this ass shaking thing I do.” She turned her back to them and wiggled her firm, round ass in their direction. “That makes me all the money I need. Good luck,” she stated as she pulled a drag from her cigarette and walked back to her makeup table, bopping to the music that spilled into the dressing room from the floor above.
Angelica had given them two outfits: one, a very skimpy light-blue stewardess number that was made of spandex and had a matching cap; the other, a teeny-weeny maid outfit. Both were the type of costumes popular at adult Halloween parties with women who pretended to be prim and proper all year long before suddenly taking on the role of sexy vixens, using the pretext of Halloween to live out their secret fantasies without inviting raunchy criticism.
Brianna moved closer to Emma as they began to change into their chosen costumes. “I’m scared,” she confessed. “What if we fuck up? I feel like a total freak on display. I don’t know if I can do this, Em.”
Emma was about to talk Brianna off the cliff she was on when Shiver approached. “Emma,” she said, “you have the next set. So you need to head upstairs.”
“What about me?” Brianna asked nervously. “I’m going to dance with Emma, right?”
“No, sweetie,” Shiver told her, “that was fine for amateur night. But now that you’re here as a regular, you won’t always dance together. One of the girls here will be on the other stage when you’re out there, but it won’t always be Emma.”
Realizing Brianna’s fear was escalating to new heights, Emma pulled her aside and whispered, “Look, just chill the fuck out! It’s no big deal. Just do what you did before. We need these jobs, Bri.”
Brianna badly wanted to be as brave as Emma, but didn’t share her boldness in this situation. She knew her friend was right. They did need the money. But for the first time since they had left Chain Street, the thought occurred to Brianna that she could actually go home. Unlike Emma, she wasn’t running from anything. Pam clearly wasn’t a great mother, but she gave her daughter the freedom she needed and didn’t make her work. Brianna loved Emma and Gracie, but her nerves in this moment made her question why she had run away with them. She had thought it would be an adventure, but was realizing over time how difficult it was to live on her own. She wasn’t so sure any more about the choice she had made to leave home with her friends.
Emma could feel Brianna’s fear. “Look, Bri,” she said reassuringly, trying to talk her down from her rising panic, “it’s going to be fine. It’s just dancing, you know. It’s not like you’re selling your soul to the devil.”
Brianna didn’t respond. She only stared at Emma with watery eyes. Her heart was already racing and she was sweating profusely at the thought of stripping in front of a room full of men. Leaving Brianna panic-stricken and looking wretched in the dressing room, Emma went upstairs to dance her set
Alessa noticed and approached Brianna. “You know, it’ll be all right,” she stated soothingly, trying to make her feel at ease. “It’s a little scary at first, but it’ll get easier every time, I promise.”
Brianna’s tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “But I thought Emma and I would be dancing together,” she mumbled. “I don’t really want to dance without her.”
Alessa tried her best to help Brianna calm down as she finished getting ready for her own set. A few minutes later, Shiver gave her the signal that it was time for her to head upstairs, leaving Brianna to manage on her own.
Emma was already on the second stage, and Alessa gave her a wide grin as she entered the bar area. Emma, having flung off her maid outfit and stripped down to her thong, continued to sway her hips, trying to swat away the feeling that she was an inferior dancer compared to Alessa.
A few minutes later, Alessa stepped off her own stage and up onto the stage where Emma was dancing. She positioned her body behind Emma’s and leaned into her, placing her hands on her hips. As she swayed to the music, her movements forced Emma to follow the same rhythm. In less than a minute, the two girls were dancing in perfect harmony. Once Alessa felt that her new friend had the groove, she went back to her own stage and finished dancing to the song on her own.
While Emma went around the bar for her tips, Alessa moved to the second stage and noticed Brianna stepping onto the empty one. Brianna stood motionless as the music began to play with her arms crossed over her chest. Before Emma could react, Alessa started to move off her stage, but stopped short. Emma followed Alessa’s fearful gaze to her sinister-looking manager, Harlin, who appeared ready to lunge at her. Alessa turned and continued to dance on her own stage, leaving Brianna on her own.
The men around the bar were all focused on Brianna now. At first, they cheered her on to dance, thinking her stage fright was an act. But when they realized she wasn’t going to dance, they started yelling for her to leave the stage. Jay stepped into the bar at that crucial moment and helped Brianna down off the stage. Emma felt sorry for her, but finished collecting her tips nevertheless before going back downstairs to find her. She dreaded what was coming next.
Chapter Thirty-Three
In the dressing room, Emma found Brianna changing back into her regular clothes. She was crying and disheveled from having run her fingers through her hair countless times to calm her nerves, which had obviously gotten the better of her.
“What happened, Bri?” Emma asked, concerned. “Are you okay? I mean, you just froze out there!”
“Look, maybe you can do this, Em, but I can’t!” Brianna retorted. “I feel like a freak. I just don’t want to do it!”
Emma knew she would not be able to talk Brianna into dancing. The deal was done. “It’s fine, Bri. Look at all the money I made for one dance!” she said, trying to infuse some hope into her friend and pushing the dollar bills toward her. “I can dance and make enough money for all three of us.”
Brianna half-heartedly agreed, but knew that she couldn’t stay in this new life they were creating. She now regretted leaving home for the first time since their adventure began. The thought continued to play in her mind that she did have a place to go back to. It didn’t seem to matter so much that her mother was a prostitute. At least Brianna didn’t have to degrade herself at home for the bare necessities of life, like having a meal or taking a shower. But she didn’t want to let Emma down either. She deeply loved her and Gracie.
She nodded and said, “Okay, Em, that’s fine. We’ll work it out.”
Emma was no stranger to lies. She knew that Brianna wouldn’t be with them much longer and began to prepare herself for what was to come. She danced two more sets that night while her friend waited in the car with Gracie. When Emma finally slipped into the front seat next to Brianna, she smiled at her.
“I made three hundred and twenty dollars tonight,” she told her. “See, we’ll figure this out, I promise.”
But Brianna had had plenty of time to reflect in solitude while she waited for Emma’s performance to end. Her mind was made up; she would wait long enough for the siblings to get a real place to live and settle in. Then she would tell Emma she was moving back with her mother.
On the other hand, Gracie was beside herself at the news. “Three hundred and twenty dollars?! Holy shit! That’s a lot of money, Em. It’s so cool. Can we stop at one of those all-night diners and get pancakes?” she rambled with enthusiasm.
“Only if Bri is willing to drive us there,” Emma bantered.
“Fuck yeah. I’ll drive anywhere if you’re buying pancakes. Good idea, Gracie,” Brianna complimented.
Over the next three weeks, Emma saved $3,800 while dancing at Doubles. She had taken on the stage name of Amme, pronounced Amy, which was her real name spelled backward. It was Alessa who had come up with the idea and Emma loved the name.
The three girls had slowly become accustomed to Ambler’s West Maple Av
enue and had even formed a few friendships with some of the people who lived there. They felt at home here. One of them was a woman named Katie, whom Emma talked to every day. Katie had been beaten by her mother as a child. When she was seventeen, her stepfather had raped her and she became pregnant. Her mother had promptly thrown her six-months-pregnant daughter out on the streets claiming if her daughter wasn’t such a slut it would never have happened.
While living on the streets, Katie had met a man named Bryce. Ten years older than her, he had taken a liking to the pregnant teen. Bryce had a thing for younger girls. Katie knew he cheated on her all the time, but she didn’t care. He provided a roof over her head, which was all she really cared about. It wasn’t as if she was madly in love with him. She had initially moved in with him because she didn’t have a place to live and just never left after her daughter was born. Katie was now twenty-two years old with a five-year-old daughter that looked just like her.
A month after Emma started working at Doubles, and just a few weeks after meeting Katie, she announced to Brianna and Gracie that they were going apartment hunting. Katie had told her about an apartment for rent on Railroad Avenue. Katie knew the owner. He was the same guy that Bryce rented their apartment from. He was a slum landlord, but he didn’t ask too many questions.
The apartment turned out to be located inside a large three-story row home. Each apartment was on a separate floor. The outside of the building was covered in aged white stucco that had acquired, through years of neglect, the appearance of gray cement. They followed a cracked walkway to the rear of the house and into a small backyard that was littered with trash and a broken, rusted lawn mower. There, by the back entrance to the first-floor unit, they met the owner, a bald, stocky man who wobbled when he walked. He opened the door and told them to go in.
They entered through the kitchen. To the right was a small stainless steel sink, smothered in grime. The faucet, suffering from a steady, nagging drip, was covered with mildew around the spout. To the left was a tiny stove that looked as though it belonged in a trailer home rather than in an apartment. Blackish-brown streaks ran down its sides from food that had once boiled over and never been cleaned. There were six cabinets with a few drawers along the longest wall, and the linoleum floor was two shades of brown, ugly and uglier. The white plastic tiles on the walls were yellowed and smeared with grease.
The open living room had unfinished wood flooring that had turned a dirty brown, and the white walls still sported scuff marks and crayon drawings from its previous tenants. The sole bedroom, with two windows, was situated in the corner of the apartment. The walls were orange and the wood floor had been painted black.
Emma thought the place was a complete dump. After they had finished looking it over, she asked, “How much is it?”
“It’s four-fifty a month. I will need a five-hundred-dollar deposit and the first month’s rent, if you want to take it today.”
Emma turned to Gracie and Brianna. “Are we good?”
Both girls nodded.
“Great,” Emma told the owner, “we’ll take it.”
She peeled off $950 from the wad of cash in her purse and handed it to him. From his back pocket, the owner pulled out a lease, which he had Emma fill in. She filled in the form, with mostly lies, signed it, and gave it back to him.
Handing her the keys, he said, “Make sure I get your rent check the first of every month. If you’re late, you’re out.”
As he closed the door behind him, Emma said, “And fuck you too! Asshole!” She turned to Brianna and Gracie, who were both looking around the apartment.
“Gotta run,” Katie said, leaning in to give Emma a hug before she left, “I’ll catch you later.”
The three girls walked from room to room, relishing all the space they now had to share. While the apartment was dark and depressing, in need of major repairs, they were all happy to have a place of their own. They had been living in the car for far too long.
“So,” Brianna said, egging on her friends, “we need to get some furniture and stuff. What do ya say we drive over to the Salvation Army and see if they have anything?”
“Definitely,” Emma said approvingly.
The girls made out well at the Salvation Army. They bought a used burgundy sofa that was in better condition than the one in the home Emma and Gracie had grown up in. They also bought a small television set, bath towels, and a mattress. When Gracie noticed the mattress in the far corner of the store she dragged Emma by the hand over to it. Lying on top, she beamed up at her sister. “Now this is what I’m talking about. Ahhhhh! I can see myself sleeping like a baby on this beauty.”
Emma laughed at her sister’s theatrical performance. She liked seeing Gracie so happy and was, for the first time, grateful that they had left Norristown to find their own way.
Before they left the store they scored various kitchen items and other essentials they needed. They drove to their apartment with enough things to get them started. It wasn’t much, but it was the most they had since they left their home on Chain Street.
The three girls spent the rest of the day setting up their new apartment. By eight o’clock that night, they were high on the thrill of having a place to live but exhausted from all the work they’d done that day. Gracie and Brianna slept on the bare mattress, covered with the blankets they had used in the car. Emma lay down on the floor next to them.
She lay awake, filled with pride that they had come this far. Embracing the moment, she allowed herself to release the hatred she had stored within, a hatred that had always simmered just beneath the surface. She was now free of the bitterness, free to be happy. She didn’t know that her newfound happiness would be so short lived.
Chapter Thirty-Four
A week later, when they were well settled into their apartment, Brianna broached the subject she had been meaning to discuss with Emma.
“Em, I want to talk to you,” she announced somberly, interrupting her friend who was reading in the living room.
Emma looked up from her book. “What’s up?”
“Em, now that you guys are all settled, I was thinking I would move back with my mom. I mean, I really want to finish high school, and this place is the perfect size for you and Gracie. It’s not that I don’t like living here with you, but I just can’t see any future for me. You know what I mean?”
Emma had been anticipating this moment and had promised herself that when it did arrive, she wouldn’t be selfish. “Come here, Bri,” she said gently, pulling her friend onto the sofa and wrapping her arms around her. “I hate that you’re leaving, but I get it. You’re a good friend. Not many people would have stayed this long and put up with so much bullshit and uncertainty as you have when they had a place of their own to go back to. Besides, it’s not like you’ll never come back here to spend time with us, right?”
Brianna was relieved that Emma respected her decision. “Of course I’ll be here all the time to see you guys!” she promised. “We’re best friends and we always will be.”
“So when are you going, Bri?”
“I was going to wait till morning so that I could tell Gracie myself. I don’t want her to think I’m running out on you guys, ya know?”
The two girls stayed up most of the night, talking. They laughed about their experiences over the previous months, mocking themselves for the dirt balls they had been when they went a week or longer without showering. They talked about their mutual hatred for Jake and gloated over his untimely death. Just before daybreak, they fell asleep on the sofa.
Hardly a couple of hours passed before Gracie came out of the bedroom, banging around in the kitchen to get a bowl of cereal for herself. When she finished her breakfast, she joined the two older girls who were now awake in the living room. Brianna explained that she was moving back home. Gracie dissolved in tears at the news and cried for a long time. She was sad to see her go and worried they wouldn’t see her ever again. With great effort, the two older girls managed to calm her
down. Not long after, Brianna packed her clothes and drove back to Norristown.
The two sisters made dinner that night. As they were eating, Gracie asked, “Emma, am I going back to school at all? I’m just asking, because I really want to.”
Emma thought about it for a moment. “Of course you are, Gracie. We’re gonna get everything figured out.”
Later, after Gracie had gone to sleep, Emma thought about getting her into school. She knew exactly what she had to do to make that happen.
The next morning, she made the dreaded phone call to her mother. The girls had left home without any real identification and Emma had no option but to call Valerie and tell her that she needed Gracie’s ID so she could go back to school.
Valerie answered the phone on the third ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me, Emma. I need to get Gracie into school. I want you to put her birth certificate and immunization records in an envelope and leave it under the cushion on the front porch sofa tonight. Someone will pick it up.”
Valerie silently listened to her elder daughter. She knew from experience and from the reflection she saw every morning in the mirror of her disfigured face to what lengths Emma was capable of going to get what she needed.
“Emma,” she managed to say, struggling in vain to keep her voice from breaking, “you’ve ruined my life. You destroyed my face and now everyone is afraid to come near me. Men used to think I was beautiful. Now people can’t even look at me!”
“Good!” her daughter responded without a trace of remorse. “Now just do what I’ve told you. I’ll need my birth certificate too. Just make sure you have everything out there before you go to bed.”
“Aren’t you even a bit sorry for what you’ve done to me, Emma?” Valerie persisted. “You’ve lost all compassion.”