When Smiles Fade (46 page)

Emma headed for the only place she knew where she might get shelter. Half an hour later, she parked in Kensington in front of the house where she had lived with Sydney and the herd. As they walked up the broken steps, Izzy chattered in happy anticipation of seeing Sydney again. Emma was pleasantly surprised that her niece remembered her friend and took some comfort in the child’s excitement. Emma knocked on the front door and the pair stood, perfectly still, waiting anxiously for someone to answer.

Jamie, one of the housemates they had known, answered the door. Just as when they had lived there before, he was stoned out of his mind, and Emma had to introduce herself three times before he even began making the connection.

“Yeah!” he finally said. “I remember you, Emma! You’re the chick who cooked us Thanksgiving dinner one year, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” she answered dryly, annoyed at his pathetic state. He was swaying in the doorway and his eyes were barely open. She remembered how much she had disliked him when they lived there the last time. He was trashed day and night.

Izzy’s hand tightened on Emma’s when the boy leaned down a little too close to her and said, “Yeah, I remember you too. You sure look just like your mom!”

“Right,” Emma said curtly. “Is Sydney here or what?”

“Yeah, man,” the boy replied, standing back to let them enter. “She’s upstairs with some dude. You can go up, though, if you want to.”

As the two of them climbed the stairs to their old room, Emma was afraid of what sights she might come across in the bedroom. She knocked on the door softly.

She heard her friend yell, “Come in! It’s open!” and pushed the door open.

When Sydney saw them standing in the doorway, she jumped to her feet. Still naked, she came running up to them.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, both excited and moved. “I can’t believe you guys are here! Where the hell have you been?” She dropped to her knees and opened her arms. Izzy slid gently into them and snuggled against her. “Hey, little woman!” she said to the child. “How are you? Look how tall you’ve gotten! I can’t believe it! You remember me, right?”

Izzy giggled. “Yeah, Syd, I remember you. Not that good, though. I just remember that you used to play games with me. Now I like to read a lot. I brought all of my books with me. So we can read together. But you should put some clothes on first,” she added disapprovingly.

They moved into the bedroom and closed the door. Wrapping herself in an old robe, Syd looked over at her friend who was lying on the mattress in his boxers.

“Dude,” she said, “put some clothes on, will ya?”

He laughed and pulled on a pair of dirty jeans.

Sydney explained, “This is a friend of mine. Well, you know,” winking at Emma, “a friend with bennies.”

Emma looked over at Sydney’s friend with disgust. The intensity of her stern green gaze boring into him, willing him to leave, was intimidating. Taking in all of the not-so-subtle signals she sent him, he announced that he was leaving.

“Your friend is kind of a bitch!” he whispered in Syd’s ear as he kissed her good-bye.

Emma hadn’t said much while he was there. The moment he left, she dropped onto Sydney’s mattress and let herself relax.

“Syd, I’m in a jam,” she told her friend. “I got away from Ethan and we were living with this guy. Everything was fucking perfect, then I found out he was married, with a kid. We don’t have anywhere to go and I thought maybe we could come back here.”

Izzy looked up at her pleadingly. “Can we stay here, Syd?” she implored. “Please,
please
! We don’t have
anywhere
to live,” she finished, her eyes brimming with tears.

Syd looked at Emma. “You know how this works,” she said. “I need to talk it over with the herd. We have four new people living with us who weren’t here when you were, but a lot of the herd will remember you guys.”

Sydney left them for a moment to go downstairs and see if there were enough members of the herd home to take a vote. To her delight, bringing Emma and Izzy back into the fold proved to be no problem at all. She ran back upstairs with the good news.

On her way out to the car to get their clothes, Emma relaxed, knowing that at least they had a roof over their heads, even if it did leak.

The first couple of nights took some adjustment for Izzy. She had grown accustomed to having her own room and was now forced to share a room with five other people. Even though she was only six years old, the young girl wasn’t able to adapt as quickly to her changed circumstances as Emma had hoped. In the first two weeks of living in Kensington, she told her aunt every day that she wanted to go home and back to her school. Over time, however, Izzy began to come to terms with her new surroundings. But she did occasionally cry herself to sleep. For she sorely missed Salvatore, the only father she had ever known and loved.

Over the first couple of days, Emma filled Sydney in about everything that had happened with Ethan and Pete and how she had ended up living with Salvatore. She explained about Salvatore’s wife and son and her decision to leave his home.

“You must feel like shit!” Syd observed. “I mean, it sounds like you had everything and you just walked away from it all.”

Emma shrugged. “Yeah, it was great to live that way, but I couldn’t be his dirty little secret. I mean, he wasn’t going to leave his wife. He wanted me to just accept the situation.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you, Em. Do you miss him?” Syd asked curiously.

“Yes, I miss him,” Emma admitted without shame, “but it’s better this way. It would have bothered me to stay. He made me believe he spent every other weekend away from the apartment so that he could take care of business, but now I know the truth. If I had stayed, I would have wondered what he was doing with his wife when he went back home. It’s all too much. I wish it hadn’t turned out this way. But it did.”

As Sydney listened intently, she thought that if she herself had been raped, then fell in love only to discover that the one guy she ever wanted to be with was married, she would have been devastated, but she wouldn’t have left Salvatore. She would have stayed with him and lived in his home forever. Who cared if he was married? Syd couldn’t understand why Emma was so freaked out about the man being married. She could have had a nice place to live in and plenty of money too. Had Syd known Emma well enough, she would have understood that within her friend burned a fierce desire for independence and a determination to never compromise on anything ever again.

Emma put Salvatore behind her as best she could and focused on taking her life back. She was looking forward to going back to Doubles and getting Izzy into another school. One week after Emma and Izzy arrived, she informed the herd about the furniture she had in storage and made them an offer: if they helped move it to the house, she would put some of her things in the living room for everyone to use.

The next day, Emma rented a small truck and drove out to the storage locker with some of the housemates. They came home with two beds, one for her and Izzy to share and the other for Sydney. All of the other items were arranged in the common areas, replacing makeshift furniture like milk crates that they had collected by picking over trash. For everyone in the house, it was a welcome luxury to have some relatively new furniture, including a kitchen table and chairs.

The rest of Emma and Izzy’s belongings remained packed in three cardboard boxes. Emma put them in the corner of the bedroom, promising herself that she would go through them in the next day or two. In the meantime, she contacted Jay at Doubles and was asked to come in for an “interview,” which really meant that he wanted to make sure she hadn’t lost her figure since she left. She had also talked Syd into babysitting Izzy at night for five dollars an hour while she was at work. It was the first regular, paying job Sydney had ever held. Earning somewhere around $140 a week was quite beyond her imagination.

Following her “interview” at Doubles, which required her to stand in front of Shiver and Jay wearing only a thong, Emma went back to work the next evening. Although many new dancers had joined Doubles since she worked there last, there were still some that Emma knew. The new girls weren’t pleased to face the kind of competition she brought to the club. Emma was smoking hot and experienced. Of course, the regulars who frequented the bar remembered her and were all happy to see her back.

The first night Emma got back on stage boosted her confidence and her sense of power. Dancing to the music, she derived immense pleasure from watching the men go wild over her every move. She gazed at each of them, her demeanor reeking of sensuality, and none of the men could tell that her heart had turned to stone and she would never love another man again.

It was obvious to Emma that many of the other dancers were standoffish with her. With Brianna and Katie so far away she’d hope to fire up some female friendships at the club. But jealous women made for catty times, and her guard was up when she went into work every night. Other than Shiver and Foster, it seemed the only people who really wanted to spend any time with her were the men that frequented the bar.

Emma had been back at Doubles for a month when Maggie, a new dancer who had joined a few days before, approached her with an idea. “Hey, Emma, I was thinking that we could team up and put on a show. You know, some kissing, undressing each other, that kinda shit. I think we could make a lot of money.”

Maggie was a stunning girl, just as beautiful as Emma but in a different way: she had a long, lean body with black hair and light blue eyes that under the black lights of the go-go club appeared to have an iridescent glow. She had full, plump lips, and her facial structure couldn’t have been more perfect. She was a sweet person and Emma enjoyed her company.

When they put their talents together on stage, they were entwined in a mass of silky hair, flesh, and muscle. It was the kind of show men fantasized about. With these two dazzling creatures touching each other, the clients went wild, and as a result their tips were generous. After their first performance together, they sat down at the bar for drinks and to get to know each other better.

“So how did you end up at Doubles?” Emma asked Maggie.

“Well, the money is really good, and my pimp thought this would be an easy way to supplement our income. I do some hooking on the side. Rock, that’s my pimp, sets me up with guys and I meet them at different places,” Maggie explained, as if it were nothing.

“You’re okay with hooking?” Emma pushed.

“Let me tell you, it can be a hell of a lot worse. My family sort of lost me when I was a kid. I ended up living in pure hell. Lots of horny adults out there, if you know what I mean. So dancing here and turning some tricks during the week is a hell of a lot easier than when I was a kid,” Maggie explained with an odd sense of distance.

Maggie had a long, tragic story that began when she was eight years old. She only allowed Emma a small glimpse into her past, but the two girls became friends quickly, having shared a traumatic childhood. Each of them had a tainted view of the world based on all they had endured.

Emma felt sorry for the girl. They were about the same age, but Maggie seemed trapped in a world of sex. She couldn’t imagine having to live her friend’s life. It was in these moments of pure clarity that Emma realized how lucky she was compared to some of the others. Emma was intent on making sure that Maggie remained a friend forever. They didn’t have much in common; their childhood stories veered in two different directions. But they shared the same emptiness, the feeling in the pit of their stomachs when they lay alone in their beds at night waiting and hoping for sleep to rescue them from the loneliness.

As time passed, Emma and Maggie began lap dancing together, earning a lot of money with each act they performed. Emma thrived on the sense of independence her earnings gave her and looked with satisfaction at the other dancers who had cast her aside. Watch out girls, Emma thought, this bitch is back, and she intended to use everything in her arsenal to make as much money as possible!

Back at home, Sydney spent her evenings with Izzy. They read and played games together. At nine o’clock sharp, she would put Isabella to bed and spend the rest of the time hanging out with her friends in the common area. It was easy work and she felt fortunate to be earning such a large amount of money just to hang out with the kid. She often treated the others to beer and once in a while scored a bag of weed.

One evening soon after Emma had left the house for her shift at Doubles, Sydney gave in to peer pressure and went off to buy weed, setting out with a couple of the girls to find one of the many dealers who hung out on Kensington Avenue. The group had planned to be gone only for an hour, but once the girls got to Kensington Avenue, they were sidetracked by one of the local prostitutes who accused them of hooking in her spot, a common occurrence in their filthy slice of the world.

“You fucking bitches need to get the fuck out of here!” the woman screamed. “This here is my spot and I’ll fuck you up if you even
think
about trying to make money on my turf!”

Syd and the other two girls were used to this kind of bullshit. Besides, they were experiencing a high, a sense of power, that night.

“Shut the fuck up, you whore!” one of the girls yelled back at the prostitute.

In an instant, the two of them were snarled in a fist fight. Syd and the other girl kept egging their friend on. Down the side of a building came another girl, running toward them with a knife in her hand. Noticing her approach, Sydney snatched up a discarded beer bottle from the street and flung it at her. The bottle hit the other hooker in the face. She went down on her knees, her hands clutching the gash on her forehead in an attempt to hold back the blood that was gushing from the large slash.