When Smiles Fade (7 page)

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 that 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.

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 was 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.

Gracie lifted her shirt. Her bare back looked like a highway that had split off in a million directions—leaving the imprint of the plug belonging to the extension cord Pepper had beat her with. Emma picked up a jar of honey and took Gracie upstairs to tend to her cuts, just as Mrs. Tisdale had done for her.

After she had nursed her sister as best she could, she went downstairs and turned her attention to the kitchen. She began cleaning it up as quickly as possible, aware that the fucking bastard would be home any minute.

By the time Pepper came through the door shortly after two in the morning and fell asleep on the sofa, Gracie was in her bed, sleeping, and Emma was sitting next to her, feeding the hate she nursed in her heart for their father. She was increasingly firm in her conviction that one day she would escape him. No one, not even Brianna, understood the nature of the untamed beasts lurking in Emma’s soul. Before she went to sleep each night, she prayed to God to kill her father. But He seemed deaf to her prayers and she knew it was ultimately up to her to ensure that her father paid for all the pain he had caused them.

The next day was just like any other in the house of horrors. Down in the kitchen that morning, while Emma was making breakfast for the beast, a rat scurried across the floor just in front of her feet. The girls were accustomed to small mice and bugs; it came with the territory, the neighborhood. However, this particular rat was as big as a cat. Emma screamed when she saw it and jumped up on a kitchen chair.

Pepper came thudding into the kitchen with Valerie following, infuriated that his sleep had been disturbed. When he saw the rat, which didn’t seem scared of them at all, he grumbled, “Holy Christ! Where the fuck did that thing come from?” Grabbing the broom, he swung at it. The rat shuffled off under the kitchen door from where it had originally appeared.

Pepper now turned on Emma, his favorite scapegoat. “If you weren’t such a fucking pig and knew how to clean like a real woman, we wouldn’t have this problem!” he yelled. “Now make my breakfast, will you? And when you’re done, I want this place spotless. Then take your fat ass down to the grocery store and buy some rat poison, you fucking idiot!” He looked at Gracie, then back at Emma. “You two are
useless
! Now get moving!” he screamed sharply, making them both jump.

After breakfast, Emma scrubbed every inch of the kitchen. She emptied drawers and cabinets and rewashed clean bowls and dishes. She knew Pepper would inspect her work when she was done and also knew the consequences that awaited her if he found even a speck of dirt anywhere. While her father looked over her work, Valerie handed Emma a five-dollar bill and told her to run down to the grocery store for rat poison.

Emma knew she was leaving Gracie in a vulnerable situation alone upstairs in their room. She went upstairs to see her before she left and instructed her to stay in the bedroom and not to come out until she was back. She ran to the store as quickly as her feet would carry her. Pepper was impossible to satisfy and always found something to complain about. Emma was anxious to get back home in case he went after Gracie again. Her sister was so broken from the night before that Emma believed another beating might kill her. If it didn’t kill her, it would most certainly leave permanent scars on her already swollen and bruised body. Having made it to the store, she quickly found the rat poison and hurried to the cashier to make her purchase. Then she sprinted back to the house.

She had been gone less than twenty minutes, but the moment Emma stepped through the front door she knew violence had erupted in her absence. The stillness in the house, combined with the smell of fear and anger, gripped all of her senses. She hurried into the kitchen and found Gracie unconscious on the floor. Blood oozed from her nose and mouth. Her eyes had fresh bruises, in addition to the ones inflicted on her the night before.