Die Smiling (17 page)

“I don't like guys threatening you.”

“I don't either. That's when I take it down a notch, one way or another. If I need you to beat anybody up for me, I'll let you know.”

Black laughed. “Same back to you.”

I smiled and watched a couple of tourists across the street picking through a rack of Lake of the Ozarks souvenir T-shirts while their children rode go-carts. “What was your take on Dixson?”

“I think he's probably been in love with Hilde as long as he can remember and that he's jealous of anybody remotely important in her life, including, and especially, Brianna.”

“My, you sound like a shrink used to summing up aberrant personalities in a nutshell.”

“What did you think?”

“Pretty much the same, but it's interesting to hear that Brianna and Hilde weren't exactly Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen. Tell you something else, too, I'm more than interested in what this Vasquez guy has to say about the Swensen sisters.”

“Me, too. Maybe we ought to surprise him down at South Beach and see how he reacts to news of Hilde's death.”

“You're reading my mind.”

“Wish I could. It would make things so much easier.”

Black's cell phone chirped insistently and he retrieved it and took a look at caller ID. “It's the Lodge.” He answered, listened, frowned, and I waited for him to hang up and give me the bad news. “The press is out at Cedar Bend, full force and demanding me to talk to them. I've gotta go back. How much you think Charlie's going to allow me to give them?”

“Not much, if I had to guess.”

“Well, ask him as soon as you can and let me know. I'm heading back there right now. You coming with me?”

“No, drop me off at the station so I can talk to Charlie.”

We got in the Humvee, both of us dreading what awaited us in the next hour or so. Even if Charlie was in a godawful mood when I ran the case for him, I still had the better end of the stick. Nothing sucks as much as facing the preening media morons and having to answer their stupid questions.

After they'd scared Sissy with the Freddy Krueger costume, nearly all their quests were revenge missions against Sissy. It was wonderful for the older one to have a crew of loyal allies to help her, and she felt good inside, powerful enough to make Sissy suffer for the first time in her life. Sissy still had trouble sleeping at nights, and the older one was glad she did. She felt utter gratitude for the boy, and his ingenious plans to hurt Sissy and make her feel threatened. The older one felt so much appreciation for him, in fact, that she began to let him kiss her and touch her, and she began to like it, and him, and the times when she was alone in the Winnebago with him.

Once when they were planning their next mission, one of the twins spoke up and said, “You know what I wanna do for my mission, Dungeon Master?”

“What's that, Princess Leia?”

“I wanna make Sissy lose the Fourth of July pageant so I can win it. I want you to think up a plan that'll make her lose.”

“And I wanna win the one after that, too, when it's my turn to compete,” said her twin sister.

They all watched the boy as he stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of where they sat at the dining table. He always did his best thinking when he walked around the room, and he was so brilliant that he always came up with good plans. This time, though, he left the Winnebago without a word and went inside the house, so they drank their sodas and watched a
Leave It to Beaver
rerun on the television set until he came back.

“Okay, guys, I got it. And there's no way they can catch us.”

The older one smiled and thought how wonderful it would be for Sissy to actually lose a contest and not have a new crown to add to her collection. It would kill her! Momma would probably faint dead away!

“Tell me, quick,” she said to the boy.

“Abracadabra, and here it is,” he said, whisking a small round jar out of the back pocket of his Levi's.

“What's that?” she asked.

“It's a chemical mom uses on patients that peels the top layer of their skin off. We can sneak it into something Sissy uses on her face, and she'll look ugly the day of the pageant.”

“What exactly does it do?”

“Like I said, it'll make her skin peel off, like she's got a bad sunburn, or it could make her face break out in pimples. I heard Mom say that happened sometimes. You know, as a side effect.”

“Pimples! Oh, that'd be great,” cried one of the twins.

They all laughed together because Sissy had the most beautiful skin in the world.

“Yes, she'd hate that, and so would Momma.”

“Okay, raise your hand if you wanna do it.”

The three girls raised their hands, and the boy grinned in triumph. “Okay, it's a go.” He turned to the older one. “But you'll have to mix it in with something Sissy uses on her face, and you'll have to do it the night before the Fourth of July pageant.”

“I could put it in her Oil of Olay. Momma always makes her rub it on at night. Or, we could use the foundation. She wears a lot of that when she goes on stage.”

“Probably the night stuff would work better. Then she'd wake up the next morning and look in the mirror, and Pow! Ugly Sissy!”

They all hooted with laughter, and the older one took the jar of cream and put in her pocket. She felt the power rising up inside her, and it felt good, really, really good, and she couldn't wait for the day to come when she could see Sissy look hideous with her skin all peeling off.

She said, “I'll accept this quest and maim the cruel princess, and our own lovely Princess Leia will wear the crown.”

The boy's little sisters jumped up and down with excitement, and the boy and the older one smiled at each other because Sissy was going down this time and they would get to watch.

The quest proceeded as planned, with no problems. The older one secretly mixed a little of the peeling chemical in Sissy's Oil of Olay the day before the pageant, and then she acted so sweet, so cooperative, so subservient to Sissy and Momma, that no one even suspected that she was getting ready to do such a terrible thing to Sissy. It was perfect. The boy was perfect, and the best friend the older one had ever had. He would be her best friend for the rest of her life. She would do anything for him, anything he asked. For the first time in her life, she was happy inside her soul.

She woke early and tiptoed across the room to see the results of their quest. She stared down at Sissy, at first dismayed at the red, blotchy patches peeling skin off her little sister's porcelain complexion. For a moment, she felt appalled by what she'd done and then she remembered all the lies Sissy had told about her, all the beatings she'd caused for her, and her guilt quickly evaporated. She climbed back in bed, pulled the covers up, and waited calmly for the fireworks to begin.

It didn't take long. Momma came up early, around seven, to wake Sissy so she could wash and roll her hair. This time it was Momma who let out the high-pitched shriek of horror, loud enough to nearly break everybody's eardrums. The older one sat up in bed and pretended to be half asleep when she mumbled about what was going on. She was becoming a pretty good actress now that she'd been playing the game. The boy and the twins would be very proud of her. If only they could see how innocent she looked!

Momma was bawling and screaming for Stepdaddy, and he thundered up the steps and ran into the room. He ground to an abrupt halt beside the bed and said in disbelief, “Oh, my God, what happened to her face?”

The older one kept saying, “What's going on? What's the matter?” until Momma turned to her and snapped, “Shut up. Sissy's sick.”

They left Bubby for the older one to take care of and rushed Sissy to the emergency room. That's when the older one exchanged the jar of Oil of Olay in the bathroom for a new one the boy had bought at Wal-Mart. She took out just the same amount that was depleted from the other jar, then took the poisoned jar outside behind the barn and buried it in a six-inch-deep hole. The boy and his sisters were waiting there for her, and she told them excitedly that the quest was a complete success.

“A new princess will be crowned,” she said and hugged the beaming little girl.

When Momma and Sissy returned from the hospital, Sissy was crying her eyes out because she looked so terrible. The older one frowned and put a sympathetic furrow in her forehead when Sissy complained that it burned and hurt really bad. The doctor didn't know what caused it, but thought it might be an allergic reaction to something she'd eaten or applied to her face, and Momma gathered up all the cosmetics and face creams and put them in a bag to be analyzed. The older one laughed and laughed inside and was so happy. Momma wasn't so smart, after all, not nearly as smart as the boy. There was no limit to what they could do to Sissy and Momma in the coming days. Oh, yes, the future was bright now.

Then the unexpected happened. Around noon, Momma came up to the bedroom where the older one was reading
Romeo and Juliet
and said, “Well, I tell you one thing. I'm not about to waste that fifty-dollar entry fee. You've been looking a little better lately. Get up and wash your hair. You're going to go on in Sissy's place. You'll just compete in the older division.”

Stunned, the older one couldn't believe her ears.

“Get up, I said, and get yourself into that tub. It'll take me forever to tame that wild mop of hair you've got.”

The older one obeyed, thinking she was surely inside a dream. And she loved it when Sissy stood outside the bathroom door and sobbed and whined and cried because the older one was going to be in the pageant instead of her. Momma opened the cosmetic case and carefully applied the foundation and blush with all the care she'd always used on Sissy, and when the older one looked into the mirror, she actually thought she looked a lot like Sissy.

“You don't look half as bad as I thought you would. And for the talent competition you can read one of those weird poems you're always reciting. It's not as good as Sissy's dance, but it'll have to do. The girls in your age division aren't nearly as pretty as the ones in Sissy's competition, but don't get your hopes up. You don't have a chance in hell to win. Believe me.”

Stepdaddy stared at the older one when she walked down the steps. He didn't say anything, but he had never looked at her that way before. His expression was like the boy's when they kissed, and she didn't like Stepdaddy looking at her that way. She didn't like it at all. Momma didn't, either, because she pushed the older one's back and told her to hurry up and get in the car. Upstairs, Sissy was yelling and crying and throwing her toys against the wall, but everybody ignored her.

At the pageant, the older one was scared to death to walk on the stage. But the boy sidled up to her when Momma was busy at the entry table and wouldn't see him.

“You look good enough to eat,” he told her.

The older one smiled. “Sissy doesn't anymore. She'd give you heartburn.”

“Told you your mom should enter you in these things. You'll win, wait and see.”

The older one did win, and nearly fainted from shock when they called out her name. She walked out to the end of the runway, and she smiled at the boy where he sat in the audience below as they placed the most beautiful tiara atop her head. Momma ran up and hugged her in a way she had never hugged her before, and the older one was so overwhelmed that she almost forgot all the mean and horrible things her mother had done to her in the past. Her mother did love her, now that she was pretty, and that's all she had ever wanted.

The boy's little sister won her division, too, and they wore their tiaras together in the Winnebago and drank some beer that the boy had taken from his Dad's liquor cabinet. They toasted the success of their quest and the victories in the beauty pageant, and after the little sisters left, the boy made love to the older one in the back bedroom of the Winnebago for the first time ever, and she loved it. She loved it, she loved wearing the tiara when he took her virginity, and she loved him. He had changed her life from utter misery to a beautiful, fairy-tale world, bright and wonderful and happy. She loved him. She would do anything in the world for him, forever and ever.

From that day on and for the next couple of years, the older one was as happy as she had ever been. Now it was so different between her and Momma. Now she was the one winning crowns, and even Stepdaddy was paying attention to her and giving her hugs. Sissy was the one now who was always in trouble with them. Her face had never fully recovered from the chemical in her Oil of Olay, and she bore some shallow scars that didn't look too bad, but that her foundation couldn't hide. So Momma wouldn't let her compete anymore, and when Momma got mad, now it was always Sissy who got the whippings. Stepdaddy still loved Bubby the best because he was a boy and now he could play baseball in the backyard and hit the ball with a bat.

Best of all, though, was the boy. He was devoted to the older one, and they loved each other deeply. They still played the game, too, and went on their secret quests. Once they even put a laxative in one contestant's food the day of the pageant, so she couldn't compete against one of his sisters. She got really sick and had to be admitted to the hospital. Sometimes the older one felt bad about hurting people, but the boy said they only performed their quests against evil, hateful people. So far he had been right. The girls they'd chosen to target were really mean and terrible and everybody who knew them hated them.

More than even playing the game, she liked making love to the boy. He was so brilliant, so smart, and he knew how to use a condom so he wouldn't get her pregnant. He had become very interested in photography and sometimes he took pictures of them together in bed. Once he had used the video camera that his parents had gotten him for Christmas. They watched their homemade porno over and over, and each time they did, they both got very excited and turned on. They spent every moment they could together, and they always made love and talked about the future they'd have together when the boy graduated from high school and college. He told her that someday she would be Miss America or even Miss Universe, and she believed him. She believed everything he said because his predictions always came true.