Chapter 4: The End of Sparkle

It was a photo she'd seen a hundred times. Maybe a thousand.

Her face, beaming, teeth blindingly white. "With Tooth Brite... YOU GOT IT!" That smile had sold millions of tubes of toothpaste. That smile had once been a brand. A promise.

Now, it disappeared beneath Craig's hand as he closed the magazine without ceremony. The glossy page gave a soft shhhhkt as it folded shut, muffling the echo of her former self.

"Tooth Brite is ending your ambassador contract."

Elisabeth blinked, the words not quite landing.

"But we just renewed it a month ago," she said, sitting up straighter in her chair.

Craig Silver, forty-something, slick, and unusually tense today, nodded sympathetically, as if that counted for something.

"I know. But they're within their rights. The clause around 'significant changes to public notoriety'—"He didn't need to finish the sentence.

Her show was over. She was no longer notorious enough.

Elisabeth swallowed hard. Her voice was calm, but a thin gloss of panic coated the edges.

"So... what's our next move? A reality show? I was thinking maybe a cooking show, or... or something more lifestyle-focused, like—"

Craig shifted in his seat. Fidgeted. Looked down. Looked everywhere but at her.

"Elisabeth—"

His tone changed. Softer and embarrassed.

"I was actually going to call you tomorrow, but since we're here..."

"The agency's scaling back."

She froze.

"What does that mean?"

"It means..." He exhaled. "We're letting some clients go. Refocusing our energy. A leaner, tighter roster."

The room was very still. Her breath caught, but she didn't let it show.

"So I'm being let go," she said, quietly.

Craig opened his hands like he was offering her something.

"It's nothing personal. You know how much I admire you. Truly. But these days it's all about new blood, and we just don't have the bandwidth."

She stared at him. At the desk between them. At the magazine now face down, the smiling version of herself buried under it.

She didn't move neither did she blink.

"We?" she repeated.

Her voice, barely above a whisper, cut through the sterile office air like wire.

"Who is we, Craig?"

He looked momentarily confused, like he hadn't expected to be questioned. Like it hadn't occurred to him that she might still be capable of that.

"You know..." he said with a shrug, trying for charm. "We as in Craig Silver Management."

Her expression didn't change. Only her voice did, now cooler and flatter.

"Sorry... remind me."

A beat.

"What's your name again?"

Craig's brow furrowed. He tried to laugh, but it came out wrong, brittle and dry.

"What?"

"Your name," she said, her eyes boring into him. "Say it."

He hesitated.

"C'mon, Lizzie—"

"What's your fucking name, Craig?"

Silence.

For the first time, he looked small. The desk between them wasn't enough to shield him.

"Craig Silver," he said finally, and the name landed in the space between them like a wet match.

Then she stood and turned.

The door slammed behind her like a thunderclap, the only sound in the room that had any conviction.

Craig Silver sat still, facing the shut door, the magazine with her old smile still resting on his desk — unblinking and untouched.

---

The wheel vibrated beneath Elisabeth's hands, but she didn't feel it.

She barely saw the blur of palm trees flashing past her window, neither did she register the steady roar of the engine or the sunlight bouncing off the hood. Her mind was a pinball machine, thoughts ricocheting so fast, she couldn't catch one before it fractured into ten others.

Craig's voice. Harvey's voice. Her own voice.

It stops. We need someone younger. Your name, Craig. Say it.

She pressed harder on the accelerator without realizing it. The speedometer ticked upward.

Outside, the L.A. afternoon glittered in that strange, hollow way, too bright and too perfect. The palm-lined avenue stretched ahead like a photo backdrop. Fake. Flat and fragile.

Then, there it was.

The billboard.

Her face, ten feet tall, beaming down from above the traffic with that same frozen grin. The one they'd painted over her like makeup.

WITH TOOTHBRITE YOU GOT IT!

But now something was wrong. Her eyes shifted while narrowing.

Just beside her billboard, two workers were pulling canvas over a new one. A fresh face — young, sun-kissed, smiling like she'd just discovered laughter. The corner of her own image was already being covered up, eaten by something newer and glossier.

She craned her neck to get a better look—

WHAM.

Glass exploded like ice. Her breath vanished in a burst.

A scream, not hers and tires shrieking against asphalt. Her car spun wildly, her shoulder slammed into the door, and then time fractured.

For a second, there was no sound. Just motion.

Then her head cracked against the window while her hands flew off the wheel. The airbag didn't catch her.

A kaleidoscope of palm trees and sky and steel.

---

The paper gown scratched against her skin. It clung in awkward places, dry and crinkling like tissue paper pulled from the bottom of a gift box. Elisabeth Sparkle sat on the edge of the hospital bed, legs dangling, her bare feet not quite touching the linoleum floor.

The room was sterile, whites and grays and humming fluorescents. No warmth. No applause. Just the flat hum of electricity and the faint antiseptic smell of lemon-scented bleach.

She stared past the x-rays glowing on the wall. Bones. Ribs. Skull. The inside of her — neat and intact. She looked at them like they belonged to someone else.

The door opened. A doctor entered with a clipboard, trailed by a nurse in teal scrubs. His face was masked with only his eyes visible — impossibly blue, almost artificial in their clarity.

Like contact lenses in an ad campaign, she thought absently.

The doctor flipped through papers, smiling like this was good news.

"Looks like it's your lucky day, Ms. Sparkle," he said, glancing up. "Not a single fracture. Even your molars survived. You're free to go."

He chuckled like this was a punchline.

The nurse handed him a file and Elisabeth blinked as the doctor kept reading.

"Vaccinations… up to date… no medication currently… oh, and by the way, my wife's a huge fan. She does your abs routine every morning—"

She didn't hear the rest.

The word fan cracked something open.

Her shoulders trembled before her face did. A soft hitch in her breath, then another. The tears came fast and sharp, like someone had cut a wire.

The doctor paused looking startled. She clutched the paper gown like it was the only thing holding her together.

"It's over," she whispered, choking on her own breath. "It's all over."

Silence.

Even the machines seemed to pause.

The doctor stood stiffly. Awkward and helpless. He checked his pager as if it might save him.

It did.

Beep-beep.

"Emergency," he said quickly, backing away. "Uh — happy birth— I mean — take care."

He disappeared before finishing the sentence.

Elisabeth was alone again. Just her and the beeping monitors, the smell of disinfectant, and the quiet sound of her own grief echoing in a room where no one clapped.

She didn't hear the door close. Just the sudden quiet.

The kind of quiet that presses against the skin.

Elisabeth sat still on the edge of the exam table, the paper beneath her legs crinkled and torn in places, damp where her skin had sweated through the thin gown. She wiped at her cheeks mechanically, like trying to erase evidence.

She began to stand—

"One moment."

The voice came from behind her.

She turned it was the nurse.

Still there.

Those piercing blue eyes. More vivid now that she was looking directly into them. He hadn't moved like he was waiting for her. Just… watching.

His tone had changed too, sounding softer and almost curious.

Behind him, the doors to the corridor swayed with a gentle thump-clomp, then stilled.

"There's just one last exam to perform," he said.

She blinked. "Oh? Didn't the doctor say I was good to g—"

But he was already moving toward her.

She didn't finish the sentence.

He stepped close and gently separated the back flaps of her gown, exposing the skin of her upper back to the cool air of the exam room.

The stethoscope touched her spine.

Boom boom… boom boom…

Her heart in her ears or maybe it was the stethoscope amplifying more than just the beat. The sound seemed too loud and slow.

His hands moved with clinical precision, but there was something… extra. Each vertebra along her spine was palpated, one by one, as though he were counting them. Testing them. Measuring strength. Or fragility.

This isn't normal, Elisabeth thought.

She turned her head slightly. "Is… is there a problem?"

His fingers paused mid-vertebra.

"No. It's perfect," he said.

Then, almost immediately correcting himself, "I mean—you're good to go."

He stepped away as if to break the moment, moving toward the wall rack. But when he reached for her coat, the rack wobbled, tilted… and collapsed in a crash of metal and falling garments.

"Oops. Sorry."

He dropped to his knees, searching. Coats and scarves tangled like fallen bodies. He finally emerged with her yellow coat in hand, the one she always wore on camera during rainy-day shoots. It looked too cheerful now.

He handed it to her carefully.

"I wish you the best," he said, with a softness that bordered on intimate.

And then he was gone.

The doors swung one more time. Thump-clomp. Then stillness again.

Elisabeth sat motionless.

Her coat on her lap. Her back still tingling where his fingers had moved. She couldn't tell if she felt reassured or… observed.

Outside the window, the day hadn't changed. But something in her had.

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