Chapter 9: Becoming Sue

The refrigerator's cold breath rolled out into the kitchen as she placed the tube inside, sliding it carefully onto the shelf between milk and half-empty jars of mustard. Six doses of Stabilizer remained. Six more days, each one numbered like a countdown.

She closed the door.

In the living room, sunlight fell through the great picture window, casting the city in shimmering distance. New Elisabeth stood in her underwear, bare legs pale against the dark wood floor.

The photo caught her attention again.

Elisabeth in her blue leotard, mid-smile, suspended forever in that glossy frame. Confident and untouchable.

New Elisabeth walked to the center of the room. She stood still, spine aligned, as if waiting for a signal only she could hear. Then her legs began to slide apart, slow, deliberate, her feet gliding across the polished floorboards until she dropped into a full split. No hesitation. No pain. The old stiffness in her knee, the one that used to catch and betray her, was gone.

She inhaled deeply, shifted her body, and flowed into a straddle split. She leaned forward, nose pressing the floor, arms stretched wide, the movement effortless, even graceful.

From the floor's angle, Elisabeth's smiling photograph watched her.

She rose, spine uncurling, and the poster vanished behind her. Then she bent to the left, and Elisabeth's face reappeared, serene and smiling. She straightened, erasing her again. To the right, her face revealed once more. Back and forth, body swaying like a pendulum of a living metronome. Covering and uncovering.

Each stretch felt less like exercise and more like rehearsal.

---

The mustard-yellow coat hung loose around her frame, cinched clumsily at the waist, but no longer made for this body. Each gust of wind slipped inside, brushing against her skin as if reminding her she was no longer who she used to be.

She walked slowly with uncertainty. Each step tapped against the pavement like a drumbeat in an unfamiliar rhythm. The city itself seemed louder, brighter, sharper and the chill of air against her face, the grain of sound in her ears, her own footsteps echoing louder than they should.

Then she stopped.

Behind the glass of a boutique, a figure struck her still.

A mannequin, its frozen hips twisted in permanent sway, its glossy body poured into a pink leotard. Its hand rested coyly on its waist, fingers sculpted into eternal confidence. Its perfect, plastic curves held her in place.

She stared at it longer than she meant to, transfixed not by the clothes, but by the suggestion of something she had not yet claimed for herself.

The door chimed as she stepped inside.

Moments later, she emerged again.

The coat was gone. Instead, the street claimed her anew: white sneakers pounding the pavement, a pleated skirt flashing with every step, a varsity jacket cropped to hug her shoulders, her long hair bouncing with a deliberate rhythm.

She walked differently now. Not cautiously, but with sway, an unstudied rhythm that made heads turn as she passed.

The mannequin was behind her. But she had taken something with her.

---

The room smelled faintly of dust and sweat. A girl's legs, trembling with effort, disappeared through the door as the casting director muttered without looking up:

"Too bad her breasts aren't in the middle of her face."

The assistant snorted, already calling for the next.

Then the door opened again.

Their eyes lifted, and in that instant both men stopped breathing. The silence swelled, unnaturally, like the air had been vacuumed from the room.

She stood framed by the door. The pink leotard clung to her skin, her hips tilted in that perfect frozen sway she had first seen in a store window. Only this time, it wasn't plastic. It was flesh and it was her.

The casting director leaned forward, his smirk lazy and predatory. "Well," he said softly, "everything seems to be in the right place this time."

The assistant's voice cracked across the silence: "Name. Age. Measurements."

Her throat constricted. She hadn't prepared for this. Her mind clawed for words, for something to anchor her.

"I'm…" she started.

But the moment pulled at her, spiraling—her awareness racing across her own body, up her legs, over her waist, along her back. She felt the black eye of the camera fix on her, unblinking and merciless.

Her lips parted again. "I'm…"

And then it came.

"Sue."

The word struck her like an electric current, that was not borrowed or inherited.

The camera seemed to vibrate with the syllable, devouring it, replaying it. Her face filled the lens, closer and closer, until only her eyes remained.

Sue.

The name pulsed inside her like a heartbeat. Again, again, and again.

On the monitor, her lips moved silently, forming the word as if it were the only word left in existence.

Sue.

The sound of it echoed in her skull, a spell, like a declaration of birth.

Sue.

---

The wall of screens blazed with her own image. Dozens of lips—her lips—repeated in endless loops. Red, glossy, hungry. She stood in the middle of the room, transfixed, when the voice tore through the space like thunder.

"WHERE IS SHE?"

The door banged open. Harvey stormed in, trailed by three young men in suits who looked like interchangeable shadows. He froze the instant he saw her, as if struck by divine vision. His eyes widened like a fever-bright.

"What…" His voice cracked into reverence. He strode toward her, took her hand, and spun her gently, like she was a music box figurine. "…a gorgeous little angel."

She laughed, higher and sweeter than she meant to. The laughter bubbled out of her, brittle yet intoxicating, as though the attention itself had drunk her.

Harvey collapsed into the enormous leather chair behind his desk and lit a cigarette. The flame licked the tip until it glowed like a miniature sun. He exhaled smoke and grinned.

"Primo: you're hired. Segundo: we want something in your image, beautiful and happy. People want to be happy. Tertio: we're airing in two weeks." Each word landed like a drumbeat. "So let's get to work."

Sue's chest swelled. It was all happening too fast. The compliments, the promise of a future, the intoxicating sense that the world was bending to make space for her.

And yet, behind Harvey's booming warmth, she caught glimpses of something cold. His eyes glittered too sharply, while his smile cut too quickly.

When she mentioned her "sick mother," his expression didn't falter; it hardened. He leaned close, the smoke of his cigarette curling into her hair, his voice slow and precise as a blade.

"I WANT YOU for this show. So we'll organize around whatever mother, brother, fucking sick dog or rabbit you need to take care of."

Her skin prickled. He stared into her, as though seeing not a girl but raw material: a face, a body, a promise of ratings.

Then he brightened, all at once, the storm swept away by a flash of sunlight. "Gorgeous and with a pure heart. People are gonna love that!"

He crushed the cigarette into the crystal ashtray with a hiss. The sound seemed to echo in her skull.

And with that, the music began.