Chapter 26: Her Smile, My Face

The screen glowed white. At first it seemed like a blinding emptiness, but as the camera pulled back, the glare broke into large white squares. Slowly, they arranged themselves into a single image: a grin. A flawless, glowing grin, toothy and perfect. And then—further still—it revealed itself as Sue's smile, pixelated but radiant, filling the massive studio screen.

The audience gasped with delight, as though they'd been waiting their whole lives for her to beam down into their living rooms.

The host leaned toward her, brimming with theatrical zeal."...that's right!" His voice boomed. "You popped up on our screens out of nowhere like a tornado. No one was prepared for this whirlwind!"

The applause roared again.

Far away, in a dim kitchen that smelled of grease and overboiled potatoes, Elisabeth shuffled across cracked tiles. Her foot, swollen and mottled, dragged like dead weight. On the stove, cheese bubbled in a pan, blistering and spitting. She stirred it absently, her ears tuned not to the kitchen but to the studio laughter filtering through the television in the next room.

Onscreen, the host's voice sharpened. "It all started with the morning show... rumor has it you're up for Tom Grant's next movie..." He pressed a finger to his earpiece, theatrically pausing. "And, just a minute, I'm being told... yes, it's true! You've been chosen to host the New Year's Eve Show! Can you confirm this?"

"Yes, that's right," Sue said, her voice sugared with modesty.

The crowd erupted. Elisabeth echoed it back in a nasal parody—Yes, that's right—her mockery drowned beneath the clapping.

Greasy cheese slid from her saucepan onto a chipped plate, stretching and drooling like molten lava. She positioned it carefully, as though staging a photograph from her stained cookbook, the pages swollen from years of spills.

Back onstage, the host was almost shouting: "WOW! THIS IS BIG NEWS! I can't wait to find out what you're cooking up for us!"

His words seemed to land in Elisabeth's kitchen, where she flipped the page with a loud shlack. The next recipe stared back at her: Brissac blood sausage with apples.

She squinted at the page, the letters swimming. A hiss filled the air as sausages hit the pan, their fat bursting in the hot oil. She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm.

"So tell us," the host leaned in closer, milking the crowd, "a little about yourself. Where are you from? How were you discovered? We want to know everything!"

Smoke billowed from Elisabeth's pan, stinging her eyes.

"Oh, there's not very much to tell, really..." Sue tilted her head, pretending shyness, but her smile remained practiced and dazzling. "I'm just a girl from a very small town in Indiana..."

Elisabeth's laugh rang harsh and hollow in the kitchen, echoing Sue's delicate titter as she poured brandy into the pan. Flames leapt up in a hiss.

Sue's voice carried on: "...I'm sure you've never heard of it. In fact, it's hardly a town at all... more of a farm, really!"

The audience howled. Elisabeth hacked at the smoke with her hand.

"But for as long as I can remember," Sue went on, eyes glistening, "it's always been my dream to be on screen..."

"My dream," Elisabeth whispered bitterly.

She turned another greasy page. Christmas Bresse poultry stuffed with foie gras. The recipe commanded: eviscerate the turkey.

Sue's voice dripped with innocence. "...as a child I used to put on shows for my family..."

Elisabeth opened the fridge and heaved out a raw, pale turkey, her hands trembling. She dragged a gnarled finger across the cookbook's lines.

"How sweet," the host gushed. "Everyone knows you replaced Elisabeth Sparkle— and there's no doubt, you stepped in, turned up the volume, and rocked their world!"

Elisabeth froze, the bird under her hands, her whole body tightening. She leaned toward the TV, waiting.

"Well," Sue said, after a beat, "I can't really say I watched her show much. You do know we're not exactly the same generation..." The audience burst into laughter.

Elisabeth's fingers dug into the slick flesh of the turkey.

"And you have to admit," Sue continued, the smile unwavering, "it was a bit old-fashioned. Jurassic Fitness, really, it needed a change..."

Elisabeth shoved her fist inside the bird's cavity with a grunt, tearing loose a fistful of giblets. "Jurassic fitness..." she muttered, her voice like broken glass. "I'll show you Jurassic fitness."

Onscreen, Sue laughed. "But my mother was a huge fan. Every morning, rain or shine—'Sparkle your life' was on."

Egg yolks cracked one by one into Sue's mixing bowl. Elisabeth mirrored her, except her hand shook as she gripped the electric beater like a weapon.

"Some sort of connection," Sue finished, smiling.

Elisabeth flicked on the beater. The blades whirred like a chainsaw, splattering yellow across her robe. "Without me," she snarled over the roar, "you don't even exist!"

Elisabeth sat hunched on the sofa, her body wrapped in the sour warmth of a bathrobe stained with yolk and grease, the fabric stiff where egg white had dried into stiff patches. On the screen before her, the talk show's host leaned closer to his guest, the perfect Sue — all poise, immaculate hair, and lacquered smile — as though the words were meant for Elisabeth alone.

Sue hesitated, tapping a manicured finger to her chin."Oh... let me think..."

Elisabeth's breath rattled out of her chest. Her hand shot forward, finger raised like a preacher delivering judgment.

"SAY IT!" she hissed.

The host chuckled for the audience, leaning conspiratorially toward the camera. "We won't tell anyone..." Laughter rippled through the crowd like an insult.

Elisabeth's voice broke into a howl. "SAY IT!!"

She rose, arms flung wide, pacing clumsily, wobbling from side to side, the terrycloth belt dragging at her waist. "Go ahead," she jeered at the image of Sue, her own reflection shimmering faintly in the dark glass around the woman's face. "Show them your little secret!"

Onscreen, Sue tilted her head, unbothered, rehearsed. "I guess it's that I just try... to be myself... to be sincere and grateful for all that I have and to alwa—"

SPLAT!

The screen convulsed under the impact of an egg. Yolk spread in streaks across Sue's perfect teeth. Then, another — a tomato this time — burst and bled down the screen, dripping over her white smile with a red, pulpy grin.

Elisabeth froze, chest heaving. Her own reflection was smeared into the mess, her face distorted in yellow and scarlet. She turned sharply toward the billboard outside, its monstrous grin echoing Sue's. With a furious rustle, she tore a page from the nearest newspaper and slapped it hard against the glass, covering the smile as though silencing it.

The hallway yawned before her, black as a throat, leading to the bathroom at its end. Now wrapped in Sue's elegant silk robe, she paced before the mirror. Her lips pulled into a parody of Sue's expression. She fluttered her lashes, cocked her head, and spoke in a nasal, sing-song tone:

"I just try to be myseeeeelf... to be sinceeeere and graaatefuuul for all that I haaaaave..."

Her face twisted further with every line until it was grotesque and monstrous. She jabbed her crooked fingers at her reflection.

"You're taking it from me!" she snarled. Spit flecked the glass. "That's your secret! You're taking it all from me!!"

SMACK! Her palm cracked against her cheek."STOP IT!"

SMACK! Again, harder."STOP IT!"

She clawed at her scalp, fists thudding against her skull, the violence escalating with each blow. Her voice tore into a scream: "YOU HAVE TO STOP IT!"

Hisssssss.

The shower scalded her shoulders as she crouched into a ball on the slick tile floor. Water battered her spine like a firing squad, the rhythm pounding bone by bone until her vertebrae jutted out like the ridged back of some prehistoric creature.

"Stop it... stop it..." she whispered, rocking against the floor, the plea crumbling into repetition. "You have to... you have to... you have to..."

----

Daylight finally revealed the ruin.

The oversized living room was smothered in newspaper — the picture window, the television, every surface where a face might appear. But the barricades had not silenced the chaos inside. Leftover poultry carcasses lay rotting on platters, grease smeared the walls like fingerprints of madness, melted cheese had hardened into yellow crust along the floor. The air reeked of sour meat and stale sauces.

And there — Sue. Not immaculate Sue of the screen, but the frayed echo of her — prowling from room to room with nervous urgency, her bathrobe dragging against filth, muttering under her breath.

"I can't go back inside her..."

The howl escaped her throat, jagged and raw, carrying from the ruined hallway into every corner of the house.

"...CONTROOOOOL YOURSELF!!!"