Turn 57 of 226

Walk to work tomorrow from the warehouse and see how the new commute feels. It feels interesting. Talk to Diane and see if I can work from home, the office is feeling too small

The walk is forty-seven minutes. Lena times it by the sun — the warehouse is in the industrial district south of the river and the office is north of center and the route crosses the bridge and cuts through the old market and the streets are busy at seven in the morning. She walks naked and barefoot on the sidewalk and the sidewalk is rough and cold and her feet are hard enough that the roughness is texture, not pain. The city sees her. The city has been seeing her for weeks and the seeing has become ordinary in the way that a weather event becomes ordinary — people glance and look away and the looking away is not shock anymore. It is the acceptance of something that does not fit and cannot be made to fit and so is allowed to exist at the edges. Forty-seven minutes is longer than the old commute. Forty-seven minutes is also nothing because the body does not tire.

The office is small. Lena has known this but the knowing becomes physical when she walks through the lobby and the ceiling is nine feet and she is seven-two and the ceiling is eight inches above her head and the elevator is a box that her shoulders nearly touch on both sides. The hallway to her office is narrow and she turns sideways without thinking and the turning is the body adapting and the adaptation is a concession and the concession is wrong. She stands at her desk and the desk is the right height — she adjusted it weeks ago — but the room is a room and the room has walls and the walls are close and the warehouse has no close walls. The warehouse has space. The office has a door that she has to duck through and a window that looks out on another building and a floor that is carpet and carpet is not concrete.

Diane appears at eleven. The professional mask is thinner now — weeks of silence and one real conversation have worn it to a transparency that Lena can see through. Diane stands in the doorway and the doorway is small and Diane is small in it and Lena is large behind the desk and the size difference is the first thing.

"Diane," Lena says. The word is a greeting and a summons and Diane enters and does not sit because there is no chair and has not been for weeks.

"I need to talk to you about something," Lena says. "I want to work from home. The office is too small."

Diane's face does something complicated. The mask shifts and beneath it is the woman who said I believe you and the woman who came to the office for herself and the woman who is now being asked something that has a policy answer and a human answer and the two answers are not the same.

"Lena, remote work requires approval from Marcus. And HR. There's a process."

"I know."

"You also need a home office setup. A designated workspace with — " Diane stops. The sentence dies because she is looking at Lena and Lena is naked and seven-two and three hundred and forty pounds and the concept of a designated workspace with an ergonomic chair and a monitor at eye level is absurd. The absurdity hangs in the room.

"I have a workspace," Lena says. "I have a standing desk setup that works. I produce better work than I did in this office. The commute is forty-seven minutes each way and I can use that time to work instead."

Diane is quiet. The quiet is the kind that means she is thinking and the thinking is visible — her eyes move and her jaw tightens and her hands are clasped in front of her and the clasping is tight.

"I'll talk to Marcus," she says. "I can't promise anything. He'll want to know why. What do I tell him?"

Lena looks at her. The looking is direct and the directness is the tournament and the warehouse and the concrete floor and the body that proved itself.

"Tell him the truth. The office is too small for me. I work better at home. My deliverables speak for themselves."

Diane nods. The nod is small and tight and real. She turns and leaves and the door stays open and Lena stands at her desk and the carpet is soft under her feet and the softness is wrong. The concrete is correct. The warehouse is correct. The body knows where it belongs.