Turn 58 of 233

Meet her. We both apologize. Our relationship is cordial now. But we can't be friends because we are too different

Lena finishes her fourth beer and calls the number on the card. It rings three times and Priya picks up and there is a beat of silence — just breathing, the sound of someone who didn't expect the call to actually happen.

"It's Lena," Lena says.

"I — okay." Priya's voice is different. Smaller. Stripped of the professional architecture she used to carry it.

"I wasn't sure Murph would — I asked him to —"

"He told me. You want to talk?"

"Yes. Can we — not the bar. Somewhere neutral. There's a coffee place on Fifth and Park. Tomorrow afternoon?"

Lena agrees. She drives home and sleeps on the balcony floor with the business card stuck to her chest and the fresh tattoo stinging under the night air.

Sunday afternoon Lena walks into the coffee place on Fifth and Park naked and barefoot and 245 pounds with five weeks of grime on her skin and a tribal tattoo on her belly and Priya is already sitting at a corner table in a cream blouse and dark slacks with two untouched coffees in front of her. Priya sees her and her face does something complicated — a flinch, a recalibration, a decision to stay seated. She stays seated.

Lena pulls out the opposite chair and sits and the wood creaks under her weight and her belly presses against the table edge and the tattoo is right there, at Priya's eye level, and Priya looks at it and looks away and looks back.

"You wanted to talk," Lena says.

Priya wraps both hands around her coffee cup. Her nails are manicured. Her posture is perfect. She looks like a woman who rehearsed a speech in her bathroom mirror and left half of it in the cab.

"I owe you an apology," Priya says. "What I said to you — calling you a fat slob — that was unprofessional and it was cruel and I've been —" She stops. Her jaw tightens.

"I've been thinking about it. Since."

Lena looks at her. The old Lena would have flinched at the words. This Lena hears them and feels nothing. Not anger. Not vindication. Just the distance between two people who stood on opposite sides of a desk and said true things in the worst possible ways.

"I owe you one too," Lena says. "I was doing it on purpose by the end. The eating, the — everything. I was pushing it because I knew it was getting to you. That wasn't fair."

Priya blinks. She wasn't expecting reciprocity. She nods slowly and takes a sip of the coffee and her hands are shaking slightly and she sets the cup down and says, "Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"Are you happy? The real answer."

Lena leans back in the chair and her belly shifts against the table and the tribal lines stretch and settle. She thinks about the fourth house and the nine miles and the balcony floor and the spreadsheet on her phone and the laughter in Jess's shop.

"Yeah," Lena says. "I am."

Priya nods again. She looks at Lena — really looks, the way she looked in the lobby that first day, but this time without the mask. What she sees is a six-foot-three naked woman with a belly tattoo and five weeks of dirt and steel piercings and a stillness that comes from somewhere Priya can't reach.

"I can't —" Priya starts and stops. "I'm glad you're happy. But I can't — we can't be friends. We're too different. You understand that."

"I do," Lena says. And she means it. There is no bitterness in it. Priya lives in blazers and manicured nails and professional architecture. Lena lives in grime and bare feet and the ridge of a roof. The distance between them is not hostile. It is just real.

They finish their coffees in silence. Priya stands first and picks up her bag and says, "Take care of yourself, Lena." Lena says, "You too." Priya walks out and the door closes behind her and Lena sits for another minute with the empty cups and the afternoon light coming through the window and the particular quiet of something that needed to end and ended clean.