Turn 84 of 233

Skip the celebration and go straight to the next leg sleeve session with Jess. The left leg is completed now. Call Janet and tell her everything. Jenson comes through with my new job title. I get more money now

Lena doesn't wait for Walt to call Jensen. She doesn't wait for the walkthrough. The work is done and the work speaks and she knows it speaks because she has been listening to it for months. She drives from the top floor of the downtown frame straight to Tenth Street and parks the truck in front of Jess's shop and walks in barefoot and the grime is thick and the left calf is itching under the healing ink and Jess looks up from her station and sees her and doesn't ask why she's early.

"Left leg. Let's finish it."

Jess doesn't argue. She sets up and the needle starts and the session is long — three hours, the longest yet. The shin is brutal. The skin is thin over the bone and every stroke of the needle sends a sharp bright signal that Lena absorbs the way she absorbs everything now — with her body, with her breath, with the three hundred and fifteen pounds of mass that has taught her how to hold through pain. The calf lines connect to the shin lines and the pattern runs unbroken from ankle to knee and Jess works the kneecap last, the lines curving around the joint, and Lena watches the tribal black emerge and the leg is a canvas and the canvas is almost complete. Jess wipes the ink away and steps back and the left leg is done — ankle to knee, tribal black, thick lines following the muscle architecture, the ink shifting when Lena flexes and holding when she doesn't.

"Next session we start the thigh," Jess says. "That's the big piece. The quadricep separation is — it's going to be the best work I've ever done."

Lena drives home and calls Janet from the balcony floor. The night is warm and the grime is thick and the left leg is raised and sore and the ink is fresh and the phone is on speaker.

"Both projects done. Ten days. Six houses and a ten-story steel frame. I ran both sites."

Janet is quiet for a long time. The kind of quiet that means she is processing something that doesn't fit into the categories she has.

"Ten days. Lena. Your father —"

"Tell him. Tell him everything. The ten days, the steel frame, the residential. Tell him I stood on the top floor of a ten-story building I built and the city was below me."

"He keeps the photo, Lena. The three-hundred-pound one. He opens it. He doesn't say anything but he opens it."

"I know."

"He asks about you every night. Every single night. 'Did she call. How is she. Is she safe.' He won't call you himself because —"

"Because he's Samuel Park."

"Because he's Samuel Park."

The silence holds and Lena listens to her mother breathing on the other end and the night is warm and the leg is sore and the body is three hundred and fifteen pounds and she is comfortable.

"I finished the left leg today. Ankle to knee. Tribal black, same as the arms. Jess is starting the thigh next session. Send you a photo?"

"Every session. I want every one."

The phone buzzes on the balcony floor — a call coming in, Jensen's number. Lena stares at it. Janet hears the buzz.

"Go. Call me back."

Lena answers and Jensen's voice is short and direct the way steel men talk.

"I walked both sites. Walt walked me through both. The residential is clean. The commercial — I've been doing this thirty years and I've never seen a ten-story frame go up that fast. The welds are good. The shoring is good. The load paths are good."

He pauses.

"I'm changing your title. Project Manager. You're above crew lead now. You're in my direct circle. That means you sit in on bids, you review plans before they go to crew, you have authority on site selection and crew allocation. The pay increase is significant — more than you were making at the office job, more than crew lead, more than anyone on the site besides Walt and me."

Lena stands on the balcony and the night presses in and the grime is thick and the left leg is fresh and the title is hers.

"When do I start?"

"You started ten days ago. This is retroactive. The check will reflect it."

He hangs up and Lena stands on the balcony and the city is below her the way the city was below her from the top floor of the steel frame and the title is Project Manager and the pay is more than the office and more than crew lead and the body is three hundred and fifteen pounds and she is comfortable. She is so deeply comfortable.