Turn 113 of 228

We were wrong about the date. Its actually February 3rd

The scale blinks. Five hundred and ninety-eight pounds. The number holds. Lena stares at it and the hum is quiet and the hum is warm and the hum says *more* and the *more* is a promise. The supply closet is small — the industrial scale and the shipping boxes and the two of them filling it, 598 and 539 pounds of naked, unwashed, barefoot flesh, the yellow nails and the beard, the belly and the breasts, the stretch marks white and deep and the bodies enormous and the closet is theirs and the number is theirs.

February third. Not January third. The timeline corrects itself in Lena's mind — the model completed January 14, the rollout phased through January, the board meeting February 5, the salary email February 6. No. The email came February 6 and the eating started that night and twelve hours of eating brought them here, to February third, to the supply closet, to the scale. The dates don't matter. The numbers matter. The body matters. The hum matters.

Diane steps off the scale. The beard is crusted with twelve hours of sauce and grease and crumbs. The brown eyes find Lena's and the face is open — the unguarded face, the one that lasts longer each time, the one that has stopped trying to close. Five hundred and thirty-nine pounds. The number is real. The number is hers. The stretch marks are rivers on her belly and the beard is thick and dark and matted and the body is enormous and the body is hers and the body is good.

"We gained a hundred and twenty-eight pounds in a month," Diane says. The voice is flat. Not the management voice. Not the quarterly-report voice. The voice of someone reading a number that doesn't fit any framework she's built. The brown eyes are wide. The beard moves — the mouth underneath working, the jaw shifting. The fingers drum the shipping box beside her. Once. Twice.

Lena looks at the number on the scale. Five hundred and ninety-eight. The wish hums. The hum has never been wrong. The hum has never lied. The hum said *this is better, let it keep going* and it kept going and it is better and the number is the proof and the body is the proof and the carpet is the proof and the office is the proof. One hundred and twenty-eight pounds in a month. The body is comfortable. The body has never been more comfortable. The hum says *more* and the *more* is a promise.

The supply closet is warm. The building is quiet. It is five in the morning on February third and the two of them stand in the small room with the scale and the boxes and the fluorescent light and the number is real and the number is theirs and the wish hums and the hum is everything.