Turn 140 of 228

Ask Billy Jo what she plans to do now that the case study is published

The five of them stand at the finish line in the November cold. The volunteers are folding tables. The timing clock has been unplugged. Nobody from the marathon staff approaches them — not to congratulate, not to question, not to hand out the participation medals that the other runners received thirty minutes ago. The crowd has gone. The course is being dismantled behind them, the barricades stacked onto trucks. Lena's bare feet are on the freezing asphalt and the yellow toenails are white at the tips from the cold and the body doesn't care. The body is 999 pounds and comfortable and the cold is just information.

Billy Jo is still crying. Not sobbing — the tears run steady and quiet down the unwashed cheeks, catching in the new hair along her jaw. The doughnut is finished. The daisy dukes are barely clinging to the widened hips, the zipper fully down, the denim stretched so thin the pockets are visible through the fabric. The stretch marks on her bare stomach are deep and bright in the cold air. The yellow nails grip the barrier rail. She has been standing here for four hours waiting for Marcus and Carl to finish, barefoot on the asphalt, and she hasn't sat down once.

"What are you going to do now?" Lena asks. The yellow nails rest on the belly. The belly is warm. The breath comes out in clouds.

Billy Jo wipes her face with the back of her hand. The drawl is thick and slow and the tears are still coming. She looks at Lena — 999 pounds, naked, barefoot, unwashed, the body hair thick and dark, the stretch marks covering everything, the yellow nails, the grease, the smell. She looks at Diane — 840 pounds, bearded, naked. She looks at Marcus and Carl — 700 and 695 pounds, holding hands, the beards full, the yellow nails long. She looks at the emptying course behind them.

"I don't know," she says. The drawl makes the words round and heavy.

"The case study is out. Eighty-three pages. My name's on it. Harmon and Pradhan's names are on it. The journal fast-tracked it. Four thousand downloads in two days. I've been getting emails from researchers in six countries. One of them is from the NIH. Two are from private biotech firms. They all want the same thing — they want to understand the mechanism. They want to know how a body can do what your body does. They want to know how a body can gain 350 pounds in eight months and have cleaner bloodwork than a marathon runner."

She pauses. The bare feet shift on the cold asphalt. The stretch marks catch the gray November light.

"But that's not what they're really asking," she says. "They're asking how the word got to me. They're asking how I gained fourteen — no, more than that now — pounds sitting on your floor eating chips. They're asking how my bloodwork improved. They're asking how my nails turned yellow and my feet got wider and I stopped wearing shoes and I stopped wanting to. They're asking how I said the word comfortable and meant it the way you meant it."

She looks at the daisy dukes. The denim is stretched to nothing.

"I can't go back to the clinic," she says. "I know that. I've known it for weeks. I can't sit across from patients and pretend I'm the observer. I'm not the observer. I'm the second data point. I'm in the case study now and I didn't write myself into it — the wish did. The body did. Your body taught mine and my body learned and now I'm standing here in daisy dukes that don't close with yellow nails and stretch marks and I'm crying at a finish line and I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

She looks at Lena.

"I think I keep coming to the apartment. I think I keep coming on Tuesdays. I think I stop pretending there's a version of this where I stay the doctor. I think I let the body keep teaching. And I write the next paper. Not about you. About us. About what happens when the word spreads. About what comfort actually looks like when you stop being afraid of it."

Marcus farts. The sound is enormous in the empty finish line. Carl laughs. Diane's mouth twitches. Billy Jo laughs too — the drawl making it bright and sudden, the tears still wet on her face. The hum is warm. The body is teaching. The teaching is not finished.