Turn 141 of 228

Tell Billy Jo to come Tuesday and bring whatever she needs to start the new paper

The finish line is nearly empty now. The last truck pulls away with the stacked barricades and the timing clock and the volunteer coats. The five of them stand on the cold asphalt — 999 and 840 and 700 and 695 pounds of naked unwashed barefoot flesh, and Billy Jo in the ruined daisy dukes with nothing else. The November wind moves through the empty course. Nobody tells them to leave. Nobody comes back.

Lena watches Billy Jo's face. The tears have dried. The stretch marks are bright in the cold. The body hair along her jaw catches the wind. The yellow nails grip the barrier rail. The face is the open one — the one that stopped performing, the one that stopped managing expressions like quarterly reports. The face of someone who has arrived somewhere she can't leave.

"Tuesday," Lena says. The word is plain. The yellow nails rest on the belly.

"Come to the apartment. Bring whatever you need to start the new paper. Laptop, notes, whatever. Don't wear anything you can't take off."

Billy Jo looks at her. The drawl is full and the eyes are wet and the mouth opens and closes and opens again. The bare feet on the freezing asphalt. The daisy dukes that won't close. The stretch marks. The yellow nails. The body that used to belong to a doctor.

"I'll be there," Billy Jo says. The drawl makes it sound like it's the only true thing she's ever said.

"I'll bring my laptop. I've got notes — not clinical notes, not the formal kind. Real ones. Things I've been writing down since September that aren't in the case study. Things about how it feels. How the weight feels. How the bare feet feel. How saying the word comfortable felt in my mouth. The case study didn't have room for any of that. The next paper will."

She picks up the leather bag from the ground. The bare feet don't flinch on the cold asphalt. She looks at Diane — 840 pounds, bearded, naked, the wind in the beard. She looks at Marcus and Carl — still holding hands, the beards full, the yellow nails interlocked. She looks at Lena one more time.

"Tuesday," she says again.

She walks to the car. The daisy dukes are barely there — the denim transparent, the zipper fully down, the waistband open, the stretch marks and the body hair visible through the fabric. The bare feet on the cold parking lot. The leather bag over one shoulder. She doesn't look back. The car starts. The taillights disappear down the empty street.

Lena stands with the others. The course is gone. The finish line is gone. The asphalt is bare and cold and the four of them are standing on it naked and barefoot and enormous and the hum is warm and patient. Marcus farts again. Carl laughs again. Diane's mouth twitches again. Lena texts Diane: *Tuesday. Billy Jo's starting the new paper.* Diane responds in ten seconds: *I know.* Then: *She's the second data point and she knows it.* Then: *The NIH emails are the part that worries me.* Lena reads the last text three times. The hum doesn't stop. The body is comfortable. The teaching is Tuesday now. The teaching has a laptop and notes and a new paper and the word is spreading and the spreading is *more.*