Turn 42 of 228

Read Diane's reply before work and respond honestly. As the week passes, I finish my work early on all days and meet Diane at the coffee shop on Thursday. At the coffee shop, she suggests our next hangout be at the movies.

Lena picks up the phone from the hardwood and the screen is warm and the battery is low and there are notifications stacked — OnlyFans, OnlyFans, OnlyFans, text from Diane, text from Diane, OnlyFans. She ignores the rest and opens the text thread. Diane's first message was sent at four-twelve in the morning: *I read your message three times. I'm not going to tell you you're okay because I don't think that's the question anymore. I think you're past the place where okay applies. I've been there. Not the same way. But past it.* The second message was sent at four-fifteen: *You said this feels like something that ate okay and kept going. I understand that. I understood it before you said it. That's why I haven't written you up. That's why I promoted you. Not because of the work — the work is extraordinary, but that's not why. I promoted you because you're the only person in that office who isn't pretending, and I couldn't punish someone for stopping a thing I stopped doing a long time ago myself.*

Lena reads both messages twice. The bathroom light is harsh and her body is all there — 274 pounds, yellow teeth, stubble thickening, the taste in her mouth, the mess from last night still on her skin. She types: *I don't know what to say to that. I've never told anyone what I told you. I didn't plan to tell you. It just came out. I think it came out because you're the only person who didn't look away when I stopped pretending. Everyone else watched on OnlyFans and you watched in person and that's different. Thank you for being different.* She sends it and sets the phone on the sink and looks at herself in the mirror and the woman looking back is someone she doesn't recognize and someone she recognizes completely.

The week moves. Monday she clears fourteen reports by eleven. Tuesday she finishes by ten-thirty and spends the afternoon naked in her locked office, eating, smoking, recording, the carpet accumulating. Wednesday she finishes by eleven and masturbates twice and reads the private messages — the office-locker person sent another one: *I think about you when I lock my door. Not like that. I think about what it would be like if I just stayed. If I never put the clothes back on. If I never cleaned up. I don't think I'm as brave as you. But I think about it every day.* She doesn't reply. The subscriber count climbs — 178, 184, 191. Thursday morning she finishes her queue by ten and texts Diane: *I'm done. Coffee?* Diane replies in four minutes: *Marlow's. Noon. I'm buying.*

Marlow's is warm and smells like espresso and Lena walks in barefoot and naked and 274 pounds and the barista doesn't look up and the two women at the corner table don't look away fast enough and Diane is already seated with two cups. Lena sits across from her and the chair is wood and hard and her body fills it. Diane looks at her — not at her body, at her face — and says, "You look tired." Lena says, "I haven't slept right since Thursday." Diane says, "Which Thursday?" and Lena almost smiles. They sit and drink and the coffee is bitter and hot and Lena holds the cup with both hands and the warmth moves through her fingers.

Diane watches her for a long time. Then she says, "I want to do something different next time. Not coffee. Not your apartment. Something outside." Lena looks at her. Diane says, "There's a film at the Charleswood. The seven o'clock showing on Saturday. Documentary about deep-sea exploration. Two hours in the dark with strangers. No one will see you. No one will care." Lena looks at her and the offer sits between them — not coffee, not the apartment, not the office, but a movie theater, a public place, the dark. She says, "You want to take me to the movies." Diane says, "I want to sit next to you in the dark and watch something that has nothing to do with any of this. Yes. I want to take you to the movies."