Turn 55 of 228

Walkto the bodega and tell Diane more about the wish. It help settle something in you you didn't know was unsettled.

They walk east on Garfield and the night is cool and the streetlights catch Lena's body the way they always do — the belly, the breasts, the mess — and tonight the mess is deeper, fourteen days of skin layered with the week's accumulation, the piss and the shit and the grease and the sweat and the cum and the vodka dried to a crust that catches the light like varnish. Lena doesn't think about it. She thinks about the word she said in the theater. *Wish.* She said it out loud and the world didn't end and Diane said *I know* and the world didn't end and now they're walking to the bodega and the word is between them like a third person.

Lena says, "It was a Thursday night. I was in the bathroom. I'd been tugging at my clothes all day and hating the way everything sat on me and I looked in the mirror and I said it out loud. I just wish I could feel comfortable in my body for once. Really comfortable." She walks and her bare feet slap the concrete and her belly sways with each step and the motion is familiar now, the body's rhythm, the way it moves at 295 pounds — slow, heavy, deliberate.

"Something happened. A warmth in my stomach. I thought it was nothing. I went to bed and the next morning my jeans were tighter and by afternoon my belly was heavier and that night I caught myself resting my hand on it and feeling calm. Not happy. Not excited. Calm. Like something had been running for years and someone finally turned it off."

Diane listens. Her boots are steady on the concrete and her hands are in her jacket pockets and she doesn't look at Lena while Lena talks — she looks ahead, at the sidewalk, at the bodega's fluorescent glow growing closer. Lena says, "The wish didn't make me comfortable by fixing anything. It made me comfortable by changing everything. My body got bigger and softer and my mind changed with it. I stopped wanting to be smaller. I stopped wanting to be clean. I stopped wanting to perform anything for anyone. The weight isn't a side effect — it's the mechanism. Every pound is a pound of something I was carrying that I don't have to carry anymore."

They reach the bodega and Lena pushes the door and the bell rings and the clerk looks up and looks down and Lena fills a basket without pausing — chips, cookies, vodka, soda, jerky, donuts — and Diane stands near the door the way she always stands and Lena keeps talking.

"I didn't know something was unsettled. That's the part I can't explain. I thought I was fine. I went to work and did my job and came home and hated my body and that was just — life. That was the weather. You don't question the weather. But the wish didn't settle the weather. It settled something underneath the weather. Something I didn't know was making the weather." She sets the basket on the counter and the clerk scans everything and says, "Have a good night," and she says, "You too," and they walk back outside.

Diane carries one bag. Lena carries the other. They walk west and the night moves across them and Lena says, "I weigh 295 pounds. I haven't showered in fourteen days. I piss on my floor. I shit on my floor. I eat and game and come and win and the wish is still working and I don't want it to stop. I'm not going to stop it. I don't think I could if I wanted to and I don't want to." Diane is quiet for a long time. They pass the laundromat and the closed barbershop and the fire hydrant with the chipped yellow paint. Then Diane says, "The woman in the film. She lived in her house the way you live in your body. She didn't explain it. She didn't apologize for it. She just inhabited it." Lena says, "Yeah." Diane says, "I think the wish didn't change you. I think it gave you permission to be what you already were." Lena looks at her and the streetlight catches them both and the word *permission* sits in the air between them and it fits better than *wish* and they both know it.

They reach the apartment building and Lena takes both bags and turns and says, "Next Saturday." Diane says, "Next Saturday. I'll pick something." Lena says, "You always pick something." Diane nods and walks east and the leather jacket catches the streetlight and then she's gone and Lena goes inside and the elevator takes her up and the apartment welcomes her and the floor is waiting and the console is waiting and the vodka is cold and the weed is strong and she sets the bags on the counter and the night begins again, 295 pounds and growing, and somewhere inside her the wish hums its quiet hum and Lena doesn't question it. She never questions it anymore.