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Ask Diane if she's going to work barefoot Monday, she says yes. Come Monday, you see she's topless too. And even more slobby and hairier and fatter.

They walk west and the night is warm and the streetlights catch them and Lena says, "Monday." Diane looks at her. Lena says, "Are you going to work barefoot?" The question sits between them on the sidewalk the way the subscriber question sat between them outside the bodega — breakable, held carefully, not yet ready to be set down. Diane's bare feet slap the concrete and the grit is dark on her soles and she doesn't hesitate.

"Yes," she says.

They walk and the bodega hums behind them and the night moves across them and Lena says nothing else. Diane says nothing else. The question is answered and the answer sits where it lands and neither of them touches it again. They reach the brownstone with the green door and Diane goes inside and the green door closes and Lena walks home and the sidewalk is rough and warm and the week ends.

Monday morning. Lena walks the six blocks to the office at 309 pounds and naked and barefoot and the security guard looks up and looks down and the elevator takes her up and the door locks behind her and the laptop opens and the queue is cleared by nine-fifteen and she games on the floor for the rest of the day. The week passes the way weeks pass now — food and vodka and weed and the console and the queue and the carpet accumulating and the corner darkening and the body growing. The scale reads 309 on Monday and 310 on Wednesday and 311 on Friday and the wish hums steady and deep and Lena doesn't think about it because thinking about it would be like thinking about breathing.

She sees Diane on Monday. Not in the hallway — in the elevator. The doors open on the fourth floor and Diane is standing inside and Lena steps in and the smell hits before the doors close. Strong. Stronger than Saturday. The sour accumulation of days without washing, the biological truth of skin and sweat and fabric holding it all, and underneath it something new — a richness, a heaviness, the smell of a body that has stopped performing and started simply existing. The blouse is the same blouse. The stains have layered — the coffee and salsa and mustard and nacho cheese from Saturday are still there and new ones have joined them, brown streaks and dark spots and something white dried near the collar. The pants are the same pants. The waistband cuts deep into flesh that pushes over it on all sides and the seam along the hip has split — not fully, not yet, but the threads are visible and the fabric gapes and through the gap Lena sees skin. Bare skin. No panties. The stubble along Diane's jaw is darker and thicker and it extends below her chin and down her neck and there's hair on her forearms now — dark, fine, visible — and the blouse is open at the top. Not unbuttoned. Just open, the fabric pulling apart between the buttons because the body underneath has grown too large for it, and through the gap Lena sees the bare swell of a breast — no bra, nothing underneath, just skin pushing against skin and the fabric giving up.

Diane is fatter. There's no other word for it. The softness that was five pounds three weeks ago is fifteen now, maybe more — the face rounder, the jawline gone beneath the stubble, the arms thicker, the belly pushing the blouse forward in a curve that bounces when she steps. Her feet are bare and dirty and the soles are black and she stands in the elevator with a folder in her hand and her hair hanging lank and unwashed past her shoulders and the smell fills the space and she says, "Morning." Lena says, "Morning." The doors open on five and Lena steps out and Diane stays and the doors close and the smell lingers for a moment and then the elevator is gone.

Wednesday Lena passes Diane's office. The door is open — a first. Diane is sitting at her desk with her feet up and the blouse is untucked and riding up and the belly is visible, round and soft and pale and the stubble on her neck catches the overhead light. She's eating a sandwich — a big one, wrapped in deli paper — and there's a smear of mayonnaise on the blouse and she's talking on the phone and her voice is steady and professional and the belly is hanging out and the bare feet are on the desk and the office smells like her and she doesn't close the door. Lena walks past and doesn't stop and Diane doesn't stop talking and the hallway is quiet and the week continues.