Turn 70 of 228

Wait for Monday and see Diane naked at the office for the first time

Sunday passes the way Sundays pass now — Lena on the office floor with the console and the vodka and the weed and the queue cleared by nine and the matches won and the carpet warm and the corner dark and the body growing. The scale reads 312 in the morning and 313 by evening and the wish hums steady and deep and she doesn't think about it. She eats Oreos on the floor and the crumbs fall into the carpet and the stains layer and the bottles line up and the weekend ends and Monday comes.

She walks the six blocks at 313 pounds and naked and barefoot and the morning is cool and the sidewalk is rough and the security guard looks up and looks down and the elevator takes her up and the door locks behind her. The laptop opens and the queue is cleared by nine-twelve and she sets it aside and picks up the controller and the screen fills and the match begins and the morning passes. At ten-fifteen she hears the elevator. The doors open on five and the hallway fills with the smell — strong, thick, the deep sour richness of a body unwashed for two weeks — and then the footsteps. Bare feet on carpet. Heavy. Deliberate. The walk of someone who has been barefoot for a week and has found the weight of it.

Diane passes Lena's open door and Lena sees her. All of her. The boots are in the Charleswood and the blouse is gone and the pants are under the seat in row seven and there is nothing left to remove. Diane is naked. Completely. The body that Lena saw through the gaps in the buttons and the split seam is fully visible now and it is bigger than Saturday. The belly hangs low and round and sways with each step and the stretch marks are visible — pale lines across the lower curve, the evidence of growth faster than skin can adapt to. The breasts are full and heavy and they hang to the belly's upper slope and the nipples are dark and the skin between them is pale and the stubble across the upper chest is thicker, darker. The hair under her arms is longer and the hair on her forearms is visible and the hair on her legs is growing in — fine and dark and catching the fluorescent light. The stubble along her jaw and neck and chin is not stubble anymore — it's a beard, short and dark and patchy, the kind that comes from weeks without shaving. Her hair is lank and matted and unwashed and hangs past her shoulders. The smell fills the hallway and pushes into Lena's office and it's stronger than the apartment, stronger than the theater, concentrated by the closed building and the recycled air.

Diane doesn't stop. She walks past Lena's door and her bare feet slap the carpet and her body moves — the belly swaying, the breasts shifting, the thighs pressing together and separating and pressing again — and she's carrying a folder. A manila folder, held against her hip, and her other hand swings free and she doesn't look at Lena and Lena doesn't say anything and Diane walks to her office and the door closes and the hallway holds the smell.

Lena sits on the floor and the controller is warm and the screen flickers and the smell of Diane is in the air and it mixes with the smell of the office — the piss in the corner, the food on the carpet, the vodka, the unwashed skin of her own body — and the two smells merge into something that smells like the apartment and the Charleswood and the bodega and the sidewalk. Like the world they're building. Lena wins the match and the screen flashes victory and she sets down the controller and picks up the vodka and drinks and the morning continues and the building holds them both and the wish hums and Diane is naked at work and the world didn't end.