Marian undressed in the open part of the crowded locker room. Some of the other women strode nude and triumphant from their lockers to the scale or to the full-length mirror to brush their hair, but, except to shift her weight from one leg to the other, Marian didn't move from the patch of worn grey carpet beneath her feet, nor did her gaze wander from the narrow locker before her as she kicked off her shoes; stepped out of her jeans, out of her underpants, and into her bathing suit; lifted her sweater off over her head, unsnapped her bra, and slid her arms through the straps. Only when she had finished dressing for the pool could she begin to consider the larger space around her. The locker room was a revelation, a celebration of the way bodies worked, of bobbling, plushy breasts spiraling out from the conical cups they'd been telescoped into all day, always curving away from the body in defiance of gravity, with nipples and areola facing out and not straight down. Here there were backs that were well-padded and rolls of flesh that formed pinched creases at the waist. Here tennis partners stood face-to-face naked and talked about whatever. Marian liked to look hard. She had to look hard: she was looking for the secret of the bodies. The more she looked, the more she wanted to look and ride the ribbons of peachy, creamy, ebony light that looped around her like a train on a fast roller coaster, always eluding clear vision. She could never get her fill.