The Very Nice Box

7 Ava had no interest in revisiting the unwelcome feeling that had settled over the rest of her weekend: that something about Mat had disturbed the order of her life. Again and again her mind drifted to the dog run, the Stoned Fruit, the passenger seat of his small red car. Her own car had been towed, her laundry was finished, Brutus had been walked, her lunch for the next day was prepared, and she had three free units before bed to relax. She sat on her Practical Sofa with Brutus and began streaming Hotspot. The contestant this week was a short, tanned man with a purple faux hawk. As he began a deep dive into his potential date’s latest Internet search terms, Ava’s phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number. Need a ride tomorrow? This is Mat btw! She felt lightheaded. He had included two dog emojis. I’ll take a Swyft, but thanks for the offer. She wasn’t going to show up to work with him; she could imagine the look of horror on Jaime’s face if they stepped out of the elevator together with matching coffee cups from the Stoned Fruit. She mentally rehearsed how she would casually describe her weekend to Jaime during their standing lunch. Of all the various ways she might spin it, her favorite option was not to mention Mat at all, a conclusion that would help her sleep a full eighteen units that night. At work the next morning Ava spent three units working on the Very Nice Box, but her work was slow. She couldn’t stop looking around Floor 12 for signs of Mat, who had arrived soon after Ava and booked the Imagination Room for a meeting with Owen Lloyd that had lasted all morning. All she could hear of the meeting was Owen Lloyd’s frequent explosive laughter. She doubted how much work they were actually getting done. For their lunch, Jaime had reserved her favorite side room on Floor 2 – the Test Floor, where STÄDA prototypes were assembled. The side room was dim, with soft matte navy walls and minimal furnishing – just two Collaborative Lounge Chairs and a Cozy Nesting Table – offering relief from the open-plan overstimulation. ‘You totally disappeared on Friday!’ Jaime said, opening his Humble Lunchbox. ‘I had no one to process the news of our new one-thousand-percent bro-boss with.’ ‘Sorry,’ Ava said. ‘I had to leave. It was too much.’ ‘I totally get it,’ Jaime said. He unveiled a tidy row of sushi. ‘What’s his deal, do you think? I feel like he’s secretly a serial killer.’ ‘Actually,’ Ava said, clearing her throat, ‘he gave me a ride home on Friday.’ ‘He what?’ ‘I know,’ Ava said, glancing around. ‘Some Vandals messed with my engine, so he offered me a ride home.’ ‘What does he drive?’ ‘A little red sports car.’ ‘Oh my god!’ Jaime said, laughing. ‘I saw that car in the parking lot and wondered! I cannot imagine you in that vehicle.’ ‘It was pretty uncomfortable,’ Ava said. She had committed to dodging the full truth. Jaime didn’t need to know about the dog park or breakfast; he’d only hound her for more details. She felt retroactively embarrassed that she’d been roped into the plan, let alone that she hadn’t had a terrible time. ‘Can I try to guess three objects from his car?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘Okay, let’s see. Some type of… unused exercise equipment?’ ‘There was a basketball.’ ‘Garbage.’ ‘That’s very generic and obvious, but I’ll give it to you.’ ‘Like… eight thousand packs of gum.’ ‘Mints,’ Ava said. ‘You’re weirdly good at this.’ ‘What can I say?’ Jaime shrugged. ‘I’m an excellent judge of character. Which reminds me, did you watch Hotspot?’ ‘Yes. What’s your take?’ ‘First of all, we need to talk about that one guy’s most-used emojis. Football, squatting monkey, diamond ring? Major red flag!’ ‘The emojis bothered me less than the number of alarms he had set. There was basically one alarm every fifteen minutes for all twenty-four hours of the day,’ Ava said. ‘And the recent searches! He actually chose that guy knowing that he had to look up the word parliament.’ ‘Maybe he was looking up how to spell it?’ ‘Somehow that’s worse,’ Jaime said. ‘What do you think Andie would find most terrible? Maybe that the Stocks app was one of his main four?’ Ava’s body tensed at the mention of Andie. They never spoke about her. ‘Maybe…’ she started, but she couldn’t bring herself to speculate further. She pulled out her phone and saw a missed call and voicemail from the mechanic. She was glad for the excuse to change the subject. ‘Sorry, Jaime,’ she said. ‘I need to take care of this.’ Ava listened to the voicemail as she made her way back to her desk. There was practiced sympathy in the mechanic’s voice. Sorry to say, the car’s, ah, totaled. Engine’s full of, ah… sand, I want to say. Or sawdust. Anyway, looks like someone really didn’t want you, ah, driving. She deleted the voicemail and opened a new window that contained notes for her Necessary Self-Review: Diligent and prompt. Significant progress on Passion Project. Accepted new company mantras without audible complaint. Perfect attendance. Donated sick days. The words blurred together as the reality of the voicemail set in. The car was totaled. Ava still had the registration with her parents’ names on it. Her phone chirped with a message from her SHRNK. Good morning, Ava. How are you today? She tried to swipe the message away but saw only the option to tap a smiling or a frowning emoji. She found a tiny X and tapped it. Here’s a free piece of advice before you go, Ava: you can always ask for help. She closed her eyes and thought about logging the incident with Security. But then what? What would they do? She opened an S-Chat window to Mat. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, and she edited the message so many times that it began to lose all meaning. Good morning. My car is totaled. If there’s a chance you could give me a ride home, I would appreciate it. In the few seconds after she hit Send, her stomach tightened. She considered telling him she’d meant to send the message to someone else. Had she? She glanced around the room, then back at her screen. She minimized the window, then maximized it, then started to write Never mind, but she saw a text bubble from Mat appear and disappear. She wanted to leave her desk, walk out the door, and never return. But then his ellipses appeared again. 1000% as long as u need. Got u! She read it several times: 1000%. What was wrong with him? Why did he have to take the longest route to convey the least amount of meaning? He could have just said yes, one of the simplest, most widely understood words in the English language. But beneath her annoyance was a quiet excitement at his offer. As long as you need. She tried to justify the feeling to herself, to reason that the favor would save her hundreds of dollars a month that she would otherwise lose to Swyft and she wouldn’t have to encounter a new driver – and new headache-inducing air freshener – every day. She knew this wasn’t the full story, though. After all, she could easily afford the Swyft rides, and she had practice ignoring strangers – STÄDA had hired dozens of people whom she’d successfully avoided over the past year. The truth was that she was compelled to ride with Mat in the same way that she’d been compelled to sit with him at a w**d-themed café. It was a feeling that had no clear logic attached to it, and so it both intrigued and bothered her. She reluctantly opened SHRNK. Am I insane to want to be in a car with my boss? I’ve heard more unusual things in my line of work. How does being with your boss make you feel? Ava couldn’t exactly name the feeling. I feel repelled by who he is and attracted to HOW he is… What is the difference between who he is and how he is? Ava was cautiously intrigued by the question. I’m not sure. I’m just… curious. Somewhere between disturbed and curious. Disturbed, not curious. Curiosity is very good for the brain, her SHRNK wrote. When was the last time you felt curious about someone new? Andie, Ava responded easily. She’d felt curious about Andie when she’d first seen her in STÄDA’s original offices, which would have felt cramped if it hadn’t been for Karl’s charming utilitarian design. There was only a handful of STÄDA employees, and they shared a long wooden table with a landscaping firm. On her first day of work, Ava spotted Andie bent over the end of the table, wearing a pair of surgical glasses as she adjusted the gears of a watch. Immediately, as though tugged, Ava felt drawn toward her. She’d been curious. Of course you were curious about Andie, her SHRNK wrote. How long ago was that? Ten years. Ten years ago, her SHRNK repeated. That feeling must have been incredibly strong to endure for ten years. And yet it seems to have held you back from feeling curious about other things, other people. What does that mean? Well, if you believe that your curiosities begin and end with Andie and storage boxes, you’re building yourself a relatively small life. A minimalist life, Ava corrected. Who could you be if you allowed yourself to be curious about someone else? Ava closed the app and pocketed her phone. She glanced over at Mat, worried that somehow he had seen her conversation with her SHRNK. That she was using the app at all was embarrassing. But he was on his own phone, swiping, one leg crossed over the other, his earbuds in. She forced herself to focus on her work for the rest of the day. She would not think about their ride home. She would not think about her father’s totaled car. She would not think about anything besides potential latches for the Very Nice Box. ‘You good?’ Mat said as they got into his car later that afternoon. ‘What? Yes, why?’ Ava said. She felt each word emerge from her mouth as though someone else were speaking them. ‘Awesome, awesome.’ He fit the tongue of his seatbelt into its buckle while pulling out of the parking lot, which made Ava grip her seat. She hated being in the passenger seat. Her mouth was dry. Maybe she should learn to bike, or buy a new car. Both thoughts exhausted her. She stared at the veins in Mat’s forearm while he turned the knobs that controlled his stereo and heat. She felt on the edge of another panic episode and conjured an image of Brutus as a puppy. Brutus l*****g Andie’s ear. Ear spa, Andie called it. Ava tried desperately to hang on to the thought while they careened onto the highway. ‘Ave!’ Mat said suddenly, and Ava’s heart barreled out of her chest. ‘I’m really sorry about your car! What the f**k!’ ‘It’s okay,’ Ava managed. ‘It happens.’ ‘Does it, though?’ He was right. Teenagers did not ordinarily destroy innocent storage designers’ cars with sawdust. Ave. She repeated the nickname to herself. She wondered what Ave was like – surely more fun, more relaxed, than Ava. The rest of the ride was painfully silent. Mat briefly fiddled with the radio, but there were only ads and static. When he finally pulled up to her apartment, she felt exhausted from the effort of simply sitting beside him. ‘Well, that was a blast,’ Mat said, smiling. Ava was mortified. ‘Okay,’ she said, but couldn’t say more than that. ‘Any time,’ Mat said. ‘Sorry, thank you for the ride,’ Ava said, opening her door, and she didn’t look behind her as she made her way inside.