The Very Nice Box

Chapter 4

10

From: STÄDA Security To: STÄDA-all

STÄDA employees:

It has come to the attention of STÄDA’s Security team that recent events at the Vision Tower construction site, and the broader pattern of vandalism around the STÄDA campus, are acutely distressing to some of you, and that the added tension at work has been damaging to your sense of safety and productivity.

We are also aware that to some of you, the Vision Tower construction site is concerning, and STÄDA’s commitment to the community has been called into question. I would like to address both of these concerns.

The psychological and physical safety of our STÄDA family is of the utmost importance. Please know that we plan to install additional security cameras throughout the campus, particularly near the construction site of the new Vision Tower. We urge you to take extra precautions to safeguard your property. Be sure to lock your cars, keep your key card on your person at all times, and report any suspicious activity to our team, located on Floor 1. In response to this crisis we are also revising our Remote Work Policy. With approval from your manager, you may work from home if the threat of vandalism is negatively impacting your mental health.

Furthermore, despite the messaging from these Vandals, our commitment to the broader Red Hook community is self-evident. This past year alone we partnered with Green Marine to convert STÄDA recycling into high-efficiency flood barriers along the waterfront. We are also launching a cross-functional task force to begin to repair the relationship between STÄDA and those who have committed acts of vandalism on our property, which Mathew Putnam has volunteered to lead. Mathew will share his plans with you in the coming weeks.

It is the duty of the Security team to provide you with a safe environment from which you can Strengthen, Transform, Achieve, Dare, and Ascend.

We appreciate your allyship.

Sincerely,

Malcolm P. Wade

Chief of Security

Blue

Ava scrolled to the end of the email and sighed. STÄDA had never stood for anything until recently, when someone in Spirit felt the need to retroactively force an acrostic poem into its name.

But STÄDA was not an acronym. Karl had named the company himself. He’d grown up in a small Swedish town with only his mother, and the first word he learned to spell was one that appeared daily on her to-do list: STÄDA. To clean. To tidy. It was one of the first things he’d told Ava in her interview, ten years before. She’d loved the smallness of the name, the warmth of the memory, the sturdiness of the word.

S-Chat reactions to the email had already begun to cascade down Ava’s screen.

A message popped up with Mat’s avatar – a photo of Emily – in the corner.

Hungry? he wrote.

Too busy trying to decipher where we are allegedly ‘ascending’ to.

Well, the People Office is upstairs, Mat wrote. And the cafeteria is above that. Then there’s the roof – have you been up there? The view is unreal. 1000% my fav place to just chill when s**t just gets too hard.

What was so hard about Mat’s life? Ava wanted to know. She had been to the roof. She knew about the view. In fact, she had probably spent more time there than anyone. On warmer days she’d take her lunch up to enjoy the sun and solitude. It had felt like her secret, until one day she found a group of men from Marketing doing kettlebell squats up there. Now it was littered with Husky Camping Chairs and free weights. Someone had set up homemade cornhole boards and arranged a herb garden that was irreversibly abandoned. She was sure none of this was actually allowed, and it was only a matter of time before the scene would attract enough of a crowd for Security or People to shut it down.

Mat continued typing. Fry Shack is catering this quarter! He sent a drooling emoji.

I pack my lunch every day, Ava wrote. Surely you know this by now.

She glanced around the room.

An ellipsis from Mat’s side of the chat appeared, then vanished. She stared at it for a full minute, but nothing more came. She started to type but then erased what she’d started. When was the last time she’d acted this way? It was completely unlike her to waste time conveying information.

In this moment of hesitation, a Humble Lunchbox in navy-blue plastic landed on her desk. ‘Did you get the email, Ava?’ Jaime said, pulling up an Encouraging Desk Chair. He handed her a stack of renderings that showed the Very Nice Box in various materials – pine, plastic, pulp board, and MDF – and removed his Sensible Bento Box from his Humble Lunchbox. She’d forgotten about their standing lunch, and part of her wished she could go back in time to cancel it, just this once.

‘I actually don’t hate the MDF,’ she said, squinting at the page.

‘Those Vandals are talented,’ Jaime said. He unsnapped the top of his Sensible Bento Box to reveal a cucumber salad and uniform California rolls, which Ava knew he had rolled himself. Her lunches may have been perfectly proportioned nutritionally, but Jaime’s were colorful and tidy.

‘Those Vandals are amateurs,’ Ava said.

‘I’m not so sure,’ Jaime said, opening a Modest Container of soy sauce and stirring wasabi into it with a Nimble Chopstick.

‘Jaime,’ Ava said, ‘you’re not so sure about a lot of things. You don’t even drink the Wellness Water because you’re afraid of pesticides. I don’t see what’s so advanced about wrecking people’s cars. And what was before that? Plastering fake ten dollar bills to the asphalt in the parking lot?’

‘First of all, you should be afraid of pesticides. I’ll email you a link. Second of all, this is different. They’re getting really good! You read the email, right? Did you hear what happened over the weekend?’

‘I thought the email was about the commotion out front last Friday,’ Ava said. ‘What happened?’

‘It’s related. They hacked into our network and changed all of our desktop screensavers to images of flowers and vegetables. IT took it down early this morning.’

‘Did they do anything else? Steal passwords, renderings?’ The thought of her Very Nice Box renderings in the hands of Vandals alarmed her.

‘No,’ Jaime said.

‘Oh,’ Ava said. ‘Then who cares?’

Jaime raised his eyebrows at her and dunked a piece of sushi into his soy sauce. ‘All I’m saying is, STÄDA talks about them as if they’re loitering teens huffing paint in the parking lot, but my theory,’ he said, pointing a chopstick at Ava, ‘is that they’re highly organized and genuinely skilled. Maybe they even have someone on the inside! I didn’t think it was possible to change local computer settings from a remote device. Unless they spent hours doing it individually.’

Jaime’s voice had steadily climbed in pitch.

‘Do you really believe that?’ Ava said.

‘It’s just a working theory. To be this disruptive you have to understand the system.’

‘We disrupting systems over here?’ Ava felt a current move through her. Mat had shown up at her desk.

‘Hello,’ Jaime said. He pressed his lips into a polite smile.

Mat ran a hand through his hair. ‘Hey, buddy,’ he said. He clapped Jaime on the shoulder. Jaime looked assaulted.

‘It was nice to see you this morning,’ Jaime said with the enthusiasm of a lampshade.

‘What was this morning?’ Ava asked.

‘The Latinx at STÄDA Breakfast,’ Mat said. ‘I went right after we got here.’

‘We?’ Jaime said, looking at them both. ‘I didn’t realize you were a we.’

‘We’re not. We – Mat’s been helping me get to work. Because of my car,’ she added hastily. ‘It’s been very productive.’

‘Yes, Ava is a very productive backseat driver,’ Mat said.

‘I would have asked you for a ride,’ Ava said to Jaime, ‘but you bike. As you know.’

‘Biking is so awesome for the heart, body, and mind,’ Mat said.

Ava was desperate to change the subject. ‘So you were saying… the Latinx at STÄDA Breakfast?’

‘Mat and Owen Lloyd decided to grace us with their presence long enough to wolf down a chorizo empanada,’ Jaime said, eyeing Mat.

‘I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to stay longer!’ Mat said, apparently missing Jaime’s tone. ‘I thought it was important to take a step back and really listen to what our Latinx community has to say. I want to make sure you have at least one ally in the boardroom.’

It sounded like the first time Mat had said the word Latinx, but Ava noted that he had made the effort.

‘But then Owen and I got pulled into a Marketing meeting,’ Mat continued. ‘We are going all out with the Frank Dresser. You are not going to believe how good the subway campaign rollout is.’

‘Ava and I are engineers,’ Jaime said. ‘We have a low threshold for this sort of speak.’ He waved his hand in a circle, as though he were cleaning an invisible window.

‘You are hilarious, bro,’ Mat said.

Jaime blinked at him. ‘It wasn’t a joke.’

‘Ave,’ Mat said, turning to her, ‘can I grab you for lunch? I wanna discuss the Very Nice Box prototype. If you’re cool with it.’

‘Ave?’ Jaime said. ‘Who’s Ave?’

Ava felt her ears get hot. ‘Oh,’ she said, glancing at Jaime. She hadn’t yet unpacked her lunch.

Jaime swallowed his bite and looked between them. ‘But that’s what we were going to discuss,’ he said.

‘You could join us,’ Mat said to Jaime. ‘Though it would probably be boring. I’m coming at it from a marketing perspective. Like you said, that’s not popular with engineers.’

Jaime turned to Ava. She knew he expected her to defend their standing lunch.

‘Sorry, Jaime,’ she said. ‘I should probably…’

‘That’s… fine,’ Jaime said curtly. He packed up his Sensible Bento Box and clicked his Humble Lunchbox shut. He turned to Ava. ‘We can discuss those hinges when it’s convenient for you.’

Ava searched for words that would ease the tension. ‘Thanks,’ she said, picking up Jaime’s renderings.

‘What was that about?’ Mat said as they rode the elevator to the cafeteria. ‘I feel like that dude wants to kill me.’

‘I actually… It’s my fault. It’s a standing lunch, and I forgot.’ But Jaime’s annoyance was about more than that, she sensed. He had worshipped Andie. When Jaime had been a Customer Bliss associate, Andie had caught him looking at watch renderings over her shoulder. Instead of ignoring him or scolding him for being nosy, she showed him the renderings and asked for his opinion and eventually hired him as her intern.

In those early days, Ava had often spotted the two of them walking quickly through STÄDA’s hallways, Jaime jotting down whatever Andie was saying. In the months before the accident, Andie had helped shepherd his original design – the Trusty Egg Timer – into production. Her death had gutted him. He’d missed weeks of work, and when he returned, he wore navy-blue work pants in honor of Andie. So it didn’t surprise Ava that Jaime appeared to be allergic to the new warmth she shared with Mat. Was that what she would call it? A warmth?

‘A standing lunch?’ Mat said. ‘I didn’t know you collaborated so much.’

‘At this point we mostly talk about Hotspot,’ Ava said.

‘That dating show with the phones?’ Mat laughed. ‘Ava Simon. I thought you were more sophisticated than that.’ He shook his head dramatically. His tone was light and ribbing, but Ava felt a deep sense of embarrassment.

‘I haven’t watched lately,’ she said.

‘Hey, no judgment from me!’ Mat said. ‘My own guilty pleasures are probably way worse.’

‘Like what?’

‘I really liked that dating show where a bunch of women with no culinary skills had to cook for the same guy. I forget what it was called.’

‘That show was so much more offensive than Hotspot.’

‘So you watched it too!’

‘No,’ Ava said, ‘the previews told me everything I needed to know.’

‘Can I see those?’ Mat said, reaching for the renderings. They’d stepped out of the elevator and into the cafeteria, a huge, light-filled expanse at the top of the building.

‘These?’ Ava handed them over.

‘Nice,’ Mat said. He held one of the renderings up to the ceiling lights as if it were an X-ray.

‘That’s upside down,’ Ava said. She rotated it for him, her hand briefly touching his. ‘Hinges on the top.’ She felt her ears burn again.

‘They look exactly the same. How are they different?’

Ava wasn’t sure if he was joking. She waited for him to clarify, and when he didn’t, she cleared her throat. ‘As you can see, one has inset hinges, which is more expensive to produce but saves money on shipping. The other has hinges that stick out an eighth of an inch, which makes the box more versatile but also less sophisticated. We’re going to start testing the options with focus groups next week.’

Mat smiled at her. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘All I have to say is thank god we have you on the team, because I wouldn’t last a day with this stuff.’

Ava agreed that he wouldn’t last a day doing what she did, but detected the backhandedness of the compliment. ‘I couldn’t do what you do either,’ she said, which was true, if only because she would rather be set on fire.

‘I don’t get why this is your Passion Project,’ Mat said, handing the renderings back to her. ‘If you make boxes all day, why not branch out? You could make a dog bed or something.’

‘Because,’ Ava said. But she struggled to finish the sentence.

‘Gotcha,’ Mat said.

‘I… It’s a box I started years ago,’ Ava said. Her throat was tight. ‘It’s the only project I’ve started without finishing, and I felt like I needed to come back to it.’

‘What’s so hard about it?’

‘It’s not hard. It’s complex.’

‘Okay,’ Mat said. They had joined the line at Fry Shack.

‘I’m sorry.’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘It’s just that I was working on it around the time that Andie –’

‘Your ex?’

Ava cringed. ‘Yes. Well. Andie used to be an engineer here. That’s how we met.’

‘Seriously? I did not peg you as the kind of girl who meets guys at work.’

‘Girls,’ Ava corrected. ‘Women,’ she said, this time correcting herself.

‘Really?’ Mat looked at Ava as though she had shown him an interesting birthmark.

‘I have no idea what that look means,’ Ava said, ‘and I’m ignoring it.’ Of course she wouldn’t ignore it. Later she would have to sort out the expression on his face. She wanted to convey to him, with no words, that although she’d never had much interest in men, she could possibly see herself making an exception.

‘Sorry,’ Mat said as they inched forward in line. ‘You were saying.’

‘While Andie was here, I was working on the box. And she thought it was my best design. So I’m just trying to finish what I started.’

‘Who cares what your ex thought?’ Mat said. ‘Screw your ex.’

‘I care,’ Ava said.

Her voice came out sharp and wobbly. Mat looked at her, confused.

‘Are you gonna order, man?’ someone said from behind them. He wore a red shirt, a red rubber bracelet, and red pants.

Mat turned around.

‘Oh,’ the man in red said. Had he flinched? ‘Sorry. I didn’t realize it was you.’ He put a hand out. ‘I’m Vince. Junior marketer. Red.’

Mat accepted Vince’s handshake with both of his hands in an apparent show of magnanimity. ‘No worries at all,’ he said. ‘I get hangry too.’ He punched his order into the screen, took his ticket, and pulled Ava aside. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have pried. You’re allowed to feel any kind of way about any kind of person in your life. And if the end result is a beautiful box that we can market to the masses, I’m all for it.’

Ava was suddenly aware of Mat’s enormous hand on her shoulder. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘I ordered you a cheeseburger.’

‘You did?’

‘Unless you want to eat this very tempting-looking…’ He took her Sensible Bento Box and opened it.

‘Hummus wrap,’ she said.

‘Hummus wrap,’ he repeated.

Ava took her lunch back from him. She wasn’t one to waste food. But how long had it been since she’d eaten a cheeseburger? Years? Mat was eyeing a table in the corner of the cafeteria – the sunniest spot in the expansive hall – where a small group of Marketing interns sat, their trays empty except for the crumpled wax paper from their burgers and fries. They were in no rush to get up and were in fact playing a round of cards, despite the fact that the cafeteria was filled to capacity.

‘Guys,’ Mat said to them, clapping his hands together once.

The three men straightened. One wiped his palms on his pants. ‘We were just heading out,’ he said, collecting the cards.

In under a minute they had vacated the table. One of them returned with a damp napkin to clean off a few residual crumbs, leaving streaks that he buffed away with a dry napkin.

Was that all it took? Ava wondered, watching the intern work. She knew how this would have gone if she had been alone. She would have glared at the table, hoping that her facial expression would radiate enough irritation to convey to them that they were hogging a desirable table and they would get up with no interaction at all. But here it took one word – guys. Was this what it was like to be a man? Or was this what it was like to be Mat Putnam?

A Fry Shack worker with bright orange hair placed a tray with two burgers and two orders of fries in front of them. Ava’s mouth watered.

‘I ordered your pickles on the side, just in case,’ Mat said, pointing to a short stack of pickle coins. ‘You never know how people feel about pickles. Very polarizing. Very unpredictable. Personally, I’m extremely pro. I would join a pickle appreciation group.’

Reflexively, Ava thought of her father. Welcome to the peanut cult. We welcome you with open arms. She pushed the memory away. Light beamed in through the cafeteria’s windows, filling Ava with a surge of optimism. Outside, an enormous crane stood against the vibrant sky where workers had begun building the Vision Tower, and the Buttermilk Channel stretched behind it. She was starving suddenly. She pushed her packed lunch aside. ‘It’s been so long since I’ve had a cheeseburger,’ she said, unwrapping it from its wax paper.

She took a bite. It tasted incredible. She wished Mat had ordered her two. ‘I don’t know when the last time was,’ she said, patting her mouth with a napkin, ‘that I ate something this good.’

‘You’re allowed to enjoy your life, you know,’ Mat said, taking a bite of his burger. ‘You’re allowed to eat a cheeseburger when you want to eat a cheeseburger.’

‘I want to eat a cheeseburger,’ Ava said. She would not allow herself to be irked by the unsolicited permission. She opened her burger and added the pickles.

‘I see you’re pro pickle,’ Mat said.

She took another bite. She felt a small residual guilt over having left Jaime downstairs, but she would give herself this – this small pleasure. She would allow herself to drop her sad lunch into an Accommodating Garbage Bin. She would allow herself the gift of a well-assembled medium-rare cheeseburger. She would allow herself the coveted position of the corner table of the cafeteria. And she would allow herself to once again feel a small but perceivable joy at the fact that Mat had clearly not wanted to discuss work – he had simply wanted to eat lunch with her.