“Maybe it’s an easy fix!”
“It’s not,” she said. Looking around the lot, she noticed that a handful of cars around hers had been keyed. She got out and inspected her own. “Look,” she said, “my gas flap is dented. It was a Vandal.”
“Damn,” Mat said, “I’m sorry. I sort of thought Karl was joking about those guys.”
“Why would he joke about something like that?”
“Look, I know it’s weird that I’m, like, suddenly your boss—”
“It is weird,” Ava agreed. “How old are you, even?”
“Twenty-six,” Mat said.
“Oh my god.”
“Can I at least give you a ride home? Where do you live?”
“That’s okay,” Ava said. “I’ll call a Swyft.”
“No, really,” Mat said. “Where do you live?”
“Near Fort Greene Park.”
“Near me!” Mat said. He was delighted by this, as though she’d told him their ancestors had come from the same small, obscure town. Ava considered his perfectly symmetrical face, his clear blue eyes, his lightly tousled hair.
“I’m in the new building on the southern tip of the park,” he said.
She knew the building—it towered over all the others and caused a glare that made the dog park uninhabitable between the hours of three and four.
“Come on,” he said cheerfully. “We can have a redo that way.”
A ride home from Mat Putnam was the last thing Ava wanted, but she had no idea how to convey this to him. The two women from the party emerged from the Simple Tower and glanced their way before turning to each other and giggling. Were they laughing at Ava, or were they giddy simply from catching a glimpse of Mat? Or was it, Ava wondered, that they were laughing at the sight of someone like Ava with someone like Mat?
“Fine,” Ava said. “I’ll take the ride. Thank you.” She could chalk it up to convenience, or a desire to be polite to her new boss. But there was something hiding behind those explanations that was less legible. She locked her car.
“Worried someone will drive away with it?” Mat said, smiling at her, but it was too soon for the joke. She pocketed her keys and followed him.
3
Mat had already begun animatedly discussing his résumé and qualifications, his time at Wharton, and what he kept referring to as the “beauty” of marketing. He should pare down his words by at least half, Ava thought, as they walked to his car. The sunlight reflected sharply off the cars in the lot, forcing her to squint.
“Basically my degree is in marketing and design,” he said. “It’s this cutting-edge dual thing that Wharton does. So I’m decent at both things, kind of ambidextrous. Marketing really is my jam, though. And when you bring marketing language into technical writing? That’s gold.”
Ava couldn’t disagree more. Marketing had nothing to do with engineering or technical writing. STÄDA’s new senior leadership had begun demanding that she incorporate marketing language into their instruction manuals:
Simple
Modular
Beautiful
To say their products were simple or beautiful would be redundant at best. At worst, customers would be told how to feel about the product, which really wasn’t her job.
She thought about arguing this point, but she knew that Mat’s counterargument would aggravate her so much that it might keep her awake all night. “Interesting,” she said instead.
“Right? Anyway, it’s my pleasure to give you a ride, totally my pleasure,” Mat said. He hit a button on his key ring and a small red sports car lit up and beeped. A miniature disco ball dangled from the rearview mirror and glinted in the afternoon light. It was easily the most impractical car in the lot. But then of course Ava’s car was more impractical, because it didn’t move.
She saw that his car was parked next to Karl’s, in the VIP strip—confirmation that his new position at STÄDA had been quietly worked out in advance. As she made her way to the passenger’s side, she was suddenly overcome by a familiar, terrible vertigo. It hadn’t happened in years. She took a breath. First came the burned, sugary smell of toasted nuts. Her stomach bobbed into her throat, as though she were riding a too-fast elevator from the top of a tall building. Her head felt light and tingly. She had to close her eyes to keep her balance, and to force away the image of a searing white light. A chill spread along her arms and neck. Then a crunch, a shattering of glass, a bleating siren in the distance. She held a hand against Mat’s car to steady herself.
“Ava?” Mat was saying. His voice had come into focus. “You okay? I know it’s a mess, sorry about that.” He was halfway inside the car, moving things to the backseat.
“No,” she said. “I mean, yes. It’s okay. I’ll sit in the back.” She felt the blood return to her ears and reached for the handle to the back door. But there was no back door—it was a coupe—and the thought of squeezing herself past the tilted front seat made her feel ill. “Actually, I think I’ll just rent one of those Quicky Cars. There are a couple docked in the STÄDA lot.”
“Have you ever driven one of those before? They’re like go-karts.”
“No,” she said. The Quicky Car was small and electric, billed as a safe alternative to the electric mopeds that had crowded the city.
“Come on. I’ll drive you home. You don’t need to feel bad about it.”
“I don’t feel bad,” she said. “It’s just—”
“I know, I know, you hate that I’m your boss. You’re introverted, so you need time to process the news. Oh, and you think marketing’s a big sham, so you pretty much hate me already.”
“No I don’t,” she lied. She felt unsettled, being pegged so precisely.
He continued clearing the passenger seat: some sort of managerial textbook (The Good Boss), a half-drunk bottle of a neon-yellow sports drink, a dog leash, and a basketball, which he palmed with one enormous hand.
“You have a dog,” Ava said. It was an observation she’d meant to keep in her head.
“The rumors are true,” he said, sliding behind the wheel. He was so tall that his hair skimmed the roof of the car. Why would such a tall man pick such a small car? she wondered. He smiled at her and she felt a stab of regret for having been rude. She didn’t want to work for him, she did feel that marketing was a sham, but she felt bad for making her feelings so obvious. And she liked him better for having a dog.
He patted the passenger seat. “Just relax,” he said. “I’ll get you home.”
Ava found nothing less relaxing than someone telling her to relax. And yet she could see that he was trying to be kind, trying to navigate her panic episode as best he could. She got in and entered her address into his phone’s GPS while he started the car. A man’s voice blasted through the car’s speakers, startling Ava back into a panic: As an example, a guy with a big salary, a conventional life, right, maybe a nice house, okay, a stable marriage and kids, that guy may feel little jolts of happiness, but at the end of the day he’s going to still feel a certain empti—
Mat spun down the volume knob. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I guess now you know I’m an audiobook geek.” He took a mint from the pocket of his door and offered her one.
“No, thank you,” Ava said. She leaned her head against the cool window. Her panic had contorted itself into a dull, throbbing ache above her eyebrows. She held her hand there. Behind her closed eyelids she could still see the impression from the current of light. It was blinding. She tried to let go of it. “So,” she said. “You were saying. Penn?”
“Right, right, Penn, and then the MBA at Wharton,” Mat said, merging onto the expressway. “Like I was saying, it’s a superlegit program, built around how to basically make engineering sexier via marketing language. Sounds counterintuitive, I know.”
Ava kept her eyes closed and let him talk. It was easier that way. She felt the familiar turns to her apartment. She visualized a circle. She visualized a hex wrench fitting into a socket. He was now talking about his “
MBA buddies.”
“We had this dope startup idea,” he said.
“What was it?” Ava said. She wanted him to continue to talk without her needing to contribute. His voice was deep and oddly soothing, and she was able to listen to him without actually absorbing any content.
“But in the end,” he was saying, “it never really got off the ground.”
“That’s a shame,” Ava said, staring out the window. She was almost home. She would make a simple dinner, prepare a lunch for the next day, and think about the hinges of the Very Nice Box, which is what she wished she had been doing instead of learning that she would be reporting for the foreseeable future to a marketing junkie.
He pulled up at her apartment. “This one?” he said. “Nice.”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s okay. My rent is cheap.” She rarely had reason to lie, but she didn’t want him to ask her how she could afford to buy a studio apartment here.
“Really?” he said, craning to look. It was part of the reason she hadn’t wanted him to drive her home. Now that he knew where she lived, he might be curious about her life. She didn’t want him to be curious. She wanted him to mind his own business. He should drive himself home. He should congratulate himself for the act of kindness, have dinner, watch basketball, call an “MBA buddy,” feel good about sliding into one of STÄDA’s most powerful positions—and forget about her.
“Hope you feel better,” he said. He put the car in Park.
“I feel fine,” Ava said curtly.
“Oh,” Mat said. “My mistake.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt. Maybe she had misjudged him; he was genuinely hurt by her attitude, and now she felt the need to overcorrect. “Sorry,” she said again. “It’s been a confusing day. Maybe your dog—maybe he could meet my dog someday. Brutus is great with other dogs. And honestly, he could use a friend. What’s his name?”
“Her. Emily.”
“Emily,” Ava said. “That’s nice.” She’d loosened up again at the mention of his dog. “Actually, you’ll laugh at me, but—”
“What?” Mat said. He’d brightened up.
“All my stuffed animals growing up were named Emily,” Ava said. “It’s because my best friend in preschool was named Emily, and I guess I sort of thought that all girls besides me were named Emily. Both my cats were named Emily too.”
“Seriously?” he said.
“Yes.” She looked at her Precise Wristwatch.
“How about tomorrow?” he said.
“Tomorrow?” She blinked at him.
“The dogs,” Mat said. “Emily is boy-dog crazy. She already has a crush on Brutus and hasn’t even met him.”
She considered his eager expression. She could not deny the simple fact of his charm.
“Plus she’s desperate for exercise,” he said. “We haven’t really made friends since we moved here, and back in Philly she used to get to run around with a pack of regulars a few times a week. She’s taken her boredom out on all my shoes.”
“Okay,” Ava said, surprising herself.
“Ten a.m. it is,” he said. “How do you like your coffee?”
“Milk, no sugar,” she said. “Why?”
“Meet you at the dog-park entrance in”—he looked at his watch—“fifteen hours. I should grab your number.” He handed Ava his phone.
Thirty units, Ava thought automatically as she added her number to his phone. As soon as he took it from her, she felt a sting of regret. “No, never mind,” she said. “I just realized that I don’t think I can.” The plan had filled her suddenly with anxiety.
“What do you have going on?”
“Laundry,” she said. “And dealing with my car.”
“Laundry,” he repeated. “Okay. Well, another time.”
“I’m sorry,” Ava said. “That wasn’t very . . . yellow of me.” She sensed his disappointment and felt bad. “I can see you for a dog playdate if it’s quick.”
“Deal,” Mat said. He stuck out his fist.
“No, thank you,” Ava said, looking at his fist. “I’ll see you at ten in the morning.”
“Good,” Mat said. “Because you definitely won’t be seeing me at ten in the evening.”
Ava flushed. She let the conversation wash over her as she made her way up the stairs to her apartment. Had she really agreed to see him—Mat Putnam—the next morning, on a Saturday? She checked her Precise Wristwatch. She was ten minutes late to see Brutus and heard nothing from the other side of the door. For a terrible moment she imagined him dead. But when she pushed the door open, she was happy to see that the ten minutes hadn’t appeared to register with him at all. “Brutus,” she said, rubbing his big square head. His tail thwacked against the wall. Through her windows, she watched Mat’s car pull away with a loud hum.
Ordinarily Ava would have been preoccupied with the state of her car; she would have spent her evening arranging for a tow. But any worry about the car was eclipsed by a strange giddiness she felt about the plan that she had somehow, for reasons that were unclear to her, agreed to. She was going to see Mat Putnam in the morning, at ten o’clock. She was going to spend at least a unit, if not two, outside the office, with her new boss.
How long had it been since she’d made a plan outside of work? She didn’t even see Jaime, outside their Monday lunches. As she poured two scoops of dry food into Brutus’s Favorite Dog Bowl, she allowed herself to envision Mat’s dog. She pictured a golden retriever. The sort of dog that was affable and attractive in equal measure.
Brutus licked his Favorite Dog Bowl clean and looked up at her.
“Do you want a friend?” Ava said to him, taking his Curious Leash from a Supportive Door Hook and clicking it into his Curious Collar. He wagged his tail.
“Her name is Emily,” Ava said.
Brutus cocked his head.
“What do you think, Brutus? What do you think?”
4
Whatever excitement Ava had been feeling upon leaving Mat Putnam’s car had curdled into dread by the next morning. Ordinarily she could push bad feelings away by busying herself with tasks divided evenly between units. But there wasn’t time for that now if she was going to meet him.
Her stomach dropped at the sight of Mat’s name in her inbox. But it was just an email from the day before, sent to all STÄDA employees, reminding everyone to download the SHRNK app. She put her Alert Percolator on and sat on the edge of her Principled Bed, staring at the email on her phone. Positivity begins with self-inquiry! Mat’s email said. Click here to download the app. It’s totally free! She felt squeezed. She thought of Jaime. A text therapist is better than no therapist. She pictured her annual review with Mat and Judith, when she would have nothing to show for a commitment to her mental health. All the options were grim. Attending a Self-Care workshop? Viewing the workshop online and answering questions? She would sooner lick a subway pole. At least SHRNK was private and on her own terms, with no face-to-face contact.
She clicked the link and allowed the app to download. Hey, Ava, it said. You’ve got help. The text brightened from gray to white. We’re matching you with the best possible therapist. A soft gray screen appeared. Thanks for holding tight, Ava. Do you feel better, knowing help is on the way? A cursor blinked, inviting her response.
No, she wrote.
Thanks for your honesty, Ava. How old are you? Thirty-one.
Thanks, Ava. What city do you live in? Brooklyn.
That’s awesome! How would you describe your gender? Cisgender woman.
Sexuality? She was presented with a drop-down menu. She had never been able to define her sexuality easily, and she knew even before tapping that the options here would not suffice. She had dated women mostly, but when people asked her how she identified, she felt that what they were really asking for was an approximation that wouldn’t disrupt their understanding of sexuality. This annoyed her, because approximations were inherently imprecise. She chose Prefer not to say and moved on.
Do you frequently exper
ience depression? No.
Major mood swings? No.
Are you pregnant? No.
Sexually active? Ava sighed. No.
Do you have experience with grief and loss?
Ava quickly closed the app and poured herself coffee. It’s a bot, she reminded herself. It’s a bot. She reopened it.
Welcome back, Ava. Do you have any experience with grief and loss? Yes.
Anxiety? Yes.
Panic episodes?
She looked at Brutus. She felt seen. Hesitantly she typed sometimes, then quickly moved on to a series of questions that seemed designed to make her feel more comfortable.
More of a dog or a cat person? Dog.
Woof! Do you like horror movies? No.
Feelings re: cilantro? Positive.
Favorite item you own? Precise Wristwatch.
“Come on,” she said, tapping through them, glancing at the Tranquil Clock in her kitchen. There were dozens of questions.
Mountains or beaches? Mountains.
Pancakes or waffles? Neither.
Do you consider yourself an activist? Ava thought about the Vandals. She was sympathetic to their cause at a distance, but she couldn’t let go of the fact that they had ruined her car. No.
A green thumb? No.
What’s the last thing you did for fun? Watched Hotspot, she typed. Hotspot was a gay British dating show in which contestants chose a blind date based solely on their potential partner’s phone settings. Ava allowed herself one unit every Sunday to indulge in it. She wasn’t sure it counted as fun because she watched it alone, so she started to delete her response.
Looks like you’re deleting something, SHRNK wrote. In my experience, that means you’re having complicated feelings about it. Since SHRNK is a text-based app and I can’t observe your body language, I’d like to encourage you to share the thoughts you might otherwise shoo away. Go ahead, Ava, what were you saying?
Hotspot.
Sounds fun! Do you enjoy order? Yes.
The Very Nice Box Page 3