Do you like taking risks? No.
Favorite food? She thought of her father, mixing egg yolks and bacon into hot pasta. Spaghetti carbonara.
What’s something you don’t ordinarily tell people? Ava glanced around the room. Was this app serious? N/A, she wrote.
Finally a new screen. Black text on a white background: Thanks, Ava, you’re all set. Just lean back and relax. We’ve matched you with a certified SHRNK with years of experience. Go ahead and say hello. The cursor blinked encouragingly.
Hello, Ava typed.
An ellipsis appeared instantly.
It’s wonderful to be your SHRNK, Ava. How can I help? The text had appeared quickly, then vanished.
Are you a bot? Ava wrote.
No, the SHRNK responded. I’m a real human psychotherapist.
Ava wasn’t sure whether this made her feel better or worse. She let her thumbs hover over the keyboard.
So what do I do now? she wrote.
You can ask or tell me anything that’s bothering you.
And you just . . . what? Tell me how to fix it?
Let’s try an example, if you’d like.
Ava looked at her Precise Wristwatch. Nine-seventeen.
I’m dreading a social appointment I made yesterday. I was excited about it at first, but now I want to cancel.
Good! Thank you for that vulnerability, Ava, her SHRNK wrote. I see from your file that you have some social anxiety. You know, dread and excitement are two sides of the same coin.
And? Ava wrote. This app appeared to be as useless as a fortune cookie. She suddenly didn’t want her coffee.
Who could you be if you flipped the coin? her SHRNK wrote.
Ava didn’t think it was possible to convert dread into excitement, just as she could not simply turn pulp board into wood, but she closed her eyes and tried to flip her coin anyway. After all, her cautious excitement had turned to dread while she had been asleep; maybe it could turn back. With difficulty, she tried to reverse the order of things and convince herself that what she was feeling was anxious anticipation. I am anxiously anticipating this social event, she thought. I am excited. I am excited.
Thanks, she wrote.
Thank yourself, her SHRNK wrote. I’m proud of you, Ava.
“Shut up,” Ava said aloud, closing the app. She spent one unit showering and dressing, and then she allowed Brutus to tug her outside.
The smell of fallen wet leaves overwhelmed the street. She walked Brutus along the west side of the park, past the farmers’ market stands, keeping far enough away from the entrance that Mat wouldn’t spot her killing time. She kept a close eye on her Precise Wristwatch, and at 9:57 she made her way to the entrance, where she arrived at 10:00.
But Mat wasn’t there. Brutus sat, looking up at her expectantly. Ten-oh-five. One-sixth of a unit late. As the minutes passed, Ava’s breath thinned. Ten-fifteen. Had she completely misunderstood their plans? Had he meant 10 a.m. on Sunday? She checked her phone, but there was nothing. Her panic episode the day before had left her with such a throbbing headache, it was possible she had gotten the logistics wrong. But more likely, she knew, this had been a big misunderstanding. She was mortified by this possibility—that she had thought her new boss wanted to meet with her outside of work when he hadn’t. Of course he had no reason to meet her, and she had no reason to meet him. She felt equal parts irritated and relieved, and started in the direction of her apartment. She would spend the four recovered units arranging for her car to be towed, doing laundry, and working on the Very Nice Box, and she would do her best to forget about the morning.
But just as she slipped into the comfort of this revised plan, she spotted him at a coffee stand. Her stomach turned over. She watched him pay for two coffees with a ten-dollar bill and wave away the change. He was taller than anyone around. He wore a flannel shirt the color of a fir tree, jeans that showed the elastic band of his boxers, and leather work boots. In one hand he balanced the two coffees, steadying them with his chin. With the other he struggled to control a leash that was connected to one of the ugliest dogs Ava had ever seen. She appeared to be a basset hound mix: low, squat, and long, with a bowed back like a cow. Her legs were so short that her ears nearly touched the ground.
Ava stood awkwardly as they approached—what was she supposed to do with her hands? Was she supposed to pretend not to see him until he got closer? “Hi,” she said when he was close enough. “Oh, here, let me—”
Mat held out a coffee, but Ava reached for Emily’s leash and instinctively reeled her in with three tight loops before offering it back.
“Thanks,” he said, restacking the cups. “Trade you. Milk, no sugar.”
He took the leash and she took a cup. It was warm against her palm. “You didn’t have to get me a coffee,” Ava said.
“No worries,” he said.
“I wasn’t worried,” Ava said. “I just mean—”
“And good morning to you too, bud,” he said to Brutus, holding his palm out. He was apparently not going to address being twenty minutes late to meet her. Was it possible he hadn’t even realized? The thought baffled her. But then, he had spent some of that time getting them coffee. She negotiated all this silently, deciding whether or not to be annoyed.
The dogs cautiously sniffed each other in circles. For a moment Emily stood directly underneath Brutus.
“They look like Cozy Nesting Tables,” Ava said.
“What?”
“Cozy Nesting Tables. They premiered last spring.”
“Oh! Right. Yeah, totally!” Mat said, laughing.
“Sorry,” Ava said, though she was quietly happy to have made him laugh. “My head is always at work.” She stopped herself from describing in detail what made the tables so smart. They’d begun as a Table engineer’s Passion Project and had become STÄDA’s biggest bestseller. The Cozy Nesting Tables were featured on the sides of buses, in the subways, in the STÄDA ads that aired on podcasts, in the looping videos that played on the new jumbo screens near her desk. They had been featured at STÄDA’s summer Solstice Party, which fell at the midpoint of the business year and celebrated the most successful design of the previous four quarters.
“All good,” Mat said, patting down a cowlick on the back of his head. “I should be the one apologizing. I really gotta study the catalogue.”
Ava quietly agreed. They sipped from their coffees and watched the dogs finish their elaborate greeting by bumping noses. “They’re kinda cute, in a way,” Mat said. “Though Emily is way out of Brutus’s league. No offense or anything.”
“Clearly,” Ava said. Brutus was lean, sleek, and handsome. Emily was portly and squat, struggling to breathe normally. She strained against the leash, pulling Mat behind her until he lost his grip and she tore into the park, faster than Ava would have thought possible for a dog of her proportions.
“Shit,” Mat said. “Goddammit. Emily!”
Brutus heeled tightly to Ava as she followed behind. “Good boy,” she whispered. She closed the gate behind them—Mat had failed to secure it, despite the many posted signs—and Brutus sat, his tail wagging in the dirt. She unhooked his Curious Leash from his Curious Collar. “Go ahead,” she said, patting his head, and he bolted into the park, making a wide loop around the other dogs.
Ava watched Mat go after Emily, somewhere between a jog and a walk, shouting, “Hey, Emily! Come, Emily!” But she kept running until a short woman in leggings stepped on her leash. Mat caught up and unclipped it, slinging it over his shoulder.
The woman appeared annoyed until Mat began talking to her animatedly, at which point all was apparently forgiven; the woman was laughing with a hand cupped over her mouth. Ava rolled her eyes. She could see that he simply moved through life this way. She watched Mat hold Emily back by the collar, for no clear reason, then let her go. “Good girl,” he called after her. “Good girl, Emily!”
It didn’t surprise Ava that Mat had a disobedient dog. He would probably say that Emily wasn’t “usually like this,�
�� blame her behavior on the new environment, or on Brutus. He jogged back to her. “You and Brutus put us to shame. We didn’t make it too far in training. As you can see.” His cheeks had turned bright red in the sharp air. He was sheepish but cheerful, and the combination was, Ava could admit, winning.
She followed him to a bench and they sipped their coffees, watching the dogs run laps. Flip the coin, she thought. The pack of dogs clustered and broke apart, renewing its momentum when a new dog entered or when one would parade around the enclosure with a stick. The motion was chaotic but familiar and calming. She loved to see Brutus at the center of it. At his age, he had the energy to play like this for only a few minutes at a time, but when he did, it reminded her of when he was a puppy.
“Dude can really move,” Mat said. “How long have you had him?”
“We adopted him nine years ago.”
“Who’s we?”
“Oh.” Ava felt like she had tripped over a root. “I adopted Brutus with someone.” Her face became hot. She felt the bizarre caginess of the statement. “An ex,” she said, and the sting of imprecision made her feel worse.
The day she and Andie had met Brutus, they had agreed that they would not leave the shelter with a dog—that they would just look, then go home, discuss the options, and make an informed decision. They were practical, careful people. It was what made them good engineers, and good partners. But they spotted Brutus in the back of the concrete cell, sitting quietly as the other dogs barked and crowded around the plastic gate, and a current of understanding ran through them. Andie squatted to Brutus’s level. “Hey, little man,” she said. Brutus cocked his head and slowly approached her, his tail wagging cautiously. “We’re going to have to change his name,” Andie said.
“Agreed,” Ava said. “He’s not a Pumpkin.”
They buckled him into the backseat of Andie’s station wagon, where he sat politely.
“Well, Brutey’s a lucky dog to have gotten you in the breakup,” Mat said. Ava could feel him looking at her, and she resisted an urge to correct him. She couldn’t help but give in to the memory of those first few happy days with Brutus, who clambered over Andie, knocking her over with desperate, incessant licks. Ava’s whole body ached at the memory. Her life with Andie rarely came up in conversation, and when it did, she could hardly push through the rest of the day. She looked down at the mulch, aware of Mat’s attention on her. A silence wedged itself between them, and it was her fault. And so it was also her job now to repair the conversation, but she felt debilitated and thirsty.
“Emily!” Mat called. “C’mere!” Emily was barking at a skateboarder and clawing at the fence.
“Guess she’s not hurting anyone,” Mat said. The wind whipped his hair around. “She may not be the smartest dog, or the best-looking, but . . . you never know what you’re getting with rescues, I guess. And I love her.”
Ava liked Mat more—slightly—both for changing the subject and for loving his ugly, badly behaved dog, who was now investigating a chicken bone. “You rescued her?”
“She was in really bad shape. Broken leg, broken ribs. She smelled like pee, and the shelter couldn’t get the mats out of her hair so they had to shave her bald. If you think she’s ugly now . . .”
“I didn’t say she was ugly,” Ava said. She suppressed a smile and sipped her coffee. Brutus returned to her feet, taking heavy breaths.
“Are you tired?” Ava said. “Are you hungry?” She was asking Brutus, but Mat responded.
“Sure, I’d be down to grab a bite,” he said. “There’s this café I just discovered around the corner, and we can sit outside with the dogs.”
“No,” Ava said instinctively. She needed to calculate how much time was left in her day and divide up her tasks accordingly. “I should go home,” she said. “It’s my car. I—”
“Oh, that’s too bad. We haven’t even gotten to your Passion Project,” Mat said. “I’ve heard great things.”
“You have?” Ava said. “No one ever asks me about it.”
“That’s why I want to hear about it!” Mat said. “I want to understand the Very Nice Box.” He laughed, or coughed, as though remembering something funny. “Sorry,” he said.
Ava recognized this halfway attempt to stifle a laugh and waited for Mat to explain to her that the Very Nice Box was a hilarious name.
“It’s just . . . you do know what box means in certain contexts,” Mat said. “Right?”
“Look,” Ava said, coiling Brutus’s leash, “my job is to make boxes. It’s what I’ve always done, and probably what I will always do. If you would like to spend this conversation explaining to me that in certain company the word box can be a euphemism, let me know. I have plenty of ways to spend my Saturday.”
“No, no!” Mat said, laughing. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry.” He looked alarmed but entertained.
Ava looked at him. “You’re finished?”
“I’m finished. I’m finished!” he said, holding up his hands. “I want to know everything there is to know about the Very Nice Box.” He had managed to radiate genuine curiosity this time.
Ava studied his face. No one on Floor 12 had expressed interest in her Passion Project, which was fine, because it was in such early stages, and because their interest had no bearing on how good a product it was. But she was incredibly proud of the Very Nice Box, and not at all unhappy to discuss its many simple, elegant features. “I have some preliminary drawings I could show you,” she said. “They’re not 3D renderings yet or anything. Just drawings.”
“I’d love to see them,” Mat said. “Always good to involve Marketing, even in early stages.” He waggled his eyebrows.
“I disagree,” Ava said. “I—”
“I’m joking, Ava!” Mat said. “C’mon. I’m starving.”
5
Ava recognized the café Mat took her to. It was called the Stoned Fruit and advertised CBD-infused cold brew and hemp milk. Small tables were in minor disarray, and Ava spotted a few of STÄDA’s Nurturing Planters supporting viny, billowing plants over the counter. It smelled like toast. They claimed an empty table on the patio, under which both dogs started snoozing. Mat ordered himself a hemp-butter croissant and Ava ordered hemp-butter eggs and hemp-seed toast.
“Are these going to get me high?” Ava said, prodding the eggs with her fork.
“That would be amazing, but unfortunately, no,” Mat said.
A low jazz melody made its way to the patio. Ava recognized it instantly, and a wave of nostalgia crashed over her. Her parents’ jazz band used to cover it. “I love this song,” she said.
“Yeah,” Mat said, closing his eyes and frowning in appreciation. “Me too.”
Her parents had both been exceptional musicians, and as a child she’d often woken to the sound of her mother playing the upright Steinway—by far the most valuable item in their old Tivoli farmhouse—in their living room. It had been passed down from her grandfather. Her eyes pricked at the memory. She cleared her throat and opened a folder on her phone that contained drawings for the Very Nice Box prototype. There was nothing like a box mockup to clear away unwanted feelings.
The Very Nice Box was a large, simple, and well-proportioned rectangular prism with an embedded closure. Nothing protruded from it. There was no overhang, no decoration, and nothing for the eye to snag on. Ava had spent dozens of units ensuring that its hardware and dimensions would enable it to rest on the floor or hang on the wall. One could stack any number of Very Nice Boxes while preserving the perfect proportions of a golden rectangle.
“So,” she started, “the Very Nice Box is basically a box in its simplest form. One way to think about it—”
“Can I?” Mat said, taking her phone and zooming in on the photo of the drawing. “Okay, cool. So it looks somewhere between a chest and a cabinet.”
“No, it’s a box. It’s a Very Nice Box that can be used in multiple ways. That’s its beauty.”
“So how do you plan to market it to customers? Because
what a box is, when you really think about it, is a container, right, that can contain a whole bunch of—”
“Never mind,” Ava said, taking her phone back and shoving it into her pocket. Was he explaining to her what a box was? The blood thrummed in her ears. “I need to get my car to the mechanic. You said this wasn’t going to be a Marketing meeting.”
“No!” Mat said. “I’m sorry. Let’s start over. I promise I’ll dial down the yellow. A box in its simplest form, you were saying.”
Ava sighed. “It’s incredibly simple and versatile. There are six sides. The long side will measure about sixty-six inches, which is five and a half feet. The short side will measure just over forty inches, which is about three and a half feet.”
She watched Mat smile politely through her explanation. It wasn’t the first time she’d been on the receiving end of this look. But he soon snapped out of his trance. “Is that . . . Judith?” he said.
“Judith who?” Ava looked up. She knew only one Judith. And Mat was right—the woman walking along the sidewalk in their direction was Judith Ball from People. She was barely recognizable out of context. She wore loose-fitting pants and had taken her hair out of its usual tight bun. In place of pearl studs she wore gold hoop earrings, and these, paired with her sunglasses, reminded Ava of the time she’d seen her math teacher at the grocery store. She carried two paper shopping bags filled with produce. Two girls walked beside her, one eating a cider doughnut and one engaged with her phone, clumsily dodging pedestrians.
“Pick your head up, Kendra,” Judith said.
“Yeah, Kendra,” the other one said. They were identical twins, and Ava recognized them from a photo in Judith’s office. They were taller than Judith and gangly, and they both wore bright, oversized windbreakers covered in geometric shapes.
Kendra slipped her phone into her pocket and stole a bite of her sister’s doughnut.
“Are you serious? That was a huge bite!”
“You didn’t even buy it, Ari!”
“She makes an excellent point,” Judith said.
The Very Nice Box Page 4