The Very Nice Box

by Eve Gleichman

  Brutus jumped onto the Practical Sofa, between them.

  “Off,” Ava said.

  Brutus looked solemnly at her, then walked to his Dreamy Dog Bed and sat, brooding, with a bone between his paws.

  “Ava,” Mat said. “About last night.”

  “Right,” Ava said. “About that. Forget it. Forget I stopped by. I wish I could—”

  “Ella—she’s not my girlfriend, and she’s not my sister. But—and I don’t want you to think less of me when I tell you this.”

  Ava looked at him.

  “Ella’s my sponsor.”

  “Your . . . ?”

  “My sponsor,” said Mat.

  “You’re in AA?”

  “No!” he said, laughing as though that was a crazy thing to assume. “No, no. I’m doing the Good Guys training.”

  Ava knew vaguely about the Good Guys program, in the same way that she knew vaguely about CrossFit and reiki, but would not, if pressed, be able to convey the central tenets of any of them. An enigmatic ad campaign for Good Guys had run briefly on the subway. At first she’d assumed it was an erectile dysfunction intervention based on the ad copy: Good Guys Stand Tall. She remembered the managerial book Mat had moved into the backseat of his car the first time she had accepted a ride from him: Good Work.

  “What is that program?”

  “It sounds goofy, I know,” Mat said. “But basically it helps guys like me get back on their feet and keep up self-care regimens and do good in the world.”

  “Guys like you?”

  “Yeah, like . . . you know, good guys who have had some rough times.”

  “Oh,” Ava said, not quite understanding. It did sound like AA, but without the alcohol. She wondered what sort of “rough times” Mat had endured. The accident had robbed her of some of her empathy. She’d once accepted that all pain was relative. Now she wasn’t so sure. The silence between them was heavy with awkwardness. Was she supposed to ask him to elaborate on his past troubles? She was curious, but didn’t want to press him, and wanted even less for him to return the question.

  “Anyway, yeah,” he said. “I have a sponsor. Which is basically, like . . . a woman, you know.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yeah, a woman to practice communication with.”

  Ava stared at him.

  “We pay them!” Mat said, seeming to read her mind. “It’s something between peer-to-peer therapy and having a life coach. And I try to take it as seriously as possible. But I guess it’s a little embarrassing for me.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I just didn’t really want Judith knowing that about me,” he said. “You know? She’s so nosy as it is . . . I just didn’t want—plus I’m in charge of all these people and I didn’t want it to be the first thing people thought of when they talked to me.”

  Ava had never seen him struggle through an explanation like this. She felt for him—the same fear of spectacle led her to keep the details of her own life private. “You don’t have to explain,” she said cautiously. “I can see why.”

  “Really?” Mat said. He looked relieved, and relaxed against her Practical Sofa. “Thank you. People don’t always respond well.” He took a deep breath. “You’re so cool,” Mat said. “Very green of you.”

  Ava felt relieved too, and eager to live up to the compliment.

  “The reason she was at my apartment last night,” Mat said, “is that I had to confer with her about something. Because in Good Guys, I mean, you’re really not supposed to make any big life decisions without talking it over with your sponsor.”

  “Life decisions,” Ava repeated.

  “And that includes—I mean, for instance, if you—not you you, but the universal you—wanted to start a romantic . . . Okay, this is hard for me to explain, and I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position, because I know that technically I’m your boss.” He laughed, though there was no joke here, as far as Ava could tell. He continued to pat down the hair on the back of his head. She’d come to find this mannerism endearing. His cheeks had reddened. And she suddenly became warm too. He pulled his coat off, and although ordinarily it would have bothered her that he hadn’t hung it up, she couldn’t bring herself to care. Her heart thudded while Mat searched for whatever words he needed to convey to her what she now already knew, and because it was in her nature never to waste time, she leaned in to kiss him.

  16

  In the days after the accident, Ava was only ever sleeping or waking or falling asleep. She grew accustomed to the patterns of the hospital. Resident physicians alternated night shifts, the lights dimmed at 10 p.m., a janitor slogged a heavy mop past her bed twice a day, and her doctor pushed through the curtain occasionally to bark questions at the nurses on call.

  The nurse looking after her was Teddy; Ava learned his name as he leaned over her bed, the letters written in black marker on the breast pocket of his scrubs. He was the only one to really look at Ava. The rest of the team moved around her as if she were a mute bug. Teddy would translate what the doctor said into plain, digestible fragments. Ava had found some version of peace that allowed her to lay still with her breathing tube in, to tolerate her life, believing it would not be this way forever because Teddy promised her. “Swelling going down,” he said. “Okay?”

  Rattling around in the back of her mind, between episodes of heavy sleep, was the possibility that the worst had happened. It started as a thought that Ava could dutifully push aside. Her fear was kaleidoscopic. She could bend it, build new shapes of the truth with it. She could almost make the facts feel different. Andie hadn’t come to visit. Her parents hadn’t come to visit. But she hadn’t visited them either, and here she was, alive.

  But the fear grew. It took on the horrible bloat of dread. It forced a space in the back of her throat, and she began to see the room through a dark film. When she closed her eyes, she saw its grainy, bruised negative: Andie in the car, her father in the car, her mother in the car. She felt that if only she could account for them, she could correct this headcount error. It was a clerical matter, a matter of inventory.

  Her doctor pulled the curtain aside and sat down beside Ava’s bed. It was the first time he had directed his body toward her, the first time he had acknowledged her at all. He was a tall, angular man with dark shadows beneath his eyes.

  “My name is Dr. Lansing. Like the town in Michigan. I’m sure these have been a difficult couple of days. I’m here to give you some updates and talk about what happens next.” His tone had a manufactured quality that reminded Ava of wood veneer.

  He opened her chart.

  Andie, she thought.

  “First let’s talk about your condition. You suffered a concussion and a collapsed lung. You have four broken ribs, a fractured patella, and a broken wrist. We have you on a steady drip of morphine to manage the pain, which may be making you feel nauseous and groggy. But your condition is stable, and you’re recovering nicely. We’re optimistic. Teddy will be removing your breathing tube in a few minutes.”

  He closed the chart. “You were in a serious hit-and-run car accident. You’re very lucky to be alive. Thank god for seatbelts,” he said, tapping the side of his head, as though he had invented them.

  There was something in his steady, even tone that was sharp enough to rupture the veil of hope that Ava had been weaving together. She could feel herself being managed by him. She imagined him in medical school, breaking off with a partner to practice this protocol. She felt the sting and swell of a cut on her neck.

  She didn’t want to hear about seatbelts. She was desperate for an update about her family, but all she could do was stare up at him and wait.

  “So, the bad news,” he said. “The other passengers in the vehicle . . .” He paused. “You are the only survivor.”

  The air drained from the room. He reached for her hand. She absently allowed him to comfort her. It was as if she had run off a cliff but hadn’t yet begun to fall.

  He said something about a mental fitness evaluatio
n, and then the police would be in to take her statement and a social worker would talk her “through the grief.” He was sorry, he said. He wished he could give her all the time she needed. And then he stood, offering a lingering look of practiced sympathy, and turned her over to Teddy.

  She could feel the long, rigid tube make its way up her esophagus, past her throat, and then out. “I know,” Teddy said. “I know it’s awful. It’s almost over.” Her breath rattled. She had her voice back, as if there were anything to say.

  She next awoke to two police officers who had arrived with blue pens and pages of paperwork. They wanted to know what she remembered. They handed her a bird’s-eye drawing of a car and asked her to check a box beside the quadrant where the impact had occurred. They wanted to know where she was headed with her fiancée and parents. Ava didn’t know whether they were personally curious or whether the answer was part of their investigation. They wanted to know what she remembered of the other driver.

  Even if she wanted to, she could barely remember. The clearest image that came to her was the strange, bright channel of light. In Ava’s collapsed memory of the collision, it was as if the cars were fixed in place and the other driver—specifically her hair—was the only thing moving, as if the tiny universe of the accident had its own laws of gravity. Then her mother’s voice, the crunch of metal, the smell of roasted nuts, the wail of a siren. More than anything, though, she was fixated on the light. “I don’t know what it was,” she said to the officers.

  “We hear that often with victims of these, uh, these kinds of accidents. It’s common to experience trauma as a flash of light.”

  “No,” Ava said emphatically. “The light was before the accident. Seconds before, but still before. It was something dif­ferent.”

  The officers nodded but didn’t write anything down. She searched her memory, but it was too painful. She had to blink the light away. Remembering exhausted her. She reluctantly surrendered to a morphine-induced sleep. To rest felt like a betrayal, but resisting was impossible.

  17

  Was it possible that Mat Putnam was asleep in her Principled Bed?

  At 2:43 in the morning?

  Ava couldn’t help but take advantage of this moment—so many times she had made a point of not looking directly at him. It was like looking directly into the sun. But now she could let her gaze linger. He was even more handsome asleep than he was awake, his lips pouty, his brow relaxed, his breath heavy and sweet.

  He’d been stronger than Ava had imagined—she felt a twinge at the memory of how he’d handled her after she kissed him, pressing her into the cushions of her Practical Sofa before lifting her clean off the cushions and onto her Comfortable Mattress. He’d fumbled with the clasp of her bra—he’d needed her to turn around, needed the light on for a second, needed both hands to undo it—but she appreciated that he didn’t come off as well practiced.

  After all, it had been a while for her too. She hadn’t been with anyone since Andie, or even come close. It was surreal to revisit this version of herself, which apparently still contained the gestures of desire, muscle memory really, that she had been sure were buried with Andie.

  And now she could still feel a tenderness where the knife had cut her thumb. Slowly she turned on her side to avoid waking Mat. Brutus watched her judgmentally from his Dreamy Dog Bed. He wasn’t used to sharing her attention. Ava wasn’t used to it either, and a wave of guilt crashed over her. She was supposed to spend her life with Andie. It had never even occurred to her to move on. Her life had narrowed to allow for work and for Brutus and for nothing else.

  Unable to fall back asleep, she opened SHRNK. I slept with Mat, she typed.

  The background of the app slid from white to a dark gray, then back to white, then back to gray. It was three in the morning. Her SHRNK was probably asleep. She thought about text­ing Jaime, but her stomach turned at the thought of his disapproval.

  Mat murmured something dreamy and unintelligible in his sleep and pulled Ava close to him, until her back was pressed against his chest. She’d almost forgotten this feeling. She switched off her phone and closed her eyes, and then woke to her Exuberant Alarm ringing lightly.

  “Is that an original Exuberant Alarm?” Mat croaked, leaning over her and lifting it.

  “Good eye,” Ava said. “You can tell it’s a first edition because of its—”

  “Coloring,” Mat said. He kissed her on the cheek. “See, I know my STÄDA history. I studied for you.” He nosed the back of her neck and her entire body reacted. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning.”

  “What’s this?” he said, bringing his finger under her chin and pushing upward.

  “Oh,” Ava said, flushing. “Nothing.” She covered the scar on her neck with her palm.

  “It’s okay,” Mat said. “I think scars are really cool. I’m covered in them. Look.” In the light of the morning she could see his body clearly—birthmarks scattered across his thighs, a pale scar along his rib, which he was now showing her.

  “What’s that from?” she said, happy to keep the focus on his scar. She kept her hand on her throat.

  “B-ball,” he said, turning so she could see the whole length of it. “Looks impressive, but honestly it was embarrassing. Got completely wiped out by a point guard at a pickup game. Tiny little dude, but he was fierce. Do you have any more? I love a scar story.”

  If she were honest, she would tell him. Aside from the faint white scar along her neck where the seatbelt had slit her, there were others. A short one on the side of her head where a small piece of the windshield had lodged itself. Then there was one along her wrist, where the screws had gone. Another one ran the length of her knee. She pulled the top sheet over herself. “No,” she said, “not really. Little ones here and there. I don’t remember what they’re from.”

  She got out of bed, keeping her back turned to him, overcome by shyness. Her entire body felt ticklish, and she felt Mat watching her. She slipped on a T-shirt and pajama bottoms.

  “Shit,” he said. “I can’t show up to work wearing the same thing I wore yesterday. Can we stop at my place?”

  “No,” Ava said automatically, setting an Alert Percolator on the stovetop. “I can’t be late to work.” She checked her Precise Wristwatch. She had enough units to attend to her normal routines, but nothing more than that.

  “But I’m your boss,” Mat said, “and I say you can.”

  “No, no,” Ava said. “I can’t.” She felt panicky. “I’ve never been late, and this is not a good way to begin—” She could feel heat spreading along her collarbone.

  “Okay,” Mat said. “No problem. One thousand percent understand. What do you suggest? Cause I kinda don’t think your pants are gonna fit me.” He was peering in her closet. “Hang on,” he said. “How about these?”

  Ava had donated most of Andie’s things. But she had kept her favorite outfit: a pair of navy-blue cotton work pants, a navy-blue button-down. She’d hung them in the far side of her closet so that she didn’t have to see them unless she wanted to, which she never did.

  Mat was holding up the pants. “Are these yours?” he said. “They seem kinda big.”

  “Yes,” Ava said. “Well, no. They’re Andie’s.” She felt the heat crawling up her neck.

  “Oh,” Mat said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” He quickly replaced them.

  “She forgot to pick them up,” Ava said. “I never got around to returning them. Or throwing them out.” The lie unfurled in front of them, and she was so ashamed of it that she couldn’t look at Mat.

  “No problem,” he said. “Maybe don’t tell her I almost wore her clothes. She’ll probably wanna kill me.”

  “I can guarantee she won’t do that,” Ava said. The coffee had begun to burble, and Ava clicked off the stove and poured them each a cup. She had loved the pants on Andie—they’d fit her perfectly—and often at STÄDA, while Andie was bent over her workbench, tooling with a clock or a watch, Ava woul
d steal glances at her. She looked good, and the shirt looked good too—tight across her broad shoulders and back.

  “Yesterday’s clothes it is,” Mat said, pulling on the loud blue ombré button-down he’d worn the day before. He came up behind Ava and wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on the top of her head. She stiffened—it had been so long since she had assumed this position, and she could feel herself blushing at his touch.

  * * *

  “I have a confession,” Mat said on the ride to work. “I lied when I said you missed a good Thirty-Minute Machine episode. I didn’t listen to it without you.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Couldn’t really bring myself to,” he said, shifting into a new lane. “I started, but then I just felt sad.”

  “I felt sad too,” Ava said as they merged onto the highway. “Mat,” she said suddenly. “Emily.”

  “Emily what?” he said. He turned down the synthy music that introduced Thirty-Minute Machine.

  “Don’t you need to feed her?”

  “Oh!” Mat said. “No, I got a Bark Bud to do it. She’ll go out in”—he checked his watch with one hand on the wheel—“one hour. Best app ever.”

  “You don’t care who walks into your home?” Ava said.

  “Not really. You know, it wouldn’t kill you to be less beholden to your dog,” Mat said. “That’s the beauty of the app. You can live a full life and have a dog.”

  She turned the volume back up on Thirty-Minute Machine, which was midway through a sponsor ad: . . . plus unparalleled professional networking events to get you where you need to be. Good Guys Stand Tall. She was glad Mat had told her he was enrolled in Good Guys—if he hadn’t, she might have made fun of the ad. She glanced at his face, which betrayed zero signs of embarrassment, and she was glad about that too; he didn’t need any assurance from her.

  The episode of Thirty-Minute Machine featured a New Yorker who commuted to work each day on her bike. But her office provided no intuitive place to store her sweaty biking clothes, and she needed a solution that wasn’t her desk drawer.