The Very Nice Box

by Eve Gleichman

  Before she had time to process, Lukas hopped back onto the stage. “Wow. Thanks for an amazing meeting, guys. I’ll be carrying each and every one of you with me this week. All right, bring it in, y’all know how we wrap things up here.”

  They all rose from their seats and cheered in unison: “This! Time! Next! Week!”

  “New York, signing off. Be good, guys. Peace!”

  Men vanished from the screen, and Luke flipped on the lights. The din in the room increased as men crowded the refreshments table.

  Mat had found his way to Ava. He looked ecstatic, as though he’d just safely landed after jumping out of a plane. “Did you want to stick around for a minute?” he said eagerly.

  Ava shook her head quickly. “No,” she said.

  On the walk back to the car, Ava felt unmoored. Mat’s meetings had always been a blank spot on his calendar, and she hadn’t allowed herself to think much about them. But now she was forced to grapple with the details.

  She was aware that Mat was saying something to her, but she couldn’t hear him past a rush of thoughts. What had she just experienced? Why did it feel so familiar? All the Mat-isms from the previous several months coursed through her memory. She imagined the entire room of men repeating the expressions in unison. Were there many Mat Putnams?

  Mat was still talking, apparently unfazed by her silence. “Wasn’t it great, Lamby? Don’t you feel better now? Wow, I really feel energized.”

  He was emphatic almost to the point of drunkenness. He wrapped an arm around her and squeezed her tightly. “Did you like it?” he said. It was a rhetorical question, Ava knew. “Don’t you get it now?”

  41

  “I think,” Ava said, once they got back to her apartment, “that I want to sleep alone tonight.”

  It was difficult for her to say it, but necessary, and she watched as Mat dropped his keys dejectedly onto the counter. Behind him the dishes were stacked in the sink and the counter was crowded with spatulas, bowls, a thermometer, a baster, a clogged garlic press, and her Inquisitive Tongs.

  “Oh,” Mat said softly, “okay,” and she immediately wanted to take it back.

  “Dinner was so nice,” she said, correcting her tone. “I think I just need a little space to think about everything. Emily, the meeting.”

  “I . . .” Mat said, rubbing the back of his head again. “Okay. I mean, did you have any questions? Because I could probably answer them. I know it’s a lot to take in, and questions are only natural.”

  Ava felt a sting of annoyance that he was wrestling to control the narrative—that in his version of events, it was Ava who needed to do the work of understanding. “No,” she said. “I don’t have any questions. I just need time to think.” She forced a smile. She went to the sink and ran the water until it was warm, then added the dish soap, step one in what she knew would be a full unit and a half of washing. With each dish she scrubbed, her mind turned over a different aspect of the evening: the sponsor seating, the self-congratulatory speeches, the knowing chuckles from the audience.

  “I can help you with those,” Mat said from her Embracing Armchair.

  “That’s okay,” Ava said. “You cooked.”

  “Okay,” Mat said. “Fair enough.”

  But it wasn’t fair enough, Ava felt as she worked the soapy water into her Benevolent Pan. He should be helping her. She had worked all day. She had only refused the help because she felt bad about hurting his feelings. But what had he expected, taking her to that meeting?

  While she washed the dishes, Mat crossed his ankle over his knee and began scrolling through his phone, his silence loud and despondent. She had never been less attracted to him. But she remembered what Sofia had said: Things slow down.

  It had never felt this way with Andie. Was this what it was like to settle into a long-term relationship with a man?

  Brutus waited politely for scraps by Ava’s feet as she cleaned the dishes, his tail slowly wagging. She slipped her Peaceful Headphones on and found an engineering podcast—not Thirty-Minute Machine, which felt in this moment too fraught. She chose The Feel, a podcast that rated knobs, cranks, and handles based exclusively on their hand-feel. The podcast soothed her. She was almost able to forget that Mat was in her apartment. She was almost able to forget what she had just witnessed: a room full of men (How many were there, all told? Thousands?) pulling one another up off the ground, patting each other on the back, spinning their ethically questionable life choices into something that resembled, from a distance, growth and maturity.

  She thought of how Mat had twisted his lie about Emily, first into a “white lie” and then into a “misunderstanding,” something for a bunch of men to laugh at.

  But of course Ava could always make room for self-doubt. Maybe she should have asked more questions about the circumstances surrounding Emily’s adoption. Maybe she wanted the story to be that Mat had rescued Emily a decade before. Maybe she wanted that because she liked him so much. She thought back to their tour of the Steinway factory, how well he had seemed to understand her then. That day had felt perfect—and maybe she needed Mat to be perfect too. And maybe perfection was too much to ask of someone.

  Ava didn’t want to turn to look at Mat—didn’t want to see his sad, handsome face. What she did want to do was check in with her SHRNK, to slowly unwind the evening and come to a new understanding, one in which there was room for Mat to have misled her and for Mat to be good. But she couldn’t talk to her SHRNK here, in such close quarters with him. So she focused on the dishes until the work became meditative, mechanical, and numbing. She would work it out with Mat. He was a good guy.

  She finished drying the last of the Useful Utensils and turned to him. “Want to come with me for a walk with Brutus?”

  Mat looked up from his phone. He seemed nervous, as if he were bracing for criticism. “If you’ll let me,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said. “Of course. Just . . .”

  “What?”

  “Just please don’t try to talk to me about that meeting,” she said. “I just want to walk.”

  “Deal,” Mat said, pushing himself up from the Practical Sofa.

  Brutus had sprung into action at the word walk, and Ava clipped his Curious Leash into his Curious Collar, and the three of them walked out into the cool, summery night. Ava felt on the verge of something—was it acceptance? She could not condone the lie about Emily, she could not condone the bizarre bro support group, but she could accept Mat for who he was if she tried. She was a problem-solver, and she had a complicated puzzle before her.

  They walked quietly around the neighborhood, and she was relieved that Mat didn’t try to explain anything. He held her hand and they walked, Brutus trotting alongside her, occasionally lifting a leg at a parking sign. They navigated past groups of people on their stoops, on the sidewalk, leaning against their cars, outside bodegas and bars.

  “Hey!” someone shouted. It took Ava a minute to realize that the person was calling to her. “Ava, right?”

  She turned and saw a man on a stoop and squinted at him. “Oh god,” she said. It was the stoop where she’d met her Kinder date, Amir Cade. It shouldn’t have surprised her, then, that it was Amir calling to her. She froze and quickly released her hand from Mat’s.

  “Who’s that?” Mat said.

  Amir had stood from the stoop and was now jogging over to them, checking both ways for cars. “I thought that was you!” he said with a smile.

  “Yes!” Ava said, a little too frantically. “Yes, well, you were right. Nice to see you.”

  “I actually tried calling you a few times,” Amir said. “I guess I wasn’t as big a hit with you as you were with me. Just goes to show.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call back,” Ava said hastily. “I actually did enjoy that dance . . . recital.”

  Amir’s laugh was good-natured, and Ava was relieved.

  “Don’t worry about it!” he said. “I have obviously found a way forward. And so have you!” He smiled
at her and turned to Mat.

  “Oh, yes! I’m sorry,” Ava said. “I’m a little flustered. This is Mat. My boyfriend.” An intrusive memory of the word partner went soaring through her.

  “Hey, man,” Amir said, jutting a hand out. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Mat,” Ava said. “It’s Amir. Amir Cade.”

  Mat looked at her blankly for a moment and released Amir’s hand.

  “You guys were at Wharton together,” Ava said.

  “Oh!” Mat said. “Amir! I’m so sorry! I’m a moron. I’m terrible with names and faces. Hey, man!” He clapped Amir on the shoulder.

  Amir smiled at Mat and said, “Remind me of your last name?”

  “Putnam,” Mat said. He squinted at Amir as though getting a better look. “I think we only overlapped a little.”

  Ava was worried that Mat would bring up Amir’s short-lived marriage as some sort of flex.

  He rubbed the back of his head. “So you guys, what, went out a couple times?” He pulled Ava closer, squeezing her waist. “Asking for a friend. Ha!”

  “You have nothing to worry about, my friend,” Amir said, smiling. “She didn’t like me very much. Promise.” He winked at Ava before turning to Mat. “So what did you end up specializing in?”

  “Specializing?” Mat said.

  “At Wharton.”

  “He did their dual program, right, Mat?” Ava said. She felt responsible for clearing the awkwardness from the conversation, because she had created the awkwardness in the first place. She felt like she was encouraging two young children to play a game together. “The marketing-engineering thing,” she said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Mat said, his hand at the back of his head again. “It wasn’t really a program per se, actually. They just did a trial-run thing with a few of us.”

  Amir looked at him with a confused smile. “A what? Who was your adviser?”

  “Smith,” Mat said.

  “I don’t know a Smith. Wait, we’re talking about the same program, right? Wharton MBA?”

  Ava’s stomach turned over. She turned to face Mat.

  “Yeah,” Mat said defensively. “That’s what I said.”

  “Word, okay,” Amir said, shrugging. “Clearly I had my head buried too far in my books.”

  “Clearly!” Mat said, too loudly. He was patting the back of his hair with his palm.

  “Amir,” Ava said, “were you ever married?”

  “Married?” he said. “No.”

  “Ava . . .” Mat said. “I don’t think that’s really your business.”

  “Mat,” Ava said, “where did you live?”

  “What?”

  “When you were at Wharton. Where did you live?”

  “In an apartment,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “Off-campus.”

  “Off-campus where? What street?”

  Amir stood and looked at them, his mouth slightly open.

  “I don’t remember!” Mat said. “Stop quizzing me! What is this, a cross-examination?” He looked like a distressed animal—like Brutus refusing a pill.

  “Okay, well, nice running into you,” Amir said, backing up as if he were avoiding a canvasser. Ava smiled weakly at him and he trotted off with a short wave. “Good luck!” he called behind him, and she wasn’t sure which of them he was talking to.

  She turned back to Mat, who was as stiff as a tree. “Who spoke at your commencement?” she said to him, with no intention of stopping there. Brutus whined to turn around.

  “Lamby,” Mat said, his voice cracking. “Please.”

  “How many people were in the program? What was the name of a textbook you read? Who would you say was your closest friend?”

  42

  In the world of options that lay before Ava—to demand an explanation, to berate him, to end it—the only thing she wanted to do was to get away from Mat as quickly as she could.

  Brutus heeled closely at her side. Mat yelled after her, jogging to keep up. “Ava? Are you walking home? Where are you going? Your apartment’s in the other direction!”

  “Please don’t follow me,” Ava said, and she could hear his footsteps slow. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of looking over her shoulder, but she couldn’t help but imagine what he would look like if she did. He would be standing there rubbing the back of his head. He would be criminally charming. His cheeks would be rosy. His hair would be perfectly disheveled. She pulled Brutus ahead, electrified by anger, and ordered herself a Swyft.

  Jaime lived on the third floor of a sturdy Bed-Stuy brownstone whose entrance was crowded by rosebushes that were fully in bloom. She hadn’t been here in years, not since STÄDA’s early days, when Jaime and his roommates had hosted Hotspot marathons. Having never before watched Hotspot, Ava didn’t attend the marathons, but when she’d overheard Jaime ask Andie to bring a bottle of wine, she quietly changed her RSVP from a no to a yes.

  Now, looking at the pink and white roses, Ava remembered how she’d frozen in place when she’d seen Andie approaching Jaime’s apartment from the opposite direction. That night, like this one, had been soft and cool. Andie held a bottle of wine, her work pants streaked with paint, her blond hair lit up by a lamppost. An old man exited the brownstone, and Andie grabbed the door and held it open for Ava. “Coming up?” she said.

  “Oh,” Ava said. “I . . . I think I’ll wait to be buzzed in.” She was strung up with nerves. Andie’s smile was teasing, but she let the door close, buzzed Jaime’s apartment, and waited on the street with Ava. “You’re STÄDA’s storage wiz, right?”

  “Yes,” Ava said. Her whole body tightened. What else could she say to elaborate? Yes, and what are your favorite kinds of boxes? She was glad it was dark, because she could feel her cheeks glowing.

  “Nice,” Andie said. “I’m Andie, by the way.”

  “Ava.”

  “I know,” Andie said.

  “You do?”

  A knot now pushed against her throat at the memory. She swallowed against it and rang Jaime’s doorbell.

  “Ava?” he called from his window. “Is that you?”

  She felt ridiculous. “Yes,” she said, craning her neck. “Can I—can Brutus and I come up?”

  The buzzer rang, and she pushed open his heavy wooden door. As Brutus pulled her up the stairs, she prepared for the impending humiliation.

  Instead Jaime pulled her into a tight hug. “Come in,” he said, shutting the door behind her. “Oh, um, Ava, this is Chas. I don’t think you’ve met.”

  Chas poked his head out of the kitchen. He reminded Ava of a woodland creature; he was small and fit, and wore jeans and no shirt beneath a Homey Apron that was covered in flour. “Hi!” he said, leaning backward to greet Ava. “Nice to meet you! And you,” he said to Brutus, who charged toward him happily.

  “Oh no,” Ava said, turning to Jaime. “I’m sorry. I crashed your night.”

  “Not at all. I’m glad you came,” Jaime said. “Sit down. Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. No.”

  “Oh, Ava,” he said, leading her to his living room with a hand on her shoulder.

  His Dignified Sofa was an early STÄDA design reupholstered with floral fabric. Beside it was a pine Very Nice Box, upon which he set an Affable Glass of red wine. That Jaime owned a Very Nice Box touched Ava, and he must have registered the look on her face. “Elegant, simple, useful,” he said. “Classic Ava Simon.”

  Brutus climbed up next to Ava and placed his head heavily in her lap. “I can kick him off,” she said.

  “Why?” Jaime said. “He’s happy there.” He poured himself some wine and sat next to her.

  “I’m sorry I ruined your date,” Ava said. “I feel like a complete mess. Where are your roommates?”

  “I really don’t think it’s possible for you to be a mess,” Jaime said. “And I don’t know that date is really the right word, given that Chas and I have lived together for almost a year now. No more roommates.”

  “What?” sh
e whispered. “Why didn’t I know that?”

  “You didn’t really ask,” he said, shrugging. “You’ve had a lot going on.”

  “God, I’ve been so self-involved,” Ava said.

  Chas poked his head out of the kitchen again. He’d removed his Homey Apron, revealing faded top-surgery scars. His boxer briefs peeked out from behind the waistband of his jeans. He was pointing a Serious Knife at Jaime and Ava. “Who wants pie?”

  “We do,” Jaime said.

  Ava wasn’t sure whether she was hungry, exhausted, wired . . . she barely knew which direction was up. She looked around the living room, which was outfitted with custom shelving, aesthetically pleasing air filters, healthy-looking plants, and photos of Jaime and Chas together. A keyboard sat in the corner of the room.

  “That’s Chas’s,” Jaime said.

  “He’s a musician?”

  “A really good one,” Jaime said. “He’s at Juilliard. I got stood up by my Kinder date and saw him perform, alone. Now I’m very pro getting stood up.”

  “I can’t believe I knew none of this,” Ava said. “I’m so sorry I never asked.”

  “It’s okay,” Jaime said, topping off her wine. “So. Are you ready to talk about it?”

  “I just came from a Good Guys meeting with Mat. Owen Lloyd was there too. You were right about them.”

  “I knew Owen was probably one of them. I can’t believe you could even tolerate being in the same room as them. I mean, when I saw them in that footage, I—it’s just so scary.”

  Ava paused. She hadn’t opened Jaime’s email, and after all she’d endured that evening, she didn’t have it in her to follow him on yet another paranoid witch hunt. She tried to imagine what in the footage could possibly be construed as “scary.” The weird handshake they did? She felt a deep embarrassment at the thought of anyone else witnessing it, especially Jaime.

  Jaime noticed her hesitation. “Please tell me you watched it.”

  “Yes, I watched it,” Ava said. The lie was deeply relieving. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I don’t see what there is to talk about, Ava. I mean, they’re criminals! How can you—”