The Very Nice Box

by Eve Gleichman

  “The point guard . . .” Ava said.

  “No, not the point guard,” Mat said gently. “There was no point guard. You weren’t ready back then.”

  Ava blinked back her rage.

  “You see?” Mat said. “You and I are the same.”

  “No,” Ava said.

  “Yes. Completely obsessed with the same exact moment in time. Don’t you see the beauty there? We were both so busy suffering that we couldn’t live. But then I found Good Guys. And I saw that you were still suffering, all these years later.”

  “How can you even pretend to know how I was feeling?”

  “I asked Owen to keep an eye on you before I came here. He confirmed that you had no friends, worked late, only cared about your dog. You were clearly so determined to ignore your own trauma that you had no life. Do you have any idea how hard that was for me? How much guilt that caused me?”

  “Owen knew about all of this?” Ava said.

  “Good Guys look out for each other,” Mat said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

  “Oh god,” Ava said. “Is that how you hacked into my SHRNK account? That SHRNK guy I met? Theo Holloway?”

  “I wouldn’t call it hacking,” Mat said gently. “Theo saw my potential as a healing facilitator and allowed me into your account.”

  Ava spotted a break between the conveyor belts ten feet to her left. If she could get there quickly enough, she might be able to make it out. She prepared herself to run as Mat continued.

  “I don’t regret it,” Mat said. “Listen, Ava, I couldn’t handle it. I moved to New York to help you! You were so . . . alone.” He shook his head in a display of sadness. “But Good Guys helped me see that there was still something I could do. That in fact that day on the highway was a gift. To both of us.” He closed his eyes as though contemplating the beauty of his statement.

  Ava knew that a better time to run would not present itself. She bolted, but he was faster, and in an instant he was blocking her only exit.

  “I’m taking accountability!” He jabbed at his chest as he spit the words. “I can never go back in time and erase what happened to us, but I can help you repair the damage inside you. I can help you see that you are actually the cause of your own suffering! Not me!” He had backed her against a bright, incomprehensible panel of buttons. “Studies show that forgiveness is healing for victims too, not just for the people who hurt them. It’s a superpower to be able to forgive. It’s a gift I wanted to give you! That’s all I wanted! And then along the way I fell in love with you! How beautiful is that?”

  Fear gave way to a different feeling. Not calmness exactly, but focus. The same focus Ava had relied on for years to figure out a seemingly impossible design challenge in the final hours before a deadline. “I—I hadn’t thought of it that way,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Maybe you’re right. I was lonely, and maybe I didn’t realize how much I needed help . . .” She sighed, forcing the words out. “And it’s true that being with you healed me of that loneliness. In a way, I’m grateful for the accident. Because you . . . you actually saved my life. Thank you.”

  Mat regarded her suspiciously, but his agitation appeared to melt away. “Lamby,” he said softly, his bright blue eyes fixed on her, “thank you for having the courage to see things clearly.”

  He reached out to take her hand, and Ava recoiled. He lunged forward and grabbed her arm. His fingers tightened around her like a vice. “You were stuck, Ava, and I saved you from your loneliness.”

  Ava did not have to tell him that he was wrong. She did not have to argue with him as his guilt and sense of entitlement unraveled him in real time. She did not have to, because a loud mechanical churn from above startled them both and grew louder.

  48

  If Mat had bothered to attend STÄDA’s warehouse safety tour before his transfer, he would have known that he was now standing in the perfectly incorrect spot. Had he attended the training, he would have known that four large mechanical arms were about to emerge from four directions, each carrying a pine face of the Very Nice Box.

  Of course assembly was simple; the Very Nice Box, like all of Ava’s designs, was straightforward.

  “Lower your arms to your side,” Ava said, “unless you want to lose one.”

  “What?”

  Mat held his grip, but the mechanical arms kicked into motion, and he quickly obeyed. He let go of Ava and lowered his arms just before the machine clipped him.

  She knew he would fit; she was, after all, intimately familiar with the dimensions of both the man and the box. She watched the machinery move around him in a series of purposeful, graceful movements. “Now,” she said, “stay completely still.”

  A look of panic flickered across his face. “You’re going to go turn it off, right?”

  Was it a whimper Ava heard as two faces of the box converged? She couldn’t be sure, given all the ambient sounds of the warehouse. The pegs on sides A and C slipped into the holes on sides B and D, until only Mat’s head poked out the top.

  “Duck.”

  “Duck?” he yelled.

  “Yes, definitely duck,” Ava instructed as a fifth, overhead arm descended smoothly to fasten the final side. Mat ducked. The box was sealed.

  Ava couldn’t help but think about all the stress-testing her design had endured to reach this stage of production. Kinetic stress, static stress, drop stress. Ten years of damage collapsed into ten minutes. She felt proud to have built something so durable.

  “Okay, now let me out! This isn’t funny!” The sound of his voice was muffled, as though he were underwater; the pine was impressively sound-absorbent, Ava noted.

  “Correct,” Ava said.

  “Let me out!”

  “I unfortunately can’t interfere with the machinery at this stage,” Ava said, checking her Precise Wristwatch, though she did not feel in any particular rush to be anywhere else. “That would go against STÄDA’s safety protocols.”

  She was determined to enjoy the wave of control that now passed over her. Optimal outcomes rarely landed in her lap; they always required a great deal of testing, fine-tuning, and troubleshooting. The effort was extraordinary and often invisible to her colleagues.

  So she would allow herself a moment to enjoy this rare occurrence, when things had fallen into place against all odds. But the moment was interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind her.

  She turned to find Jaime. “Ava,” he huffed, his cheeks red. “I’m so sorry it took me so long. I ran to get Security after seeing the way Mat was gripping you at the party—you looked so scared, I knew something was wrong. But I couldn’t find anyone. I finally tracked you down on the security cameras.” He wiped his forehead. “Where is he?”

  “Jaime? Is that you?” Mat’s voice was muffled. Jaime glanced around the warehouse until his attention settled on the Very Nice Box, from which a dull thudding emanated. Ava could not help but think about the Dumpster. She tilted her head, imagining how the sound would travel differently in a box made from metal or plastic, until Jaime interrupted her thoughts.

  “Um . . . Ava?” he said, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, but . . . is Mat inside that box?”

  “YES!” Mat shrieked. “I am! Jaime, please. Thank god. Thank god you’re here.”

  “Jaime,” Ava said, “Mat was the hit-and-run driver.”

  “He what?” Jaime said. He looked between the box and Ava.

  “Jaime!” Mat shouted. “If you open this thing up, I can explain it to you—it sounds bad when she says it like that!”

  “He’s also been posing as my SHRNK,” Ava said. “And after chasing me through the warehouse he managed to trap himself inside that box.”

  “Does he know about the safety release?” Jaime whispered.

  “Maybe,” Ava said. “If he read the manual.”

  “What are you guys saying? I can’t hear you. Can you speak up? Ava! Please! I was helping you!”

  Ava studied th
e box. If Mat had attended the safety training, he would have known what was going to happen next. He would have known that the hydraulic lift he was standing on would rise twenty-three inches to the edge of the steel conveyor belt. He would have known that the lift would then roll twelve inches back, tilting the box horizontally, dropping it facedown on the belt. He would also have known that the mechanized quality assurance line would not stop unless someone pressed the red emergency button against the wall.

  “There’s gotta be some sort of button!” Mat yelled. “Can you call someone?”

  The end of his plea trailed off as the box turned a corner on the conveyor belt, away from them. Ava quickly lost sight of which box contained Mat as others joined the belt. They grew smaller and finally disappeared through the thick plastic flaps.

  “What happens on the other end of the belt?” Jaime said.

  “The boxes are stacked onto pallets, I think,” Ava said. She knew this only partially answered his question, but she had no interest in acknowledging the implications of Mat’s predicament. She’d had enough of him.

  Jaime glanced between the conveyor belt and Ava. “Do you think we should—”

  “What? He’s a solutions guy,” Ava said.

  Jaime failed to hold back a smile. The white noise in the warehouse had subsided and the tinny sound of a voice amplified by a megaphone broke through.

  “Now what?” Ava said.

  “You didn’t see what’s going on outside?”

  “Some kind of accident?” Ava said. “The traffic was hor­rible.”

  “Not an accident, no. Remember how I told you about Dev?”

  “Yes,” Ava said, blushing.

  “Well, she’s a whistle-blower. Apparently Corporate tried to bribe her to keep quiet about all the structural and environmental problems with the Vision Tower. They tried to make her falsify wind-test results and lie about that steam cloud.”

  “And she wouldn’t take the money?”

  “Look outside, Ava.”

  She followed Jaime to a window that looked onto the parking lot, where news vans, reporters, and STÄDA employees crowded together in an enormous knot. Ava could hear chanting and commotion but couldn’t make out the words. Through the movement of the crowd, she spotted Dev with microphones in her face. In the middle of the interview, two people in neon T-shirts suddenly appeared and hoisted her onto their shoulders, causing a fresh wave of celebration.

  “Is that—” Ava said, squinting out the window.

  “Ari and Kendra,” Jaime said. “It took some persuading, but as soon as I connected them with Dev, they were down to help me get dirt on Mat, which was amazing, because STÄDA’s surveillance game had nothing on theirs. They showed me their parking lot footage. If only you’d actually watched it when I told you to.”

  “I’m so sorry, Jaime,” Ava said. “I was desperate for Mat to be good, just to bring back some semblance of normalcy to my life.”

  “I know,” Jaime said. “Speaking of which . . .”

  “What?”

  “Do you think he’s going to, like . . . die in there?”

  They turned to face the automated assembly line, which continued its beautiful ritual. STÄDA’s legal team had given Ava a laundry list of preproduction tests that would be conducted to ensure that the Very Nice box wouldn’t harm consumers. Ava knew it wasn’t heavy enough to crush a small child and that its oil-based finish was not harmful to pregnant women. But Legal hadn’t ordered any tests to measure its oxygen levels. Ava noted this as a good action item for the next large container design. She shrugged.

  “If a toddler can figure out the safety latch . . .” Ava started.

  “Say no more.” Jaime wrapped his arm around her and they watched the commotion from the window. STÄDA employees had emerged from the Solstice Party onto the lot. Some of them were giving interviews. Others exchanged hugs with the twins.

  “Is this it for STÄDA?” Ava said. “Is this the end?”

  “Probably not,” Jaime said. “They’ll just stick the Vision Tower somewhere else. And the community garden will stay until some other giant corporation tries to claim it. The twins told me Float-Home is already trying to close in on it for their HQ.”

  “God, that’s dark,” Ava said. “I guess I wanted STÄDA to be good, too. I don’t really know what my life looks like without it. It’s terrifying to think about.” Her phone buzzed. “Of course Judith is using S-Chat during the party,” she said. “She says she has something for me in her office.”

  “You are not going to leave me alone anywhere near Mat Putnam’s trapped body.”

  “I’m not going to leave you anywhere,” Ava said. “Come with me.” She took his hand and led him out of the warehouse, into the Simple Tower. In the elevator, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “Thank you, Jaime,” she said.

  * * *

  Judith’s office door was open. She stood at the window that overlooked STÄDA’s parking lot and sipped from an Affable Glass engraved with a drawing of the Very Nice Box. Her hair was down, and she wore a green dress patterned with hollow white cubes.

  Ava knocked on the open door. “You wanted to see me?”

  “As it turns out,” Judith said, still looking out the window, “the Very Nice Pinot is actually very average.” She turned around. “Oh, you brought a friend.”

  “I can leave if—”

  “No,” Judith said. “I’m glad you’re here, Jaime.”

  They joined her by the window. The evening had darkened, the crowd had thinned, and most of the news vans had disappeared.

  “They turned eighteen today,” Judith said.

  “Who?” Ava said.

  “Ari and Kendra.” She turned to face them. “Eighteen! Can you believe it?”

  Ava and Jaime glanced at each other. “Is this . . . good news?” Jaime said.

  “Good? It’s more than good,” Judith said. “You have no idea how long I have been waiting for this day. Much easier to be proud of them when they’re not legally my responsibility.” She sipped from her glass. “Jaime, I have to thank you for keeping the twins under your wing. I know that was ethically questionable, but their futures were at stake.”

  “Not a problem,” Jaime said.

  “I doubt that’s true,” Judith said. “Which is why I’m especially appreciative. Your transfer to a senior engineering position has been board-approved.”

  “My . . . ?”

  “The only question is the department. I suggested that you would make an excellent senior engineer on the Watches & Clocks team. Would you agree?”

  “Really?” Jaime said. “Andie’s job? But I thought . . .”

  “The position was retired, yes. For a time.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Do I strike you as someone who would be less than sure about something like this?” She opened the drawer of her desk. “Second,” she said, “Karl was looking for you.”

  “Me?” Ava said.

  “No,” Judith said, “though he sends his congratulations to you. He was here for about thirty seconds. As soon as the emcee tried to call him up to the stage, he escorted himself from the building. But he did give me this to give to you, Jaime.” She took a folded piece of paper from the drawer and handed it to him. “I don’t know what it says, but Karl recommends that you consider its contents during a quiet, meditative moment.”

  Jaime glanced at Ava and stuck the folded note into his shirt pocket.

  Judith looked up at her Tranquil Clock. “Now,” she said. “It’s a Friday night and I have to get going to a real party.”

  “Real party?” Jaime said.

  “Yes. My Portuguese class holds weekly parties that frankly put this one to shame. No offense to you or the Very Nice Box, Ava,” she said, “but I find these Solstice Parties tacky.”

  “No offense taken,” Ava said.

  “That reminds me. I called you up here for a reason.” She pulled a set of keys from the pocket of her dress. “You’ll prob
ably need these.”

  They were Mat’s. Ava pinched the key ring with two fingers, as though it was toxic, and studied the keys. His only accessory was a Good Guys key fob.

  “Why do you have these?”

  “He used the employee valet service, so I had him towed ten blocks away,” Judith said. “Between the three of us,” she continued, “I personally enjoy getting in the way of people who feel entitled to that which does not belong to them. Ari and Kendra inherited that spirit from one of their parents, and it certainly wasn’t their father. Now, I don’t know where Mathew is currently, nor do I want to know. Everything about that man makes me want to walk in the opposite direction. But I assume he is up to something unfortunate somewhere in this building. I trust you’ll escort him out of here discreetly before he does too much damage.”

  Ava and Jaime looked at each other.

  “Good. Thank you. Now, tchau e obrigada.”

  49

  Jaime looked around Ava’s studio with his hands shoved in his pockets. They’d left the Solstice Party together in Mat’s car, Jaime’s bike folded up in the backseat. “Wow,” he said. “So many classics.” He picked up her Exuberant Alarm Clock and turned it over. “This was one of the first projects Andie let me work on.”

  “It’s one of my favorites,” Ava said. She sat on her Practical Sofa with her feet up on her Very Nice Box and watched Jaime take stock of the rest of the apartment while Brutus paced between them. She liked the delicate, thorough way Jaime looked at all her things. He knew which items were discontinued, which ones were first editions, which ones she had worked on, which ones were Andie’s.

  He pulled two beers from the refrigerator and squinted at the label, which depicted an astronaut dunking a hops bud through a basketball hoop. “Is this that subway beer that’s marketed for amateur athletes?”