There is a box on Stacy’s desk. When she looks away, out the window where the kids are running through the snow, the box does not exist. When she pins her class schedule to her bulletin board, the box does not exist. The box does not exist, and she does not know it exists when she walks into the kitchen. Wayne pours ramen from a pot, and Stacy forgets about all box-shaped, box-evocative objects.
Wayne squeezes a tablespoon of sriracha in his ramen and pulls out a fork. Stacy shifts the empty fishbowl on the microwave, the blue-dyed water sloshing up to meet the rim. She sets a coffee cup with lipstick marks in its spot. Stacy does not own lipstick. She does not know which brands employ child labor and which companies use animal testing, and the idea of cosmetics-related shopping makes her crack her toes.
Wayne pours soy sauce in his ramen and scrunches up his nose as he takes a sip. He dumps the bowl into the bag-lined garbage can, broth and noodles splatting against the bottom of the bin.
Stacy eats a handful of raspberries and a rolled-up slice of turkey. There is a portrait of a man who no one remembers on the fridge. Sometimes, when Wayne and Stacy are halfway through a bottle of Tito's, they'll tell stories about the man—mostly half-real memories molded to fit the mustachioed character of the portrait. Wayne fills a pot with more water and clicks on the burner. Stacy does not say goodbye, and she does not think to tell Wayne about the leaking bathroom sink or the box that does not exist.
The apartment stairs are not icy.
One of the neighborhood girls throws a muddy snowball at a cat. The snowball hits Stacy’s knee instead. She shakes off the snow and hurries through the salt and slush to her car. Someone has lifted up her windshield wipers, and she snaps them back against the frosted glass.
The drive to class is slow. A girl in a hula skirt bobbles on the dashboard. The liquid in the smashed dashboard clock unfreezes and pools around its cracks. Stacy can’t read the time, but she knows she is early. She parks and walks past empty bike racks and water fountains and discarded Bibles and greets an empty lecture hall. The chalkboard is half-erased, and the professor’s desk is littered with torn-out textbook pages.
Stacy sits on the carpet behind the last row of seats. She plugs in her new laptop and chips at the screen protector, her cheeks flushing.
A group of students trickles in and settles in the front row. One of the girls spills her coffee on the carpet, and her girlfriend runs to grab a paper towel roll from the podium.
Stacy cracks her toes and emails Wayne a picture of the half-erased chalkboard.
Wayne responds with a picture of their couch that is now sitting in the kitchen where the table used to live.
Stacy smiles. She loves Wayne in the way that magpies love rusted lockets. She does not email him back.
The professor walks in and stands on his desk chair. He lectures about cell membranes and homeostasis and condoms on bananas, and Stacy draws notes on the back cover of her math book. The professor shows a diagram of diffusion, and she writes about ramen and couches in liminal spaces. Students flood the aisles, and the lecture hall empties until only the professor is left standing on his chair and Stacy is left sitting on the carpet. The professor waves. Stacy stands up and leaves.
A boy in the hallway smacks her ass. She turns to face him.
“You got a problem?” he asks, crooked smile widening.
She unscrews her thermos and dumps it in his lap.
The bike rack outside is full, and a disheveled-looking student padlocks his scooter to a water fountain. Stacy walks in the opposite direction towards the student union. She buys a new coffee at the shop inside and fills it to the brim with whole milk. A physics student at a nearby table mentions a cat, and she remembers the box-shaped, box-evocative object on her desk. She leaves her coffee and runs home.
Wayne is making a new pot of ramen at the stove. The trashcan brims with failed attempts and several bottles of sriracha.
“Can I have the keys?” Wayne asks. “I’m going to a gala.”
“There’s a box on my desk.”
“I need the keys or my boss will fire me.”
“There’s a box on my desk, and I haven’t opened it.”
She hands him the keys. “I’m parked in the B62 lot.”
“That’s over six miles.”
“Your boss is going to fire you.”
He huffs and pours his ramen in the trash.
Stacy unlaces her snow boots and sets them on the stove.
Wayne removes his crocs and tugs on the boots.
She leaves him to tie the laces and retreats to her room. She sits at her desk and runs her fingers over the dinosaur tape sealing the box. She wants to open the box. She does not want to open the box. She thinks of the physics student and his cat.
There is a letter opener balanced on a tissue box, and she uses it to rip the top flaps open. Inside are two crumpled pieces of gold tissue paper from last Christmas, a collection of Werther’s Original wrappers, a used tissue, a pair of glasses, and a rubber duck. Stacy squeaks the duck, and Wayne responds with a quack from the kitchen. She tries on the glasses and determines that someone is missing them right now.
Wayne slams the door on his way out.
Stacy stores the candy wrappers and the tissue in a half-empty puzzle box and puts the glasses in her pocket. She needs to make a call, but her phone is sitting in the lost and found at the New York Public Library.
Instead, she grabs a fistful of two dollar bills from inside a couch cushion in the kitchen and orders an Uber.
The woman who drives her across town speaks in first lines of Gothic literature and half-finished grocery lists. Stacy hums a tune she heard in her linguistics lecture. The woman drops her a block and a half from her destination. She does not pay the woman, and the woman does not wait to ask for any money.
Stacy walks the block and a half in her socks. The sidewalk is icy. She thinks of her snow boots on Wayne’s feet and cracks her toes.
The man at the front desk of the nursing home nods at her and continues tapping on his keyboard. He only types with four fingers, and Stacy watches him as she enters the elevator.
There is a paisley reclining chair in the corner. She sits in it as the elevator ascends. She thinks about knitting and Bingo and competitive breakdancing as she runs her fingers across the coarse fabric.
The elevator dings, and Stacy exits onto the fourth floor.
A girl from biology stands mopping the orange tiles. Stacy frowns and the girl waves at her. The two are close.
Stacy’s grandma lives at the end of the hall in a closet full of tissues and dollar store bath toys.
“Are you here to paint my nails?”
Stacy sighs. “No, Grandma.”
Stacy’s grandmother wrinkles her nose. “My polish is chipped.”
Stacy sighs. She grabs the bottle of blue nail polish on the dresser and sits on the floor.
Her grandmother sits on the edge of the bed and splays her fingers out.
“What have you been doing?”
“I water the rocks in the garden,” she says.
Stacy smiles and coats her grandmother’s thumbnail. “Do your friends help you?”
“No. They weed the fountain.”
Stacy nods.
“The fountain is overgrown. It moans and sings at night, and it keeps Claudia up. She has to sit by it and read Dickinson.”
“They should hire someone to do the reading.”
Her grandmother frowns. “Too many applicants. They couldn’t decide.”
“Maybe the rocks can help.”
“We don’t have enough.”
Stacy dips the brush into the bottle. “We should get more.”
Her grandmother stands up, knocking the bottle from Stacy’s hand.
Stacy sighs and drops the lid. She walks through the puddle of nail polish, her socks staining blue, and says, “Your bag.”
“I don’t need it.”
Stacy grabs the bag. It’s heavy, and she unzips it to find dozens of red lava rocks.
“Where did you get these?”
“The family down the street has a rock pathway.”
“We should go.”
Stacy and her grandmother take the stairs to the ground floor, where they pass the man at the front desk with a nod.
They walk through the ice and snow and salt until they reach a home improvement store. An overgrown man greets them on their way in and directs them towards the back.
There are dozens of rocks. Hundreds. Stacy does not care how many there are, but she hopes that her grandmother does.
“These are round.” She points to a mound on a pallet. “Grandma, how about these?”
Her grandma does not look.
“Grandma?” She squeezes her shoulder.
Stacy’s grandmother starts to shiver and rock on her toes.
“Grandma?” She tightens her grip.
“Get off me!” she yells. “Get off! Get off! Get off!”
Stacy retreats behind a pallet.
“Who are you?” her grandmother yells. “Who are you?” She pounds at her legs with fists.
Stacy is reminded of the clock on the dashboard in her car.
She sits and watches her grandmother. She counts rocks and places discarded pebbles in her sock.
“Aren’t your feet cold?” Her grandmother’s face is soft and warm.
“Grandma?”
Stacy’s grandmother smiles. “Aren’t your feet cold, darling?”
Stacy cries and mumbles something about galas and rubber ducks and two dollar bills between couch cushions in the kitchen.
They buy a box worth of rocks and stop at the gas station across the street for Werther’s.
The man at the front desk nods at them and switches typing fingers.
Stacy dumps the rocks in the garden out the back. Her grandmother weeds the fountain and lines its edges with pebbles.
“I have to go now.”
Her grandmother fills a watering can.
“I have to go. But I’ll be back.”
Her grandmother christens the new rocks.
“Keep these in your bag.” Stacy pulls out the glasses from her pocket and sets them on the fountain’s edge.
Her grandmother hums a tune inspired by porridge.
The man at the front desk lets Stacy call Wayne on his phone. She cries and stammers, and Wayne shows up soon in snow boots and a tie.
Three weeks later, Stacy receives a call from the nursing home. Four more days and Wayne brings her a package from the mailroom.
She leaves the box on her desk.
Most days it does not exist. Most days it lives under textbooks and lab reports and empty ramen packets.
It’s a Thursday when she comes home and decides it can’t not exist.
She tears through the dinosaur tape and used tissues until she unearths a pair of snow boots.
She cries and calls for Wayne, who hides them in the freezer.
They’re nice boots. Well-worn, well-loved. Sturdy and good for any six-mile winter strolls. When she is done crying, she throws the shoes out the window and tapes the flattened box to her bulletin board.
Julia Saunders is queer, disabled writer about to graduate with her BFA. Julia also dabbles in Korok collection, furby modification, and amateur baking as a love language.