Box Girl (29 page)

Fearing that the artificiality of this whole situation has rendered me something less than human, I find myself overacting.
See, people, I am real!
When I'm reading something that's funny, I laugh hard. Much harder than I would in my
real
living room. And that night when I cried in the box, I have to wonder: Did I enjoy it? Just a little? I think I did.
Over here, people, see? I cry real tears! Look at them! They're wet! And my snot is snotty! I am not just a cardboard cutout in a diorama!
The false reality of this set has made me hyper-real—an exaggeratedly human version of myself who relies on explosive guffaws and dramatic, arms-stretched-high-above-the-head yawns.

Bathroom Choreography

I shouldn't have brought this bottle of water into the box
with me tonight. I'm not even halfway through the shift, and I already need to go to the bathroom. Here goes nothing.

In order to get out of the box to go to the bathroom, I have to pull off the following tricky and somewhat humiliating maneuvers:

  
1.
  
Crawl across the box on my hands and knees.

  
2.
  
Push open the door with a rather forceful shove.

  
3.
  
Hang the top half of my body off the end of the mattress.

  
4.
  
While hanging upside down, reach below the mattress and retrieve the stepladder.

  
5.
  
Open the stepladder and place it next to the box, still hanging upside down.

  
6.
  
Fling my legs out from under me so I am facing forward in a sitting position, my legs dangling below.

  
7.
  
Step down the ladder while steadying myself with the handrails.

  
8.
  
Collapse the ladder and put it back into the storage space.

  
9.
  
Retrieve my jeans, shoes, and sweater or sweatshirt from my bag, which are stored next to the ladder.

10.
  
Dress myself in these items, pulling them over my uniform while standing next to the empty box.

I have noticed this process attracts some attention. Because it is something of a production, yes, but also because the people in the lobby can't believe this perplexing creature is allowed out at her own free will. (Or that she stays in at her own free will.) And that she wears regular human clothes. It will be during one of these transitions that I'll see a group of guys elbowing each other, saying something like, “Dude, dude, check this out,” while pointing a beer bottle in my direction.

I've decided it's the same sort of fascination and horror fourth graders have when they run into their teacher in the grocery store parking lot.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mrs. Belote has kids? She drives a car? She shops at the same supermarket as us? She's . . . she's . . . real?
I know I felt that way. I guess I always assumed all the teachers at Farmingville Elementary School slept under their desks. It never occurred to me that they paraded about in the real world, buying iceberg lettuce and wearing the same tennis shoes as my mom. It's unsettling to see something outside the only context you know. I hate to burst the hotel guests' weird art installation fantasies, but I do not live in here. This is not my only outfit. I use the bathroom just like you! I can climb up and down ladders! I ate a Crunch Wrap Supreme from Taco Bell on my way to work!

Outside the Box

There's a standup comedian in the lobby bar tonight. It's
hard for me to hear him. It's also hard not to wonder if he's telling jokes about me. I'm such an easy target in here. I eventually give up trying to listen and put in my headphones.

A few minutes later, I get up to go to the bathroom. As I wheel around the corner, I almost trip over the people in line. This is a first. There is a line. Normally I can just zoom in and out; I'm back in the box before anyone notices.

“Oh,” I say, and take my place in line, self-conscious of the fact that wearing jeans over my white shorts makes it look like I'm wearing a diaper.

A man, fiftyish, standing in front of me asks, “How are you tonight?”

“I'm good,” I say. “I mean, I'm in the box.”

He must have thought this was a figure of speech like, “I'm in the zone.”

“Are you enjoying the comedian?” he asks.

“Well, I can't really hear him,” I say, shaking my head.

The man nods in agreement.

“He's not projecting his voice very well. You must be sitting in the back like me.”

“Yeah,” I say and nod politely, not sure what to do with my hands with no drink, no purse, and no phone to fiddle with.

A minute later a thirty-something guy with shoulder-length hair gets in line behind me. He points at me, then at the empty box, then back at me.

“No . . .” he says. “You're the girl in the box?”

“Yep, it's true, they let us out to go to the bathroom.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“How long are you in there for?”

“Four hours,” I say. “It used to be seven.”

“Yeah, I remember coming in a couple years ago, and you guys were in there forever.”

I smile, half-laugh, and go into the bathroom. When I come out, he's still there, leaning against the wall, thumbing his iPhone. He stops me as I walk past.

“Hey, sorry,” he says. “I'm just so curious.”

“It's fine, a lot of people are.”

“So you can do whatever in there?” He seems genuinely bewildered.

“Yeah, there's Wi-Fi and everything,” I say, tapping my fingers over an imaginary keyboard.

“And you can talk on the phone?” he asks.

“Yep. There really aren't any rules. We can even sleep.”

A hotel employee walks by, so I start inching back toward the box. “Sorry, but we're not supposed to ‘fraternize' with guests.” I put air quotes around “fraternize.”

“Well, I'm not a guest,” he says. “I'm a guest of a guest. I have a real home. I mean, I have a home. I mean, I don't live here. I mean, I'm not a guest of the hotel.”

He lets out an embarrassed laugh and asks, “Would you like to get a coffee sometime?”

“I'd love to (I lie) but—”

“Let me guess: boyfriend.”

“Yes.”

“Ah, right,” he says. “I had to try. You just look so good in that box.”

Amsterdam

I'm in the box sifting through old emails, the ones collecting
dust at the bottom of the inbox, clicking “unsubscribe” whenever I can. I'm on an unsubscribe spree—J.Crew, MoveOn, Rent The Runway, Alzheimer's Association, Goodreads, Victoria's Secret. I scroll to the bottom, find UNSUBSCRIBE, which is usually in caps but always buried at the very end, click it, enter my email address, breathe. Wait, maybe I don't want to unsubscribe from J.Crew. They do have great sales . . . but they send three emails a day.

This is what I'm doing when I hear the words that shattered my sense of separation and safety. Standing at the front desk, a man with an indistinguishable accent eyes me and curls a thick finger at the concierge to signal, “Come here.” He leans across the desk and asks, conspiratorially, “Is she for sale?”

My eyes dart down at the man. His eyes are fixed on me.

The concierge replies, “Oh, no, sir. No, no. She's just part of the installation.”

I stare at my computer screen, but my eyes won't focus on anything. I feel totally naked. Does this man believe he can
rent me by the hour? Take me up to his hotel room and have his way with me?

Does he think this is like the Red Light District in Amsterdam? I went there while studying abroad in London, and I remember those streets and those windows—the rows and rows of ladies in waiting. For some reason, I remember one girl more than the others. Maybe because she was so young. She was wearing a nightgown and sitting on a stool in front of a vanity, combing her hair, waiting for a paying customer to pick her out like a puppy at a pet store. Probably not wanting to be picked out at all. That image and a single thought are burned into my memory:
How did this beautiful young girl end up here?
And now I can't help but wonder:
Are people thinking the same about me?

All my nights in the box, I have never felt degraded. I've never seen it as something sexual or demeaning. I think of myself as part of an interesting experiment. But that man's voice—so authoritative, so demanding—won't get out of my head.

Is she for sale?

Gobble, Gobble

Sometimes the art installations in the box are seasonal.
One January, the word “Resolve” hung from the front window, glowing in purple neon. The back wall was covered in New Year's resolutions, which were scribbled in sidewalk chalk: Call your mom. Floss. Take a lover.

Tonight, it seems the box artist has a real passion for Thanksgiving. Or maybe just a sick sense of humor. He's covered the back wall with a blown-up photograph of an overweight man wearing a tie and a Rolex, the sleeves of his white oxford cloth shirt rolled up over his fat, furry forearms. The man has a knife in one hand and a fork in the other. He is clearly preparing to carve a turkey, except there is no turkey. There is just me. So I guess he is preparing to carve me. On the front pane of glass, it says, “Gobble, Gobble,” and all around me are papier-mâché carrots, gourds, pumpkins, and squash.