boxes and squares #1: go your own way

September 2088. Jordan Graham is 28, Ingrid Thompson is 25, Maria Boone is 26, Colette Marin is 31.

previously: Jordan had plans to shake up his life // then Maria kissed him in the kitchen at work // he's not letting Colette tell him what to do anymore // and Ingrid conned convinced Jordan to drive her out to California



Ian and Ingrid have done everything together, every moment of their lives since they were born. Until September 14th, 2088, when Ingrid asked if he wanted to tag along on their epic adventure out to the Pacific coast, and Ian said. “Nah, I’m good.”



And Ingrid said, “Oh! Really? Right on, brother! Go your own way!”

He didn’t go. He stayed in Wisconsin with Jessica.




Maybe he’s a bad influence on her, smoking in various states of undress, lazing around his bedroom until noon. Maybe she’s a good influence on him. “Why don’t you just teach,” she convinces him. “It’s okay if you just take after your parents. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.” And the idea made so much sense, like she’d just figured out his entire life for him.

They meet in the middle, which is, maybe, not the worst place to be.

—

So Ingrid and Jordan took off in the camper that was first hers, and then was next his, and in spirit maybe belonged to them both, with a pact to make it to the Pacific coast.

Through Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado, Jordan insisted on motel stops. Separate rooms. Ingrid was a lot, to be quite honest. She talked and talked. She had ideas, and they were big ones. She chattered on about feminism and socialism and consumerism and Confucianism and several other -isms that Jordan had no opinion of, and then she chattered on about how it makes one an irresponsible citizen to have no opinion on some things.

And by the end of a long day of driving, Jordan longed for his own space and to hear the incessant murmur of his own tired mind. The motels were eating into his travel budget, for sure, but it was a luxury he couldn’t resist.

Then they came to Utah, a dusty little town off Route 70. The only motel looked like it had been closed down for decades. They were lucky to score some gas, at least.

“We could, you know, both sleep in the camper,” Ingrid suggested. “Isn’t that the entire point of owning a camper? That trailer park over there looks like it has overflow parking. I bet we could use it.”

Jordan’s response was noncommittal, so Ingrid made the call and bounced over. With a wink and a megawatt smile, she had an answer in five minutes. They were pointed to a large patch of dirt beside the road, so they settled in there.




Jordan was in and out of reception all day as he drove. Now parked and phone taken out of drive mode, his screen came to life with the pings of dozens of backed-up messages. Almost all of them were from Colette. Angry ones.

This town had nothing except a bar, a library, and a huge military installation that came with copious cell phone towers. One of her calls finally came through. She didn’t seem interested in giving up, so he answered.



“You can’t just quit being a father,” she said. “If you want to leave me, fine, but you can’t just fuck off to the desert when you have kids.”

“Well, I would have taken them with me, but you said no.”

“Wrong, I said hell no.”

“Tell them it’s a vacation,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Soon, when? Months is not soon to nine-year-olds. And you just had a vacation. How many vacations do you need? How can you just not be in their lives every day? Don’t you love them?”



“Of course, I do. Don’t tell them I don’t. That’s not fair. Colette, please. I need a break. Not from the boys, but from this cage of a life!” From you, he didn’t say. “I need to try something different and see if it works. I need a gap year.”

“You’re an adult. You don’t get a gap year!”

“Why not?! Who says?”



“Everyone says,” she shouted, her pitch rising as her blood pressure boiled. “Be a grown-up. Pick up your share of the shit and deal like everyone else does. Do you think I’m living my dreams? Ha! As if! Why do you get to run off and live your dreams?”

“Why aren’t you living your dreams? I didn’t stop you.”

“Oh, shut up with that bullshit. You’ve never tried to hold down a career in your life. You don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ll have them over Christmas break,” he said. “I’ll have them in the summer.”

“So, I don’t get to see my boys on Christmas or summer break? How is that fair? You made this mess, and now I have to pay the price for it?”



Jordan shook his head, feeling he had no options and no right choices to make. “Don’t tell them I didn’t want to try. Don’t poison them against me.”

“Don’t be gone and I wouldn’t have to,” Colette snarked.

“Ugh,” Jordan moaned, “You’re impossible!”

Click. She hung up.





He sat in his camp chair in front of a blazing orange sunset. What a beautiful scene to have an ugly conversation.

He stewed about the argument until the last golden light had left the horizon and the night started to chill.



Eventually, Ingrid emerged from the camper.

“You wanted peace and quiet, so you come out here and fight with your ex?”

“Hmph,” Jordan grunted, slightly amused.

“Are you ready to hit the hay soon?”

“Not yet. You go ahead. I kind of need to come down from that phone call.”



“I heard it,” Ingrid said with a gentle snicker.

“Yeah? I guess you probably did. You and everybody else in the county.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head. “Definitely not. So, uh, you can take the master bed until we get to California. I’ll take the cot in the back.”

“How chivalrous,” she said, putting on a sly smile. “But, you know, that bed’s big enough for two.”



He gaped at her, wide-eyed and full of horror. “Ha, um, no thanks?”

Ping, ping. His phone again. 

“Is she still at you?”



He glanced at the screen with caution, then let out an easy sigh. “No, she’s stopped for now. Those are Maria. Hey, I’m gonna take a little walk and, you know...”

He was gone before finishing his sentence.



“Hope it’s better than the last phone call,” Ingrid called out to him.

He waved a hand without turning his head, and she watched him walk off into the dusty twilight.

She had changed into something cuter than what she wore the whole way here, the grungy sweats on their second day of wear, the sweatshirt that had caught an unfortunate dribble of mustard, but she might as well have been wearing a potato sack. Ingrid was too shameless to feel hurt by his rejection, but she had to admit the look of pure confusion and horror on his face was rather amusing. The rejection was worth it for that alone.



Jordan walked out into the dust and called Maria back, feeling an instant calm wash over him at the sound of her voice. Some things were starting to become clear out here. One of which: how much Maria had been a warm and happy respite for him over the past couple of years. It was a delight to sneak into her kitchen after his work was done, instead of going home. He felt more belonging in that kitchen than in any residence he’d ever had.

“How are the stars?” she asked. “The best you ever saw?”

“Eh, they’re okay,” he said. “I’ve seen better. There’s a bit of moon and light pollution here. See?”



He pointed his camera around, at the sky, the rocks, the lights on the short main street strip. It occurred to him that he could give her a virtual tour, but the lighting was too poor right now.

Maria laughed. “I can’t see anything, your phone camera sucks. How old is that thing?”

“Ha ha, pretty old. Can you see me now?”




“Hmm, I wish. Call me tomorrow in the daylight. I want to see your face.”

“Yeah, for sure.”





Jordan climbed onto a small rock in the open field. They talked for a couple of hours, past when the bar stopped its music, the drunks stumbled home, and the tiny desert town fell into a deep silence. Until Maria’s responses grew sleepy and mumbled, and he imagined she had fallen asleep with her phone in her hand.

Jordan said, “Goodnight, sleeping beauty. Talk to you tomorrow.”




He lay there in the quiet underneath a canopy of mediocre stars, wondering at what point would he know if he found what he’d been searching for?

He must have fallen asleep on that rock, because he startled awake at the sound of a distant pack of coyotes howling in unison. They weren’t very close, but there was another sound of some creature rustling in the brush. It was something small—nothing that intended to eat him, he hoped. The kind of unknown that inspired him. The sky was still mostly dark, but the horizon began to glow with the first blue light of morning. He was wild and alone and free, and for a moment he remembered why he was doing this.

—