boxes and squares #2: this is not that story again

September 2088. Jordan Graham is 28, Ingrid Thompson is 25, Clayton Dodd is 21.

previously: the summer of 2085



Ingrid paced the camper for half an hour. She got dressed, trying to make as much noise as possible. This man slept like a rock. Or maybe the problem was that he stayed up all night talking to his lover and then fell asleep on an actual rock. In any case, Ingrid felt restless and wanted to start the day.

She stood over his cot and cleared her throat. “Ahem.”

And he finally woke with a startle and a small yelp.



She chuckled. “Oh my gosh, I thought you’d never wake up! Do you always sleep this late?”

He just blinked his eyes and continued sitting up.

“Can we stay a day? Stretch our legs? I’d like to get some landscape shots, do a little yoga somewhere ethereal, and maybe I’ll write a poem, too.”

“Eh, sure,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind a hike.”

They hiked up to the plateau where they found a nature park visitor center.

Ingrid had her camera out instantly. It was beautiful here, a landscape unlike anything she’d seen at home. She found a rocky outcrop with an incredible view, a rush of wind in her hair, the squeal of an eagle overhead. Everything was new and inspiring. For as open-minded and adventurous as she considered herself, she felt limited that she’d never traveled very far from Michigan, where she was born, Illinois, where she went to school, then Wisconsin where she ended up, the whole of her twenty-five years centered around one really big lake. There was actually so little she’d really seen of the world. Seen with her eyes and not in books or conversation. And this was something.

And that? Was that Jordan?



She zoomed in with her camera. How did he get there? In the fifteen minutes she’d lost herself behind her lens, he’d somehow managed to scale the entire ravine. She snagged a few action shots of him leaping from rock to rock.



“Hey, Jordan! Hey!” Her voice echoed across the canyon. “How’d you get over there?!?”

“No, don’t try it,” he echoed back.

Because she was totally going to try to shimmy down that ravine and it was probably for the best that he told her not to. Bones heal, but her camera was very delicate and very expensive, and her mother would have a full-blown stroke if she broke it again.



He hopped across the rocks and even leapt over a small stream, then he finally met her beside a fishing pond.

“Hey, there you are! You’re hard to find.”

“Maybe I was trying not to be found,” he said.



“God, you remind me of someone.” She swooned, looking him over, feeling a familiar hunger and the weight of a thousand memories.

“Someone good or someone bad?”

“Hmm, both.” She took another moment to remember the summer of 2085 and an elusive pyromaniac who lit an unstoppable fire in her heart. “Phew. So, anyway, we’re doing action shots?”

“Nope,” Jordan said.



“Aw, come on. They get great views. I’ll cut you in on the royalties. You need to pay your baby mama that child support.”

“I can make my own money,” he said.

“But can you make shirtless-on-a-rocky-outcrop-looking-pensive-and-sexy kind of money?”

“Ingrid, I’m not doing that.”

“Oh, fine. Well, can you click the shutter, at least? I’ll do the action shots.”





She shouted down from the rocks. “Should we do a couple topless?”

“No, Ingrid, this is a national park. You’re gonna get us thrown out.”

She climbed down from the rocks and cozied up to his side. “Say cheese.” Click. “My audience loves you.”




“How many of me did you post?”

“Only a few,” she said. “Or a dozen. They think we’re hot. They’re shipping us.”

“That’s because you didn’t tell them about my girlfriend.”



“Maria? Is it that serious? Like girlfriend with a capital-G?”

“She’s coming out to visit in a couple months,” he said. “She’s bringing her kid. What will your audience think of that?”

“Party pooper. But we’re hot, right? Like, we could be?”

“We have a business arrangement.”

“But we’re friends?”



“We could be if you don’t somehow manage to make my dumpster fire of a life even worse.”

“Noted,” she said.

And that was that. They might as well have risked getting thrown out of the park for a few excellent topless pics, because he was leaving now anyway.

—

He was mad. Not like a firey play-fighting kind of mad, but like he might actually dump her on the side of the road with no remorse and continue on his merry way. She didn’t think it was such a big deal. Everybody knows what people post on the internet is fake anyway.

He was on his phone again. Ingrid saw a flash of what she recognized to be Maria, wearing a strappy little nightgown, blush-colored, so classy and sweet. Ingrid wouldn’t have guessed that was his type. But who even knows why attraction starts or stops.

“Does she even send you nudes?”

“She doesn’t need to,” he said, tapping his temple twice.

“There’s a bar over there. Wanna check it out?”

“No, you go ahead,” he said.

This adventure wasn’t as saucy as Ingrid hoped. It wasn’t fair to say that this one slipped through her fingers, because it was clear now that she never had Jordan for a second. Not like she had Charlie. This was nothing like Charlie. Because maybe he didn’t want to say so, but she had Charlie for a minute. She knew she did, and he knew it, too. And Charlie had her back, whether he wanted her or not. Then, now, and for all of eternity.

Three years later and she still couldn’t forget that summer. It was seared into her memory like no other summer in her life. How she would catch Charlie staring at her out of the corner of his eye, then reprimanding himself for it. How badly he wanted it, how tortured he felt for wanting it. And she knew, she could feel the tension, the wanting, the banter, the snark, the chemistry, so thick you could bite it. They played together like music.

There was none of that here with Jordan. In fact, she’d be lucky if he didn’t just drop her at the nearest train station and call his duty done.



Tonight was a cool desert night in late September when the day’s sunny warmth quickly dissipated, and she was half-naked—on top, at least. Ingrid’s skin prickled into goosebumps. The wind was dry and low, blowing up dust around her feet, and she told herself, The wind has the answers to questions you didn’t know you were asking. It wasn’t just some hippie-moon-goddess bullshit, and it wasn’t something she only said to impress cute boys and seem breezy and ethereal. Ingrid believed in it wholly. There was something about right here, now, this road trip, her twenty-fifth birthday coming up in three days, that this moment in her life felt so heavy with significance. So she intended to listen to the wind and wait for her answers.



Then a few minutes later, on the way to the bar, Ingrid stumbled upon a strange little guy running an alien kiosk on the side of the road. He wore a tin hat that looked like a beacon, or at least it drew her attention so hard she couldn’t keep walking.

“Headed to the bar?” he asked.

 


“Uh, yeah, I was.”

“Nah, you don’t wanna go in there,” he said. “I mean, the drinks are alright, but it’s full of government drones.”

“Rage against the machine, my man,” she said.

 


He snickered and looked at his phone. “Hey, it’s a slow night around here. You wanna share a bottle of vodka at my place and talk about the deep state?”

“Damn, smooth talker. Are you kidding me? I can’t say no to that!”

She waited in the roadside dust while he rolled down the shutters on his stand. Then she followed him next door to a small trailer park. His lot was the wildest in the place, strung up with camp lights and loud as spring break.

 


“Clayton Dodd,” he said. “Birth name. You’re now one of only a few who know it. I don’t normally share, but you have pretty eyes. Everyone else calls me Agent 51.”

“Wait, though,” she said. “Are you even old enough for vodka?”

“I just turned twenty-one,” he said. “I’m a man.”

She laughed. “Aw, honey, you’re not a man. Soon maybe, but not yet.”

They got to talking about aliens first. He owned a piece of crashed spaceship from the war—the real deal, not that made-in-China garbage he sold in his shop. He had files about leaked alien correspondence dating back to 2006. They talked about cryptids and crypto and the dark web. They talked about all the ways all the branches of the government were lying to them.

 


“Dude, I know they’re lying to us,” Ingrid said. “You gotta let it roll sometimes though, or else what’s the point? Being all tense all the time about the powers that be? There’s a different kind of power in here.” She pointed with each of her fingers to her head. “Because what’s in there, they can’t have.”

“Hell yeah,” he said. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, my dude. I’m gonna start a commune someday. It’s gonna be so chill, people will wonder how they ever lived differently. Full of artists and philosophers and poets and weed. Would you join it?”

He shrugged. “If it’s off-grid, I will. I’m doing a leave-no-trace thing, but document style.”

“I respect that,” she said.

They hit it off. He had wild ideas, and she was totally into it. He also showered her with a boyish adoration that she hadn’t sought in a man before, and now she wondered why not. She found it interesting being on the other side of the chase for once.

“When you get to California, can I come out and see you?” he asked.

 



“Man, you go where the wind takes you,” she said. “I don’t own California.”

She gave him her number and they said goodnight, knowing somehow, for certain, this wouldn’t be the last she saw of Clayton Dodd.

 


Ingrid walked back to the camper with an inspired smile on her face. The night had gone from chilly to downright cold, and she looked forward to a hoodie, a warm bed, and a head full of wild dreams.

Jordan still sat outside on his green folding chair. He wasn’t on his phone anymore, just lounged back in his chair staring quietly at the starry sky. There was a finished can of beer in the sand by his feet.

“Aww, you waited up for me?”

He shrugged. “It’s crazy out there. I’m a dad, I guess I can’t turn it off.”

 


“You are adorable. But god, at least you drank a beer. I was getting worried I’d have to call the paramedics. Help, my friend is dying of boredom!”

“Ha ha, goodnight Ingrid.”

 


Okay, Ingrid thought, this is okay. Ingrid was quite pleased with the answers the wind delivered to her tonight.

—

Back on the road again, the towns became more and more populous as they grew closer to California. It became harder and harder to find a place to park the camper, but they found a little patch of dirt in Sierra Nova. 

“Oh, this place looks fun. Can we stop? Just a day. Please?”

“One day,” he said.






Jordan wasn’t into the bar scene, but she succeeded in dragging him out for bowling and pizza. Neither of them was especially good at bowling, but they had some fun anyway. Until precisely 6:30pm, which was the same time every night that Colette finished her shift and blew up his phone with her complaints. They had to wonder how long it would take for her to get over it, even just a little, even just enough to let that all-consuming rage simmer down to a reasonable level of anger, a sensible grudge, some standard break-up resentment? However long that would be, she hadn’t reached it yet in ten days.



There was a gorgeous river where they set up the camper. Ingrid dipped her feet into the cold rushing waters to snag a gorgeous golden-hour money shot. She’d paint this from reference later and sell at a street art sale for some big bucks. 




That evening, Jordan got a little campfire going, which was peaceful and quiet and he didn’t look unhappy. He did look like if she talked too much he might throw her into the river. But he spoke first, which she was grateful for.

“So I guess we’ll be in California tomorrow,” he said.

“Yeah. Can you believe I’ve never seen the Pacific Ocean?”

“Actually, no, I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“You’ve been there before?” she asked

“Yeah, I came out west back in the day, after the boys were born.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“No, I really did,” he said. 

“Then why’d you come back to Wisconsin?”



He paused for a good minute before deciding whether he wanted to elaborate or else shut it down. “My dad died,” he said. “I guess I kind of changed my mind about some things.”

“Damn,” she said. “That’s a bummer. I can’t imagine. So, you learned the secret of life then? Care to share?”

“I was just more alone than I cared to be.”

“I hate being alone,” Ingrid said. “What about your Mom? Siblings?”

“Nope, it was just me and my dad. Then, when he was gone, and all I had on the whole planet were those two little dudes. And now, this isn’t the same. What I’m doing now, it’s not like that. I would have them with me if she wasn’t being such a fucking —”



“Do it,” Ingrid goaded with a mischievous grin. “Go on, call her a bitch. You know you want to.”

He took a sobering deep breath and let out a single chuckle. He shook his head. “She’s the mother of my children. Unfortunately.”

“Okay,” she said. “Have it your way.”

Weird, Ingrid thought, being struck by such a weighty personal truth. In that instant, she felt what budding crush she had on Jordan dissipate. He just seemed so real, like a whole human being, all that flesh and bone and sadness.

And she thought about Clayton and his wild neurotic ambitions, and she thought about the five months she spent with Kevin when they bared their souls and hurts to each other. And it made her wonder, what did she really know about Charlie Roseland? Besides that he couldn’t get over Natty? Besides his irresistible punkish smirk, besides his bad attitude and sharp wit, besides his deep brown eyes, besides that kiss. Well, she pretty much knew nothing about Charlie Roseland at all. They only spent three weeks together.

Sigh.



“I don’t want to fuck you anymore, by the way,” she told Jordan.

“Okay. Um, thanks?” He laughed awkwardly. 

“I mean, I totally did want to. But I don’t want to anymore.”

“That’s, um, good to know,” he said. “Is that something you have to announce to people often?”

“Yeah, well, so I guess you could say I have a type,” she said. “Usually, they have girlfriends. Or just finished having a girlfriend. Ha, one of them had a wife. And well, you’ve got two women hounding you, so maybe that makes you double appealing. What is that about?”



“Sounds like something you should talk to a therapist about.”

He said it in a funny way, not like he wanted to drop her off at the train station. She appreciated that.

“There was this one boy, Charlie Roseland. He and his girlfriend were on a break, all summer, the chemistry was so intense you could bite it. Ugh, I wanted a bite.”

“Did you get one?” he asked. 

“Yeah, I got a bite. One tragic, beautiful kiss. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live. But, I guess I lose most of the time, so maybe I need a new game.”

“You should try dating a single guy next time.”

“What about you?”



He took that the wrong way, which she hoped for, and he made that shocked and panicked face that she found totally amusing. 

“I mean,” she said, “shouldn’t you try not dating anyone? You’ve got your ex calling ten times a minute and a new girlfriend already. Isn’t it a little soon for a serious girlfriend?”

“Oh, it probably looks that way, huh? But no, that’s been brewing for years. It should have been sooner.”

“But everybody knows you need a rebound first,” she said. “You gotta work out the kinks of the last thing.”

“I don’t think I’m the rebound type of guy.”



“I had a beautiful rebound once,” she said. “It lasted about five months, after Charlie. His name was Kevin. He was sweet, I wonder what happened to him.”

They were both quiet for a moment, thinking about things past, things yet to come. That serene smile crept across Jordan’s face, the same look he had whenever he thought of Maria.

“If I wasn’t such a fool, maybe this all could have happened differently. I feel like I’m doing it all wrong, making so many mistakes already.”



“There are no mistakes,” Ingrid said. “We’re just meat sacks wandering around, stepping in shit. Some of it is literal shit and some of it’s sublime. Who knows what comes next? There are no rules.”

“Ha, not according to Colette,” he said. “There are definitely rules, and her lawyer has them in writing for me.”



They sat a little longer beside the fire. He listened to her woes, and she listened back. The listening was something she’d grown into in the past few years, learning to listen. To really listen. To hear. To see. There were times before when she wasn’t very good at that. She listened like a girl who took a couple of psychology electives in university, throwing around words and diagnoses, thinking she had him all figured out. A lot of the time she was right. It didn’t serve her well, most of the time, but maybe her art would be better for it, at least.

—

San Sequoia, California. He had succeeded in his task of driving her all the way to the ocean, even if they meandered along the way.

“Well, there you go. Now you’ve seen the Pacific Ocean. Is it everything you ever dreamed of?”

“Yes,” she said. “It really is.”

“So, then...”

“Stay a minute?”

“I can’t,” he said. “Climb classes start next week. I kind of wanted to head up the coast for a bit first.”

“Can I come?”

“Sorry, no, it’s a one-man show from this point on,” he said. 

“Aw, it’s my birthday.”

“No, it isn’t.”



“It really is.” She dug out her ID and showed him.

“Huh, well, happy birthday. But still, I need to do this by myself. You need your rebounds, I need to be deeply alone, just for a little while. That’s my rebound.”

“Can I have a birthday kiss?”

“No, but you can have this organic sea kelp granola bar.”

 


“I’ll cherish it,” she said, taking the granola bar and stowing it in her pocket. 

“Where will you stay?” he asked. 

“Couch surf, my man. Hostels. I’ll sleep on the beach maybe. The world is my bed. Boxes are for squares.”

“Ha, alright, have a time, I guess.”

“See ‘ya around?”

“I don’t doubt it. Stay cool, Ingrid.”

She finger-gunned at him. He waved. She pulled out her camera, watching him go. She got him on film for a shot, walking off across the pavement, never looking back until the moment he rounded the corner, when he waved once more, shortly. Then he was gone. In the caption for her video, she wrote a little story about short summer flings, the fleeting intensity, the eternal disappointment of unfulfilled yearning, and the freedom of finally letting it all go.

But that story wasn’t about Jordan.

—

outtakes: is it that serious? // 

story notes: if it comes across that Jordan is very grumpy in this, please recall that he really just wanted to have his solo trip that he had to cause a huge stink to make happen. And being with Ingrid is like the opposite of being alone. 

He probably doesn’t realize it yet, but I think he’ll look back on this week with some positive takeaways, maybe after he’s had some time to decompress.  

And I hope it’s obvious that Ingrid will remember this week with fondness and lots of personal growth. 

Ingrid really really doesn’t like being alone, but that’s okay, because she found a new flamboyant-looking friend in that coffee shop in about five minutes flat. And who knows, maybe Clayton might use that phone number and find her out in California after all.