He looks between me and the highway. “I’m worried about the caliber of nudes you’re receiving from the local uncle scene.”
“Iwishthere were some uncle balls in this camera roll. What is this lighting, Powell? Seriously, are these crime scene photos?”
“It’s the camera,” he says defensively. “They looked fine when I was using my phone but I wanted nicer photos of my custom van builds. The guy at the store said it would give me wide-angle shots, but the thing’s a disaster.”
“Please don’t blame sweet baby Nikon for your ineptitude.” I pet the camera at issue before plopping it back into the open bag behind his seat.
He grins, but then it slips. His eyes drift to my phone, sitting on the dash, which is flickering with notifications like a dying incandescent lightbulb.
“Sorry. That must be distracting.” I reach for my phone with a groan, grateful I managed to take my picture before life crept back in. “What status do you think Microsoft Teams displays when you soak your computer in stomach acid?”
“Skull and crossbones?”
I don’t respond, already absorbed in the relentless messages. Work anxiety whistles in my brain like a neglected teakettle.
“Why don’t you use ‘getting sick’ as an excuse to take an actual weekend off?” he suggests, slowing to let a lime-green PT Cruiser pass him on the narrowing highway. “You must get a gimme for an act of god like this. It won’t kill you to relax a little.”
“I can’t relax knowing I’m going to have seventy fires to put out Monday morning,” I tell him, my sentence scored by the click-clack of my nails against my phone screen.
“Why can’t people wait a day to hear from you? You’re an intellectual property lawyer. No one is taking anyone’s liberty away if you don’t respond immediately.”
I snort. “So?” I press my phone to my chest, allowing myself this diversion to brief Ethan on the intersection of capitalism and the American legal system. “When it comes to big corporate clients, the best lawyer is the one who responds to their email the fastest. I can be more capable and passionate than every other attorney on their payroll, but at the end of the day, general counsels of Fortune 500 companies will never accept anything less than immediate responses to the inane questions that pop into their heads at nine p.m. on a Friday night. It’s a race to the bottom, and if I don’t send that billable email during my friend’s birthday dinner, Paulwill.Andhe’ll cc our bosses with a pointed postscript because he’s trying to destroy me.”
“And you like this?” he asks, as though it might be my preference to live chained to my email and in a constant grudge match with a guy who refers to his Rolex with she/her pronouns.
“Obviously, I hate it, Powell. Who would like this?”
I work exclusively for Bob, which means I work at thewhimof Bob, and Bob loves the influence that comes with having a stable of clients with multimillion-dollar legal budgets. My days are dominated by kissing ass and churning out patents, not to help inventors, but to secure the financial interests of companies designing insecticides and internal tax management software.
“Why are you doing it then?” he demands.
This makes me pause. The question is so obvious, it’s almost silly. Indulgent even.
I started down this path when my dad left. Again. We couldn’t pay rent and had no choice but to sell the camera equipment he’d left behind. All of it. Even the camera I thought was mine.I’ll get you one of those Samsung phones with a built-in camera, my mom promised.
Everything in my life had a way of moving without warning, even my camera. For so long, it had been this tether between the lives we had to pack up and leave behind. I had no control over where I lived or for how long or whether my dad would remember to call, but I could stop time. I could make the seconds that passed me by tangible and take them with me. But it turned out that even that stupid camera with its broken strap wasn’t mine to keep.
When I was finally in control, I made a life that was immovable and married a man I thought wanted to share it. Computer science seemed like the most sensible major offered at Lewellen College, but law school sounded even safer. Intellectual property sounded safer still. It all seemed like therightnext step at the time. And what else are we supposed to do besides take the right next step?
But it isn’t all bad. In the distance, I can glimpse a version of my career I might love. One where I’m a partner or, at the very least, in control of my own time. I could choose clients with small software startups, people taking big risks and searching for a sliver of protection over their big ideas.
Ideas are ephemeral and startups fail, but patents? Patents last. They’re tangible. Inventors can hold it in their hands and protect their mark on an ever-shifting technological landscape. I’ve never been someone who can leap headfirst into the unknown and trust that a net will appear, but I know how to build a good net. Nets are my specialty.
“Because I’m good at it, Powell. Not all of us have the voice of an angel.” I reach across the console to poke him in the side. He squirms and bats me away, and, like a good friend, I retreat. “Thank god some of us are good at the boring jobs so that other people can go around following their bliss.”
“That’s so noble of you. Remind me. Was it the general counsel of the rat-trap company who got you box seats at the Target Center or was that the guys at Cyberdyne Systems?”
I hold up a hand. “Okay, it was Payne, the rat-trap company—the other company you mentioned is fromThe Terminator—and the seats were for a WWE match called ‘Tables, Ladders, and Chairs,’ which is even less glamorous than it sounds.”
His smirk unfurls between his cheeks. “Okay, I havesomany more questions.”
“Yourquestions?” I toss up my hands. “What aboutmyquestions?”
“What questions could you possibly have forme?” he asks, eyes fixed on the highway stretching in front of us.
“Let’s start with this van.” I gesture at the impossibly chic interior. Between the crisp white kitchen cabinets, the walnut floors, and the Faribault wool blanket on the bed, the whole space is very Ralph Lauren–for–Ford Motor Company.
“What about it?”
