Page 9 of Gifted & Talented
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“Oh please,” said Meredith Wren upon hearing the news that her father had passed. “That son of a bitch will outlive us all.”
“Meredith,” Cass said with a barely audible sigh, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. Your father had a stroke. I’m sorry,” he said again.
It was a touch robotic, as Cass sometimes had the tendency to be. He wasn’t emotionally unintelligent, per se; he just occasionally lacked the energy to reach whatever octave of compassion he was being asked to deliver. It had evidently been a problem for his first wife, who was a more emotional person—excessively emotional, to Meredith’s mind—in that she wanted Cass to not only predict her moods but also offer comfort for them preemptively, without being asked. Which was an expectation that Cass did not consider unreasonable in retrospect, mature grown adult that he was, although Meredith was not like that at all.
The erstwhile Mrs. Mizuno was now an executive somewhere. Meredith had looked her up extensively on every platform she could find, reassuring herself that her transition to dating divorced men was not, as people liked to think, akin to picking through damaged merchandise but rather more like determining whether secondhand vintage might fit her better than the sale bin, with its overstocked, mass-produced garbage she was otherwise expected to buy, and thus she had discovered that Tatiana Shea-Mizuno was actually brilliant and beautiful and there had been no infidelity, just the gradual growing apart of two people who had met when they were both in their teens, which made all of this not only fine but honestly kind of admirable.
Of course, Meredith’s father did not care for Cass, nor even the idea of Cass, but now he was dead, which meant he would never walk Meredith down the aisle whether she sorted through the bins or not, and therefore his opinion either no longer mattered or it never had. Or, more favorably, both.
“Meredith.” It was only when Jamie said her name that Meredith realized she had been silent for several minutes, which was too long for something like this. She was meant to have responded immediately, with tears or shock or grief or howling or some other thing she was never going to produce, not ever, because her mother had been dead for years and now her father was dead and he had never taught her how to react appropriately to death in general. And now, probably, nobody ever would, because she was thirty years old and expected to already understand how to respond to normal social situations, such as being told one’s parents were dead. Dead dead dead. She kept saying it in her head; measuring it, almost. She wondered if Thayer Wren was somewhere in the underworld right now, his heart on a scale beside an ostrich feather. Where was he bound for, heaven or hell? Or maybe death was just nothing, a quiet sigh before returning to the earth. She wondered what would become of her father. She wondered what would become of her father’s money. His board of investors. His legacy. His company.
“I’m fine,” she said to Jamie, whose expression bore traces of concern. Then she turned to Cass. “When did it happen?” Ridiculous question. What would knowing that change. “Never mi—”
“This morning,” said Cass. “He was taken to the hospital after a stroke late last night.”
“Oh.” She thought fleetingly of the calls she’d missed. “Does my brother know?”
“I didn’t ask,” Cass replied.
“Okay. I’ll have to call Arthur.” And Eilidh, although Meredith felt certain she already knew. Eilidh was probably at Thayer’s bedside right now, performing the rituals of grief that Meredith was once again failing to produce on account of her profound lack of fucks. God! Thayer had probably already promised the whole company to Eilidh, his entire fortune, the beloved fucking house, the ratty shearling Birkenstocks. Because unlike Meredith—to whom Thayer Wren had always said there were no such things as setbacks, only ill preparation, and the only excuse for mediocrity was laziness, and that Meredith was a cold-hearted person who was not actually capable of love—Eilidh had only ever heard from their father that love and happiness were the important things in life, that success was purely a state of mind, and that ultimately, loyalty was everything. As if Meredith had ever been anything but loyal to him! You know, until she wasn’t. But Thayer’s disappointment in her had begun somewhere else, somewhere long before Foster had asked to talk and she’d said yes. It began somewhere inside her, in something she already was and had always been. As if by choosing to be ruled by some velocity inside herself she was somehow a worse daughter, less virtuous than her younger sister. As if it were inherently disloyal to want precisely what Thayer would have demanded for himself. As if Meredith—as a person with ambitions and plans and all the things Thayer had wanted his son to have, only to overlook those same similarities in his eldest daughter—had betrayed him by not remaining devotedly at his side, practically his personal maidservant, and had instead done what children are supposed to do and grown up.
“I’m fine,” Meredith said again to Jamie, who was still looking at her with that strange expression on his face. It wasn’t pity, thank god. Jamie out of everyone would understand this moment was not one for pity. He knew how she felt about her father, or had known it once, intimately enough to be aware that Thayer’s death was not something for Meredith to uncomplicatedly mourn. Not that it was something to celebrate, but the loss of Thayer Wren would not, for Meredith, be cause for any normal, comprehensible sadness. It would not have been inaccurate to use the word “estranged.” Not that Jamie would know that, but he would know she’d sold out to the man she had once considered the world’s most conscienceless traitor. Jamie would know that Meredith was not now, where she stood, next in line for the Wrenfare throne. Jamie would know what it meant that her path had diverged so spectacularly from everything she’d once confided in him about her wildest dreams and her most precious future, and therefore he would know something. She felt sure he knew something, and the look on his face said just that, I know.
“I know,” said Jamie in a tone that matched the expression on his face, at the same time Cass said, “Dzhuliya booked us plane tickets for this afternoon. Our flight leaves in three hours.”
“I’m still talking to Jamie,” said Meredith, before realizing what Cass had just said. “Wait, who’s Julia? Why are you coming?”
“Dzhuliya,” Cass enunciated, scrawling the silent letters out in the air, “is your father’s assistant, whom we have both met several times in the past. And I’m coming because your father just died,” he added matter-of-factly.
Meredith frowned. “But you have a board meeting this week.”
“I can work remotely.”
“But it’s just my father.”
“Yes,” Cass agreed. “And to my knowledge you only have one of those.”
For a moment Meredith stared at him, aware in some objective way that she was meant to find this commendable. That in periods of difficulty, people who were boyfriend-girlfriend supported each other with physical touch and words of affirmation and quality time. She just couldn’t bring herself to understand that the people in this scenario were her and Cass, two people who did not engage the performative social tendency to fuss. They got on with their lives. Meredith had lost her mother at nine years old and gotten on with it. Cass had lost his wife at thirty and gotten on with it. Meredith could not imagine a world where she was expected to need comfort in this moment, although she recalled that there would be lots to do, logistically speaking, and therefore maybe Cass would be useful. He was very good at logistics. He had lovely mahogany hair that had, for the most part, bravely withstood the test of time. He was extremely handsome and, to her knowledge, faithful. He was a steady, reliable, attractive partner who could make incredibly decent dinner conversation. She enjoyed him. Sexually he was no slouch. It wasn’t as if his wife had left because he was in any way inept at foreplay. Meredith loved him. She loved him.
She just didn’t really want to be close to him right now.
“I’m going to drive,” said Meredith suddenly. The thought overtook her like a vise.
“Are you sure?” said Cass mildly. It was at least a six-hour drive to her father’s house in Marin. Maybe five with the way she drove.
“Yes. I need the time to be with my thoughts.” She noticed that Jamie wasn’t saying anything. “You take the flight, though,” she added to Cass. “If I leave now, I should arrive at around the same time.”
“I’ve got to run home and pack if I’m going to make it to the airport on time.” Cass’s eyes slid to Jamie and back to Meredith. “Would you like me to bring a few things for you?”
“Whatever’s in my drawer at yours,” she said, thinking it was a little light at present. But there would be pajamas, a pair of sweats, her toothbrush in the sink, most of her necessary cosmetics and skincare, carefully partitioned in travel-sized jars. She would have to buy a new dress for the funeral anyway. Everything she needed she could buy. That had always been the way of things, and what was the point of pretending otherwise now?
“Okay. I’ll go, then.” Cass cut a glance at Jamie, who was standing very still, as if not to startle a predator among the high savanna grass. “Let me know if you need anything,” Cass said finally to Meredith, who nodded. Then Cass pulled open the conference room door and stepped outside, his footsteps echoing down the hallway until the door fell shut once again.
“Meredith,” said Jamie, with what seemed to be the intention to say something soothing. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“What’s to talk about?” she replied in a clipped voice, resolving the expression that had previously been on her face—she wasn’t entirely sure what it was, only that it would not be effective in remedying the situation—and proceeding to withdraw from her wardrobe of identities one that was slightly softer, or at very least more persuasive. “I assume you’re going to pull that article, Jamie, considering the news. It would be in extremely poor taste.”
Jamie blinked at her for a moment.
Then, very upsettingly, he laughed.
“Meredith,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “I’m not pulling the article.”
Instantly, she felt her more placating expression fall away. “What?”
“I’m sorry you lost your father,” Jamie said with a shrug, “but even I can see the gears turning in your head. You think this will buy you time, but it won’t. I told you, I’m going to press with the story, full stop. My telling you about it was only a matter of fair warning, as an ethical matter.”
“Ethical matter? I can’t decide if you’re aware how stupid you sound. What if I’d hired someone to get rid of you, Jamie, hm? What if I decided to blackmail your publisher? Which is something I could absolutely do,” Meredith realized abruptly. “I could hire someone right now,” she announced as her phone buzzed again in her hand, her watch screen now lighting up with the name of her sister-in-law, Arthur’s wife, Gillian. “You wouldn’t even make it outside the building if I decided that would be less of a mess. Hello?” she said into the phone.
“Are you threatening to put out a hit on me?” asked Jamie. “To my actual face?”
“Meredith, have you heard? I’m just checking that someone was able to reach you,” said Gillian.
“I’m not threatening you,” Meredith said to Jamie. “I just think you obviously wanted to tell me for some reason other than ‘fair warning,’ because Tyche has way too much money for you to believe I can’t physically stop you from going to print. And yes, Gill, I just heard, Cass told me.”
“Arthur’s on his way back now,” said Gillian.
“What else would I want from you, Meredith?” sighed Jamie.
“Where’s he coming back from?” Meredith asked Gillian before looking plainly at Jamie and replying, “How should I know? Maybe you want me to stop you. Maybe you want me to forgive you. Maybe you want sex, I don’t know, how am I supposed to guess? It could be literally anything, Jamie, I just think nobility is too weak an excuse.”
“I believe Arthur was at a sex party in London,” said Gillian.
“Another one?” said Meredith.
“I’m not trying to have sex with you, Meredith,” scoffed Jamie, with an uncharitable note of repulsion. “I’ve been working on this story for six months. And even if this was some kind of diabolical seductory ploy, how would threatening your livelihood have worked?”
“It’s actually a lot more than my livelihood, and you know it,” snapped Meredith as Gillian explained that yes, it was Lady Philippa again, Arthur seemed very taken with her (Meredith, for her part, was largely unimpressed with aristocracy, as she had always lacked her father’s burning desire for knighthood or whatever Thayer had expected to receive from the hoity-toity set) and Yves Reza the racer as well, a combination that to Gillian seemed apt.
“I have frankly always had my suspicions that the best kind of lover for Arthur was multiple lovers,” explained Gillian. “His ideal form of intimacy is lots of it, simultaneously.”
“God, I’m going to have a panic attack just thinking about it,” said Meredith, shuddering.
“Look, at least this way you’ll get the chance to put your affairs in order,” said Jamie. “You won’t be caught by surprise. You can engage a lawyer and prepare a public statement. You can do what you can to soften the blow.”
“How do you even know I’m guilty?” demanded Meredith.
“Aside from the fact that you just threatened to have me assassinated?” countered Jamie.
“Oh please, this hardly rises to the level of assassination,” said Meredith.
“I think it was just a stroke,” commented Gillian, then added tangentially, “I don’t suppose you have a theory about who gets Wrenfare, do you?”
“Yes, but I’m trying not to think about it,” muttered Meredith, by then exceedingly capable of envisioning Eilidh’s inevitable facade of virtuous shock at discovering, as if for the first time, that she had always been their father’s first choice. Almost without noticing, Meredith had curled a fist. “Hard to tell where favoritism ends and narcissism begins, though. Arthur looks the most like him physically. And contingency plans for a ceramic bust will almost certainly be involved.”
“In any case—” Gillian diplomatically sidestepped Meredith’s sardonicism, as she often did, with, “You’ll need to be here soon. Be careful—everything you do over the next few hours is going to be scrutinized by the press,” she pointed out, and sighed, half to herself. “I wish Art didn’t have such catastrophic timing. He’ll be papped for sure, if not at Heathrow then definitely at SFO. Though maybe it’s not such a bad thing? Grief and hangover might look similar on Art.”
“You’re right,” said Meredith, realizing belatedly that optics were becoming more critical with each moment that passed. Gillian was much better about this sort of thing, but of course Meredith would be watched from the moment she left this conference room. People still lingered in the building from her talk, which meant a high probability she could be photographed. Had the news already gone to the press? Probably, since the first call she’d ignored from Dzhuliya (was that really her name?) had been hours ago now. “I’m going to have to get a car—fuck, I should have asked Cass for his.” Tyche’s campus was in the heart of Silicon Beach, lushly centered in Playa Vista, and Cass’s commute from the Marina was minimal—he could have easily taken one of Tyche’s employee shuttles. “Can I have one delivered?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Gillian, “we really try to avoid cars. The environment, you know.”
Meredith rolled her eyes. “Arthur’s on a plane, Gill, he’s already a climate criminal—”
“Meredith,” said Jamie with an expression of exasperation on his face. “You live in LA and you don’t have a car?”
“I’m hardly ever home, Jamie,” she told him impatiently. “In case you’ve failed to notice, I’m very busy and important.”
“Then why did you decide to—? Never mind.” Jamie seemed to find her impossible to reason with at the moment. “No, you cannot order a rental car. You’ll have to go to a facility like all the other plebs.”
Meredith squinted at him. “I don’t believe you,” she said finally, “since I’m almost certain that’s got to be false. But also, you’re right, it would probably be better if I handled this more relatably.”
“Good thinking,” confirmed Gillian.
“There’s not a chance that anything you’ve done thus far could be considered relatable,” said Jamie.
“I’ve got to go, Gill,” said Meredith. “I’ll see you soon.”
“Kisses,” said Gillian before promptly hanging up. She was extremely efficient. Despite Meredith’s grand plans to dislike any woman who chose to devote herself to her brother, Meredith had always quietly been a fan.
Jamie, meanwhile, was messing around on his phone.
“Look, here’s the closest place you could get a car,” he said, showing her Playa Vista’s finest backwoods outpost. “You can probably still catch your boyfriend for a ride, or get a car to drop you off there now—”
“Oh, you’re coming with me,” said Meredith on a whim, pulling the conference room door open and letting it fall shut again without bothering to check if Jamie was following. “We’re not done discussing this.”
“Meredith.” She heard the telltale sound of him chasing after her and suppressed the urge to smile. Vengeful joy would really not be ideal if captured on film, given the number of times she’d already been referred to as a traitor. “Meredith, there’s nothing left to say.”
“Don’t you want my side of the story?” she asked Jamie, glancing sideways at him. “Seems like your article will have a much better shot at national acclaim if you actually consult the source.”
For a moment—a breath—he faltered, and she won herself another point.
“Meredith,” Jamie managed impressively, with a scoff, “I really don’t think your side of the story is relevant unless you’re planning to confess to—”
“Jamie.” Meredith fell to a halt, turning to look at him. He paused, too, seemingly caught off guard. She realized in the light of the corridor that he wasn’t exactly the same, though the difference was in the little details, the small things. She had previously been the one to shave the hair on the back of his neck to keep it from looking overgrown, which it had a tendency to be, considering they’d been libertine university students at the time. Now, it seemed quite noticeable to Meredith that it had been a long while since his last proper haircut. “Why did you come to see me tonight?”
She caught a moment’s hesitation, a glimpse of truth that danced across Jamie’s thoughts. Despite his insistence that she had a tell, he was no different. She’d always liked that she could read him so plainly, while everyone else was such a chore to interpret. She was constantly behaving like a person who didn’t actually speak English—listening, translating, thinking, then translating again to try to say something back in a language the other person understood. Exhausting. More often than not she disregarded the effort altogether, just as she did now.
Beside her in the corridor, a neat row of digital screens chased a loop of company advertisements, sunset scenes of Playa Vista, popular mantras by Kip Hughes. A brief, neon flash promised THIS APP WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY! : ), and Meredith didn’t flinch.
“I’ll save you the trouble of telling me the truth,” she told him, with something she considered gentleness, although it probably sounded like the normal resoluteness of her voice. “Instead, I’ll put it to you this way. Come with me to my father’s house or I might kill you.” She shrugged. “Might just wipe your devices and cancel the storage payments to your preferred avenue in the cloud. The point is,” she concluded, “you’ll never know for sure what I am or am not capable of doing to you until you’re already too late to stop me.”
His eyes flickered with something. Flatteringly it could have been respect. Less flatteringly, an eye roll. “Is that how much this means to you?”
“Did you ever have any doubt that it did?” she said without hesitation.
They stared at each other a moment longer.
“I know there’s a reason,” said Jamie, a little side shuffle to a previous unanswered question, proffered candor in exchange for something she wasn’t yet confident she wouldn’t give. “I want to know what it is. But you’re not going to be able to stop me from publishing the truth, Meredith.”
“I know.” Lies, she was lying. She could stop him. She knew it, and he knew it, too, but it was a double-edged sword, that, because once she used it, she proved him right. The look on his face seemed a challenge, a gauntlet thrown, and a more sympathetic part of her thought it might be a form of self-harm, in its way. Like anyone who texted an ex or investigated them for fraud, apparently to the point of hyperfixation.
But surely there was another way. She felt sure she could convince him otherwise, via the preferable route of rational thought, if she could just get him alone for a while. There was no way she was letting the article go to print. She had no idea what it contained, only that if anyone else ever saw its contents, then Chirp would be nothing. The last decade of her life would be wasted. Even if Jamie knew enough about Tyche to bring them down—which she already doubted, or she wouldn’t be in this deep; for better or worse, she was the daughter of Thayer Wren, and she knew what a man like Kip Hughes could cover up— her hands were by far the dirtiest. She was an accomplice—worse, a weapon—and would almost certainly go to prison for her crimes.
Meredith Wren, most likely to succeed—what would they say about her then? If anyone knew what she’d done to get here, they’d burn her for a witch, metaphorically if not actually. She was halfway to obscurity already. What came after 30 Under 30? What happened when she was no longer a prodigy, just a liar? A traitor? A fraud? Time would not be kind to her, and neither would anyone else.
“No,” Thayer had said to Meredith once, unequivocally. “No, you can’t have Wrenfare. I told you to stay in school. I told you that if you got your degree, there would be space for you here—eventually.”
“But you dropped out,” protested Meredith. “ You had an idea, and so do I—”
“I dropped out because the timing was right for me to move forward on something I already knew to be profitable. Your ‘idea’ is insubstantial at best,” said Thayer. “And if you want people to follow you, you have to build a team. You have to earn respect. You can’t just have things handed to you.”
Lou hadn’t been there—Lou was long gone by then—but Meredith already knew what she would say. Just get over it, Meredith. Grow up.
So Meredith had done it. She grew up. She built the team. She earned the respect. No one had handed her anything. She’d made all the choices, climbed every step of the way by herself. She had built all of this with her own two hands, her own blood and sweat. It was hers, and she had lost Jamie Ammar once already. She could do it again if that’s what it took.
“Look, my dad just died,” she said. “I want some company, that’s all. And I want to know what you’re publishing, because of course I do. Because I want a chance to tell my own story. Is that so unreasonable?”
Jamie was, had always been, a good person. She was banking on it, his goodness, because goodness was predictable. It was its own kind of trap.
“Okay,” he said, which to Meredith Wren was like saying fuck me up, darling. And to that she thought yes, that sounds nice, I think I will.