Page 13 of Gifted & Talented

“Hi,” she said to the interviewer, who looked up with a startled glance. “Sorry, there’s just been a call for you from the front desk. Something about a family emergency.”

“Oh god, is my wife in labor?” asked the interviewer.

“Yes,” said Meredith Wren, without hesitation.

“Oh Jesus, okay, I just have t—” He glanced apologetically at Patient 76A, who looked confused. “We’ll have to reschedule and continue this later, I’m so sorry—”

“I’ll take over,” said Meredith, placing a reassuring hand on the interviewer’s shoulder. “They sent me in to finish your interview.”

“Right, okay, great—sorry, your name?” asked the interviewer. “Just, you know, in case they ask—”

“It’s Eilidh,” said Meredith.

“Haley?”

“Just get going, would you?” suggested Meredith, forcing a casual colleague’s unbothered laugh. “I doubt your wife intends to hold it in until you arrive.”

“Right, right, sorry—”

“Just leave the files, it’s fine—”

“Right, yes, thank you!” The interviewer hurried out the door.

Meredith took a seat in his place, looking up to scrutinize the face of Patient 76A. Colette Bothe. She had lovely, dead eyes.

“Listen to me,” said Meredith, in her most quiet, calming voice. The one she had once used to soothe her mother, and occasionally her brother, and in times of real fuckery, herself. “Everything is about to change, okay? All that emptiness you feel, all the worthlessness… it’s a lie,” said Meredith softly. “It’s a lie your brain is telling you. You don’t have to take it anymore. You don’t have to feel this way anymore.”

Patient 76A looked at her with skittish uncertainty. She didn’t believeMeredith, but she didn’t have to, not yet. All she had to do was sustain eye contact for several seconds. Five more, maybe. Maybe ten, just to be sure.

All the training. Boarding school from the age of twelve so Meredith could compete with the very best. The exclusive summer camps, the private tutoring, the people she’d been forced to gut from her life, the perfection she was made to chase. All those years of fucking tennis, day in and day out, just so that she could hold it longer, endure it worse, survive it more. She hadn’t suffered just for fear of obsolescence or the goddamn economy.

It was always, always for this.

Meredith reached for Patient 76A’s hands, grasping them tightly. The patient was too startled to pull away. Overhead, the red light blinked out. Somewhere on the other side of the glass, Ward had figured out the security monitor.

All those years of being a prodigy. A baby genius. The future of magitech personified had spent most of her twenties proverbially on her knees. If this didn’t work, she wouldn’t be anything anymore, nothing worth looking at. She’d just be another girl who grew up, who got old. A college dropout. She’d been working on the same project so long her hair had started turning gray, lines were starting to show on her face, she was constantly aware of a knot in her back. Her father had let her down and she had betrayed him. Her best friend was gone, excised for life. When Meredith fell in love it had to be forever, so now what? Where did it end?

A drop of sweat snaked down Meredith’s spine.

“You’re going to be happy,” whispered Meredith, locking eyes with Patient 76A and speaking as deliberately, as persuasively, as unbendingly as she knew how. “I promise.”

A vision of Jamie standing in the doorway swam briefly before her eyes. She was out of practice. Normally she could keep him at bay for longer.

A little longer. Just a little longer.All you have to do,the young, eternal version of Lou whispered in Meredith’s mind,is really, actually want it.

There. There it was, just a little fix, like flipping a switch. Like pushing a button.

When Patient 76A finally blinked, there were tears in her eyes.

“Is this what I’ve been waiting for?” she whispered.

Ten minutes later, Patient 76A had gathered her things, broken up with her boyfriend, enrolled in a calligraphy class, ordered Chipotle from herphone, and decided to finally paint her bedroom yellow. Colette Bothe was happy.

And Meredith Wren sat back in her chair, the drop of sweat on her spine seeping into the silk of her shirt.

“Send in the next one,” she said to the empty room.

And from somewhere on the other side of the glass, Ward did.

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