Page 134 of Gifted & Talented

She turned to me with that same frown, like I was making fun of her and she was waiting for the drop. “What are you doing?”

“We could make it again, from scratch, under Wrenfare,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be a separate product. We’ll build it into the Wrenfare watch.”

“Lou, Wrenfare is going under,” Meredith said. “The company is kaput. There’s no money.”

“There must besomemoney if people are coming for its parts,” I pointed out. “You just need someone smart to fix it.”

“Oh, come on. That’s a trap, Lou.” Meredith shook her head. “We’re talking decades of shit investments, not to mention all kinds of lawsuits that have been piling up for company misconduct, underpaid labor—”

“Fixable,” I said with a wave of my hand. “You don’t just throw things away, Meredith, don’t you remember what Mr. Grantham taught us in grade school? Reduce, reuse, recycle—”

“He gave it to me so I’d fail,” Meredith said, half shouting, half laughing. “I’m not giving it to you just soyou’llfail. He only wanted someone else to catch the blame instead of him, Lou, you don’t have t—”

“Iwantto,” I said, and realized then that I did. “I want to scale everything back, cut everything but the basics, the Wrenfare operating system that’s still the best of its kind. And I want to make a version of Chirp that works. I promised,” I said to her. “I promised you I would.”

She tossed me a look of skepticism. “When did you promise me that?”

“The day I met you. I promised I’d help you bring your mom back.”

“You can’t do that. It’s not possible.”

“But for you it is, Meredith, it is. You honestly think I don’t get that?”

Her expression was guarded, dark with fear. “Get what?”

I leaned in like I would take her face between my palms.

“Meredith Wren, you fucking asshole,” I sighed, “you’re just a grown-up little girl who wanted to help a woman who couldn’t be helped. But that doesn’t have to stop you from helping a whole lot of other people.”

I watched her swallow hard. She hates sentiment—will do anything to avoid it.

But she surprised me when she reached out and threw her arms around my neck.

I hugged her back.

“If I burn it to the ground, don’t be mad,” I whispered fiercely in her ear.

She gave a little chuckle-sob. “I won’t.”

“And there’ll be a job waiting for you,” I added. “After prison.”

She pulled back, looking at me with confusion.

“Nobody else will hire someone with a criminal record,” I pointed out. “You’ll be shit out of luck.”

“Well, exactly,” she said, exasperated. “I’ll have acriminal record. You can’t hire me.”

“I fucking can, actually,” I said. “It’s called nepotism.”

At that, Meredith laughed until she howled. Actuallyhowled.

“God, I hope you fix everything,” she said through weird, hysterical laughter-tears. “I don’t actually think you can. But man, I’d fuckingloveto watch you try.”

“I’m kind of a genius, actually?” I reminded her. “So just wait.”

She squished my face between her hands then. I did the same to her.

“Your son is cute,” she said. She was crying again. What a beautiful, gigantic baby. “Is your life good?”

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