Page 14 of Gifted & Talented

MONDAY(After).

7

“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 hadasked 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 virtuousthan 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—hadbetrayedhim 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?”

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