Page 21 of Gifted & Talented

“Right.” And Arthur did feel relieved, in a way. Yves could have very easily sent him off alone, but he hadn’t. Arthur wished Philippa had joined him as well, but he could at least admit to himself that being seen so near his home district with a woman who wasn’t his wife was much more problematic than exiting the plane alongside Yves, whose entire mystique was characterized by the many spontaneous things he could get up to in a twenty-four-hour period. The unspecifically artistic quality belonging to the coupling of Philippa and Yves was something that did not apply to Arthur and the myriad ways his political reputation hung by a thread, and he had always appreciated the care they took to preserve his public image on his behalf.

Though, with increasing frequency, Arthur felt the reckless urge to do less. “Yves, do you know, has Philippa thought any more about—”

“Ladies and gentlemen, the pilot has advised that we will be landing soon,” came the calm, tonally orienting voice of the flight attendant from somewhere overhead. “Please return your seat-back trays to the upright and locked position—”

“Arthur, this is a very difficult time for you,” Yves said solemnly, turning as far toward Arthur as he could without disturbing the slumber of the aisle-seat passenger, who simply snorted and snuggled deeper into the recess of Yves’s shoulder. “I remember that when my father passed, I was a wreck, an absolute wreck. And you know, my father was not a perfect man,” Yves said with a shake of his head. “He was often very violent with us, especially me, because I was the only boy and he did not think of me as a serious person. But in the end he was my father, and it is like losing a piece of yourself, don’t you think? To lose something so formative to you, good or bad.”

It was very Yves to say something so profound while having just taken an unknown confectionary intoxicant. Yves had many moments where he became very vintage-ly wise, to the point where Arthur remained permanently confused about how smart Yves actually was and whether Yves might be some kind of bog-dwelling immortal. For example, at present Yves was continuing to toy with the seat-back tray despite having been expressly told not to, up until Arthur reached forward and locked it in place.

“My father was never violent,” said Arthur, who was considering it now, all the things he had not yet had time to think about as related to his father’s loss. “He never laid a hand on us.” That would have been more intimacy than Thayer was capable of. Meredith and Arthur both went to boarding school in New England, ostensibly for their education despite the definite existence of fancy private schools in Los Angeles, and Eilidh had gone to ballet academy in New York. “But I do think he also wanted me to be a more serious person.”

“You’re weak” had been Thayer’s pronouncement of Arthur after the first time he was pulled from the pitcher’s mound during the second inning of his first NCAA championship. “You could never live with the kind of pressure I’m under from day to day, moment to moment. I thought you hadsomething in you, some spark, but I suppose it’s not enough. Your mother spoiled you when you were a child and now even the slightest pressure is too much for you. When things get challenging, when people are looking to you for steadiness, you fall apart.”

Arthur felt something lodge in his throat just then, at the words he wanted to forget but couldn’t, much like the pop songs of his youth or the way Lou’s fabric softener had smelled. The all-natural stuff he and Gillian bought now was almost oppressively mature, a fashionable spray of dead botanicals. Arthur reached for Yves’s bottle of flavored water, which Yves always carried. He was famous for it, strawberry lemon water. For a moment, it was almost sickly sweet. But the moment passed, as moments did, and thoughts of Arthur’s father became thoughts of himself, and of the father Arthur himself planned to be.

There was, of course, no definite proof that the child was or wasn’t his, given the machinations of their varying forms of sexual congress, though in Arthur’s opinion it didn’t really matter. What difference did it make whose microscopic sperm had won the race? The important thing was that he loved Philippa, he loved Yves, and he loved the possibility of a family, which had receded further and further as his marriage to Gillian proved to be more partnership than anything else.

Which was not to say that Arthur did not care for Gillian, who was still the smartest person he had ever met besides his sister. But love with Philippa and Yves felt like the kind you weresupposedto feel when you welcomed a baby into the world, and while Arthur suspected that his career had to do with Philippa’s reticence on the subject—perhaps she did not think he was serious when he told her of his intentions to live as a family, to give everything up for love if necessary, as all the good poets had done?—and he intended to prove his commitment to her, whatever it took. The whole thing might hurt Gillian’s image a bit, but Arthur felt certain she’d be happier without him. After all, what had he turned her life into? She was practically his manager, his publicist, and his political adviser all rolled into one, none of which had been her aspiration. She would be happier, more able to focus on herself, her freedom an inevitable reward for her years of loyal, browbeaten service. She had her dissertation to worry about, and as for the rest, Arthur would make sure she was taken care of.

Come to think of it, at least Arthur was about to receive a sizable inheritance, which would come in handy in the event of a very public, verytawdry divorce. Assuming Thayer hadn’t actually hated him enough to disinherit him. As far as Arthur understood his father, it really could go either way.

The plane began its descent, the man in the aisle seat snorting himself awake just in time for Yves to lean excitedly over Arthur’s lap, gazing out the window with all the enthusiasm of a young child. Yes, thought Arthur, they would be perfect together, the three of them. It would be unconventional—of course it would be!—but wouldn’t it also beadmirable,in some way? What Arthur had with Yves and Philippa was the very definition of love beyond social constructs, love beyond obligation. Love beyond the silliness of convention. For everyone who still believed he was just another rich centrist (i.e., theChronicleand that heinous new video platform launched by Tyche), wouldn’t this be, at least, proof of concept? That the world Arthur Wren actually believed in was ruled not by the facelesstheybut by the convictions of his own earnest heart?

“Personally, myself, I would very much like to teach a child to fly a plane,” said Yves, ostensibly to Arthur, though Yves was still looking greedily out the window.

“You’re a pilot?” asked Arthur. It was very possible. Yves had a soaring variety of talents, and anyway he was a very good driver, so long as he was going in a circle.

“No, not yet, but certainly in five or so years when it comes time for a baby to learn such things. I hope to have a boy,” added Yves tangentially, appearing to disregard his estimate for child development. “There is something terrifying about a girl, particularly if she would be anything like Mouse.”

Arthur chuckled in agreement, which immediately felt disloyal. Because while a smaller version of Philippa was equally terrifying to him, he felt that terror as someone might feel a blind leap into the unknown; the thrill of skydiving for fun and not from a sense of danger. Philippa was obstinate, she was capricious, she changed her mind from moment to moment and seemed very intent on shock value, destabilizing people either to charm them or get her way.

But what Arthur wanted to say was how lovely it would be to have a daughter like Philippa, who would be brave and unconforming. It was the chance to create some actual hope in the world, a thing he could not seem to do via politics, which were swallowing him avariciously up. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know that he could make a verydangerouswoman, someone so headstrongand visionary that she would become a problem money couldn’t solve? A little feminist, a tiny riot.

Riot, Arthur realized fondly, the sound of it coming to him like an epiphany, like the relief of Yves’s medicinal chocolate or a glow of godly light. Riot Wren, or even Riot Reza—he wasn’t particularly interested in possessing his daughter, just in raising her, and either way it would be alliterative and symbolic. Unlike Arthur, Riot would not be assigned some stuffy old name, her future chosen for her out of some neoliberal sensibility. Arthur saw himself five years from now, ten or twenty, with his arm around Yves, his hand in Philippa’s. “Why shouldn’t we call her Riot? That’s what she is,” Arthur heard himself say proudly. Wouldn’t that be sweet?

Rather than voice his disagreement with Yves, though, Arthur indulged the rare opportunity to speak openly about their collective future. He was even willing to believe in Yves’s version of it; to believe, absolutely, that his daughter Riot would pilot a commercial jet at the tender age of five.

“I’d like a girl, I think,” Arthur admitted. “It’s hard to raise a boy. Well, hard to raise a man,” he corrected himself, before being swallowed up once again by overtrodden memories of his father. Specifically, by memories of being told what a man ought to be, like notches on a growth chart that Arthur had yet to reach.

He supposed he could give all of that up now, laugh in his father’s face, take the money and run. Rob the bank and live for every moment. Who could judge him now? Aside from Meredith, who was going to regardless.

“I suppose. I am very hungry,” announced Yves, apparently having lost interest in the subject of their daughter, though Arthur could not imagine doing so himself. He felt a nostalgia, an aching, pulsatingmissingof her despite the fact that he’d only had her for a moment, for a breath of imaginary time. The distance Arthur traveled from the Riot in his mind’s eye back to any comparable matter of tedium was a long beat of wordless melancholy.

“We can order some food for when we get home,” Arthur said eventually to Yves, after they had deplaned. Neither of them had baggage, thank god (Philippa never traveled without a veritable fleet), so they made their way out of the terminal in the direction of the arrivals bank. Gillian had texted Arthur that she would meet him at the airport, though she hadn’t specified whether they would be staying in his childhood house in Marin or their own cozier but oft unlived-in house, where they stayed when Congress wasn’t in session. Unlikely, Arthur realized, as it was a trek that involveda bridge however you went about it. Which meant almost certainly that they were headed for the gloomy, architecturally significant (to the point of sterility) old house in the Mill Valley foothills, where Arthur had lost his virginity and written bad poetry and desperately missed his mom.

In shaking himself of the thought, Arthur realized abruptly that if Yves had been a surprise to him, then Yves would also very likely be a surprise to Gillian. Arthur texted her quickly that by the way, Yves was here and they were outside, naming the terminal door they stood beside. “Or we can—”

“I am craving pancakes,” said Yves, in something of a formal pronouncement.

Gillian texted back via voice message that she was circling and would be right there. “Well, that’s easy,” said Arthur distractedly, typing back that that was fine. “We can get those anywhere—”

“I would like to visit the International House of Pancakes. Have you been?”

“I… yes,” said Arthur, unsure at first whether Yves had actually meant IHOP or if he was referring to some other, hipper place in San Francisco. It had been a while since Arthur had been in the city proper, rather than his district in Oakland, and when he was, he didn’t usually have time to explore the culinary fare. “And sure, but first I’ll have to—”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I will find you,” said Yves, peeling off from Arthur’s side so suddenly that Arthur didn’t notice until he’d looked up from his screen, realizing that he was alone and that Gillian had pulled neatly to the curb in front of him.

“Oh,” said Arthur at the sight of her. She hopped out of the driver’s seat, greeting him with a kiss on the cheek. “You drove? Yourself?”

---