Page 27 of Gifted & Talented

Gillian’s voice awakened him from his momentary distraction. “I ordered matzo ball soup,” she announced in her most soothing tones of administrative competency. Her love language, assuming Arthur could claim any knowledge of such a thing.

“Can I have a hug?” Eilidh asked Arthur then, who jumped at her sudden nearness. Eilidh was still very graceful from her years as a ballerina, which had rendered her somewhat stealthy, in Arthur’s mind. She moved like a fucking snake.

“What? Why?” Oh yes, their dead father. “Right, sorry, come here.” Arthur held open one arm and Eilidh plastered herself into it like she hoped to be absorbed into his skin. “Is that Dzhuliya in the car?”

Their father’s assistant, a pretty woman in her midtwenties who normally seemed very posh and restrained, like a former child pop star now promoting her lifestyle blog, hastily waved from behind the closed window of the driver’s side. She had just completed some sort of awkward fifteen-point turn in the carport, followed by a careful reverse behind Gillian’s car, apparently desiring to flee the scene without having to ask Gillian to clear some space for her to do so.

“Well, bye,” offered Arthur uncertainly, finding it strange that Dzhuliya had not done the polite thing and lowered the window down. However, the effect of the chocolate Yves had given him was fully coursing through him at this point, and he did not have the energy to dwell on it.

“Did you say matzo ball soup?” he asked Gillian belatedly.

“I tried to get some pho but it’s quite late,” Gillian explained with a shrug. “Only the deli was still open.”

“Is there a reason you were specifically drawn to soup?” asked Arthur, who realized in the precise moment he said it, “Come to think of it, soup does sound nice.”

“Soup felt like a bereavement food,” Gillian agreed. “Eilidh, would you like a hug from me as well, or is this more of an Arthur thing?”

“Oh, um.” Eilidh sniffled. “I’d love a hug, Gillian. It’s been a tough day.” She disentangled from Arthur and the two women embraced awkwardly, with as little physical contact as possible. “How was it getting in from DC?”

“Well, I do appreciate that airplanes have phone chargers now,” said Gillian, tactically obscuring the need for Arthur to comment on his actual whereabouts. “The food will be here in fifteen minutes. Also there’s a photographer in those bushes.”

Eilidh and Arthur both turned to see that Gillian was indeed correct. The photographer snapped another picture, at which point Gillian stalked over with an air of removal and Arthur exchanged a glance with Eilidh. He could sense himself being looked to for guidance in the moment, much inthe way an injured toddler looks to their parent to determine whether they should cry. Being the elder of the two, Arthur tried to reassure his sister visually.Everything is fine,his posture attempted to convey,insofar as I understand the plausible definition of fineness, though it bears acknowledging that entering our father’s house without glacial procrastination will simply not be feasible at this time.

On perhaps a related subject, the drugs were doing something counterproductive to Arthur’s reaction times. Thankfully, Gillian had had the presence of mind to position herself at Arthur’s side in something of a comforting manner after threatening the photographer’s livelihood and sanity or whatever Gillian customarily did to make things go away. Though really, why shouldn’t they all be acting a bit strange, considering the news? (Press surveillance did not technically matter to Arthur, who lived with a permanent audience in his head at all times: an amphitheater of faceless content creators. Nothing new or even different here.)

“It’s very shocking,” said Arthur. It felt accurate, and helpfully not inappropriate for a potential quote, should he happen to be surveilled.

“Yes,” said Eilidh.

He pressed himself for more. “It just happened so suddenly.”

“I know.”

“Was he sick? Or something?” There, that was a cogent interrogative.

“No,” said Eilidh. “He’d been to a physical just a few weeks ago, on his birthday. Perfectly clean bill of health.”

“So sad,” said Arthur.

“Yes,” said Eilidh. “It really is.”

They were silent another long moment.

“Well,” prompted Gillian, perhaps recognizing the ongoing reticence of her audience, “should we go inside? The food will be here in thirteen minutes.”

Right. Yes. Inside. Arthur looked up at his family home where it towered above them, nestled into the side of the hill. The sheer volume of steps to the front door was such that physical fitness was not only implied, it was a prerequisite for entry. (How, exactly, would Thayer have traversed sixty flights of stairs with a bad hip, or even the slightest loss of mobility? But, then, never mind. Thayer would never have to come to terms with the unmanliness of reasonable accessibility, because he no longer existed. Like a bill that died on the Senate floor. Crash, boom, gone.)

Arthur took in the familiar falseness of the carport’s decorative Italianate facade, the vines that had been specifically planted around it. There was a small garden to his left, beside a burbling creek, that was the product of substantial landscaping rather than any labor of love. The flowers were almost obscenely bright, like lipstick; like a painted clown’s mouth parting to laugh at him, to mime despair at his expense.

This wasn’t the house Arthur was born in—the family had lived in suburban Palo Alto until the magitech boom had launched Wrenfare to such heights that city-averse Thayer Wren no longer needed to commute to the office on a daily basis—and Persephone had lived here only a year, before most of the renovations to the house’s kitchen, home office, and bedrooms had even been finished. But Arthur had returned here from boarding school every year since the sixth grade, and had lost his virginity here, which made it close enough to home. Arguably it was worse, since there was no evidence of his mother here, nothing to feel fondly over—not even the sex, which had ended badly. All that remained was the prepubescent angst of someone discovering his penis amid the dulcet sympathies of malaising pop-punk.

“I hate this house,” Arthur murmured in answer to Gillian’s dutiful nudge for progress; a tacitthank you, but no.She gave his elbow a tap with hers, a rare contact she performed only in moments of direst sympathy, and proceeded to make her way up the stairs alone, mountaineering up to the front door.

Arthur remained behind at the carport, beside the burbling creek, with Eilidh lingering uncertainly at his side. “Are you staying here as well?” he asked her.

He looked at her for the first time, really looked, and realized she was taller than he remembered. Not a new development—they just didn’t see each other often enough for Arthur to properly envision her as a living, space-occupying thing beyond a message on his screen every now and then.

Then he noticed the suitcase in her hand. “I guess you did pack,” he commented, pointing at it.

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